WC ⋆ Chapter 30

Jiang Yishen packed up a pile of useless things from the dormitory and hauled them back, stacking them in the living room of the small house, making the space feel visually cramped beyond measure.

He set himself up with the air of someone who intended to stay till the end of time, and tidied away until evening in one go.

When Qi Lin finished a set of practice problems and came out, what greeted him was a living room as uncanny as a spot-the-difference puzzle. Every spot seemed changed, yet nothing seemed changed at all.

All the daily necessities had been duplicated into pairs and placed side by side in their original spots. Even the throw pilows on the sofa had become two. Qi Lin swept his gaze around the room, and it came to rest on Jiang Yishen, who was sitting upright on the sofa.

"So, what do you think?" Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin wanted to say that when he went home for the New Year he'd have to sort everything back out again, but he had a feeling Jiang Yishen wouldn't like that answer, so he changed course: "Wow, impressive."

The compliment came out so flat and mechanical that Jiang Yishen suspected he was being brushed off: "Can you put some genuine feeling into it!"

"Wow, impressive, really." Qi Lin repeated the compliment, then walked to the kitchen and started rummaging through the fridge.

Jiang Yishen followed right on his heels, squeezing into the kitchen and craning his neck to look: "What are we having tonight?"

"Stir-fried green pepper and shredded pork." Qi Lin took out a few green peppers, then dug out some eggs, and pulled a box of meat from the freezer. "Put it on the radiator."

He held it out for a good while and nobody took it. He turned around to find Jiang Yishen frozen in place.

"Hmm?"

Jiang Yishen took the frozen box of ground meat, his hands going cold, and said in shock: "We're cooking it ourselves!"

"What else?" Qi Lin gave him a baffled look and went back to rummaging through the fridge. "The last couple of days we didn't have time, but things have settled down now. We can't keep ordering takeout every single meal."

Only then did Jiang Yishen register where they actually were: Qi Lin's home.

He was actually at Qi Lin's home!

Good heavens, this was Qi Lin's home!

Exclamation marks flooded his brain. Jiang Yishen numbly set the plate with the meat on the radiator, and only belatedly realized what an intimate thing it had been to move his luggage over here.

Wasn't this basically applying to move in together?

No wonder Qi Lin had looked like he'd seen a ghost, and even felt the need to compliment him.

Jiang Yishen stood in front of the radiator, too embarrassed to go back to the kitchen and face Qi Lin.

"Jiang Yishen!"

No response.

Qi Lin shuffled over in his slippers and peered at him: "What are you doing? Eating the meat raw?"

"You…" Jiang Yishen thought that was a vicious thing to say. "It's not that bad!"

"Oh." Qi Lin grabbed the green peppers and walked back to the counter. "I thought you couldn't find the radiator."

"That would mean something's wrong with my brain!" Jiang Yishen followed him back and watched Qi Lin pull out a knife and rinse it under the tap.

The evening sun slanted in through the window, and the blade caught the light with a cold gleam that made the heart skip a beat.

"Let me do it." Jiang Yishen decided he should do something to quickly make himself at home here. "You direct me."

Qi Lin raised the knife and looked over: "Do you know how?"

"It can't be that hard." Jiang Yishen carefully took the knife and weighed it in his hand a couple of times, then held it over the throat of a green pepper in the pose of someone about to behead it.

Qi Lin guided him hand over hand on how to hold the knife, positioning each finger according to the method he'd worked out himself, until it finally looked somewhat right.

"Cut the top off first." Qi Lin pointed, and immediately earned a yelp from Jiang Yishen.

"Move your hand away, I'm scared I'll cut you!"

Qi Lin was startled by him: "My hand is in midair. How would you cut me?"

"Well, who can say for sure. Haven't you seen Ratatouille?"

Two quick chops, and the green pepper lost its head and tail, becoming a square green block.

Qi Lin gripped Jiang Yishen's arm and watched his movements closely: "Give it a slit and you can unfold it."

"Unfold it?" Jiang Yishen wasn't used to Qi Lin watching him work so closely, and made a few nervous gestures. "How do you unfold a green pepper?"

"It's like…" Qi Lin had never had to describe this before. "Like unfolding the net of a cube."

Jiang Yishen turned to look at him.

"Just cut it, come on." Qi Lin closed his hand over Jiang Yishen's and helped him position the knife.

Jiang Yishen stood there without moving, and only snapped back after being nudged a few times, bringing the knife down and splitting the green pepper in two halves.

Now Qi Lin had nothing to say either. He watched the cube get dismembered into two rectangular blocks, and after a moment of silence he offered his verdict: "Fine, cut it however you like."

Jiang Yishen took to the knife quickly, and after a few cuts he had the hang of it. His form didn't look like a beginner's, except that every cut came down with tremendous force, the chopping board clattering and cracking under the blows, as though he were processing a corpse.

Qi Lin couldn't bear to watch. He wanted to remind him that there was no need to grip so tight, his hand would cramp up soon, but looking at the focused line of Jiang Yishen's profile, he felt a little like laughing instead.

Jiang Yishen had asked whether Qi Lin found him childish, a question that was more or less rhetorical, the kind that came from a healthy self-image.

But Qi Lin liked that he was childish. It made him feel that life didn't have to be stretched taut like a wire, that he wasn't a machine with no margin for error, that everything could be vivid and interesting.

He also liked watching him make mistakes, get muddled, try something completely new. Good or bad, it was all part of growing up. Someday, when Jiang Yishen could cook a proper meal, he would still be able to remember that the first time he ever picked up a kitchen knife, he had been by Qi Lin's side.

Qi Lin leaned against the fridge watching, the corners of his lips curved up, his expression softening. If Jiang Yishen had turned around at that moment, he would have met a heavy, weighted gaze brimming with something thick and sweet as honey.

Jiang Yishen probably never knew that the greatest sense of accomplishment Qi Lin got from him was in the shaping.

Being in a relationship with someone younger than yourself meant you could be there when they opened up to so many things they had never experienced before. Walking that road side by side, shoulder to shoulder, it was only natural that the one who came later would carry some of the other person's color.

Watching the other person gradually, imperceptibly grow more and more like yourself, every gesture carrying a familiar shadow, gave Qi Lin a kind of enveloping satisfaction.

However long this relationship of theirs lasted, Jiang Yishen would perhaps hold a knife this way for the rest of his life, in the grip that Qi Lin was most used to.

Jiang Yishen loaded the sliced green peppers onto a plate: "You use plates for prep, huh. At my place we mostly use bowls."

"Plates are easier for sorting. Bowls are for mixing sauces." Qi Lin said.

"Oh. I'll do it that way from now on too."

Jiang Yishen cracked an egg and nearly sent it flying while beating it because he stirred too hard. He got through the chaotic business of prepping the ingredients, and finally reached the step of heating oil in the pan.

"Is the oil ready for the eggs?" Jiang Yishen held his hand over the pan to test the temperature, the way he'd seen done in videos.

"About there." Qi Lin said, nodding.

"Really? It's not boiling yet." Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin asked: "What's not boiling?"

"The oil." Jiang Yishen pointed at the thin, perfectly still layer of oil.

Qi Lin stared at him with an expression of utter disbelief, at a loss for words for a long moment. Seeing that Jiang Yishen had been completely earnest from start to finish, he finally managed to squeeze out: "Did you get a concussion too?"

Jiang Yishen let out a "what the hell": "You're insulting me!"

As he said it he also realized what mistake he'd made, and couldn't help laughing a little: "I just don't have that concept. You could've said so directly. You had to mock me in a roundabout way."

"I'm not mocking you." Qi Lin offered an explanation that even he didn't believe. "Mainly it's just… okay, fine."

The beaten egg hit the pan with a sizzling hiss of fragrance. Jiang Yishen pushed the egg around with a spatula with one hand, and still found time to lodge a complaint with Qi Lin: "I don't believe you. Then give me a kiss."

Jiang Yishen after getting back together was clingy beyond all limits. Hearing that made Qi Lin's heart itch, so he leaned over, turned Jiang Yishen's face toward him, and pressed a solid kiss to his lips.

One gave it naturally, the other received it happily. It wasn't until they'd finished eating and were washing up that they suddenly realized what a first-class disaster this was.

They had agreed to go one whole day without kissing, to test whether the loop still existed, and just like that they had broken the rule without even noticing.

The two of them spun around in a panic, and could only hope that a brief peck didn't count as a kiss.

But they watched the second hand tick past midnight and their hopes came to nothing. They collapsed onto the bed in despair, staring up at the ceiling, their souls practically shattered.

What had they even done today?

Sat through a final exam they had no confidence in, had an argument in front of Xu Baili, and spent time being sarcastic at Yu Jiaming right to his face.

No matter how many times they restarted their phones, it was still January 6th. Time, once gone, does not come back. There was no second chance.

"What do we do now?" Qi Lin felt his head splitting, and just the thought of having to face Xu Baili again made him cringe. Worst of all was having stirred up trouble with Yu Jiaming, that walking time bomb.

But this time Jiang Yishen was taking it better than he was. He propped himself up on Qi Lin's shoulder and bent his head to look at him: "It doesn't matter. It's not a big deal. Can we kiss again?"

"No." Qi Lin still refused to give up, and tried to fool himself by restarting his phone. When the screen lit up again it still said "January 6th", but this time there was a WeChat message that had come in a minute ago.

He froze, swiped open the lock screen, and found it was a message from his mom.

His parents went to bed very early and rarely sent him messages late at night. On top of that, they had barely been in contact during the second half of the year. Qi Lin had assumed something important must have happened. His brows knitted together at once, and it was only because he was holding the phone in both hands that he didn't drop it.

He opened it to find a single short line.

Mom wants to come see you tomorrow, is that okay?

Just over ten characters. Qi Lin read it for a long time. His expression was off, and Jiang Yishen, thinking something had happened, leaned over too. Only to find these words staring back at him, leaving him stunned as well, not sure whether to pull away or keep looking.

Qi Lin couldn't quite name what he was feeling: relief, aching tenderness for his parents, and nervous unease, all stirred together in a jumble, a whole mix of flavors that somehow canceled each other out, leaving no distinct taste.

He only blinked once, and said: "My mom is coming tomorrow."

Jiang Yishen blinked too. The two of them looked toward the bedroom door at the same moment, at the cozy little couple's home they had spent an entire afternoon arranging.

From this angle, their two coats were hanging together on the rack. One black, one white, a well-matched pair of colors.

All Jiang Yishen saw was the Black Impermanence and the White Impermanence. He turned back to Qi Lin in a daze: "What do we do?"

"No idea." Qi Lin shook his head honestly.

Jiang Yishen couldn't say "it doesn't matter" anymore. He stared into Qi Lin's eyes and read the exact same emotion in each other's gaze: why on earth did they have to go and kiss that damned kiss?

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