WC ⋆ Chapter 7

This question was genuinely hard to answer. Saying it was the alcohol talking would hold up well enough, since everyone knew that Jiang Yishen got affectionate when he drank.

If you dug any deeper, you’d inevitably brush against the knot both of them had buried in their hearts. Neither wanted to admit they couldn’t let go, yet each knew perfectly well that the other couldn’t. That kind of thing couldn’t be picked apart; there was no untangling it, and trying would only leave you a mess.

Jiang Yishen typed out a few lines, deleted them, revised and re-revised for a long while, then finally gritted his teeth and replied with something completely beside the point: “Okay.”

The wind had picked up overnight, and today it was even stronger, whipping the tree branches back and forth until they looked dizzy. The bicycles along both sides of the road were either toppled over or leaning at odd angles, a scene of total chaos.

Jiang Yishen packed up some rice noodles from the shop. When he pushed the door open to leave, he nearly got slapped off his feet by the tall inflatable greeter at the shopping mall entrance. He walked a few steps into the gale and could barely keep his eyes open.

He thought of the typhoon he’d encountered in October when he went to Hong Kong to see his mother. The night the plane landed, the signal had been raised from No. 3 to No. 8, but to keep everyone from getting a typhoon day off, they’d stubbornly lowered it back to No. 8 by morning. The wind had rolled past just a few nautical miles away, and today’s wind had a strikingly similar quality.

Around that time, his father had been diagnosed with a meningioma. Fortunately it was benign, and he’d been admitted to the Capital Hospital to await surgery as soon as possible. His father had always been proud and refused to let Jiang Yishen come to the hospital to look after him. Any attempt to persuade him would eventually turn into a shouting match, and Jiang Yishen didn’t want to fight with him, so he’d rented a hotel room near the hospital and stayed there.

His parents had divorced the year he finished his college entrance exams. The two of them had gotten along terribly in the years before that, averaging one argument every two days, because after each fight they’d have to spend a night apart.

The friction kept building, the resentment kept piling up, and it just so happened that his mother’s company had an opportunity to transfer her to the Greater Bay Area for development. Jiang Yishen had no plans to move his household registration, and after his parents discussed it, they went through with the divorce.

All these years he’d lived with his father, yet he’d ended up closer to his mother. The things he couldn’t say at home, he’d pour out to his mother far away in another city, including everything about his feelings for Qi Lin.

In the second half of the year, pressure had stacked up layer by layer on his shoulders. He had to face the world that truly belonged to adults all on his own, and it was largely through his mother’s help and companionship that he’d made it through so many of those moments.

His mother had taught him to be bolder in life, to take more things for granted.

Jiang Yishen had taken that to heart. He thought about what exactly it meant to take something for granted, and whether it could count as taking it for granted to admit that kissing Qi Lin when he was drunk was just something he’d do.

And so, standing in the cold wind, he somehow talked himself into it, and even bought a few apples downstairs to bring back.

Qi Lin had already spotted Jiang Yishen’s figure from the window. The cold wind made the window frame creak, and a plastic bag on the ground got swept up and drifted through the air like a jellyfish at the bottom of the sea. Jiang Yishen was running in a two-steps-at-a-time scramble that made him look like SpongeBob. He had no gloves, and was too busy acting cool to put his hands in his pockets, so his fingers had gone red from the cold.

Qi Lin dug a pair of gloves out of the cabinet and set them by the door. The next second he heard the doorbell ring, and Jiang Yishen came bursting in like a dog whose fur had been blown into a frenzy by the wind, having to use both hands to fight the howling hallway and pull the door shut.

“Eat up, it’s not cold yet,” Jiang Yishen said, setting the packed lunch on the table.

Qi Lin looked up and asked, “Why didn’t you just eat there before coming back?”

It was unclear what Jiang Yishen had twisted that sentence into in his head. He only glanced at Qi Lin while changing his clothes, then went off on his own to wash his hands in the bathroom.

Qi Lin took the containers out in the living room and sighed quietly to himself.

The truth was there were always these moments of misaligned understanding between them. His own temper wasn’t particularly good, and sometimes he’d phrase a question in a way that came out too sharp. Jiang Yishen, on the other hand, never said what he was actually thinking, which meant that every time Qi Lin wanted to explain himself, Jiang Yishen looked like he didn’t want to hear it, and saying anything would only leave Qi Lin with nowhere to put his face.

They’d twist themselves into knots, and then the moment would just pass.

If this had been right after they broke up, Qi Lin would have swallowed it and let it go. But this situation was too unusual. They’d been forced into each other’s orbit, with no telling how much longer they’d have to keep things as they were, and Jiang Yishen had gone and done something that made Qi Lin’s heart restless. It was genuinely hard for him to keep seeing Jiang Yishen as just an ordinary friend or a colleague in the same situation.

He thought about it, then turned toward the bathroom: “I meant it was too heavy carrying two portions back.”

A few seconds passed. He heard the faint sound of running water, and then a reply threading through it: “I forgot to eat.”

Even packed in an insulated bag, the broth had gone a little cold. Qi Lin preferred his noodles piping hot, the kind you had to blow on for a long time before you could eat them, so he poured both portions into a bowl and put it in the microwave.

The small rental apartment had no proper dining table. The center of the living room held a low coffee table, and Qi Lin usually ate at the desk in his own small room. Now that Jiang Yishen was here, they had no choice but to squeeze awkwardly beside the coffee table.

Both of them ate quietly. It wasn’t until his body had warmed back up that Qi Lin carefully chose his words and asked, “I heard you yesterday. Did you not go take the graduate entrance exam?”

Jiang Yishen’s chopsticks paused. He picked up a piece of meat, took a bite, and then said, “Yeah.”

“Why?” Qi Lin’s heart sank a little.

Jiang Yishen’s situation was different from everyone else’s. He had given up a guaranteed postgraduate placement to sit the exam. Qi Lin knew what this exam meant to him.

So many things had happened in September. Jiang Yishen’s ranking in previous years would not have qualified for a spot, and he hadn’t put his mind toward preparing for summer camps or the early recommendation process either. But this year the quota had expanded by one, and then a classmate ahead of him decided to go abroad, so the spot had trickled all the way down to him.

By the time the list was finalized it was already very late. After Jiang Yishen looked into his options, he found that the best school available to him was actually just his own university as a safety net.

He’d agonized over it for an entire day, and in the end, at the last moment before the deadline the instructor had set, he decided to give it up.

Jiang Yishen had always been that kind of person. Back then he had a fallback, so he had the confidence to act on it, fearless the way only the young can be, as if not passing in the end wouldn’t be all that hard to accept.

But Qi Lin had a feeling that since their reunion, something about Jiang Yishen’s bearing had shifted, as though he were a different person. It wasn’t obvious when they were together, but standing among a crowd of people you could tell the youthful rawness had worn away considerably, and he’d become more steady. Except for just now, when Jiang Yishen had been wandering alone in the wind and you could still catch a glimpse of the boy he used to be, at every other moment, even when he was joking around, the pure, uncomplicated quality he’d once had was no longer there.

Qi Lin kept feeling that the Jiang Yishen of now was lost, the kind of lost that comes from being pulled into life’s whirlpool and not being able to surface.

He asked why, but Jiang Yishen didn’t answer.

“Did something happen?” he asked again.

Only then did Jiang Yishen answer in a low voice: “My dad had surgery.”

“What kind of surgery?” Qi Lin’s fingers rested against the side of the bowl. After a while the heat burned into them painfully, but he didn’t move them away. “I didn’t know anything about it, but it seems like everyone else did.”

“What would I tell you for, we were already…” Jiang Yishen looked like he didn’t want to continue the topic. He slapped his knee and stood up. “We’re out of tissues. Do you have any at home?”

Qi Lin blinked. “In the cabinet over there, top shelf. What kind of surgery? Is he recovering well?”

Jiang Yishen walked over to look for tissues: “Brain tumor. Benign. They opened his skull. He’s mostly recovered now.”

He made a deliberate effort to sound casual about it, but those words together made it impossible to feel at ease. Qi Lin knew there must have been unimaginable weight and anxiety behind all of it, and he nearly swore out loud: “Something that serious and you… So are you not going home these next couple of days? You can get there by subway, right?”

“I went back a couple of days ago. He doesn’t want me running home all the time. Even going back every weekend is enough to start a fight with him.” Jiang Yishen said, pulling the cabinet door open. “I’ll wait until the weekend…”

“Wait!” Qi Lin suddenly remembered something and jumped to his feet.

But it was too late. Jiang Yishen’s gaze had already landed on the corner of the cabinet, where a jewelry box lay quietly.

Qi Lin stood frozen in place, watching helplessly as Jiang Yishen stared at it for a moment, then involuntarily reached out to touch the small black box.

Inside the jewelry box were two plain band rings. The sight of them was almost dizzying. The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. With his own eyes Qi Lin could see the heavy atmosphere that had just settled evaporate entirely, replaced by an inexpressible awkwardness and ambiguity. After a long moment he heard Jiang Yishen ask: “Are these for me?”

Qi Lin turned his eyes away with a dead heart and forced out a denial: “…They’re not for you.”

“Impossible. The purchase date on the receipt is August 2nd. We didn’t break up until September 11th at 7:37 p.m. If they’re not for me, who are they for?” Jiang Yishen had completely lost the composed and mature air from just moments ago, insisting on the point like a child fighting over a toy.

Qi Lin reached the end of his patience, gritting his teeth: “I cheated on you. Just say I cheated on you, okay!”

“I don’t believe it!” Jiang Yishen was furious. “…Is that true?”

Qi Lin stepped forward quickly and snatched the jewelry box back, but once it was in his hands he had no pocket to stuff it into, so he could only put it back in the corner of the cabinet and cover it with some odds and ends in a way that only made it more obvious.

His wrist was suddenly grabbed by Jiang Yishen. He turned his head and met a pair of aggrieved eyes.

“Why didn’t you give them to me?”

Qi Lin felt a little aggrieved himself at that. He frowned and said: “Because you said you didn’t like them.”

“When did I ever say that?”

Qi Lin’s eyes went wide: “You don’t remember!”

“I could never have said something like that.” Jiang Yishen gripped tighter. He noticed that one hand was enough to encircle Qi Lin’s wrist, perhaps because he’d never held on this firmly before. “There must be a misunderstanding. What did I say at the time?”

It was a rare sight: Jiang Yishen was actually taking the initiative to dig into a misunderstanding.

But Qi Lin only looked at him, biting down on his back teeth and saying nothing.

They held the standoff for over ten seconds. This time it was Jiang Yishen who widened his eyes, both shocked and furious: “You don’t remember either, do you! How can you not remember!”

For once Qi Lin had no ground to stand on. He shifted his hand and found he couldn’t pull free, so he stopped trying. He turned over several justifications in his mind, found all of them unsatisfactory, and in the end, with no other option, took out the jewelry box and shoved it wholesale into Jiang Yishen’s hands: “Here, take it, take it, are you happy now that I’m giving it to you!”

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