Chapter 12: 12

Yan Hang stood in place until he could no longer see Chu Yi’s silhouette. Then he put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it before turning and slowly walking home.

Chu Yi’s words gave him an indescribable feeling.

He would leave sooner or later.

That was what he’d thought wherever he went. Other than an awareness of the infinite unknown, he had never felt anything.

Because he had never connected to any place.

Coming or going, I never leave a trace of myself behind no matter where I live.

So coming and going was nothing to sigh about.

Yet now, hearing Chu Yi say what he said, he felt somewhat upset.

He had left a trace. There would be a young boy in his second year of lower secondary who remembered him.

One day, when he turned to look behind, scenes would play; the memories of this city would not simply be a name.

When he returned home, Dad had just changed into his pyjamas after a shower. Everything on the dining table had been cleared away to the kitchen, but none of it was washed—he had simply piled the dishes into the sink.

Yan Hang was sleepy after eating and running, so he sat on the sofa and spaced out.

Dad was watching the evening news. Aside from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, no city ever had enough news to not repeat itself every day; the current broadcast was a repetition of the news they had watched in the afternoon. On Sundays, they did a summary too. Yan Hang thought that as long as Dad was home, he would be able to recite the daily news from memory.

“Are you going running with Chu Yi again tomorrow?” asked Dad.

“Yeah, why not. I was planning to run anyway,” said Yan Hang.

“Great.” Dad nodded and stood. “I’m going to bed now.”

“Sleeping right after dinner?” Yan Hang gave him a look. “Middle-aged men get fat very easily. Aren’t you gonna take better care of your gut?”

“Don’t be jealous of my figure.” Dad stretched, then returned to his room.

There was work tomorrow, so Yan Hang had to make himself sleep. After fiddling about with his phone in the living room for a bit, he took a shower and went to his room too.

He lay in bed for a long time without a hint of sleepiness. Opening his Wechat, he looked at his feed. In the middle of all the posts from various businesses, he saw an emoji that Chu Yi had posted an hour ago.

It was a very normal smile emote.

It wasn’t conspicuous at all. If he had scrolled a little faster, he wouldn’t even have noticed it.

Yan Hang smiled. He wondered what each of these little emojis meant to Chu Yi.

After browsing through his phone, he still wasn’t sleepy. Yan Hang decided to watch a film.

A horror film.

He couldn’t even watch a full half-hour of it; the background music and the female lead’s screams every five minutes had scared him silly. He turned it off.

At this point, he had scared himself to the point where he felt completely awake.

He could only climb out of bed, go to the living room, and pour himself a glass of water for his sleeping pill.

On his way back to his room, he noticed that Dad’s light was still on. It’d been over an hour since Dad had gone to bed, and Dad was an easy sleeper, especially on nights when he had had supper and alcohol; he usually turned the lights off about twenty minutes after going to his room.

If he really couldn’t sleep after such a long time, Dad would come over to see if he was asleep, and if he wasn’t they would chat for a bit. But Dad didn’t come over to look for him tonight.

Yan Hang hesitated, then walked to the door with light steps to listen for any noise behind it.

It was very quiet; no noise at all, but he could smell a faint scent of cigarettes.

Not sleeping this late at night and hiding in his room to smoke until you could smell it through the cracks in the door?

This was rare for Dad.
After all these years, aside from disappearing occasionally and sometimes getting hurt, he was quite healthy. He never smoked, as far as one could tell.

Yan Hang raised his hand in preparation of knocking, but though he held his hand up till it ached, he didn’t actually rap on the door.

Finally, he went back to his room, took two pills, and slept.

The pills still worked, at least insofar as they put him to sleep. It was just that his head felt heavy when he woke up in the morning.

Yan Hang held his 43-kilogram head and slowly walked out of his room. He looked over at Dad’s. The room door was ajar.

He went over and looked in. Dad wasn’t there. Walking back to the shoe rack, he found Dad’s shoes gone; he must have left.

He went back to the room; only one window was open, so he opened all the others.

Dad had a habit of making his bed right after he rose, so he couldn’t tell if Dad slept last night, but the yet-to-dissipate scent of smoke was evidence that even if he had slept, it wasn’t for too long. By the smell of it, it seemed he had been smoking half the night.

Bearing his heavy head, he washed himself up. Just as he was considering what to make for breakfast, a noise came from the living room door. Yan Hang turned. Dad walked in with a bag of steaming hot breakfast.

“You went out to buy breakfast?” asked Yan Hang.

“You didn’t sleep well last night, did you,” Dad said as he put the bag on the table. “So I went to buy you breakfast, full of loving care. Chu Yi told me yesterday that there’s a very good breakfast place thereabouts. They have good variety too.”

“You two talked about that?” Yan Hang pulled the boxes of food out of the bag. “Like two old ladies.”

“We talked about the affairs of the people,” Dad said. “Old ladies wish they could be so cultured.”

“…’kay.” Yan Hang looked at the breakfast in the boxes. They really did have everything, and all of it looked quite good, too. He opened a box of his favourite pumpkin cakes and bit into one. “What other affairs did you talk about?”

“He told me about a few clothes stalls in the market. Location-wise, really awkward, but they sell decent-quality clothes for cheap.” Dad laughed. “But after saying that, he thought we wouldn’t go there to buy clothes anyway. That kid’s got a smart mouth, and he’s very funny, but he’s quite self-deprecating.”

“Any kid would be, with a grandmother like that,” said Yan Hang. “And his mum is… isn’t too great, either.”

Normally, when he spoke about things like grandmothers and mothers, Yan Hang didn’t think too much of it, but today, for whatever reason, he stumbled on his words.

Dad seemed to sense it too. He sighed softly.

Yan Hang didn’t speak again. He continued to eat his breakfast.

Dad stood and walked behind him. “My prince, is your head heavy from bad sleep again?”

“Mhm, a hundred kilos,” said Yan Hang.

Dad reached out and stroked his head. The pressure of his hand was just right; his scalp felt a sudden relief. He leaned back in his chair, letting Dad massage his head.

Dad went from his crown to the back of his head, then massaged the back of his neck, and rubbed his shoulders too, expert and professional.

“Bring some food and alcohol with you when you come home tonight,” Dad said. “We’ll have a drink and chat.”
“Chat about what?” asked Yan Hang.

“What do you want to chat about?” Dad beat his shoulders.

Yan Hang bit his tongue. After taking almost a minute to decide, he finally opened his lips. “About how my mum died.”

Dad’s swift thumping on his right shoulder paused for a moment, before continuing on his left. “Okay.”

Chu Yi sensed he was running late for school; he got out of bed twenty minutes later than he usually did.

He didn’t have an alarm clock. His phone’s alarm was too useless–either it didn’t ring on time, or it would ring and refuse to be switched off. He always relied on his own circadian rhythm. If that failed him, nobody would wake him up even if he slept until noon.

But he would get an earful when he did wake.

“Yer grades are bad enough. Sleepin’ in, shameless,” muttered Nana with her cigarette in her mouth. “Can’t even get outta bed yerself. Useless brat!”

Chu Yi didn’t speak. He quickly washed up, grabbed his bag and ran out the door.

Just as he darted out of the corridor, he saw a few people standing around the corner. His feet ground to an abrupt halt, then turned to run in the opposite direction.

It was Liang Bing and his friends, who, by the looks of it, had just come back from a night out. Right now, they’d be looking for some thrill; it wouldn’t just be a matter of kicking him around a bit. Better for him to avoid them.
The thing was, if he went the opposite way, he’d have to take the long route to school.

No time for breakfast, but it was fine as long as he wasn’t late.

From primary school up till lower secondary, one could count the number of times Chu Yi had been late to school on two fingers.

He really, really didn’t want to be late. He didn’t want the whole class to be in their seats and the teacher to be at the podium when he entered the classroom. No matter what, he always did his best not to be late.

He probably wouldn’t be late today. If he skipped breakfast and ran the whole way, he was likely to make it right before the school gates closed.

He was a bit upset. Had he not dreamt all night, he wouldn’t have slept so poorly and tried to catch a few extra winks in the morning.

But it was strange. All night, every dream featured Yan Hang.

Yan Hang bringing him over to the riverside, Yan Hang running with him, Yan Hang eating skewers with him, Yan Hang holding a coin, saying, “This is a coin spirit.”

Actually, it wasn’t that strange. What you think about by day, you dream about by night.

Yan Hang was the one he had been wishing for all this time; someone who would treat him like a normal person, who would speak to him normally, like normal friends.

He had waited for so long. Now that he had finally met him, an impression was cut deep into his dreams.

When he reached school, the teacher on duty was just about to shut the gate. With a burst of speed, Chu Yi ran for his life and made it.

There were four or five other students who ran in with him, all of whom were caught and pulled aside by the teacher.
The school was very strict. Even those who came in just as the gate was closing were considered late; they had their names taken and their points docked.

But Chu Yi wasn’t stopped. When he’d dashed in between two teachers, they seemed not to notice him at all.

Invisibility: success.

He pinched the little leather-clad coin spirit in his pocket.

It really was lucky. How useful.

Li Zihao hadn’t bothered him over the past few days, not even to ask him if he had passed the message on to Yan Hang as Li Zihao had told him to do.

Of course, Chu Yi couldn’t pass the message on to Yan Hang anyway. From what he could tell, it meant something similar to “Just you wait”; it just came with the flow.

When the atmosphere was right for it, it had to be said.

And afterwards… the person who said it might not even remember saying it.

Compared to Li Zihao, Liang Bing really did unsettle Chu Yi.

The students who bothered him were all pretend-gangsters, maybe not even that. They just bothered him because everyone else did.

But Liang Bing wasn’t. Liang Bing was the real deal.

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The kind one would literally go out of their way to avoid.

The people in his neighbourhood would frown at the mention of Liang Bing.

It wasn’t that he was particularly cunning; the main thing was his lack of shame.

Even Nana, whose hide had been thicker than concrete all her life, wouldn’t want to cause trouble with Liang Bing.
Chu Yi thought that he was particularly unlucky. He had run into Liang Bing on his way to school, and it was possible that he would run into him after.

Liang Bing never went very far. He lurked around his neighbourhood, perhaps considered it his safety zone. Who knows? Maybe he would get beaten up by other people if he left it.

In any case, when school let out at noon, Chu Yi was planning to take the lane that went by Yan Hang’s front door. It was the shortest route home, and he normally took it. But just as he was about to turn onto that street, he saw Liang Bing swaggering down the road.

Fortunately, his back was to Chu Yi, so he hadn’t noticed him. Chu Yi could only continue straight, taking the long way home.

But when he had gone all the way around and reached the other junction, he saw Liang Bing strolling over too.
Was he patrolling the streets?!

“Argh!” Frustrated, Chu Yi whispered a shout and turned back around.

By the time he had reached the main road, he was quite angry.

He didn’t feel like going home for lunch anymore. He took his phone out and called Mum.

“I have s-stuff to d-do at school, so I’m—” Before he finished, Mum cut him off.

“Right, okay, you’re not coming back for lunch then,” Mum said. “Bring some noodles home when you come back in the evening. Do you have money?”

“Yes,” said Chu Yi.

“Your Dad’s home today, take the money from him when you get back,” said Mum.

“Mhm,” replied Chu Yi.

After the call ended, he had nowhere to be. He wandered down the street for a bit before crossing the bridge, thinking of having noodles.

He took two steps, then stopped. Yan Hang was probably working at one of the Western restaurants around here, wasn’t he?

Suddenly excited, he pulled out his phone to text Yan Hang while he walked.

[which Western restaurant are you working at?]

He waited for a while, but Yan Hang didn’t reply. He looked at the time in sudden realisation: it was lunch time, Yan Hang was probably busy.

Struck by a sense of embarrassment, he put his phone in his pocket and kept walking.

Not long after this, he saw a Western restaurant with a recruitment sign by the door.

He stopped and looked in. It should be this one, right? But he didn’t see Yan Hang.

He hesitated, then leaned against a nearby tree and continued to look inwards.

Two to three minutes later, someone came out. Chu Yi didn’t dare to look them in the face, afraid it might be a server coming to ask him why he was waiting around outside for so long.

“Are you coming in?” The person walked over to him and asked.

“Oh.” When he heard the voice, Chu Yi raised his head.

Yan Hang wore the restaurant’s uniform, black with red trimmings and an apron.

The uniform was extremely ugly, on par with their school uniform, but on Yan Hang it was quite pleasing to the eye.
“I’ll treat you to lunch,” Yan Hang said, tilting his head. “Come on in.”

Chu Yi followed him into the restaurant.

It smelt great.

Delicious aromas pervaded the entire restaurant; there was the fragrance of pastries baking, the smell of coffee, and the scent of pork chops, lamb chops, steak.

It was his first time in a Western restaurant.

Last year, his aunt wanted to bring him out for Western food, but Mum didn’t let him go. In the end, Auntie could only order two takeaway steaks and deliver them to him.

Nana ate and ranted all night.

Chu Yi had taken a few careful bites. He barely tasted anything.

“Sit here.” Yan Hang led him over to the corner, by the window. “Wait for me.”

“Yan Hang,” Chu Yi called out, stopping him. “Are you, o-off work?”

“I’m off, we’re taking our lunch break in turns,” said Yan Hang. “Chill. Sit and wait for me.”

“Mm.” Chu Yi nodded.

When Yan Hang left, he still felt slightly nervous. There were a few tables with guests in the restaurant at the moment, all conversing in quiet tones as they ate, looking very classy.

Sitting in the corner, in his old school uniform, he definitely looked like he’d entered the wrong door.

Luckily, Yan Hang came back very soon, carrying a pizza and two drinks.

Chu Yi rose at once to receive them.

“Sit,” said Yan Hang as he placed the pizza and drinks on the table. “If it weren’t for the kitchen door, you’d be going in to help with the dishes too, wouldn’t you?”

“S-sure.” Chu Yi chuckled and sat back down.

“I ordered you a steak too,” said Yan Hang. “It’ll be done in a bit. What jus do you want?”

“Ju…ice?” Chu Yi stared blankly, then looked at the drink in front of him. “D-don’t we, already have j-juice?”

“Peppercorn, then,” Yan Hang laughed, “I like peppercorn sauce.”

Chu Yi didn’t collect himself until after Yan Hang left laughing; belatedly, he realised that Yan Hang was talking about the sauce that went with the steak.

As he waited for the steak, he watched Yan Hang serve two tables of customers.

He looked very good.

Yan Hang’s movements were very natural, but every move he made looked dashing. He even saw a young lady at one of the tables sneaking a photo with her phone.

Chu Yi felt enlightened and took his phone out too.

Watching Yan Hang carry a tray with a large cloche over it, he pointed the camera at him, taking great pains to hide it.
But then.

Only when Yan Hang finally approached did the shutter of his phone camera go off with a loud “ker-chak”.

The photo it took was of a gigantic, blurry, steaming cloche.

Rather than his failure to take the photo, Chu Yi was more upset about the noise his phone had let out.

“Did you want to take a photo of me, or the steak?” Yan Hang uncovered the dish and glanced at him, the corners of his lips twitching.

“You.” Chu Yi looked at the steak. “My phone d-didn’t co-ope-rate.”

“You should get a new phone then,” Yan Hang said, pouring the peppercorn sauce over the steak before sitting down.

“My dad has a phone he only just replaced; he used it for a year. Do you want it?”

“I, have,” said Chu Yi, “a, new one.”

Yan Hang stared.

“An i-iPhone,” sighed Chu Yi, “from my a-aunt. S-secret from my m-mum.”

“Your mum didn’t say anything about those shoes you got, so why can’t you use your new phone?” asked Yan Hang.

“It’s f-from my a-aunt, so no.” Chu Yi looked at the steak.

“Steak’s yours.” Yan Hang grabbed a slice of pizza. “We’re sharing the pizza.”

“We”.

“Sharing”.

Chu Yi suddenly felt a sort of comforting warmth.

Only after warming up did he think to ask, “But w-will, will you f-feel full?”

“Is that a tongue-twister?” Yan Hang grinned. “I’m not in a great mood today, so I don’t have much of an appetite. Eat as much as you want.”

“Okay.” Hesitating, Chu Yi picked up his fork and knife.

He’d seen people using forks and knives on TV before, but this was his first time actually eating with them. He cut with great care, afraid that he might accidentally send the meat flying over to Yan Hang.

So Yan Hang had bad moods too.

Even someone as carefree and unfettered as Yan Hang could have a bad mood?

“What’s… wr-wrong?” Chu Yi asked in a small voice.

“I’m having a talk with my dad tonight,” said Yan Hang.

Chu Yi stabbed a forkful of meat and looked at him, uncomprehending.

“Sometimes there are things you really want to know, but you’re also really afraid of knowing,” said Yan Hang as he ate his pizza. “You think it’s best not to know, but if you really don’t, you’ll feel like you’re living a lie; but when you find out what it is, maybe it’ll turn out that it was all a lie to begin with.”

Chu Yi stared blankly for a long time, and still didn’t understand what Yan Hang was saying. “You speak M-Mandarin like you’re s-speaking English.”

“Fuck,” Yan Hang laughed, “you’re illiterate.”

“I’m in l-lower secondary,” said Chu Yi. “You’re illiterate.”

Yan Hang really burst out laughing this time, leaning back in his chair and going on for quite a long while.

Chu Yi looked at him. He felt that Yan Hang looked very good when he laughed; watching him made him feel very happy too.

How could he be in a bad mood.

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