Chapter Text
Gu Yiran gets out of the taxi a few blocks from the chicken ribs restaurant. He stands at the curb while the driver counts out bills for his change, and then watches the taxi pull away, merging seamlessly into the street traffic.
Someone jostles him. Gu Yiran stumbles forward, one foot landing in the street for an instant before he makes it back onto the sidewalk. This far from the city center, the foot traffic is light. Gu Yiran had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just then.
It’s already sunset. In the distance, he can see the bright pinprick of light disappearing, bit by bit, above the uneven edge of the Halan skyline. Between one blink and the next, it’s gone. There’s only a band of orange near the horizon to commemorate it, the clouds low and grey in the sky without sunlight to whiten them.
Gu Yiran turns his back to the darkening sky, and starts walking.
The streets are half-familiar now, as he walks backward down the path he’d run each day to work. Here is the intersection where the pedestrian light never seems to come on, and Gu Yiran glances quickly both ways and crosses against a red light. Down that street is the corner of the park where if Gu Yiran cranes his head to look in the mornings, he can see the elderly folks of the neighborhood gathering for tai chi. And this shop he’s walking past, closed now, is the one Zheng Bei had taken him to buy a jacket at, the first weekend after he arrived. Gu Yiran had only worn that jacket for a few weeks before the weather changed. He’s not sure if he’ll ever have much use for it in Huazhou, heavy as it is.
The already-meager crowd thins further, street by street, the closer that Gu Yiran gets to the restaurant, until he’s turning the corner to its front entrance and finds himself walking up the stairs alone.
Inside the restaurant is a stifling heat and the clamor of too many people fit into too small a space. It’s as if the whole of the Halan Public Security Bureau has been crammed into the Zhengs’ restaurant to celebrate the end of the case, clustered into standing groups in the streamer-clad aisles, sitting at chairs pulled up to red-draped tables. Dinner hasn’t started yet, but there are sweating bottles of alcohol and cooling cups of tea already half-empty on the tabletops. The air is full of conversation and the strained hum of the fans set up in the corner of the room. Gu Yiran scans the crowd and can’t find Zheng Bei within it.
With the room this full, nobody notices his arrival, and so for a moment Gu Yiran hovers on the threshold with the door propped open behind him, the cool evening air prickling the back of his neck. He knows that he was never going to belong here forever. Even when he finally accepted this case, Gu Yiran had always meant to go back. And still, he can’t explain the way he feels, watching the shift and chatter of the Halan precinct laid out in microcosm before him, all its politics and personnel, its camaraderie and culture, the rest of the task force sitting around the table at the heart of it all, the whole system ticking away like clockwork while he watches it happen without him.
“Over here, Ran-ge!” comes a shout that pierces through the noise, and Gu Yiran looks toward the sound in surprise.
He finds Zhang Xueyao standing up from her seat at the table in the center of the room, and beside her — Zheng Bei sitting with his back to the door, arm draped over the empty seat to his left, right where Gu Yiran is sure he’d looked already.
Gu Yiran barely notices the door swinging shut behind him.
He’s watching Zheng Bei twist back around in the direction of the door. Zheng Bei’s gaze skims right past Gu Yiran and then snaps back, catching. Something in Zheng Bei’s face shifts, half-smile and half-grimace, and his mouth moves on words that are lost in the hubbub.
What took you so long , Gu Yiran thinks, and calls back, his voice disappearing into the clamor, “I’ll be right there!”
But he isn’t.
Partway there, Officer Xiong catches Gu Yiran by the elbow and drags him across the room to introduce Mrs. Xiong and their six-year-old daughter, who grasps Gu Yiran by the sleeve and demands, Mr. Gu, my daddy said that he heard you used your socks to make things explode, can you show me how? which Gu Yiran dodges with a hedging, It’s not really about the socks. Make sure to eat your vegetables tonight, okay? He manages to extricate himself with an apologetic smile to Mrs. Xiong, only to bump into Mrs. Zheng, who hooks her arm into his and says, Xiao Gu, you’re finally here! Lao Zheng made another dish from Huazhou for you, come into the kitchen and tell him if it needs more salt . Then when Gu Yiran emerges from the kitchen, he’s stopped by a stranger. It’s a woman in a blue dress, who Gu Yiran vaguely recognizes from the analytics department. She catches his shoulder and says, You’re Gu Yiran, aren’t you? You must be! I was wondering if I could talk to you about— and then cuts herself off, stammering apologetically, But this is hardly the time, tonight is a celebration, I’m sure you have people you need to talk to. Don’t let me keep you, Gu-laoshi!
Even so, by the time Gu Yiran makes his way through the crowd to the center table, Zheng Bei is gone again.
“Ran-ge,” Zhang Xueyao chides, as Gu Yiran pulls out the chair next to Zheng Bei’s empty one. “You’re so late! I almost didn’t believe that you were really going to show up.”
He’s back among the familiar dynamics of the team, and yet — in Zheng Bei’s absence it feels like he’s merely going through the motions. “I said that I’d be here,” Gu Yiran says, and it feels like he’s reciting lines, saying only what he knows should be said, speaking to the rest of the team from a distance.
Zhang Xueyao smacks a glass of alcohol on the table in front of him. “Your punishment,” and Gu Yiran stares at the glass, the liquid inside still shivering from the aftershocks, for an uncomprehending moment before she says, “ Drink it , Ran-ge, don’t just look at it! You’re three glasses behind already.”
Ding Guozhu looks up. “Yaoyao, he just got here, let him be—”
“It’s fine,” Gu Yiran says, and then again when Ding Guozhu doesn’t look convinced, “It’s fine. She’s right, I showed up late.”
“Just drink it, Ran-ge,” Zhang Xueyao says. “There’s no need to sound so reproachful. Once you drink, we’ll call it fair.”
Gu Yiran drinks. The alcohol burns through him, too fleeting to be any relief.
“Ran-ge,” Zhang Xueyao says, when he looks back up, in a tone like she’s repeating herself, “since Bei-ge’s not here, you tell Xiaoguang. It’s a fine time to buy tickets, isn’t it? It’ll be the perfect chance to catch the last few weeks of summer in the South.”
Gu Yiran freezes with his glass in mid-air. “What?” The case had only closed that morning. Director Gao hadn’t mentioned a thing. “No, it’s too early to be talking about plane tickets.”
Zhang Xueyao and Zhao Xiaoguang stare at him. “Ran-ge,” Zhao Xiaoguang says slowly, “what are you talking about? It’s the end of tourist season down there, it’s too late for plane tickets. Yaoyao, don’t listen to him.”
Gu Yiran starts. “What— what are we talking about?”
The conversation is already moving on without him, Zhang Xueyao rolling her eyes at Zhao Xiaoguang and saying, Why wouldn’t I take my parents down south for some real summer? A beat later, Ding Guozhu says, Yaoyao, you really should consider that it’s already close to peak tourist season, the prices— , and she retorts, If Director Gao is going to work us so hard I can only vacation once a year, when else would I go? The team’s conversation washes over him, and Gu Yiran can’t quite seem to latch back onto it — then stop having opinions about the souvenirs I’m bringing my mom — a flash of Zheng Bei walking into the kitchen, and Gu Yiran shifts to the side to see better, and can’t — should know she’s only being polite about them — a blur of Zheng Bei weaving through the crowd, twisting around to acknowledge someone. The glass in front of Gu Yiran is full again, and Gu Yiran takes a sip that burns down all the way down his throat. When he looks back up, he’s lost track of where Zheng Bei is in the room entirely.
At the next break in the conversation, grasping for a topic he can understand enough to hold onto, Gu Yiran asks, “Isn’t Zheng Bei sitting with us tonight?”
But Zhao Xiaoguang only gives Zheng Bei’s empty chair a cursory glance. “Ge always gets mobbed at these celebration dinners. Don’t worry about him, he’s used to it by now.”
“Bei-ge’s going to spend tonight getting felt up by all the other girls in the precinct,” Zhang Xueyao says with a snort. “He’ll be just fine.” Ding Guozhu hides a laugh in his cup of tea. Zhang Xueyao braces her elbows on the tabletop and leans forward to say, “You, Ran-ge, should be thinking about souvenirs.”
Gu Yiran sips again, lets the burn ground him for a moment as he puts his glass carefully down and says, “Who’s buying souvenirs? I can recommend some Southern trinkets for you and your parents, Yaoyao.”
Zhang Xueyao smacks him on the shoulder. “You, Ran-ge, aren’t you listening? The case just closed, you can go back soon! You need to be thinking about what to bring everyone, they’ll need be good representations of Halan’s rich culture and all.”
Gu Yiran swallows. “Isn’t it too early to talk about that?”
“It’s never too early for souvenirs,” Zhao Xiaoguang intones. “You can’t leave these things for the end, Ran-ge. These things take time if you want to do them properly. I’ll show you the best places around here. You have to consider what everyone wants, and what you can afford, and whether it’ll fit in your luggage, and—”
“As if you’ve bought anyone souvenirs properly even once in your life,” Zhang Xueyao retorts. “Nannan told me that last time you went home you didn’t bring her any of the movies she wanted.”
As Zhao Xiaoguang argues back, Ding Guozhu scoots his chair around the table and leans forward until he catches Gu Yiran’s eye. “Ran-ge, there are a lot of souvenir shops around town. Who’re you buying things for? Maybe we can start there.”
Gu Yiran is thinking about the empty apartment waiting for him in Huazhou. The corner table in the academy lunchroom across the way from where the rest of the instructors usually eat. The bare headstone of his father’s grave. He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out.
“Your parents, of course,” Zhang Xueyao says beside him, counting on her fingers. “You have to bring something back for them. Who else?”
Someone in the crowd ahead shifts, and all at once Gu Yiran sees Zheng Bei just past the other side of the table. There’s an unfamiliar officer talking to him, standing too close to Zheng Bei for Gu Yiran to overhear her. Even so, Zheng Bei is turned away from her, toward the team. When their eyes meet, Zheng Bei’s gaze is piercing.
A sudden flash of memory: Zheng Bei, still a stranger, waiting out in front of Gu Yiran’s apartment complex with the case files tucked under his arm. Gu Yiran’s own halting voice as he insists, This is my home. My parents died here, and I have to stay with them. I can’t leave. Of all the people in this room, Zheng Bei is the only one who knows the truth of just how empty Gu Yiran’s life will be when he goes back to Huazhou.
There’s an expression on Zheng Bei’s face like he’s wondering who Gu Yiran could possibly be thinking of. Half-curious, half-concerned. Gu Yiran thinks of that curled page in Zheng Bei’s address book, and wonders for a moment just how much Officer Wu had or hadn’t told Zheng Bei about Gu Yiran’s involvement in what eventually became the 1993 drug case.
Without breaking eye contact, Gu Yiran says, “My sister. I should get something for my older sister, too.” Under the table, his hands clench.
On the other side of the table, Zheng Bei’s brow furrows.
Gu Yiran looks away first.
The start of the meal interrupts the rest of their conversation, announced by Mrs. Zheng appearing from the kitchen with the first of the dishes. From the corner table, Director Gao stands to loudly say, “Zheng-taitai, you and your husband have really outdone yourselves this time!” and Zheng Bei breaks away from his conversation to go help carry dishes from the kitchen, only to be pulled aside by yet another precinct staffer before he can make it there.
Gu Yiran carries the too-hot plate of Mr. Zheng’s best attempt at pepper fish to the team’s table. When he makes it back to the kitchen to help with something else, Mrs. Zheng shoos him back out to eat, empty-handed.
The rest of the meal is nothing like the usual Zheng family dinners. Those are defined by the press of Zheng Bei just beside him, putting bites from the dishes into Gu Yiran’s bowl almost absentmindedly, knocking a hand wordlessly against his arm when he wants the alcohol passed over. The close sound of Zheng Bei speaking, far more than the sight of him.
But the celebration dinner is a constant flood of people sliding into the space between Gu Yiran’s seat and Zheng Bei’s, of watching Zheng Bei swallow quickly and set his chopsticks down to shake hands, of Zheng Bei standing up to accept a handshake, a bump of the shoulder. Even as they’re eating, their table is constantly interrupted with thank-yous, well-wishes, people saying to Gu Yiran when Zheng Bei is mid-conversation, I wanted to tell Captain Zheng, can you pass this along to him?
It’s as if the room is circling Zheng Bei, that night, and Zheng Bei rises to it, laughing, drinking, clapping colleagues on the shoulder and strangers on the back, shaking hands as he meets wives and husbands, joking, mock-frowning, bowing in thanks and respect and cheerful apology, clinking glasses, filling cups, never pausing and never needing to pause as he moves, effortless, from person to person to person.
The longer the celebrations go on, the heavier it feels to Gu Yiran, the burden Zheng Bei carries of being the face of the team. On his shoulders are everyone’s hopes, the safe future that everyone in this room and beyond has been working toward, has always been working toward. More than once, Zheng Bei is pulled up from his chair to another table, to be folded into some other team’s congratulations, some other team wanting to make sure he hears their telling of their piece of the case, as if he’s the one they need to hold it all, their hard work, their experience, their joys and failures.
Gu Yiran keeps watching him as it all happens, looking for the cracks in Zheng Bei’s behavior, and Gu Yiran keeps finding nothing. If Zheng Bei feels anything other than pure, unadulterated joy, accomplishment, pride, and cheer — if Zheng Bei feels the same disquieting press of passing time against his shoulders that Gu Yiran does, with every bite, with every thank you , with every refilled cup of alcohol, he doesn’t show it at all, not in a way that Gu Yiran can understand, not in a way that Gu Yiran can recognize.
Zheng Bei moves as though unaware of the heavy expectations, the weight of carrying and confirming the celebratory moods of everyone in the room. There’s no sign of the sleep-deprived man that Gu Yiran had watched walking alone into the precinct that morning, not here. Under the warm yellow lights of his parents’ restaurant, winding his way through the crowds of all his colleagues, Zheng Bei is the perfect police captain — respectful to his superiors, charming to his colleagues’ families, and supportive of the personnel that supported him.
And so Gu Yiran pretends, as best he can, that he doesn’t feel it either. If tonight is the last night that things will be the same, if tonight is the beginning of the end, well — it’s been a long time since Gu Yiran could see an ending coming. It’s been a long time since he’s had the chance to brace himself for it.
The rest of the evening passes in a blur — pretending to be happy when he’s not, pretending to eat heartily when he can’t, pretending he’s not constantly watching Zheng Bei when he is, almost every second that he can manage it. At one point, Gu Yiran slopes over to Director Gao’s table, and pretends to be sorry for shouting at him that morning, and Director Gao pretends not to be so drunk that he doesn’t remember what Gu Yiran’s talking about.
Caught in all the pretending, Gu Yiran nearly misses when Zheng Bei disappears from the dining room. One moment, Zheng Bei is in the middle of a cluster of officers all laughing uproariously at something someone said. The next moment, that group is clinking glasses hard enough to catch Gu Yiran’s attention, and Zheng Bei is gone.
It’s only chance that Gu Yiran scans the room fast enough to see the Zhengs’ kitchen back door swinging shut. It’s only chance, he tells himself, that he had thought to look in that direction in the first place.
Gu Yiran stares after the closed door for a brief, uncertain moment. From just that glimpse — shoulders and the back of a head — he knows it’s Zheng Bei who just went into the backyard.
A faint, uncertain sensation rouses in Gu Yiran’s chest. The way Zheng Bei had been all night — there won’t be another chance for Gu Yiran to talk to him alone, as Zheng Bei, instead of as Captain Zheng.
He glances at the door, and then at his watch, and makes himself count slowly to sixty. Once, and then again for good measure. When the backyard door shows no sign of opening, Gu Yiran stands up out of his chair, and follows Zheng Bei’s path into the kitchen.
Gu Yiran steps out of the bright, warm kitchen into cool summer darkness, and has to blink for several long moments before he can make out Zheng Bei, sitting on an overturned crate with his elbows braced on his knees and his head down. The slope of his shoulders is exhausted. It’s too dark to see whether his eyes are closed.
Gu Yiran stills on the porch steps, and closes his mouth around Zheng Bei’s name. He reaches back for the doorknob. He shouldn’t have followed Zheng Bei out here.
But at the sound of the door swinging open, Zheng Bei says quietly, “Ma, I’m fine. You didn’t have to come after me,” and Gu Yiran can’t help turning back around, just in time to hear Zeng Bei finish, “I just needed some air, you know how I get sometimes,” and just in time to watch him look up, and see that it’s Gu Yiran standing, caught, under the porch light.
“I —” Gu Yiran starts. He can’t quite meet Zheng Bei’s eyes. “I was just leaving.”
But Zheng Bei is already standing, and at Gu Yiran’s words he closes the distance between them in a few brusque steps, saying, “It’s nice and quiet out here. Catch your breath for a moment before you go back inside.” He reaches out to clasp Gu Yiran on the shoulder. “These celebration dinners,” he says, “my parents never know how to keep them simple.”
“You were here first,” Gu Yiran protests. “It’s your backyard.” And anyway, it hadn’t been peace and quiet that he’d been looking for when he followed Zheng Bei out here.
“I’m sure they’re looking for me in there again already,” Zheng Bei says. “It’s fine. This is just how things go, when a team I’m leading closes a case.” His hand is warm against Gu Yiran’s shoulder.
Gu Yiran is caught with the absurd urge to lie to him. To say the whole restaurant has emptied out. That the party had ended in his absence. That it would be fine for Zheng Bei to sit out here, by himself in the dark and quiet, as long as he needed. As long as he wanted to. “Zheng Bei,” Gu Yiran says, quietly, and can’t get the rest of it out.
Perhaps Zheng Bei guesses what Gu Yiran doesn’t say. Perhaps he doesn’t. But all Zheng Bei says is, “Gu-laoshi, don’t let Xiaoguang take you shopping for souvenirs.” His mouth works, like he’s not sure how to say the next thing. Gu Yiran waits, and eventually Zheng Bei says, “They won’t— they don’t understand your situation. With your parents, and your older sister. It’ll be difficult for you to have to pretend the whole time.”
That they’re alive when they aren’t, Gu Yiran fills in for him.
“We can go together, get something appropriate,” Zheng Bei is saying. “I’ll take you this weekend, make sure we get it done before you have to fly home.”
Even now, inundated with the demands of others, Zheng Bei is doing this. Offering this, like it’s expected, like it’s easy. Even now, the first weekend off after closing a case, Zheng Bei is volunteering to keep playing host.
Beneath the porch light, the shadows under Zheng Bei’s eyes are even more pronounced. Even so, his gaze doesn’t waver. His voice stays gentle and firm. Gu Yiran’s shoulder will be cold when he takes his hand away.
Gu Yiran wants it — a souvenir, and the rest of it. To go shopping with Zheng Bei, to face the end of this case with someone who can ease that shift back to solitude. Someone who knows exactly how little Gu Yiran is returning to.
It would be nice to have something to bring back with him, to fill the space that the locked box of papers had taken up in his suitcase on the way here. Some tangible memory of Halan and of Zheng Bei. Something that will last, even years down the line, when Zheng Bei’s presence in his life shrinks to the occasional mention of a Captain Zheng in case briefings, or the rare half-familiar signature on a piece of paperwork that passes through the Huazhou office. Something to hold on to.
But instead, Gu Yiran shrugs, a small and careful movement that dislodges Zheng Bei’s hand from his shoulder. “Zheng Bei, it’s fine,” he says, “I’ll go buy my souvenirs myself. There’s really no need for you to come with me.”
Something flits across Zheng Bei’s face, blinked away too fast for Gu Yiran to catch. “Suit yourself,” he says. When he heads back inside, he hesitates on the threshold for a moment before he closes the door after him.
Then, Gu Yiran is alone in the Zhengs’ backyard, and the porch light is flickering in Zheng Bei’s absence. Gu Yiran shivers. The summer evenings in Halan are still colder than he expects them to be, every time.
From out here, the sound of the celebrations inside the restaurant is muffled, an echo of the distance Gu Yiran had felt at the table, earlier. Now, it seems far too apt.
He pushes the kitchen door open and is met with — not the chatter of conversation that he’d left behind, but the riotous sound of applause in the dining room beyond, a sudden rise in sound that Gu Yiran had missed the cause of. He thinks he hears someone shout, Zheng Bei! , and Gu Yiran hurries through the kitchen as the applause dies down.
He makes it to the dining room just as the crowd quiets. All that’s left is the sound of a crowd of people listening, breath held. That muffled sound of attention, and the sound of a single voice speaking.
Gu Yiran shuffles out of the kitchen into the fringes of the dining room crowd, and finds himself in a group of unfamiliar faces, all of them quiet, turned toward the center of the room. If he strains a little, Gu Yiran can see above the cluster of heads, but only just.
At the center of the room is Zheng Bei, standing with a glass in his hand. There’s a flush to his cheeks that means he’s drunk more than he should. His hand is set against the back of Gu Yiran’s empty chair as if bracing himself. But Zheng Bei’s voice is steady, and as he speaks he turns slowly, addressing the full room as much as he can. One by one, Zheng Bei thanks all the different departments for their support, beginning with Director Gao’s table of management and working his way around the room, pausing for smatterings of applause and occasionally of laughter.
Then, Zheng Bei gets to the main table, to the core task force. He thanks the team individually, one by one, all praise — Zhang Xueyao’s righteousness, Ding Guozhu’s bravery, Zhao Xiaoguang’s energy, Lao Jiu’s cooking. Then, when he comes to the empty chair, Zheng Bei lifts his head briefly to scan the crowd. His gaze skims past the corner Gu Yiran is in without catching on him, and after a pause so slight that Gu Yiran couldn’t say if anyone else in the room noticed, Zheng Bei says, “And of course our very own Gu-laoshi, come all the way from Huazhou to assist us.”
The crowd of people before Gu Yiran is too thick for him to get through. Standing there, Gu Yiran’s shoulder twitches, like he wants to raise his hand to get Zheng Bei’s attention. Something stops him.
Zheng Bei claps a hand against the back of Gu Yiran’s empty seat. “There have been few people as valiant as our Ran-ge, over the course of this case. When I say we couldn’t have closed this case without him, I truly mean it. We’ll miss him when he goes back to Huazhou, but I’m sure we all wish him safe travels. If fate has it, we’ll meet again.”
The words come out easy, unconcerned, respectful. Gu Yiran looks for some strain, some tinge to Zheng Bei’s expression to contradict his words, and finds nothing. It’s as if this really is how Zheng Bei feels, about the end of the case and the inevitable disappearance of Gu Yiran from their shared life. As if he really is willing to leave it to fate alone, whether their paths will cross again, and he isn’t willing to work for it. Bei-ge waited for you to come back before we officially closed the case , Zhang Xueyao had said, but perhaps even that had been nothing more than Zheng Bei’s devotion to doing the right thing, all the way to the end. Even now, as Gu Yiran watches, Zheng Bei’s free hand pulls away from Gu Yiran’s empty chair and disappears into his pocket. Despite the warmth of the close-pressed crowd, Gu Yiran’s shoulder feels reflexively cold.
Zheng Bei raises the glass in his other hand. “To the end of a long and difficult case. To the hard work of everyone here. To victory!”
To victory , the room echoes. Around Gu Yiran, strangers raise their glasses and clink, and cheer, and echo Zheng Bei’s words. Gu Yiran, who isn’t holding a drink, can only smile wanly at the surprised stranger who turns to him and finds him empty-handed, and repeat back, “To victory.”
Afterward, the crowd swells with success and pride. The Zhengs bring out big trays of cut fruit, and all the back-and-forth motion of the crowd becomes too thick for Gu Yiran to push through. He doesn’t know what he’d say to Zheng Bei anyway, even if he could get to him, even if he could make his way back to fill that empty chair at the center of the room.
Instead, Gu Yiran slips around the fringes of the crowd, fights against its momentum until he makes it to the front doors. For a moment on the threshold, he thinks he hears someone calling his name, but when he turns he finds no one. He pushes the door open, and disappears outside.
That night, Gu Yiran gets ready for bed alone in Zheng Bei’s dark-walled apartment, and then lies there, staring up at the black ceiling. When he’d left the restaurant, the faint strains of merriment had dogged his footsteps for nearly half a block, following him until Gu Yiran turned the corner, crossed the street.
Now, the apartment courtyard still carries its usual hum of nighttime activity, but the closer sounds are missing. Tonight there’s no sound of Zheng Nan’s music from the neighboring apartment, no sound of Zheng Bei’s parents talking, and nobody tossing and turning in the other room.
The apartment is so quiet without Zheng Bei there, and Gu Yiran remembers without reaching for it, what Zheng Bei had said when they had fought. The harshness of his voice saying, If you don’t like how we do things here, maybe you should go back to teaching in Huazhou.
So it’d come to that in the end, anyway, the case closed and Gu Yiran’s departure inevitable now. There’s nothing more he can do here in Halan. Not his dad, not for himself, and not for Zheng Bei. There’s nothing more Gu Yiran can do, except admit that it’s over, and go back home the way he’d always meant to when this case closed.
That night, Gu Yiran falls asleep alone in an empty apartment.
He doesn’t sleep long. Gu Yiran rouses in degrees until he’s half-awake, pulled by something he can’t pinpoint. Around him is familiar darkness, the dim shapes of Zheng Bei’s bedroom furniture, the uninterrupted nighttime murmurs of Zheng Bei’s apartment complex.
Even as Gu Yiran slides relentlessly toward consciousness, some part of him relaxes: he knows where he is; there isn’t anything wrong. All he can hear around him is a blanketing quiet, and briefly, the close, soft gurgle of water moving through pipes in the building walls. Even when he strains, wondering what roused him, he hears nothing out of the ordinary. Gu Yiran turns onto his back, gropes muzzily around until he can pull the light blanket back over himself.
Then, there’s a noise, half-hidden under the fabric rustle of the blanket. Gu Yiran catches just the end of it, coming from the other room of Zheng Bei’s apartment: the uneven end of a quiet exhale, and then a slow, carefully steady inhale. Hardly different from the usual sound of Zheng Bei asleep. Almost nothing at all.
Gu Yiran stills, fully awake now, and tilts his head on his pillow until he’s squinting through the doorway into the dimly-lit front room, waiting. But Zheng Bei’s next breath is slow, even and steady: a nondescript inhale, and a nondescript exhale. Nothing unusual at all. Gu Yiran pulls the blanket over his head, and shuffles around underneath until he’s laying with his back to the front room. But even in this familiar, undisturbed quiet, he doesn’t fall back asleep.
Gu Yiran can’t help remembering the last time he’d heard Zheng Bei having one of his nightmares, the mumble of his voice saying, Lele, come with me , before it cut off into silence with a sharp inhale, a creak of the bed. How quietly Zheng Bei had been lying there, how carefully still, by the time Gu Yiran got up to look. His face turned away so Gu Yiran couldn’t see his expression.
Now, listening, it’s hard for Gu Yiran not to pick out the sound of Zheng Bei’s breathing in the other room, closer than the rest of the background hush. It’s hard not to notice how even it is: a slow inhale and a slower exhale, deep and measured, as if Zheng Bei is counting on purpose to keep his breaths steady, to keep up the pretense of sleep.
Gu Yiran rolls onto his back and pushes the blanket down, reaches for his glasses on the side table and slides them on, and then pauses. He might be reading too much into nothing. Zheng Bei might be asleep peacefully in the other room. Or he might not be. Gu Yiran breathes out against the uncertainty in his chest, and stands up out of bed.
As he pads toward the bead curtain, Gu Yiran clutches the empty mug he’d picked up from his side table. He often gets up for water in the middle of the night, it’s a fine excuse. The first time he’d done it here, the first week he was in Halan, he’d forgotten Zheng Bei would be there in the other room. When he’d caught sight of Zheng Bei, sprawled out asleep on the cot, Gu Yiran had startled hard enough to knock back against the bead curtain, had to clutch his mug to his chest for long moments until he was sure that Zheng Bei had slept through the sound.
But this time, stepping into the front room, Gu Yiran is all too aware that Zheng Bei will be lying there on the cot.
As Gu Yiran passes, the bead curtain clattering back into place behind him, Zheng Bei shifts in bed. Gu Yiran glances over, mug twitching in his hand, to see Zheng Bei turning over onto his back in the dim light. Softly, into the still quiet, Gu Yiran says, “Just getting some water.”
Zheng Bei makes a quiet murmur, either acknowledgement or indistinct sound. There’s no further movement, except that same slow and measured breathing. Perhaps Zheng Bei really is merely asleep, and Gu Yiran has come out here to pour himself a mug of water he doesn’t plan on drinking at all.
The metal sound of the thermos unscrewing is sharp in the quiet room, the splash of pouring water almost too loud to bear. With Gu Yiran’s back to Zheng Bei, the mug is in shadow. He can’t tell how close to full it is. He can’t tell if he’s only imagining the weight of Zheng Bei’s gaze on him. Gu Yiran dips a finger into his mug to check, and his fingertip meets the water’s surface before he expects to.
When Gu Yiran turns back around, Zheng Bei’s eyes are closed, his head turned to the side on his pillow. The corner of some rectangle of light cuts across Zheng Bei’s shoulder, frames the even rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps.
At the bead curtain, Gu Yiran hesitates for a moment. His mug of water is lukewarm between his palms instead of hot. He can admit to himself now that part of him had wanted Zheng Bei to be awake. But Zheng Bei isn’t.
He’s one step past the bead curtain when there’s a rustle of fabric against fabric behind him, and Zheng Bei says, his voice sleep-quiet and faintly hoarse, “You know you’ll only have to go downstairs for the toilet in an hour if you drink that whole thing.”
Gu Yiran stills, the bead curtain brushing against his back, and then turns around.
Zheng Bei has come up to his elbows on the cot, turned toward Gu Yiran, his face in shadow. It’s impossible to see his expression. The roughness in his voice could be emotion or exhaustion or nothing at all. There’s no sign that he might have just woken up from one of his nightmares about Lele, but Gu Yiran can’t shake the possibility.
“I’m hardly going to drink the whole thing at once,” Gu Yiran retorts, halfheartedly. And then, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Won’t you?” Zheng Bei asks. “When have you ever done something by halves?” And then he seems to hear the rest of what Gu Yiran said, and adds, “It’s fine, I was waking up already.”
There’s something about the way he says it. Tired, with an edge to it. Gu Yiran frowns. He takes the two steps that move him through the bead curtain, the mug clutched in his hands, and says, “Zheng Bei, is something the matter?”
Zheng Bei shifts from sprawling to sitting with a startling speed. “Why would something have to be the matter? Do you think you’re the only person who can wake up in the middle of the night because they’re thirsty?”
The thermos had been light when Gu Yiran put it down, almost empty. He starts, “Zheng Bei—”
But Zheng Bei is already standing with the thermos in hand, emptying it into his cup. He tilts his cup pointedly at Gu Yiran in a toast, then tips his head back to drain the mug. “There,” he says, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, stepping over the cot to sit back down, “I’ve had my water.”
Gu Yiran strides over to sit down on the couch across from him. Ignoring Zheng Bei’s protesting sound, he reaches over to pour water from his mug into Zheng Bei’s empty one. “That was hardly a mouthful, you should drink more. I poured more than I meant to.” He’s surprised at how even his voice is, how he’s able to pour without spilling.
When Zheng Bei had stood up, for a moment in the light of his front windows, there had been tear tracks shining on his cheeks, smeared at the bottom when he’d wiped his hand over his mouth. Even when Gu Yiran had seen Zheng Bei having nightmares about Lele before, he hadn’t seen Zheng Bei cry.
Zheng Bei reflexively picks his mug up to tip water back into Gu Yiran’s cup, unaware. “Don’t be like this. You’re the one who said you wanted water first.” Gu Yiran doesn’t know what to do with the information that even now, he sounds nearly the same as how he always sounds.
“Zheng Bei,” Gu Yiran says, covering his mug with a hand, stalling. Now that he’s looking, he can see the faint slump to Zheng Bei’s posture, the exhaustion running through every line of him, more than just poor sleep.
“Gu Yiran,” Zheng Bei says back. Seemingly effortlessly, his voice has evened out, and it’s clear and steady now as he says, “Drink your water, Gu’er, and let’s both go back to sleep. I was joking. It doesn’t matter if you wake me back up later.”
It’s so believable, the way he says it.
This could be just any other conversation, the kind they’ve had in daylight, Zheng Bei earnestly older-brothering him and Gu Yiran tolerating it. If Gu Yiran hadn’t seen the tear tracks on Zheng Bei’s face, he might have let it play out without knowing any better. The thought unnerves him.
“Zheng Bei,” Gu Yiran says, and tries his best to make his voice gentle, unobtrusive. Before, Zheng Bei had said to him, Everyone has their own fate. I’ll bear what’s mine to bear . Now, Gu Yiran says, “If you have to carry the memory, at least don’t dwell on it so much when you’re awake. It’s too much for one person to carry.”
There’s a quiet creak as Zheng Bei looks up at him. For a moment, his expression is incomprehensible — something like pained amusement, with no cause that Gu Yiran can tell. And then it’s gone, and Zheng Bei’s face is creasing into a smile.
“Ah, Xiao Gu,” he says, shuffling forward on the cot until he can clasp Gu Yiran on the shoulder. “Save your worry for someone who needs it. It’s hardly anything heavy to bear, I haven’t been a kid in a long time. Don’t think I can’t tell bad dreams from reality, okay?” His voice is reassuring, the squeeze of his hand warm and comforting. “You’re right here, safe and sound, aren’t you?”
Frowning, Gu Yiran starts to say, “What—” are you talking about? For a moment, it doesn’t sink in. For a moment, all Gu Yiran can think is that Zheng Bei’s nightmares have only ever been about Lele.
And then it hits him, and Gu Yiran jolts back to look at Zheng Bei, wide-eyed, feeling the realization shock through his body.
Tonight’s nightmare wasn’t about Lele. Tonight’s nightmare was about Gu Yiran .
Zheng Bei is shifting back to sitting on the cot like he doesn’t realize what he’s just said, busying himself with trying to punch his flat pillow back into shape. The slope of his shoulders nonchalant, his movements easy.
As if he had accepted that there was nothing to bring up, nothing to talk about, and expected Gu Yiran to do nothing more than to go back to sleep tonight, and go back to work tomorrow, and then go unresistingly back to Huazhou, and for that to be the end of it. As if Gu Yiran, like everyone else around him, would unthinkingly look past what was happening to Zheng Bei beneath the easy surface he presented.
Gu Yiran is making the connections now — the shadows under Zheng Bei’s eyes the last few days, how tired he’s seemed all this time since Gu Yiran’s rescue. How, of everyone on the team, it was only Zheng Bei who was always falling asleep at Gu Yiran’s bedside at the hospital while he visited.
Zheng Bei has put his pillow down and is looking intently at Gu Yiran, brow slightly furrowed. There’s no difference to the shape of his pillow now than before he messed with it. “Gu’er,” Zheng Bei says, “What’s wrong?”
Gu Yiran would have to stand up if he wanted to touch him, to brush Zheng Bei’s nonexistent fringe off of his forehead. It wouldn’t be enough to merely reach out his hand.
For a moment, it’s not hard to remember — the taped-over windows of the warehouse he’d been kept in, the concrete floor, the bite of rope against his arms. It’s not hard to imagine the rest, the rescue and everything afterward, the way Zheng Bei had lived it. The way Zheng Bei is still dreaming about it, now.
Gu Yiran needs to do something, or say something. Zheng Bei rescued him. He did everything right. He shouldn’t have to keep carrying it. But Gu Yiran can’t think of a single thing to say that can encompass what he feels he needs to do. Far too late, he remembers Zheng Bei’s question, and manages, “Just thinking.”
Zheng Bei raises his eyebrows. “What’s there to think about? Save that kind of thing for the morning.”
When Gu Yiran doesn’t reply, Zheng Bei stretches his legs out under the coffee table to kick at Gu Yiran’s feet and says, “Gu Yiran, go back to bed. The case might be closed, but we still have to go to work in the morning. You’ll suffer enough having interrupted your sleep like this tonight.”
As if it didn’t matter that Zheng Bei’s sleep had been fragmented by nightmares all this time. For weeks, perhaps, stretching back through all that time Gu Yiran had spent recovering in the hospital. Gu Yiran remembers then, what Zhao Xiaoguang had said in passing, that of all the cases Zheng Bei had ever closed, this was the only one where he hadn’t gone back to walk through the crime scene alone, to close it out himself. It had sounded before like he didn’t care to, but now Gu Yiran is sure it was for a different reason.
He stands up.
Gu Yiran will have to leave Zheng Bei alone here when he goes back to Huazhou. But he can at least spare him from having to do this one thing alone.
“Sleep well,” Zheng Bei says. His voice is so nonchalant. He hasn’t made a move to lie back down yet. Gu Yiran would bet that, left to his own devices, Zheng Bei could just sit like this, turning his own self-perceived failures over in his head until daylight.
Gu Yiran takes a step forward, and then another, until he’s standing in front of Zheng Bei. Zheng Bei stares up at him, frowning.
There’s only one thing Gu Yiran can think to do that might make any difference. One place, for them to go to together. Zheng Bei’s mouth opens, his brow furrowing, but before Zheng Bei can speak Gu Yiran’s hand closes on Zheng Bei’s wrist, and he pulls Zheng Bei up to standing.
Zheng Bei yanks his wrist out of Gu Yiran’s grasp just as fast. With a few backward steps, the distance between them is too wide to reach across. “Gu Yiran,” he says, “what’s that for?”
Gu Yiran’s hand falls to his side and stills, empty. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe this will end the same way getting involved with this case did, all this effort and nothing that made any difference to his dad, in the end. But his father is four years gone, and Zheng Bei is here, right in front of him, alive, and Gu Yiran couldn’t forgive himself if he left without doing a thing.
He doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what else to do. “Come with me,” Gu Yiran says, knowing even as he says it that this isn’t a fair way to ask this of Zheng Bei. “Please. I just need you to come with me.”
Something in Zheng Bei’s face shutters, for just a flash of a moment before he wipes it clean and takes a step back toward Gu Yiran. “To where, Gu’er?” His voice is quiet, concerned. If Gu Yiran wasn’t listening for it, he wouldn’t have heard the resignation there at all.
But Gu Yiran can’t tell him where they’re going. Not until they’re both in the car. “It won’t take long,” he says, but what he means is: I hope it won’t take long .
Zheng Bei doesn’t reply. He doesn’t come closer.
But this time, when Gu Yiran reaches out for his wrist, Zheng Bei doesn’t pull his hand away. This time, when Gu Yiran heads toward the door, there’s only a moment of resistance before Zheng Bei follows.