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Jian Yi only realises he’s laughing when he hears himself. And it’s only then that he feels it, the way he shakes, the way his voice tightens on the hitch. It’s like looking at a wound and seeing the blood — it’s only the looking, the seeing, that makes you realise it hurts.
‘You’re laughing,’ says Zhengxi. ‘Stop it.’
He doesn’t stop. He can’t. But he says, ‘What do you want from me, Zhengxi? Seriously, what do you want me to say to that? What are you looking for asking me questions like that?’
‘I’m looking for some truth for once,’ Zhengxi says. ‘I want you to be honest with me.’
‘I am honest with you—’
‘Don’t give me that. Not anymore, Jian Yi.’
Jian Yi stares at him. ‘When have I lied to you? Tell me when I’ve lied to you.’
Zhengxi pulls away from him, sits up. His knees are drawn up, fingertips running circles into his eyes. He’s screaming tiredness. A kind of exhaustion that Jian Yi thought only he knew. But Jian Yi watches him and knows with quiet, devastating certainty that Zhengxi knows this tiredness because he’s learnt it from him.
The kidnapping, the kiss, his hot mouth on Zhengxi’s neck. This is the pain of having people who care—who mean something. Who think you mean something. Worries are shared, and burdens loaded. There’s no relief in this.
Jian Yi watches him in the grey haze, bathroom light leaking through the gap beneath the door. It colours Zhengxi’s eyes dark and ashen, paints him shadowed and muted. His silence, so typical and taciturn, has taken on a weary edge. It’s painful to watch.
He knows what Zhengxi is thinking: No, you haven’t lied. But you haven’t shared the truth. And isn’t that worse?
‘I’m selfish,’ says Jian Yi, when the quiet stretches too long. ‘That’s all.’
Zhengxi lets his hands fall onto the sheets, palms face-up. He blinks slowly at Jian Yi.
‘What are you talking about?’ he says.
‘Me,’ says Jian Yi. Swallows. ‘I’m selfish ‘cause I pushed you away. I didn’t—I never lied but I knew you wanted to know things and I wouldn’t let you. And I’m selfish ‘cause I didn’t want to tell you and then look at you and know I’d hurt you.’
Zhengxi’s frowning, lips parted. ‘What are you talking about.’
‘The kidnapping, Zhengxi,’ Jian Yi pushes out. ‘You think I’d tell you without knowing that you’d feel powerless and helpless? You really think I’d tell you so I could watch that look on your face? It’s not about not wanting to tell you — it’s about me not wanting to look at you and know what I’d done and how I’ve made you feel. You think I want to tell you I like you, and have to listen to you tell me I’m—I’m wrong and that you could never look at me the way I look at you?’
Jian Yi’s lips stretch back. It should be a grin, but he knows it’s closer to an upturned grimace, jagged and mauled. He can feel his eyes shine too bright, too wide, his amusement at the whole thing turned macabre.
‘It’s about me, yeah?’ he says easily, almost cheerful, like they’re sharing a joke. He feels weirdly breathless, like the air has been snatched from him in a quick squeeze of a palm. He shrugs. His words don’t match his expression, his gestures. ‘It’s about how I feel. About how I don’t want to hurt. It’s—it’s just about me. It’s always been about me. And you deserve better than that, all right?’
Zhengxi speaks evenly. ‘If you don’t want to think about the kidnapping, I get that. You want to forget it. But if you want to talk about it then we can. And…’ Zhengxi shuts his eyes. Breathes in deep. He gives Jian Yi another of those looks—focused and unrestrained. Clear and open and determined so it feels like he’s seeing more of Jian Yi than he’s ever put on show.
‘And,’ Jian Yi prompts quietly.
‘And I never said—I’ve never thought there’s something wrong with you. I never said I could never—look at you. You know, the way you look at me—’
‘Wait,’ says Jian Yi. He brings his hands up to hide his face. He wants to thread them through his hair and pull until his eyes water from the sting. ‘Wait, stop. Zhan Zhengxi, stop. Don’t do that to me. That’s not fair.’
‘Are you saying yes?’ says Zhengxi. He’s quiet. Too close. Where has this courage come from? This determination? Why couldn’t they have carried on like before, pretended nothing had happened? Didn’t Zhengxi listen to him at the bridge, their skin cold and feverish, soaked from summer rain? A brief flash of anger sparks inside of Jian Yi: why did Zhengxi have to ruin this?
‘Jian Yi—’
‘What?’ Jian Yi snaps. He drops his hands, sits up until they’re mirroring each other. ‘What do you want me to say? Yes, I like you? Yes, I’ve been half in love with you since I was practically six years old? Yes, you’re my best friend and I want to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll let me? Yes, I think about kissing you and yes I think about you and yes I can’t stop thinking about you. Is that it? Is that what you want me to say, Zhengxi.’
He gets to his feet, legs shaking and unsteady beneath him, and he can’t feel himself anymore. There’s only the wild tremor in the base of his throat and the wave of nausea that he’s not sure he can ride out.
It had been bad enough before, when passing cars and the rush of a train and a bruising downpour dampened the sound. When he could almost hide that he was crying.
‘Shit,’ he hisses , digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. They’ll redden and blotch in seconds. This isn’t how the night was meant to go. This was never meant to be a night for painful truths that Jian Yi isn’t ready to face and hear and have thrown back at him; he isn’t willing yet—strong enough yet—to see his heart pulsing mottled and weak on the floor.
‘Jian Yi—’
‘Stay there,’ Jian Yi begs. ‘Please don’t get up. Please.’
‘Why—’
‘I don’t want you to touch me,’ he sobs. ‘I don’t want to look at you—’
‘You don’t want to hear what I have to say?’ says Zhengxi. He’s doing it again: not listening. They’re equal in height, and if Jian Yi lets his hands drop to his sides, Zhengxi’s going to be there. Eye-level. Looking at him. Meeting him unreserved, and tenderly open.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Jian Yi says, feeling bitter and sick, the words shaking. ‘We both know what you’re going to say.’
‘I think you need to hear it still. I think we’ve spent too much time fucking about and not saying what we really want to.’
Jian Yi hates this. Hates himself when he asks, voice thick with tears, because god he knows this is going to hurt, ‘And what d’you really want to say?’
He waits for Zhengxi’s voice like he’s waiting for a bomb to drop, like he’s jumped out a plane, no parachute, and he’s waiting for the impact. He thinks there should be someone narrating this, someone counting down the seconds like a space station operator.
Ten—
‘When you kissed me I didn’t know what to think,’ Zhengxi starts.
Nine—
‘’cause it’s always been easy between us. We’ve been close.’
Eight—
‘Closer than guys normally are, right? And it’s like I should’ve seen it. That we aren’t—we weren’t—you know. It wasn’t typical.’
Seven—
‘And after you kissed me it was… I thought back to how we were and wondered if maybe I’d led you on. Made you think that it was how I felt too.’
Six—
‘And then I looked back at myself. How I got jealous when people were around you. Talked about you.’
Five—
‘And it was just looking out for you, I thought. Protecting you. Making sure you were okay. You know—we were just friends.’
Four—
‘And I realised I couldn’t explain what I was doing anymore, or act like we were just friends, or make out like it wasn’t because I liked you.’
Three—
‘And I know I pushed you away but I think—I wonder—did I do that because I thought what you felt wasn’t real? Because I was scared of what someone could say about it?’
Two—
‘How it could go around school and how much shit we’d get because of it. How fucked up things would get for me for being in love with my best friend who was just—curious and messed about anyway.’
One—
‘Who didn’t see what he did with me as real when that was all I wanted and—’
Boom.
Jian Yi’s feet are moving before he can help himself, the evening at Zhengxi’s apartment rewriting itself, but this time there is no Zixi and there’s nowhere to go. Zhengxi snatches at his arm before he can run out the bedroom door—don’t you dare run from me, Jian Yi, not again—panicked eyes and startled breaths—
And the kiss terrifies them because it is real. Because neither of them know who moves first—where the end or the beginning of it is, who’s going to take responsibility for this. Because Jian Yi gets a vision full of blue irises and blown pupils once he stops hiding his face, lets himself look, and Zhengxi is closer than he’s ever willingly been.
It terrifies Jian Yi because he can taste a confirmation on Zhengxi’s lips like his sins have been absolved, and because it’s hot and messy while they’re unused to navigating each other’s uncharted mouths.
Because Jian Yi has imagined this a thousand times in a hundred thousand different ways, and none of them are this sweet, and none ever were carried with the realisation that Zhengxi wanted this too.
He’s too aware of their breathing when they break apart, the shadowed quiet flooded with fervent, heated breaths.
Unbidden, Jian Yi thinks, I know what his tastes like.
They stand there, staring at each other, like they’re waiting. Jian Yi can hear his heartbeat.
For once, he doesn’t know what to say. Nothing will come. He knows he’s erratic, that his mouth can run a mile a minute if he needs it to—if he’s nervous, excited, driven wilful by enthusiasm. If Zhengxi’s heavy looks are sometimes too much to bear. But now—there’s nothing.
‘I’m dreaming,’ he mutters eventually, hands running fitfully through his hair. ‘I’m—I’m still in the warehouse, right? It’s the chemicals. Hallucinations. That’s what this is.’
Zhengxi’s laughter is a huff of breath, a token offering of fond amusement.
His lips are reddened. His hair, still damp from the shower, is mussed. It’s like he’s been marked.
‘Hope not,’ says Zhengxi. ‘This needs to be real.’ His look turns serious. ‘This is real, right? You wanted this.’
Jian Yi says, ‘You actually doubted it? You thought how I felt about you wasn’t obvious?’
Zhengxi’s lips twitch. Jian Yi wants to kiss them again. ‘It never hurts to be sure.’