Chapter Text
‘Let’s stop a second,’ He Tian says.
They stop.
Guan Shan pulls his hand from He Tian’s back pocket, stands still and silent as He Tian perches on the ledge of a shop window front. Signs glow neon around them, muted in the early autumn chill. There’s a glimmer of pink dawn beyond, stars shining frail and pallid above. The city will be rising around them soon, but for now it’s them.
Just the two of them.
He Tian’s hair is mussed. He put his glasses on after they fucked, contacts left in the bathroom. They make him seem older, more serious, heavy brows and dark eyes framed by neat rims. Guan Shan is wringing the neck of an empty water bottle between his hands, plastic crackling.
There was something different about that night—something slower about the way their hips had joined; something softer about the way He Tian pressed his lips to Guan Shan’s throat; something careful about He Tian’s after-touches when he came behind him in the shower, stood against his back, held him.
‘If you’ve got something to say then say it,’ Guan Shan says. It’s too cold to stop for long. There’s a lump in his throat he can’t explain. He has the same feeling on his skin as when he’d followed She Li from his home and down the street. Months ago, now.
‘Right,’ says He Tian. ‘Sure.’ He lights a cigarette.
‘Spit it,’ says Guan Shan, ‘the fuck out.’
A bloom of cigarette smoke. ‘Tomorrow. I won’t be coming into school.’
‘Is that all?’ Guan Shan snorts. ‘Second day of high school and you’re already skipping. Typical.’
‘Yeah?’ says He Tian. ‘What’s that supposed to mean.’
‘Means that of course you’d get a free pass to skip. You’re… you’re fucking you. I’d get detention and cleaning duty for three weeks.’
He Tian’s lips quirk; Guan Shan’s fist tightens around the bottle. He folds his arms.
He Tian’s giving him a look like he’s waiting, and Guan Shan’s mind is racing to catch up. He isn’t that smart—isn’t that clever. He Tian always leaves too many gaps for him to try to fill.
Guan Shan should be charmed, maybe. It means that He Tian overestimates him, expects more from Guan Shan than he’s able to give. With most, they tend to expect the opposite.
‘You’re not coming into school tomorrow,’ Guan Shan says carefully, watching him. ‘And what about the day after that?’
He Tian looks at the ground where his legs are stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He makes a sound like a sigh, flicks ash onto the tarmac. His shoulders rise—fall.
It happens in a number of seconds. It’s all carefully cultivated, carried out with a sense of grace. Choreographed, almost. Guan Shan watches it happen in a distant sort of haze, like he’s beyond himself—above. Like he’s the pinkish dawn or the pallid stars.
When he realises, he wishes he were that distant. He wishes he were detached. Not standing in front of He Tian with a mess of plastic in his hands and his body shaking like it’s ready to tear itself apart with a nudge.
He says, ‘You’re leaving.’
‘I can’t tell you anything.’
‘But you’re leaving, yeah?’
He Tian runs a hand through his hair, shifts. Resignation runs along his shoulders, curves them rounded and hunched. Guan Shan wants to cry.
‘What,’ Guan Shan says, hates how thick his voice sounds. The scorn, that white-hot fury, is missing. He’s an animal de-fanged; an almost-adult reduced to a child. ‘You lost interest? I bored you already? A couple months. A few fucks. That was fast.’
He Tian’s already shaking his head. He grinds the cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘You don’t understand. It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Guan Shan says. He swallows. ‘When’re you back? Days? Weeks?’
Months?
‘I don’t know,’ says He Tian. ‘It’s not my choice.’
Years.
‘That’s bullshit,’ Guan Shan spits. He stumbles over the rest of it: ‘It’s not my—Are you kidding—That’s bullshit.’
In the silence, He Tian just shrugs. The autumn air is chill; their muted breaths curl out like fog from their mouths. He Tian lights another cigarette, hand in his pocket, the small orange glow like a traffic light of amber warning.
Slow down. You’re going too fast. If you don’t stop now you’ll hit something and ruin—
‘The others,’ Guan Shan says. ‘They know? Was I a fucking afterthought?’
He Tian looks at him through a haze of smoke. It’s a wonder his eyes aren’t red-rimmed and watering. Guan Shan brushes the back of his hand across his face. His mom told him his dad used to cry easy too. A grown man sobbing. Natural reaction. Something from the inside that leaks out when it can’t help itself. A bottle overflowing, spilling on asphalt.
He Tian won’t see it like that. He tastes salt tracks like weakness. But he says nothing as Guan Shan swallows, ignores the stinging, the lump, the building nausea.
‘Zhengxi doesn’t know,’ He Tian says eventually. ‘Jian Yi…’
He leaves it hanging, looks at Guan Shan like he should understand the silence. Like he should know how to figure out what the nothingness means. How can he tell He Tian that they’re not all like him? That he isn’t like him, never has been, doesn’t want to be?
‘I want honesty,’ Guan Shan says. ‘That’s all I want. I want you to tell me what the fuck is going on for once.’
‘I can’t, it’s not—’
‘Just try—’
He Tian pushes to his feet in a blur. ‘It’s not my choice, Guan Shan! It’s not my decision. It’s been made for me. It always has been.’
‘Since when!’ Guan Shan shouts back. ‘Since when the fuck have you ever not done what you wanted? You’re such a fucking liar!’
In a second, someone’s going to slide open their window, lean out one of the balconies above the shop fronts. Shout down to them to be quiet. That people are sleeping. And Guan Shan knows He Tian will stick a middle finger up at them, and Guan Shan will tell them to piss off back to bed and not stick their noses in other people’s business.
Guan Shan imagines it. Sees it so clearly. Because that’s how they worked, the two of them, in their little unit of volatile predictability. Their imperfect duo of anger and bitterness and two broken pieces trying to fit together.
But it was perfect because they could, in the least, ignore that they were imperfect—when they could look at each other and know that neither of them were anything more. Alone, there was a mirror, and a reflection, and a single fragment staring itself in the fucking face. Broken edges and chipped surfaces, scars and bruises all on show. Guan Shan doesn't want to have to look at himself again. He doesn't want that lonely ruin again, amber traffic light ignored. Scarred where he’s hurtled through red at break-neck speed.
He Tian has his hands on Guan Shan’s shoulders. ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ He Tian tells him. He has to stoop slightly to look him in the eyes, and Guan Shan can hardly bear to look back at him. ‘What I wanted was you. That’s all I wanted. I wanted tonight and you, and just that for a thousand nights, alright? You’re the only choice I’ve ever made and I can’t keep it. I don’t get to make my own decisions. People like me—we don’t get that.’
Guan Shan turns his face away. ‘People like—’ He breaks off. Mutters, ‘What the fuck are you—’
‘You know what I’m saying,’ He Tian cuts in. ‘You’ve seen where I live. You’ve seen my brother. What kind of shit he does. You know, Guan Shan. You think you’re not smart, but you see things—’
‘Bullshit—’
‘You saw through me, didn’t you?’ His smile is indescribable, and doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘Always saw everything about me that I wanted to hide.’
‘Because you didn’t try to.’
Guan Shan remembers the last few weeks of middle school. The basketball court outside his apartment block, He Tian’s hot breath on his neck, the heavy weight of him that didn’t hurt. It was grounding. He’d hated it for only three seconds.
‘Because I…’ He Tian steps away, resigned. His hands fall limp to his sides. ‘Because I couldn’t, and because if I wanted to let my barriers down with anyone it was you. I wanted you to know me. And I couldn’t—didn’t have the strength around you. You drove me fucking insane.’
‘You felt weak,’ Guan Shan guesses, sounding hollow. The punches, the throwaway hits in the beginning. How many of those had been because He Tian wanted Guan Shan to see him strong? To know what that strength felt like when it grew bruises on his skin like a bed of violets.
He Tian has his lighter in his hands. It spins, a blur of lighter fluid and the flash of metal. There are no more stars now, and the air is warmer. Guan Shan can hear cars sputtering to life and the electric hum of shop signs and outdoor restaurant generators whirring. It’s better than the silence, he supposes. Better than the static in his head that says this is it. This is as good as it gets. This is all.
‘I should’ve fucking known this was a goodbye.’
‘Guan Shan…’
‘You said I saw things.’ He laughs, a bark of sound. ‘Should’ve seen this. Would’ve saved you the trouble of tonight.’
He Tian’s frowning. ‘It wasn’t a pity fuck.’
‘Sure feels like one now.’
‘Guan Shan—’
‘Is this it then?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘We just… You were gonna walk me home. Clap me on the back. Give me a kiss on the mouth.’
‘What else do you want?’
Another laugh, this one hollower than the last. It almost hurts. Almost feels like the burning graze of a cough, of lungs filled with smoke. It takes an effort to push it out, to revert to the instinct that says he’s not afraid.
He’s terrified.
‘What else?’ Guan Shan echoes. ‘Well, I dunno. A call might be nice. Once in a while.’
‘I can’t. No contact. That’s part of the rules.’
‘The rules. Right, ‘course. You can’t. Sure.’
He Tian rubs his fingertips into his eye sockets, glasses shifting over his face. When he drops them, his eyes are red-rimmed, and his lip has been bitten to swollenness between his teeth. Guan Shan hadn’t even seen.
I didn’t have the strength around you, he’d said. Guan Shan doesn’t remember thinking for a single moment that he was weak. Arrogant, sometimes. Angry in a cold way. Cruel in a stupid, thoughtless way. Ignorant to others. To Guan Shan, often. Didn’t talk enough. Didn’t just say enough. Didn’t let himself be weak enough.
‘And we’ll see each other again?’ Guan Shan says. ‘When you’re back.’
When? he thinks to himself a second later. Too hopeful. Too presumptuous.
‘Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.’
‘No,’ says Guan Shan. ‘That’s not fair. You can’t give me a—a false hope like that. It’s all or nothing. That’s how it’s always been with us. That’s all I want. Don’t leave me hanging.’ He says, ‘Don’t leave me waiting.’
He Tian tries to make himself look cruel. He narrows his eyes, twists his lips into a mockery of a smile. It’s the kind of look he would have given Guan Shan in the beginning, before the interest had been piqued. Before he cared and before Guan Shan mattered. Before the insanity had started to set in. Before he asked for just a moment.
‘We both know,’ he says, wry, ‘that you’ll be waiting whether I tell you to or not.’
‘You’re a cunt,’ Guan Shan tells him.
But there’s barely any anger there—it’s a throwaway insult, bubbles from him almost hysterically. The self-fashioned cruelty in He Tian is false, a fake. It’s not a blessing now that Guan Shan has come to tell the difference.
He would have preferred the whole thing to hurt for real. Would’ve preferred to know that He Tian’s indomitable and invincible and stronger than Guan Shan. To know that only one of them hurts. That only one of them is going to be looking in the mirror and seeing a broken thing. To know that he has a standard by which to set himself against.
He Tian says, ‘Yeah, I know.’
Guan Shan laughs for real this time. What else is he supposed to do? He doesn’t want to be like his dad, sobbing; he doesn’t want to follow in failed footsteps.
He Tian’s wary as Guan Shan slips his hand back into He Tian’s back pocket, and something small and unnameable passes Guan Shan’s lips when He Tian’s arm hooks around his shoulder, heavy and warm and familiar. He smells of his body wash, dark and woodsy, menthol cigarettes on his breath, and Guan Shan breathes in like he can commit the smell to synapses.
He breathes slow, and takes in everything: the sound of their footsteps in the middle of the road, the muted creak of the water bottle, birdsong rising in a waking city, purring telephone wires along the streets. The nervous blink of neon billboards and OPEN signs.
And He Tian’s smile—quiet, slow, regretful—like he’s trying to remember everything too.