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They’re 10 miles deep into dark green forestry and wet dirt before Xukun and Linong get separated from the rest of the group. The air around them stands still with them, distant sounds of chatter from birds and other hiking parties flitting through the leaves, but Xukun and Linong can’t hear their friends’ voices.
“Well, they said we were going to have a stop around this area,” Linong says, pointing at the map. Thank God that Linong gratuitously takes anything that anyone offers him, from pamphlets about dental care to savings coupons that would expire in two days to map guides about the mountain they were hiking with their class. Meanwhile, Xukun barely minded getting lost.
“Dammit,” Xukun mutters. “I shouldn’t have given Ziyi my camera. This place is really beautiful.”
“Hey!” Linong waves the map at Xukun to get his attention. “We have to get going so we can catch up with the rest of the group!”
Xukun looks at Linong with soft, hazy eyes. He really shouldn’t have given Ziyi his camera, because Linong looks too cute, a gentle, panicked expression on his face. He reminds Xukun of cautious rabbits and quivering pink clouds.
He should’ve thought this through more, or Ziyi should’ve convinced Xukun that this isn’t one of his smartest attempts to be fun and witty in order to be alone with someone, because Xukun forgot that Chen Linong is a very single-track-minded person. He zooms in and focuses on one particular detail, wants to do one particular thing, commits himself to one particular task—and that task is not hanging out with Cai Xukun. All Linong wants to do is get to the waterfall.
“What’s the rush? We’re here all day. As long as we meet up at the bus by the end of the day, I don’t think it really matters,” Xukun says, kicking a rock down the hill, listening to the rustling of leaves as it tumbles down.
“Okay, but what if we die? We could slip and fall, and no one would see us again. The school would freak out!” Linong exclaims. There’s a pout on his lips, and the corners of Xukun’s mouth turn up a bit. Linong is practical but sometimes a bit exaggerated. Maybe it’s because he overthinks sometimes.
Like with math problems, he always stares a little too hard at the board and pouts, concentrating. If it’s not that face, then it’s the face where he just stares blankly with his mouth wide open. Flies could fly in and make a home on Linong’s tongue if the question was difficult enough. Linong’s problem is that he craves friends and social circles too much. Every time Xukun sees him in the hallways at school, Linong is talking to Zhangjing. When Linong is at lunch, he sits with Yanjun. When school is over, Linong walks home with Kaihao (despite the fact that Kaihao had graduated some years ago and is in college, but apparently, they’re still very close friends). It’s a schedule. Linong has a schedule of friends. Xukun fits into that schedule too—a 5-minute period that’s spread out throughout the day where the two of them will pass each other and say hello.
“You don’t even have classes with him in the same building,” Ziyi mentions one day, and Xukun laughs it off—tells Ziyi that he’s just being friendly to their newly-transferred Taiwanese student, but it’s been six months since Linong actually transferred, so Ziyi doesn’t buy it. Xukun had followed up with, “He’s cute.”
Linong is three steps up the stairs when he calls to Xukun: “Are you coming or not?”
Xukun shoulders his backpack and follows behind him, racing up the rocky stairs to catch up. Between the two of them, Xukun doesn’t actually know much about Linong. He knows who Linong’s friend group is, and the only mutual friend they have is Ziyi (but to be fair, Ziyi is friends with pretty much everyone); his schedule, when he eats and how much he eats (Linong could rival You Zhangjing as the foodie, always keeping snacks around and sneaking them into class); his habits, the way he tilts his head and scratches it when he can’t figure something out or the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. Xukun knows details about Linong, but he can’t really seem to understand the whole being that is Chen Linong.
“You’re quieter than I expected,” Linong says, his words cutting through the silence and the gentle moan of the mountain’s breath, whining at all the people climbing up its head.
A bird flies out of the trees, gliding across the wind before it disappears into the sunlight beyond the dark foliage. “Did you think I was talkative or something?” Xukun asks, watching the sway of Linong’s shoulders from the back.
“Well, you’re always kind of loud when you’re with Justin and Chengcheng.” Linong puts his hand on the rocks, fingertips brushing against the cool, rough surface, still damp with morning dew. “You hang out with popular kids, I guess, and they’re usually loud, so… I guess I thought so by association.”
That’s true. Justin and Chengcheng are pretty loud, and both pretty popular. Justin, the heartthrob of the underclassmen, always trying out new pickup lines on freshmen girls. He always wears his jacket open and untucks part of his shirt, and he likes to keep his hair a styled-tussled mess. Something boyishly charming and endearing; meanwhile, Chengcheng is something between an untouchable model and an unrivaled joke, known for weird faces he’d make behind a teacher’s back but also for the fierce gaze he could give someone from across the room. Xukun fits among them, loud and boisterous, making jokes and pulling pranks. They once put ice cubes down Zhengting’s shirt to watch him scream, and all three boys howled with laughter, bodies bent over each other, slapping backs and knees in mirthful, boyish joy. Linong had chuckled only a little bit at the prank.
“I’m friends with other people who aren’t loud too, you know,” Xukun retaliates firelessly.
“Like who? Ziyi? He’s friends with everyone, so that doesn’t count.”
“Well… I’m friends with Haohao.”
“Qian Zhenghao?” Linong pauses for a moment, recalling memories of Zhenghao to complete his assessment of quiet or not quiet. “He’s not that quiet either. He’s just small.”
Small like a koala, clinging to Xukun and Zhengting all the time. Justin and Chengcheng had once made a joke that Zhenghao was their love child, and Zhengting tried to fight with Xukun about who was the mother and who was the father.
The rocks and dirt crunch beneath their feet as they continue their ascent, the air becoming drier and less muggy now that the sun was rising and drying up the dew. It’s a beautiful day for wood-scented, mist-cloying air. The sun peaks through the trees, gracing the stone steps up the mountain like it’s lighting their way to the rest of the group and the waterfall.
“I think Zhenghao has a crush on you,” Linong says randomly. It seems like he doesn’t like when there’s silence between the two of them, but Xukun’s okay with any kind of conversation with Linong.
“What makes you think that?” he asks, but he doesn’t need to. Zhenghao is a clingy little thing, mooching off Xukun’s leftover foods and always asking to sit in his lap before homeroom, but Xukun has never thought of Zhenghao as more than just a younger brother.
“It’s just… obvious.”
“Obvious in what way?”
“Obvious in the way you’re always passing up dates with girls to hang out Ziyi.” The comment is so abrupt and accurate. Linong turns around, walking backwards to talk face-to-face with Xukun.
Xukun snorts. “Okay, but that’s not really a secret. Crushes should be a secret. Me hanging out with Ziyi isn’t a secret. We’re best friends.”
“Do you have a secret crush?”
The question throws Xukun off, and he misses the stone step by a fraction of a centimeter. His toe of his shoe hits the jagged edge of the step, and he’s sent tumbling forward. In the split second that Xukun’s nose is about to break on the stone step, Linong’s hands stop his descent, palms pressed to Xukun’s chest as he helps him back up to his feet.
“Shit, are you okay?” he asks.
Out of shock, Xukun laughs, but he’s not sure if he’s shocked because he nearly fell or because he’s never heard Chen Linong, homeroom leader and lead singer of the choir, curse.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, looking up at Linong.
Linong is tall. He’s a couple years younger than Xukun, but he’s slightly taller. Xukun grips Linong’s upper arms to give him support to stand up, and he feels muscle under there. Xukun imagines what kinds of hobbies Linong has. Does he work out at the gym a lot? Does he play soccer? Is he a video game person? Does he like dancing as much as singing? Questions race through Xukun’s mind, wondering if they have the same hobbies, wondering if he could potentially ask Linong over to his house and bond over whatever activities they like to do.
“Come on, let’s go. We should be close to the stop area soon,” Linong says, grabbing Xukun’s hand and pulling him up the stairs.
Xukun’s fingers wrap tightly around Linong’s matching him step for step as they continue their climb. Ziyi has once mentioned that Linong’s hands are really pretty. He has long fingers and a slender palm, but they’re also surprisingly rough. Not rough like sandpaper, but rough in a way where Linong has probably scraped his palm against concrete sidewalks in his early childhood constantly. Holding Linong’s hand now, Xukun only feels the clammy sweatiness of his own palm against Linong’s, but true to Ziyi’s testament, Linong’s hands are a little rough.
By the time they reach the rest stop, there’s no one there. There’s not even tourists. The only mark that someone has been there is a dirt drawing of a chubby-cheeked squirrel that says, “You Zhangjing, king of stuffing his face.” The latter part of the writing had been scrubbed away, but Linong and Xukun both know what had originally been written.
“Well… I guess we should rest for a bit,” Linong says, taking a seat on the rocks stacked up to make a makeshift, natural wall.
Xukun takes a seat next to Linong, arms resting on his legs. Linong sits back and takes a long swig of his water, gulping loudly before he offers some to Xukun, cheeks bulging with water. Xukun smiles and chuckles before accepting the water.
“Hey, are the rumors about you true?” Xukun suddenly asks.
It’s not often that a star pupil like Linong gets rumors, but Linong isn’t that much of a star pupil. A star pupil is more like Zhu Zhengting, also a homeroom leader but also part of the dance team, first place in his class, and diligently scolds his friends (especially Justin) about their uniform codes. Linong is more like an above average student, but definitely still very average—but he was also known for being cute and sweet and innocent, but a recent rumor had gone around saying otherwise.
Linong swallows the water in his mouth, and Xukun grimaces at how painful it sounds.
“Which one? There are quite a few,” Linong says. His voice is low, eyes downcast, feet shuffling around some leaves that had fallen from the trees.
“I was just… wondering in general,” Xukun murmurs, leaning forward and trying to find Linong’s eyes. Did his eyes look sad? Did they look angry? Did he crease his brows like he did when he was confused or frustrated?
“The one… about me and Kaihao is wrong. I don’t… we’re not a thing. I don’t like him like that, and he’s… he’s in college, so it doesn’t even make sense,” Linong says. His voice sounds pained and angry, like someone had just ruined his favorite pair of sneakers.
“Good,” Xukun says. “You’re too good for him anyways.”
Linong looks up at Xukun, brows furrowed, definitely offended and confused. “What?”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Xukun immediately says. “I mean… like… You should go for someone your age anyways. Besides, I don’t think Kaihao is gay.”
“Did you think I was gay?” Linong asks, eyebrows cocked.
Oh… That’s a good point. Ever since Xukun had come out of the closet and accepted that he was just into hot or cute people, he just assumes that everyone is like him. As far as he knew, everyone he’s friends with are on some spectrum of queer. He has never stopped to consider Linong’s actual sexuality.
“No. I mean yes—I…” Xukun bites his lip and sits quietly, hands in his lap. A shiver runs up his spine when Linong suddenly laughs, sucking in breath on the intake and laughing on the out take, loud and boyish. “Sorry—” Xukun starts, but Linong shakes his head.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve just never seen you look so panicked before,” Linong says, holding a hand to his stomach. Linong breathes out the last of his chuckles before he takes a sip of his water.
Xukun looks him up and down a couple times before he says, “Well… are you?”
When Linong turns to look at him this time, his eyes are steely, as if he’s locking mental barriers in his mind and trying to formulate the response that Xukun is expecting, but all Xukun wants is the truth. “No,” Linong says. “I’m not gay.”
Xukun purses his lip, not quite disappointed yet, but contemplative of the response. “Are you straight?” Xukun asks, a little hopeful.
Linong inhales, his chest rising beneath his pink sweater and deflating on the exhale, his breath mingling with the lifting fog of the forest. “I don’t know,” Linong finally answers, feet tapping against the dirt ground. “I just… know that there are people I like, but I don’t know if I like them as friends sometimes or like them like… like them like them, you know? Like… I’ve never kissed a guy or a girl, so I don’t… really know if I like one or the other yet.”
“Do you wanna find out?”
Xukun asks the question too fast, and both of them acknowledge that, but neither of them says anything. They just stare at each other for a few seconds with the mountain blowing wind behind them, the distant sound of a waterfall crashing over rocks and waves. Xukun opens his mouth to retract his question, to laugh it off and tell Linong that it was just a joke, but Linong shrugs.
“If you want to?” he says, intonation aiming up. It’s a question. Linong is unsure, but Xukun hasn’t felt confident this entire trip either. The night before, he had whined to Ziyi about whether or not Linong would want to walk with him and worried that Zhangjing would drag Linong too far ahead of the group for Xukun to catch up with. When they got on the bus, Xukun complained about not being sure if he should go through with all but tricking Linong into getting lost with him. Even when Xukun and Linong were walking together, Xukun didn’t know how to keep the conversation apart from talking about people they knew.
But right now… it’s them. It’s just Xukun and Linong, two boys lost in the woods of a mountain listening to their youthfully innocent conversation. The trees shake in anticipation as Xukun nods his head, hand resting on the rocky ledge of their makeshift seat. Linong’s mouth is slightly parted, and he looks at Xukun like he’s a math problem—difficult to figure out and confusing in general. Xukun imagines pressing a coin into his mouth, like the singing fish found in American diners or something. And then he imagines pressing his own finger into Linong’s mouth, wondering if an innocent boy like him would know to close his mouth around the digit and press his tongue against the pad of Xukun’s finger.
The thought trails off when Linong smiles at Xukun, radiant. Xukun leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to Linong’s mouth, purely lip-to-lip. It’s a dry kiss, the kind of kiss that three-year-old children give each other because their parents ask them to and then coo about. Linong’s lips are more chapped than Xukun expects, and he wonders if Linong forgot to bring his lip balm. They pull away for a moment, and Xukun’s glad he’s leaning against the stone wall or he might collapse from shaking. The moment ends too quickly, and Xukun panics. He didn’t spend two weeks anticipating today and planning to get Linong along to have a kiss that lasted two seconds.
Xukun’s hand comes up and cups the side of Linong’s neck. Tilting his head, Xukun presses another kiss to Linong’s lips, firmer and more confident. Xukun had practiced how to kiss with Zhengting at Justin’s house. Justin’s parents had been out of town, and the four of them—Xukun, Zhengting, Justin, and Chengcheng—had snuck some of the alcohol. Zhengting, red-faced and giggly, had situated himself in Xukun’s lap and stuck his tongue down his throat. Xukun didn’t know that such a model student knew how to be so sexually aggressive, but he was proven wrong that night when Zhengting led Xukun upstairs with playful giggles.
Linong wasn’t aggressive. He gets the hint when Xukun tilts his head and follows suit. He matches Xukun in eagerness before Xukun’s hands find Linong’s waist and pulls him closer. Confused for a moment, Linong pulls away, but Xukun leans forward again only to catch Linong’s jaw. Xukun manages to shuffle Linong somewhat into his lap as he slides his lips down his jawline, pressing a kiss to his Adam’s apple before bringing him in for another kiss.
Linong gasps when Xukun squeezes his hips, and Xukun takes the opportunity to press his tongue against Linong’s teeth. There’s a moment where Xukun feels Linong scrunch his eyes closed, but he relaxes, the tip of his own tongue tentatively against Xukun’s like a curious snake. Xukun chuckles into his mouth and grabs Linong’s arms, forcing them to rest on Xukun’s shoulders. Almost on instinct, Linong presses closer into Xukun’s embrace.
The air between them is static and silent when they pull apart, staring at each other with flushed cheeks and wide eyes. Part of Xukun wishes they didn’t have to rejoin their group, but the other part of him can’t wait to tell Ziyi about his misadventures with Linong. Linong slides off of Xukun’s lap and fixes his sweater, wiping off Xukun’s saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand before he starts scrutinizing the map again.
“We should get going,” he says, as if they had just talked about their favorite TV series for half an hour and were suddenly late to an unimportant class.
Xukun frowns, a bit surprised. He wants to ask Linong how the kiss was, wants to ask him if he felt anything. He has so many questions that he had never asked Zhengting—the only other person he had been this intimate with—even the morning after they had laid in bed together a whole night, skin-to-skin. Xukun opens his mouth to ask his questions, but Linong is already walking away, following the sounds of laughter and birdsongs of lost and unflowered loves. There's bitterness on Xukun's tongue, resting just on the back near his throat. Initially, he wasn't that interested. That's what he told Ziyi. He told Ziyi that he wasn't interested in Linong, didn't care about his stupid, cute smiles and the way that he bounced around from classroom to classroom every morning just to say hi to all of his friends. When Xukun sees Ziyi later today, he'll tell Ziyi that nothing interesting happened between him and Linong on the way to the waterfall, and Ziyi will just nod and say nothing, silently acknowledging that something did indeed happen between Xukun and Linong on their field trip but never quite address the issue directly. Later, Zhengting will also run up to Xukun and ask about the details, ask if he managed to figure anything out about Linong and ask about what happened despite the fact that Xukun clearly knows Zhengting isn't asking these questions for pure curiosity; rather, he asks because he wants to hear about Xukun. The reality is that Xukun will have to tell all of them—Justin, Chengcheng, Ziyi, Zhengting, everyone—that nothing happened.
Shouldering his backpack, Xukun follows Linong and the sound of the waterfall’s crashing waves, Xukun's heartbeat lost among the sympathetic rustle of the leaves.