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It was raining. I mean, it usually rained, but today it was really raining. Sheets of water falling from the sky, crushing any hopes of moods being uplifted. Usually, there were more poetic things to be said about the miracle of H2O, but today it just wasn’t up to par with its usual grandeur. It just looked dreary. And wet. Really, really wet.
The weather didn’t change around here, but honestly, it could have at least been sunny. Maybe some clouds, but sunny nonetheless.
It rained.
The date was October Sixth, not that it means anything to anyone other than myself and a few select people. The temperature was about average; that is, a touch too cold for my taste and a touch too warm for Chongyun’s; but all in all, nothing was particularly special. It was just a normal day, with normal weather, with normal people.
Chongyun always wanted ice cream when it rained. Something about, “it lowers my body temperature,” though I thought it was just an excuse to go on an indoor date when the sky was grey. In his defense, it worked, because every day it rained we went out for ice cream.
A very, very frequent outing.
It was no different. Nothing was different. The staff was the same, the menu was the same, even the sign on the door declaring the flavor of the week was the exact same. It’s intriguing, really, just how normal everything can be at any given moment. Until normal is ripped away and left with a giant gaping hole of nothingness.
Chongyun ordered Blue Moon ice cream. He always did. I got blueberry; just like I always did.
The table by the window was empty. Just like it always was. We found a home there, and I remember in detail how the conversation went. It had started on the car ride over, but it continued under the roof of the shop we visited so frequently.
“I’m still not sure about it, Xing. I mean, it sounds nice and all, but really? A puppy? It would be so messy, and we’d have to train it…”
“You forget the power of the mind. As long as we give it food and water, a proper place to sleep, and make sure it learns where to go to the bathroom, it’ll be fine.”
Chongyun sighed and engulfed another bite of Blue Moon. We’d been back and forth on the topic of a dog so often, it was almost routine at this point. Still, neither of us ever backed down, too stubborn to call it quits and give in to the other’s wishes.
“It’s more personal than that, though. It’s not like a book, you can’t just have your fun and move on. You have to stick with it, even when you don’t want to.”
“You make it sound like we’re adopting a kid,” I commented, and the blush on his cheeks was immediate. He gulped another few spoonfuls of his ice cream before responding with red ears.
“It’s not that far from it.”
“Is that why you’re against it? Because we’ve only been dating a few months?”
Sucking his top lip in, Chongyun let his gaze drop. “It’s not like that, Xing. You know it’s not like that. I’m just worried, is all. We’re both busy, and it’d be a lot of responsibility.”
“ You are a lot of responsibility,” I chided, and he forced his lips closed over the smile that broke out on his face. I reached across the table and flicked his forehead before leaning back and slowly melting my own spoon of ice cream. “There’s no rush, it can wait another month or so.”
We both fell into silence before one of us could start laughing. It was always a joke, to us, how much time we had. Another day, another week; it could wait. It could always wait.
I should have told him I was getting the dog with or without him, seeing as I had every intention of doing so.
It was still raining after we’d finished our ice creams. We both got in the car, and I remember he vaguely said something about it that made me laugh. He always had that ability. He could always make me laugh, no matter the circumstances.
“Do you know if you’ll be working next Sunday?” I suddenly asked, and Chongyun raised an eyebrow.
“You know I never know until the Friday before. Why? What’s up?”
“Alright, so, you know the author of the Records of Jueyun? Wuyㅡ”
“No.”
“ㅡuan? She’s traveling here next Sunday. She’s doing a book signing event, and I was wondering if you would come with me.” I ignored his comment about not knowing her because it really didn’t matter if he did, I still wanted to be there and I still wanted him to come.
“I’ll have to check with Hu Tao. I’m sure she’ll let me off for a day if I bring her a Monster Assault. She’d live off those things if she could.”
“You should invite her to dinner sometime,” I said, glancing over to see him giving me wide eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s always good to butter up to your boss. I invited Ganyu and Yanfei over for dinner, and now I always have someone to cover for me when I show up late. It’s not a bad thing to make friends, Chongyun.”
He’d made an unhappy sound in the back of his throat. I think we’d passed our favorite park by then, but I couldn’t be sure, as the weather didn’t allow for that kind of visibility.
“It’s not that I’m against friends. It’s… Hu Tao.”
“Oh?” My tone was amused, and he gave me a baleful look. “I’m sure she’s perfectly fine. Even if she is as weird as you say, she’s still human. Bribery has never failed there.”
Despite himself, Chongyun snorted a laugh.
Thinking back with a little more clarity, it was for all intents and purposes his laugh that took my eyes off the road. I knew his eyes would be crinkled up, I knew he’d be desperately trying to keep his lips clamped shut because he hated laughing with his teeth. I knew, in my mind, he would be the very picture of every beautiful thing in life when I saw his face.
They say that a second can kill. Just one snap of the fingers, just one croak of a frog, just one instance where an acorn falls from a tree. It’s a combination of the wind, they say, a butterfly effect that could have started when someone snored in their sleep or whistled in their waking. The rain, an accumulation of evaporated water that re-condensed into clouds, played a part, they said, because all of those little things lead to the bigger thing.
I took my eyes off the road.
And I ran right through the red light.
Ever since I was a small child, people have commented on my poetic nature. “How easily you spin words, Xingqiu! What an amazing speaker you’ll be! What a talented writer! You’ll do so well in school, Xingqiu!” But as for that moment, I really have nothing to say. There aren’t words severe enough in the English language or other that can describe what I felt when the truck impacted the right side of my car.
I suppose it doesn’t matter. The bottom line was that one moment I was looking for Chongyun’s smile, and the next, my head was bleeding and my arm was throbbing with pain and my vision was red.
Even the crash… was normal. Almost every single crash is caused by driver error, and this one was no different. It was textbook. A car running into a busy intersection, getting hit by one or two cars, and causing several casualties.
For months afterward, I would reflect on that. How normal it all was. Everything about it was normal.
Except Chongyun died.
It was my fault, everyone said. My fault we’d crashed, my fault that Chongyun was gone. For a long time, it never hurt me, simply because I didn’t register it. I was numb to the world, to their words, to anything they could possibly do or say that could make me guilty. Nothing could hurt me more than my own folly.
It was a while before I spoke. My doctor vehemently blamed it on the hit I’d taken to the head, but I think it’s simply because I had nothing to say. People said it was on purpose, that I was doing it to escape blame and punishment. But I don’t think so. There was no way to get around the fact I’d caused the crash. I couldn’t and wouldn’t blame it on anything or anyone other than myself. I wasn’t drunk, there was nothing to influence my decision. I just wanted to see Chongyun smile, and that was my mistake.
Before I fully got myself put back together, there was a period where I saw him. In my dreams, around my house, even when I went to my doctor. A flash of light blue hair in my peripheral, a closed-lip smile that I could feel on my back, a fleeting image of him lounging on the couch that disappeared when I blinked. When he invaded my sleep, it was always in scenes of death. He was shot, crushed, swallowed by the ground more times than I could count. My doctor gave me medicine to take to sleep, but it never helped, as he always managed to show up and get killed in my unconsciousness.
Many nights, I kept myself awake in any way possible. The amount of coffee I went through during those weeks reached a point where the lady at the register had me rung up before I could even place the drink down.
And then, one day, he just never came back. I waited two weeks for him to appear, for him to taunt me once more in waking or in sleep, and he never showed.
My doctor visits got less frequent. I went back to work, albeit with a greatly reduced workload. I stopped buying coffee, much to the disappointment of the woman behind the counter, Amber, who had taken a liking to my visits.
After that, I didn’t talk about it. If I could just sweep it under the rug, if I could forget about it, everything would go back to normal. Chongyun would be nothing more than a sweet dream ripped away before it could fully play out, and I could wake up and continue with life as if everything was normal.
I still question if that can happen. Maybe with time, I truly will forget. Age will cloud my mind, and I’ll forget the blue-haired man I had hoped to spend my life with. Rain and ice cream and dogs will never spark a sudden pang of longing for the man I loved.
It hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know if it ever will. I hope so.
For now, I distract myself. Hu Tao has become a frequent guest at my home; Ganyu, Yanfei, and even Amber as well. They help patch over the pain, though the scar will forever be there.
Sometimes I like to blame Chongyun. Just inside my head, where no one else can see. It was his fault, I sometimes think with a laugh, his fault for having that beautiful goddamned smile I couldn’t help but be drawn to. It doesn’t bother me to think of it that way since he’s gone. He can’t chide me for the blame, though I suspect he does so from the confines of the afterlife.
Our ongoing joke didn’t elude my attention after his death. Just wait for me, Chongyun. Eventually, the years will dwindle between our reunion. Eventually, it will be mere months that separate us.|
“Hello, is this Xingqiu?”
“Yes it is, what can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about the manuscript you submitted to my agency, Liyue Publishing, the other week. I’m afraid we’ve decided to deny your entry. I wish you the best of luck finding a publisher.”
With a small smile, I swirled my spoon around in my bowl of Blue Moon ice cream. “That’s alright. Thank you for your call.”
The phone line went dead. I set the phone down next to my bowl, then gave up trying to finish the dessert and lowered it to the ground. Beelzebub happily licked it clean, wagging his black tail back and forth, occasionally thwacking my leg.
I put a hand between his ears and gently stroked the fur there. “Don’t worry, Bub. I’ll find a publisher one day.”
As he finished cleaning out the dish, he nudged my hand to see if I had more food. I chuckled softly, scratching him under the chin and looking out of my window, where the rain pounded mercilessly down. One day, someone would publish my book. I just had to wait a couple more months.