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Even from the occasional glance toward the monitor mounted on the wall, Bai Yi could tell the boy was all sharpened softness tonight. A black swan’s feather-touch. Nothing but clean lines and syrup-drowned melodies saturated with the sweat only a select few knew of behind closed doors. He’d always performed like that, Bai Yi noted noncommittally. Always pierced through air like he was sending a cry to the universe. Always moved through space with the force of a hummingbird’s wings.
When he’d first signed up for the job, Bai Yi hadn’t been a big fan of all the idol business. At best, he’d bopped his head a few times to some Uniq, maybe some Girls Generation. Maybe heard some Shinee at a party. But cash was cash, and although Bai Yi was not strapped for it, Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu’s not so subtle jibes at him to get out of his house and back onto his feet was enough to land his ass in a limo to drive some pretty boy around.
Zhao Xie’er had been a tornado.
He worked to death, for one.
The first time Bai Yi had seen him in action, he’d been ready for some kind of ballad shit. God knew the boy had the kind of face for it, all soulful and sweet when he wasn’t being glacial and shooting Bai Yi little side-glances when he thought he wasn’t looking. But no. Xie’er had sung not a ballad, but an original composition. Some kind of fusion between electronic dance music and R&B. It wasn’t unpleasant. Not at all. He danced well, too, limbs in all the right places, always to the beat.
When they weren’t in beat, Bai Yi always thought the boy would have slapped himself if he weren’t always under the eye of so many evaluators, what with their pretentious clipboards and bespectacled hawk-gazes. During those rare, off periods, the boy would stomp up to the vehicle and, when he got out, slam the car door with extra force. Bai Yi always kept his mouth shut. It seemed to be the only outlet for his frustration, and Bai Yi himself had smashed a good window or two in his college days.
Preparing for the bigger concerts was always when things got more than exhausting, Xie’er’s team buzzing around like flies while Xie’er practiced and practiced and practiced, temper waxing and waning from snatches of barbed conversation Bai Yi overheard at the front of the car. It was always either Xie’er promising he would work harder, or getting something settled. Always this or that or sometimes, nothing at all.
Most of the time, actually. Most of the time the boy just laid his head back with his eyes toward the roof of the limo, all unearthly presence as if he were letting the galaxy distill itself to nothingness within him.
Soon enough, Bai Yi got used to driving Xie’er home from the rehearsal studio at odd hours, faint night lights drifting over the boy’s blank face as he leaned against the window, earphones in and lips parting every so often to mouth a syllable, obviously still running some kind of routine in his head. When Bai Yi stopped for gas, the boy always rejected his offer to get him a snack.
He’d tried tossing a bag of chips at him once. That hadn’t gone down too well.
Subsequent trips ended up with him getting apples and all of that low-fat, low-carb stuff instead, which got the boy eating quietly in the backseat, as though wary of letting Bai Yi know he was, in fact, eating like he was supposed to.
Times like those made Bai Yi turn up the radio. Drown out the white noise and quiet chewing. He’d hum, if he felt the need for it.
Times like those, the boy’s eyes would meet his in the overhead mirror. Not quite grateful. Just observant. Like a cat with cut claws.
“You alright back there?” Bai Yi had asked once, when the silence got too unnerving.
The boy hadn’t said anything at first, and that had gotten Bai Yi thinking that maybe there was some kind of professional line he’d crossed. But then Xie’er had sagged against the door and pulled his cap off, letting him see the fatigue on his face. “Just tired. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“Well.” Because what could he have said to that? “Take it easy.”
The boy had shut his eyes then. He had those long eyelashes that swept against cheekbones, the kind teens went nuts over. Exactly how old was the boy, anyway?
“Eyes on the road.”
He certainly sounded older than he looked. But unsure, too, as though everything coming out of his mouth that wasn’t lyrics had some kind of minefield attached.
Poor kid.
Bai Yi sat up straighter during his performances even as they began to blur together, one cityscape after another. He figured he’d be a dick not to for all the grief he’d seen the boy go through. He made it a point to always be there in the waiting room, physically and mentally, whenever the boy returned coated with stardust and adrenalin from the realm of bright, daunting little lights.
Xie’er never seemed to mind his presence. Gradually, they struck a sort of chord. Built their own form of communication through awkward reassurances and half-hearted replies. The occasional mutual, ironic distaste for the business they had gotten themselves in seemed to be the only thing they had in common.
It was enough to tide their interactions over, scarce as they were.
They’d been touring in Southeast Asia, driving from Malaysia to Singapore and then taking a plane to Thailand. It wasn’t just the mindless transporting that got to him. Car rental was a bitch especially if you were a foreigner, and Bai Yi definitely fell on the illiterate side of the spectrum of multilingual capabilities. He’d been tempted to just tell the company to call an Uber for Xie’er and fuck off into a motel somewhere for a good nap. But his contract was a binding one, and a bone-deep weariness now settled uncomfortably in his tailbone whenever Bai Yi drove, the grooves of leathered steering wheels practically a second palm print.
When he awoke to lingering screams and cheers reverberating around the vast stadium through to the walls of the dressing room, Xie’er was already seated in front of the mirror, rouge-kissed eyes shut as the make-up girl whizzed a cotton bud around his face.
Bai Yi stretched, shoulder joint popping. “Done already?”
“I didn’t do the encore,” came the reply. The boy looked sullen. Vacant. It was easy to imagine why anyone would prefer to see him back up on stage, all beatific smiles and wine eyes.
Bai Yi personally preferred it when the boy returned to himself. It humanised him.
“So what? The tape’ll be all over the Internet.”
“So will the complaints.”
“You’re exhausted. Your fans will understand.” Bai Yi wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but what kinds of fans wouldn’t be empathetic?
He wasn’t trying to feed bullshit to the kid. He just needed a little morale boosting.
He was needing it more and more these days.
“Will they?” Xie’er murmured. The make-up girl drifted away.
“‘Course. And even if they don’t, you’ll do something cool later on to make up for it.”
The boy let out a little huff, turning away as though he weren’t sitting in front of a gigantic mirror that reflected the crinkle of his eyes and the upturn of his lips. “Any suggestions?”
“Wear a beanie. Do a kick-flip.” Bai Yi shrugged. He did a little gesture he’d seen teens do on the train once. “Maybe do a little ‘woah’. Take it easy.”
Xie’er’s laugh, no matter how reluctant, was rare, he decided. It did things. It made him want to wrap him up in the steam of a warm drink, made him want to give the boy a safe space to run to besides the wings.
“Yes. That’ll satisfy the press, I think.”
“Damn right.”
The silences were always prolonged in the time taken for Xie’er to come off his high and recollect himself. In a minute, his face would harden into something more self-serious and authoritative. He would swipe through his phone, sip some water, no doubt combing through his itinerary for the next day. Then they’d head through a hidden passageway to the lobby, where Bai Yi would get the car while Xie’er was swallowed up by more fans, more cameras, smile firmly in place.
Nights when the fans strained against the barriers and the clamour reached the high heavens, Bai Yi would honk the horn extra loud, see Xie’er’s head whip in his direction and ground himself as he made his way over with hurried steps, waving, waving, waving until at long last, the fans disappeared from view. Only then did Bai Yi hand him pre-bought sandwiches, the cheesy kind with stringy lettuce that Xie’er deemed acceptable.
He no longer had to turn up the radio as the boy ate. Xie’er crumpled the wrapper satisfyingly when he was done, cheeks stuffed with bread.
“Good?”
“S’alright.”
Brat.
The tour drew to a close in Bangkok.
In the airport, Xie’er barely made it through customs before collapsing like a deadweight against Bai Yi’s side in the airplane. The boy slept like a log, and Bai Yi made it a point to finish his champagne for him.
Having already watched what seemed to have been hundreds of cityscapes melting into single oceanic hazes from up in the clouds, Bai Yi paid no attention to the sky outside the little window. Instead, he wondered, as he had begun to do so on what must have been their fifth or sixth trip together, whether he was just as much of a constant to Xie’er as he was to Bai Yi.
Sometimes, he had to reel in the absurdly lonely sentiment before it got too much to bear.
A week after the tour, before Bai Yi could fully cleanse his mind of camera shutters and incorrigible traffic, he heard the churning of excitable news at the company. Xie’er’s already meteoric popularity had skyrocketed, seemingly overnight, as countless footage of his performances across Asia had taken the net by storm, zealous fans posting and re-posting and pushing Xie’er further into the global media spotlight.
Bai Yi could barely register the magnitude of it all: of what the boy was going to achieve, the name he was going to make for himself. Because another tour was announced. This time, to the West.
Bai Yi’s name was not on the roster.
He’d been posted to be the chauffeur for some other idol kid under the same company.
When he shuffled to the rehearsal room, ignoring the receptionist’s reproachful glare, he’d half-expected Xie’er not to be inside. It was an afternoon, and he knew the boy preferred to dance at night. Xie’er had mentioned it once, not that he had had to given the numerous trips Bai Yi made while the moon was still out. He’d said something enigmatic about solitude. Bai Yi often teased him about being a vampire, but only when there was a kind of fragile levity in the car, when the boy had had a good practice and possessed a humour that got Bai Yi loosening his tongue.
He found himself relieved when the figure warming up in the studio was indeed Xie’er. He must have started working hard already for his next tour. Time was of the essence, after all. The boy spotted him through the mirror, a single brow arching elegantly, eyes dark above his mask. Moving to stop the music, Xie’er opened the door.
“May I help you?” He sounded bemused.
Bai Yi held out the sandwich in his hand. Xie’er took it from him. “Are you my butler now, too?”
Bai Yi had never been good with words. He shoved his hands into his pockets, eyes drifting to the studio space behind Xie’er. “Customary goodbye gift. You’ll have fun in the States. Lots of sandwiches there.”
Xie’er tilted his head. “You’re not coming?”
“No-ope. Got someone else to drive.”
“Oh.” The boy stared at the sandwich in his hand, turning the wrapper over to read the label as though Bai Yi had ever bought him anything else.
“You take care now.”
“Sure.”
Bai Yi lifted his hand up in a wave, already turning his body back in the direction of the elevator that would take him down to the carpark, out of the compound and back to his house, where he would feed his goldfish, pop open a can of beer, and wait in silence for the crack of dawn to splinter its way into his consciousness.
“Will you still be here when I get back?”
Bai Yi glanced over his shoulder. The boy had a furrow between his brows.
He looked a little dazed. Maybe a little lost.
Bai Yi wanted to tell him he’d still be there even when the curtains fell and the arenas dimmed and everyone had packed up and gone home for the day.
Instead, he patted the boy’s head. Once, twice, before retracting his hand and settling back.
“As long as you need me.”
Xie’er seemed satisfied by that. He shut the door. From the elevator, Bai Yi could hear the faint pulsing of music as the boy leapt back into the groove of whatever he was doing.
The next time Bai Yi saw Xie’er, it was on the Weibo his nephew had made him download. The boy was handling some kind of interview, speaking stilted English haltingly but in a charming enough way that got whoever was behind the camera to laugh once or twice. His hair was teased into some ridiculous peak, but there was colour to his cheeks, so he must have been eating well.
The kid Bai Yi chauffeured was pretty pleasant herself. A young girl, infinitely more talkative than Xie’er had ever been, who could hold a mean conversation with Bai Yi about anything under the sun.
But Bai Yi had a soft spot for the other kid, and it wasn't long before the rest of his passengers knew it too.
The month flew past in a flurry. Occasionally, Bai Yi would open his Weibo app for news of Xie’er. The frequent pictures of his dolled-up, edited face would pop up, but Bai Yi was always a little disappointed when he couldn’t find any videos of him where he wasn’t on stage.
Even Wen Kexing picked up on his mood, sympathetic enough to cook him an omelette now and then.
The tour went on for another month. And another. Bai Yi absently wondered if they were keeping him hostage there.
When the company finally called him in the middle of a Saturday night, he was out the door before he could zip up the fly of what he called his professional pants.
The airport traffic was a nightmare, what with all the arrivals and shuttle buses. Navigation was proving to be a bitch, and Bai Yi had been, for once, grateful for the mob of fans smack in the middle of the terminals and giving him a sense of direction.
From there, it was all honking horns and blaring alarms and muffled chatter, and all too suddenly, the boy was sliding into the backseat of his car, padded coat filling the space with the smell of wet snow and dry-cleaning.
Both of them took a good look at each other through the overhead mirror. Xie’er seemed startled, while Bai Yi tried not to begin talking a mile a minute. Instead, he shifted the gear and peeled the car out away from the terminal and the large hoard of fans carrying neon signboards that wavered in the air like anxious fireflies.
“So.” Bai Yi said when they hit a traffic light in the outskirts of the city. “You feeling alright?”
Miraculously, by some stroke of luck, Xie’er didn’t ignore him.
“I’m alright.”
He must’ve been dog tired.
After a while, the boy spoke again.
“Care to spare a detour?”
The 24/7 cafe Xie’er directed him to was dingy, but filled with the heady scent of brewing coffee. Bai Yi bought the drinks and they sat outside, right on the curb. The boy sipped his latte, breath curling in the air in little wisps. Bai Yi chugged his frappe down quick, and spent the remainder of the time watching the kid out of the corner of his eye, properly now that they were side by side. He seemed no different than before, still possessing that same grace and reservation in the way he considered the cars flashing by them on the main road, showing none of the spark of having just returned from an adventure, as though the time he’d spent in the States was just another mark on his calendar of countless different moments lived on foreign soil.
“You cold?”
The boy shook his head, eyes dropping to Bai Yi’s empty cup. He was still nursing his, the barest foam moustache lining his upper lip. “I can pay for another drink, if you want.”
“Hey. I’m supposed to be the adult here.”
The kid snorted at that.
“You did good, by the way.” Bai Yi tossed the cup back and forth between his hands. “The tour, I mean.”
“You watched?”
“Snippets of it. Didn’t know you could speak English.”
“I can’t.” Xie’er paused. “It’s scripted.”
Bai Yi never thought he was capable of laughter so booming before. When he was done, Xie’er was watching him with calm amusement, hands propping his chin and fingers curling against his cheek.
“What did you think of my performances?”
Bai Yi didn’t have to hesitate. He just stated the facts, and the boy’s lips twitched before settling into a pleased crescent.
He seemed to be pondering something still.
It was more silence after that, with no radio to fiddle with or window sill to drum his knuckles on. Bai Yi didn’t mind, not when the boy didn’t seem to either, his face tilted up toward the star-less, pitch black sky and inhaling like he was taking his first, deep breaths after a long time. Bai Yi wondered, not for the first time, if Xie’er had a family at home who was ready to welcome him with open arms and shouts of congratulations for a tour well done.
For now, the boy seemed content to just wallow in the middle of nowhere with him. That had to be good enough.
It eventually got too cold, and Bai Yi ushered him back into the car to defrost.
The ride back to Xie’er’s home took three hours, and the boy slept soundly in the backseat, hoodie scrunched up around his face. When Bai Yi finally pulled up to the apartment complex, he was still asleep. Bai Yi roused him with gentle taps on his knee. Blinking blearily, the boy came to and shifted as he looked out the window and registered the sight of his home.
“Well.” Bai Yi nodded. “Go get some sleep.”
Xie’er blinked at him, the beginnings of a yawn falling out of his mouth with a tired huff. “Yeah. Thank you for the ride.”
Comically, he looked almost confused when Bai Yi opened a compartment and retrieved the sandwich he’d stopped to get on the way back, his face lighting with dim recognition only a few seconds after. He took it, stripped off the wrapper, and bit into it straight away.
“Good?”
Xie’er tilted his head in that peculiar way of his and pretended to consider.
The smile around the bread and cheese was furtive and unbidden, melted away so soon Bai Yi wouldn't have faulted himself for thinking it a hallucination.
He went home full that night.