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Xiao Zhan looks down at his phone screen. There are no new notifications. None that matter, anyway. The last slivers of sunlight are gone past the horizon already, and the remaining orange glow in the distance is quickly dissipating, colours melting into black.
He digs his bare toes into the sand, already used to the cold of the water flowing slowly around them. His shoes are just a few steps away, staying dry and blissfully free of sand on a small patch of trampled down grass. His stylist would kill him otherwise. From a little further away there are the sounds of his team chatting and laughing. They’re always understanding, letting him have these moments by himself when they can, and he appreciates it a lot. Their chattering mixes with the more distant sounds of streets and city life, and wrap around him as they spread out over the lake.
With a sigh he slips his phone back into his pocket and closes his eyes. The minutes of the day are always ticking away, never enough of them for everything he’d like to fit in, yet never too few for them to not be worthwhile. When time runs out as often as it does for Xiao Zhan, it is impossible not to grow used to it. It can run out again and again, rendering the limited unlimited.
There’s a gentle but chilly breeze in the otherwise calm night, and a small shiver goes through him, the coolness of the water finally creeping up into his body. When he finally opens his eyes again the last glow of the sun is finally gone, and it’s the glimmering reflection of the moon that now steals his attention instead. It’s beautiful.
Beautiful, but lonely.
In his pocket, his phone vibrates.
There’s a smile on his lips when he pulls it out and swipes to answer. He pulls his knees up and rests his elbows on them, holding the phone out in front of him. He watches as Yibo’s blurry face appears on the screen, red, blotchy and exhausted. Equally beautiful as the scenery.
“Hi,” Xiao Zhan says. “You made it.” This time his sigh is coloured by relief, soft and content.
“I didn’t, though, did I? Sorry, ge—”
He shakes his head. “Hey, I’m still here.”
“But we said 8. I got delayed.”
“That’s okay, Yibo, it happens. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah— just. I missed you. Has the sun set yet?”
“Yeah, it has.”
“Damn.”
“I took photos. I’ll show you.”
Now it’s Yibo who smiles.
“Send them to me later.”
Xiao Zhan nods, and spreads his toes in the sand again as he watches Yibo on his screen. He wishes Yibo could be more than a tiny, moving image, that he could reach out and touch, twine their fingers together and bump knees. That sitting on the same beach, watching the same sunset together was something the world would allow them.
It doesn’t, so they make do this way. Collect every little moment they can, whenever time does not run out. And sometimes even when it does. Sunsets are fickle and short, and disappear much too fast, but one thing is for sure: there will always be another.
And Xiao Zhan believes, with his whole heart, that one day the sun will rise on a world in which they can watch the play of colours across the sky, hand in hand. But he’s in no rush. For now, he’s happy to share the shades of midnight blue and grey, the pale white of the moon with Yibo.
“You’re back at your hotel?” He asks, and Yibo nods.
“Yeah, just got back. Hang on— let me…”
Xiao Zhan hums in question and watches Yibo disappear from the picture. For a while all he can see is white, unassuming hotel room ceiling as the phone seems to be moved around.
“I’m just—”
There’s some clanks, a small screeching noise, a visual of some beige curtains (always, always beige) and then Yibo’s face is back. It’s shrouded in darkness now, a yellow light illuminating it from one side, almost emphasising his round cheeks as he smiles.
“I found the balcony,” he says. “It’s all dark here too, though. Just city lights. Look,”
The camera turns again, there’s a glimpse of a metal railing, some other reflective surface and then— lights. Blurry and bleeding into the deep black around them, but he can see them. They do not look much different to what he can see reflected in the surface of the lake in front of himself. They’re a little like sunsets, that way. So similar, in a way that connects. Just— they never disappear. Maybe that’s why Xiao Zhan likes them less. They’re too easy to take for granted.
“Pretty, but your face is prettier,” he says, and Yibo huffs in amusement.
“You always say these things when I look like a wreck,” he mutters, but the hint worked because he turns the camera back to himself again. The angle has changed a little, and now the lights from inside make his eyes shine. There’s a dark spot on his nose, probably a pimple. He’s still smiling.
“Can you blame me for liking when you look like you do at home? Soft, cosy— pretty.”
Yibo’s smile falters a bit, then he sucks in his upper lip in that way that makes his mouth become a long, straight line.
“Next month,” he says eventually.
“Next month,” Xiao Zhan repeats, smiling softly.
He can hear Yibo sigh, and then the camera moves again, blurry, quick reflections of glass and metal moving across his phone screen and shuffling noises filling his ears. This time when Yibo returns into the picture, he’s at yet another angle. From this one the light makes his face look more angular, sharp. But equally gorgeous.
“Sorry, I wanted to sit down— Oh, when do you need to be up tomorrow? Shouldn’t you—”
“I still have some time, Yibo,” he laughs. “We can stay a little longer.”
Yibo gnaws on his lip.
“Okay.”
For a moment, Xiao Zhan just watches him. He is pretty, and Xiao Zhan could spend forever watching him. Loving him. He’s also alive and thriving, filled with so much determination and light that Xiao Zhan gets to soak in. Sunsets end— they disappear only to return again another day for another chance. But Yibo— he stays, so even in the darkest of nights, separated by miles and miles of distance and hundreds of appointments, even all by himself on an empty beach in a faraway city — Xiao Zhan is not alone.
The silence stretches on, and he knows Yibo is watching him just the same. He watches Yibo’s eyes move as they wander around his phone screen, watches the way the light of it is reflected on his face.
There’s a deep seated ache, longing, inside him, but it’s a familiar feeling. It’s part of him, part of them.
His toes are getting numb in the cold water, but he can’t bring himself to move. Because time doesn’t have to run out for just a little longer.
“Mum said she sent you some more medicine,” he says eventually, breaking the silence and scrunching his nose at the ache in his legs. “Did you get that yet?”
Yibo nods.
“There was some stuff for you too, I’ll bring it home.”
“Next month?”
“Next month.”
His toes may be cold, but his heart is warm.