Work Text:
Song Lan was out of the system the day he came of age—sometime during the spring of that year anyway since all he held on to was an estimation of his age.
The earliest memories he had were following the music and colours of a marching band through crowds and crowds of people one sunny morning in spring, then being surrounded by uniformed men asking him questions while all he could do amidst his sobs and tongue-tied mumbles was to raise three fingers to offer the only answer he could muster.
From there started a lifetime of waiting.
Hours became days, then weeks, then months, then years. What was supposed to be a temporary shelter became an unintended home, and before he realised it, waiting for a family to claim their lost child turned into waiting for any family to want him.
It never came.
With hopes dashed early in his teenage years, Song Lan was done waiting by the time he aged out. On the day he left the system, he boarded a bus bound for the city with all his belongings packed in a single duffel bag, away from the orphanage and the mountainside community with every intention to build his life anew, with the stability he never felt he truly had.
The knowledge that he was luckier than most others simply for the fact that he made it out of the system in one piece was not lost on him. Growing up, there were a lot of hearsays and whispers about squalid living conditions in many orphanages and foster homes, and even some of the children who were adopted ended up neglected, in contrast to what every kid like them thought about what life would be like with a family that chose them out of many.
Yet, such knowledge was not enough to rein in the bitterness that silently accumulated in his heart over the years with no one to blame but his three-year-old self. Aggravated by the struggles of surviving in the city and the swarm of people at every turn that never failed to trigger a fear that gnawed at him, it was only a matter of time before he was throwing up bile as though his body wanted to expel all resentment and he was dreaming of the mountains again.
And to the embrace of mountains he returned.
In the few years he was gone, the orphanage and the surrounding community changed, but the mountains remained and would always remain, a stable anchor to hold on to when everything else was falling apart.
★
Life at the orphanage meant growing up without really having anything to his name. Except for the few hand-me-downs and supplies for personal hygiene and school, everything else was communal property. Showing up with a new toy or treats that were not enough for everyone would cause a fight among the kids, so Song Lan learned early on to hide the things given to him if he wanted to keep them for himself. Guilt ate away at him quickly, thus he did not do it often and for long, and eventually, he just shared whatever he received with the other children.
Except for one thing.
Song Lan received a small token from his teacher for excelling in class in first grade. It was a toy wristwatch with a yellow star with rounded edges as the cover, which you had to open to see the time on the simple digital watch face. The material was cheap plastic with a slightly rough finish but it was beautiful. After all, it was something Song Lan earned and could keep for himself. Something that was truly his.
Something he could keep a secret without feeling selfish or guilty.
He never wore it after the first time—when it was awarded to him. A pouch made of a pairless sock and an old shoelace served as its home, hidden away in his pocket or backpack, or under his mattress when he couldn’t bring it with him. When he was alone or feeling down, he would take it out, staring at its bright colour and touching it with dry, clean hands, careful not to damage it.
It felt like a friend who was always there when he needed them, who understood him without him having to utter a word.
It was with him when he broke down when he was nine—sometime after his ninth spring—the dam bursting after years of watching other kids get adopted. They left the home one by one, happy tears rolling down their faces as they waved goodbyes to be with their new families that had chosen them and wanted them.
No one wanted Song Lan, not the family who lost him nor the numerous couples who visited the home.
No one wanted Song Lan except for his toy watch.
There was an old tree along an abandoned trail up the mountains with huge roots forming a cavernous space where kids even as tall as he could get into without having to crawl. He found it by accident in one of his earlier escapes to the mountain, and it easily became his favourite hiding spot and a refuge.
The day another friend left the home, Song Lan ran and hid there before letting himself cry, pressing the bright surface of his toy watch to his cheeks, one of the rare times he let it get wet. He wanted to hug something—someone—but all he got was the watch and his backpack, and so he sat on his heels under the tree, hugging his only possession in the world for comfort.
Consumed by a jumble of emotions he could only express in tears, Song Lan did not notice the boy who was running towards the same spot until a foreign hitched breath pierced through the sounds of his own. Rubbing his eyes and looking up, he saw a small, tear-stained face of a boy a few steps away from him. They paused for a moment when their eyes met, at a loss for words and knowing what to do except to stare at each other. The boy’s breath hitched again, unable to contain his sobs any longer, and turned away from Song Lan to hug his knees.
Song Lan could only answer by continuing his own sobs, quickly getting lost in them. He didn’t know when they turned into wails; he just knew he was making loud sounds he felt he had no control over. But it felt good, as though wailing was helping him unload the heaviness in his chest.
Forgetting about how he could be heard by rangers or hikers that might pass by the old trail or about the other boy crying a short distance away from him under the tree, Song Lan let himself wallow in sadness for once, abandoning the stoic facade he had to wear in front of people all the time to make himself feel strong, feel normal.
Then, there was a pair of small, warm hands touching his cheeks. His breath caught only for a split second before he was crying again, wanting to stop but unable to do so at once. He felt the fingers gently wipe his tears away. It took him a while to calm down even a little, but the hands never left, never wavered, never urged him to stop. On his wet cheeks, they were waiting patiently. With breathing slightly laboured, he opened his eyes and saw the same boy from earlier kneeling in front of him, his face still tear-stained, sniffling but smiling at him.
The feeling of warm palms and the sight of a warm smile sent more tears rolling down Song Lan’s cheeks. The boy’s face fell at his response before smiling at him again and leaning in to kiss his tears away.
It was something Song Lan had never experienced before. Something very alien, very unfamiliar, very different.
The gesture sent Song Lan crying again for an entirely different reason. The warmth he felt inside out was all new to him, but it was not unwelcome. He wanted to tell the kid but he could not with his sobs choking him, and he did not have words for it, anyway. The boy’s face fell again, panicking as he tried to wipe and kiss Song Lan’s tears away.
When Song Lan did not—could not—stop, the boy ended up crying with him. In the heartbeat the hands on his cheeks left, he thought he had scared the boy, that he had made someone dislike him again. Then, he felt arms around his neck, cheek against his cheek, and Song Lan fell on his backside on the ground, as though his legs suddenly turned into jelly and gave out. When he hesitatingly put one hand on the boy's back, the boy moved closer and hugged him tighter.
Song Lan dropped his toy watch and backpack, forgotten.
He did not know how long they cried themselves to sleep in each other's arms, but when he came to, his tears had crusted, the boy was asleep against his chest, and it was dark.
The boy woke up when Song Lan tried to clean the dried snot on the boy's face.
The boy’s smile in the dark was bright, like a star at night.
★
Song Lan first went up the mountain on his own when he was six and reached the highest peak without any guide when he was ten. The captain at the base station joked about how Song Lan could come up and down the mountains in a blindfold during his orientation as a rookie ranger. It was an exaggeration; no one could claim to know the mountains like the back of their hands as every mountain was a world of its own, with its vastness and mysteries. Song Lan’s knowledge of the trails, both old and new and unofficial, certainly did help him transition to his new job even when he started a little later than his peers.
During casual patrols alone, Song Lan would sometimes find himself by the old tree along the abandoned trail. The cavernous area beneath the tree became nothing but a crawlspace by the time he reached his teens when he grew to become a head taller than most kids his age. He would still come back to the tree in his youth even when he could no longer stay under the shelter of its trunk comfortably, albeit the frequency dwindled through the years after the boy left the village and Song Lan found out that he was no longer accustomed to the silence and emptiness of the old tree along the abandoned trail.
Outside rescue operations, the Spring Festival season was the busiest and most crowded time of the year. People and sometimes whole families would flock to the mountains to hike and watch the first sunrise of the year on the highest peak, with many of them staying in the surrounding villages through the week-long celebration. Song Lan could still feel suffocation and the fear lightly gnawing at him at the sight of the crowds of people, but the uneven terrain of the mountain always reminded him that he would not get lost as long as the gods of the mountain allowed it.
The old tree along the abandoned trail once again became a place of refuge for him during such times. It was mostly to breathe, but more often than not, he could not help but think about the only other kid who found that spot underneath the tree.
Only now that he was older and things felt less hectic than when he was younger, he could reminisce with a smile, still with a tinge of sadness over the fact that they had lost contact and that Song Lan could no longer recall his name. Granted, the boy did not talk much even when they were always together, too aware of the difference in their accents, but Song Lan remembered the moment he realised he had forgotten it—as though he woke up one day with memories of their moments together playing in his head like an old film he had watched many many years ago, but the name of the other boy was stuck on the tip of his tongue. All he remembered was the boy was the namesake of a star, which was one of the many reasons he gave him his most precious possession as a child when they parted ways.
Song Lan did not expect to see again the toy wristwatch with the yellow star with rounded edges after nearly two decades—much less in the throng of people crowding the peak to view the first sunrise of the year—worn on the wrist of a young man with a small face, sparkling eyes, and a smile that was so bright for a sixth magnitude star.