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Our roots melt underneath, our leaves merge in clouds. When wind breezes, we greet each other.
- to the oak 致橡树 shu ting
1999
Have you heard of the ancient Yu Shi, God of rain? According to the ancient Chinese legend, the God had a fearsome appearance that shook the golden cores of all who claimed to encounter him. Unlike a handful of other notable Gods, Yu Shi held more of an animalistic appearance of sorts. His face was of the darkest black. His arms were coiled with the bodies of snakes. At times, he would have snakes emerging from each ear.
Yu Shi was known for being a bearer of floods. He'd carry an earthenware vessel full of water. He carried it everywhere, and when a single droplet escaped the jug's rim, there would be rain upon Earth.
But he was a good God, despite his formidable exterior and tendency to cause inconvenient downpour. He used his powers to end a great drought during the reign of Shennong. He sprinkled rain onto the land from his earthenware pot, and lifted the people from devastation.
While many elders still pray to Yu Shi in times of drought; he is still said to be one of the lesser known ancient Gods. Many people didn't care about him, including Minghao, but that didn't stop the town's madman from lecturing him about him on the train home from afternoon detention.
"So when you lean your head on the glass like that – looking oh so cold towards the damp state of the grass – be thankful that the grass is green and nourished. It could be yellow and gasping for moisture, if Yu Shi didn't care so much…"
Minghao avoided eye-contact with the man opposite. Instead he fiddled with the silver buckle of his brown satchel. The train halted, and all passengers were thrown forward slightly. He gripped his bag protectively and took a look out the window to see where they had stopped.
Quinyingzhan. Still two stops away from his house in Lingshui Bay. Though Minghao found himself departing at this stop in order to escape the continuing tale of Yu Shi. His brain was spent from school. The walk would do him no harm. It was a scenic route, afterall.
He found himself kicking stones by the Li River, further prolonging his journey. He was in no rush to deal with orders from his mother. As he crossed the bridge, he regretted the absence of his walkman. He yearned to soundtrack his journey with Faye Wong or Leon Lai. He skirted on the edge of the river for the remainder of his walk in silence. The only noise was the eventual bustle of the vegetable market in Xialong as it packed up for the day.
"Xiānshēng, can I offer you some lotus root?" a young market woman offered. He recognised her from the school paper. He wondered if she skipped the afternoon off school to work.
Frowning, he shook his head."No thank you, nǚshì. Tomorrow, maybe."
"Oh, but the market is not open tomorrow."
"Well then perhaps the day after that. I really must go."
He jogged the last stretch. He knew his mother would scold him for bringing home something that had the potential to take up precious refrigerator space.
When he finally reached Lingshui Bay, the sun was beginning to set. He twisted his way between the tightly cramped flats and houses, eventually stopping outside his own.
He had to pass through his uncle's hotpot restaurant in order to reach the entrance to his flat. He grinned when he saw the bald man moving between tables.
"Evening shūshu," he bowed.
"You are home late, Minghao." the elder tutted, rolling up his sleeves with clammy hands. "You must be nice to your mother today, or else she won't forgive you!"
"Of course shūshu." he bowed again, his smile still prevalent. He rushed through the curtain of beads before pushing open the stiff wooden door that led straight into his kitchen.
His mother was sat there, face pale, as she peeled carrots.
"You are a silly, silly boy." she mumbled, hardly looking at her delicate fingers as she dragged the sharp blade over the vegetable. The action was muscle memory now, so she scarcely worried about cutting herself.
"I'm sorry, ma. It was the madman. He was following me, so I had to take the long route." I mean, it wasn't a blatant lie. It was simply a mere alteration of the truth.
She scoffed. "Wash the pak choy."
He nodded. He wouldn't press on. Not when it seemed like his tardiness was met with a mere slap on the wrist. His mother seemed to be in a better mood than usual, he thought. He grabbed the array of green leaves and held them under the sink, mindlessly scrubbing his hand back and forth across the stalk as the icy water plummeted down.
The sink was placed in front of the side window, looking out onto a small circle of houses on the other side of the gritty path. He watched as a nightlight was switched off in a distant bedroom window, and wished his life was as simple as it once was, to fall asleep at seven at night.
He had homework to do, but he wasn't going to do it. Instead, he'd waste his evening away reading shitty comics that he took out of the school library without permission. The damaged pages were filled with bold drawings from angles looking up girls' skirts. Minghao had to refrain from holding his eyes each time he got an entirely unnecessary glance at a teenage girl's panties.
He felt a slap against his hand. His mother scolded him for overwashing the pak choy. She said it'll peel, and become tasteless. He shrugged, and went to his room.
His room was more like a cabinet. I mean, it wasn't small, by any means. It was the perfect size for a five foot ten, nineteen year old boy. His bed was shoved into one corner, covered in poorly graded homework papers, failed origami attempts, failed watercolour attempts, as well as an array of other trinkets. The carpet was clean for the most part. There was a sticky stain barely concealed by a bedpost, courtesy of Chittaphon's tom kha spillage incident. Said incident was a catalyst for his mother's no food in the bedroom ban, which made Minghao's all-night-porn-comic-marathons less enjoyable.
It was only when he lay down on his bed did he have the chance to recall the day. He had woken up late, and served a recess detention as a result. Then he was caught popping pink bubblegum from his lips in third period, which landed him his after school detention.
He was well acquainted with the rotating detention monitors by now. There was Huening-lǎoshī, who seemed to be a chronic napper. It wasn't difficult to get away with listening to music in Huening's detentions. Then there was Boo-lǎoshī, who had a resting I want to kill myself face, and had very little energy to go off on Minghao for listening to Light and Salt on his walkman at five in the evening.
On his journey out of the school at five thirty, he decided to make a quick sweep of the library before he left.
He rested his chest against the oak of the shelf as he discreetly flicked through the small collection of yaoi fiction that had somehow crept its way into the school library.
He pulled a copy of Saint Seiya off the shelf and scanned the neon coated cover for a moment. Scoffing at the headache of it all, he made an attempt to slide it back into the pile in front of him.
He jumped when a pair of curious eyes met his own through the shelf. He knew the face. The curved nose, brown sugar skin, lips so stupidly pink. It was the academy-renowned Wen Junhui, highest grade achiever and acclaimed by many to hold the unofficial title of prettiest face in the school.
While many may think that such chronically perfect people cease to exist outside of cinema, here was one in the flesh. From an outside perspective, Junhui seemed like a shabby romance novel's Mary-Sue. Practically perfect in every way, while staying undeniably humble. He was confident in a way that wasn't cocky and intimidating, but more so uplifting.
Based on the few prior encounters Minghao had had with Wen Junhui, the latter was a smooth talker, and could slide into a conversation with ease. However, at that moment, the boy wore an uncharacteristically shy smile. He rocked back and forth on his heels in gentle motion, almost like a toddler on their way to proclaim to their parents that they had thrown up.
"I didn't like the look of that one either," he rushed out bluntly, gesturing to the book that was still brushing against Minghao's fingers so the younger knew exactly just what he was referring to.
Cotton mouth had hit Minghao like a freight train, rendering him unable to respond before Junhui had disappeared with a wink. While the sentence seemed to abruptly jump off the tip of Junhui's tongue, the reaction earned from the younger man must have rejuvenated his confidence.
He looked into the distance for a while, suddenly disinterested in the unrealistic affairs of the yaoi display. Then, he checked his watch. 5:44PM. The last train to Lingshui left in nine minutes. He bolted out of the library.
His reminiscence was interrupted by the landline resonating in his ear. He heard a click, indicating that his mother had picked it up from the kitchen.
"Xiǎo Hao. It's Yibo. For you!"
Stretching himself briefly, Minghao rolled away from the comfort of his bed, towards the telephone. He grabbed the device haphazardly, twisting the cord around his wrist in the process.
"Yibo-dàgē. What do you want from me now?"
He heard shuffling and giggling through the line, from who he assumed was Yibo's 'girlfriend' Cheng Xiao, accompanying his friend.
"We won't be losers for much longer, Hao."
Minghao furrowed his brows. "But we aren't losers now–"
More giggling. "You know Xiao Zhan-dàgē?"
Minghao sucked in a breath, twirling the telephone wire around his finger girlishly. "Yes, I know Xiao Zhan."
(Xiao Zhan, the college dropout that Yibo has hooked up with six times, unbeknownst to Cheng Xiao.)
"He finally got a degree!" Yibo exclaimed.
"In what?" he found himself scoffing.
"Doesn't matter."
Right.
"So what has this got to do with me?" Minghao asked, growing impatient.
He could hear the smile in his dàgē's voice. "He's throwing a massive party to celebrate. He told everyone to invite their friends, with unlimited capacity. It's going to be the party of the year."
He rolled his eyes. "It sounds dreadful."
"But you're going to come anyway, right?"
"Obviously."
They spoke for just a few more minutes, but Minghao was conscious of his mother's scolding from the previous month, when he had wasted too many minutes rambling on to Yibo. He hung up with a short goodbye, and found himself dozing off with an empty stomach. His mother didn't wake him for dinner.
He dreamed of his anxieties manifested through bright coloured polygons. With nimble hands, he tried to add edges. He moulded the shape like clay, towards a decagon. It wasn't smooth enough to be a circle yet, but the length and dips between corners weren't so dramatic as they were on a heptagon. He dreamed of his letterbox filling more and more, with letters scribed with threats like I know what you are or You're just like your uncle.
He tossed and turned in his bed, deep in his nervous nightmare. He felt his body soaked all over, his pyjama shorts clinging against the slick of his thighs. His half-asleep mind told him he had done something sinful, and angered the great God Yu Shi, being drenched with a personal flash flood as a consequence. He realised, only when fully awake, it was just a pool of his own sweat.
His head throbbed, and his eyes caught a plastic spoon laying on his bed-spread that hadn't been there before. It took him too long to realise that his mother had thrown it, and it had hit him between the brows.
"You are late. Again."
He devoured a bowl of beautifully spiced congee, a tall glass of highly pulped orange juice, and shoved two tea stained eggs into his backpack, before he was off for the day. He ran through the tight rows of homes, bowing slightly to neighbours on their morning errands, and stopping to throw some seed at a group of stray chickens.
Laurie Anderson blessed his ears as he waited on the platform. He became encapsulated by the peeling paint of the bench. A small body slid in the bench space beside him, waiting also. He knew it was Kahei. He ignored her, like always. And she ignored him in return. It was nice.
The train pulled up with the jingle of a small bell, at half six on the dot. It stopped, releasing a driver from his cabin. The new driver emerged from a door labelled Prohibited for Non-Employees tucked beside the station lavatory. He met the old driver in the middle of the platform and gave him a curt nod, before taking his seat and familiarising himself with the controls. Fresh passengers – Minghao included – then shuffled on. He waited for a signal and then set the train on its way.
With Lingshui Bay just a few stops North of the subway terminal, it was no challenge to find a spare seat. Kahei sat closer than necessary, but Minghao didn't mind. Some people yearned to feel the warm proximity of other people. It was human nature. He let it slide, almost revelling in it.
Wen Junhui boarded just two stops before Shilingzen, the town where their grand highschool was located. He took a seat beside Kahei. The three of them were lined up, like peas. Minghao tried to keep his eyes straight ahead of him, at the passing landscapes disappearing and appearing like a clicking film reel. He was failing. His eyes strained with the effort to side-eye the new passenger. His tie hadn't been done yet. Mr Perfect looked dishevelled. Minghao felt himself chubbing up in his pants, so he placed his Jansport backpack on his lap to conceal any visible bulge.
Junhui and Kahei started to chat. Casually. Mindlessly, almost. It seemed so easy. Minghao's jaw tightened.
"Hey."
"Hey!"
"Did you hear the new Chris Isaak?"
"Mn. Didn't like it much."
"Really? How come?"
Junhui shrugged. "Too country. Like a Western film. I prefer his darker stuff."
"Fair enough."
I prefer his darker stuff too, actually. It's basic, I know, but Wicked Game is easily one of the greatest songs of the last ten years. It describes that feeling of being so enamoured by someone to the point your body aches. Loving someone, knowing they are dangerous. The anxiety of loving, manifesting like the fear of an oven left on. Knowing the love will ruin you, but it's addicting. You should run. But you can't, because it feels so good. It's wicked, Minghao wanted to say.
"I like Wicked Game." he said instead. Kahei and Junhui turned to him with blank expressions, and Minghao realised he outed himself for eavesdropping just then. Oh well. Their fault for sitting so close.
"Cool," Kahei said bluntly. Junhui said nothing, but his gaze was intense.
When the train pulled into the station, dozens of students exited without a word to each other. In a daze, Minghao followed. Kahei and Junhui went off in another direction; a route unfamiliar to him, but lead to their highschool nonetheless. Minghao followed an immense tree line street that went on for several blocks. Three quarters down, he turned onto a side street, past a sandy lot that just about qualified as a park.
He met Yibo just outside the door, and found himself being dragged to the vending machine. Yibo bought himself a Yakult, but Minghao announced he wasn't thirsty. He watched the elder thrice fail to pierce the foil cover, before tearing it off and downing it in one and a half gulps.
The morning sun was high in the sky. The skin under Yibo's brown skin was glistening with sweat. Groups of students began to clump together as they entered through the wooden doors. Yibo mouthed on about Cheng Xiao's breasts, her little waist, then Xiao Zhan's little waist, then his kissable little mole. Minghao tuned out.
They parted at the bend in the chemistry corridor. Yibo trotted on to registration in one of the labs, while Minghao turned on his heel and headed back to his first period class: history.
He didn't make it. The figmental lucky-lotto machine clicked and turned and chose him as rich-boy Jianjun and friends' victim-of-the-day. The boys crowded him, most of them taller and broader, and shoved him into a random locker.
It was fine. It wasn't his first time in a locker. He sent a message on his pager to the first classmate he could think of, announcing that he would likely be late.
He was an easy victim to boys like that. His hair was long and tickled his back, his features were soft and feminine, and his frame was lanky and stringy. He minded his business mostly, usually not giving anyone any material to tease him for, but he must have struck a nerve with the boys that day, or perhaps just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He shut his eyes and let himself inhale the dust-clogged air. He stuck his headphones back in and rewinded his mixtape to track one, a Karen Mok hit. He counted the beats in his head like one would count sheep. His two fingers did a little tap dance against his elbow where they sat with his arms folded.
The giggles of Jianjun's goons were prominent beneath his headphones for a further few minutes, until after a while, he realised it had gone silent. He realised he needed the bathroom, and made an attempt to cross one leg over another despite the tight fit.
He wasn't sure how long passed, but the door swung open to a Yibo's face. Minghao's headphones were still in, blasting tunes loudly, so he only saw the harsh movements of his friend's mouth, and didn't hear the sound that went with it. He fiddled around to tug the tech from his ears as Yibo repeated himself.
"Get outta there man!"
"You think I put myself in?" he retorted, sliding out of the confinement and instantly making a beeline for the nearest bathroom.
"Junhui told me it was Jianjun again," his friend said, speed-walking alongside him.
He scoffed. "The fuck does Junhui have to do with this?" He slipped into a cubicle while Yibo perched on the sink.
Minghao grinned at the sight of the freshly graffitied walls. There were neatly drawn graphs rating senior girls from 1-10, countless penis sketches, and a small pop up survey stating 'ass or tits'. While Yibo talked, Minghao pulled a pen from his bag and put a little check-mark under the ass option.
"One of Wen's friends saw you get shoved in. Must've told Wen, who somehow knew to come tell me." Yibo shrugged. "Anyways, I didn't know you two were acquaintances."
The toilet flushed and Minghao stepped out. "That's because we're not."
He stuck his hands under the tap and burned himself on the searing hot water. He grit his teeth through it and tried to ignore Yibo's curious gaze.
"What's going on?" the elder pressed, moving towards his friend and nudging him playfully.
Minghao didn't have a single idea what was going on either. First of all, the library encounter, when perhaps one of the most popular boys in the school outed himself as an avid yaoi enjoyer. Then, the boy abruptly appeared on the same train route as him after four prior years of commuting to the same highschool and not crossing paths at all. And now, he had appeared to be some night-and-shining-armour, sending his best friend to save him from the deep, dark cave of a ground floor locker.
And yes, he could express this ache and confusion to his friend, but the burden of it was too much on himself, let alone thoughtless Yibo. Yibo who had enough going on with his girlfriend and impossible almost-boyfriend.
So, he said. "Nothing is going on. I'm going to class."
—俊浩—
Every day since Xu Minghao was four years old, his mom had taken great care in packing nothing but the best lunches for him. At first, he had them in his little Han Solo lunch box, with Harrison Ford's pearly western smile plastered on it. Then, he upgraded to a Pokémon box, deeming it 'more mature', as he had grown out of Star Wars. This box consisted of Squirtle and Pikachu cuddling up to Ash, who was a large contributer to his gay awakening.
Now, at age nineteen, his lunch box was a plain baby-blue coloured bento-style box, engraved with the word ānníng, meaning tranquil. He didn't choose it himself, but it wasn't often he chose anything for himself these days.
And his mother still didn't deem him mature enough to choose the contents of his bento, but he couldn't bring himself to care. At his ripe age, getting a packaged lunch every day was a blessing.
Today he had chicken lo mein, one char siu bao, and his tea eggs that he had haphazardly shoved in his pouch that morning. Then, he spent four yuan on a strawberry milk from the school convenience counter.
He picked at the assortment of vegetables mixed in with his egg noodles, half-listening to Yibo's math class story, half-watching Wen Junhui talk to a girl in the corner of the canteen. He had been observing the boy since he entered the hall. He noticed how he didn't make a beeline for the foodline the way most other students did, but he also didn't make any indication of having broughy packed food. Minghao hoped he had eaten enough. It wasn't weird to think that about a stranger, right?
"Heard you were stuffed in a locker again, Hao. You really need to put on some weight! Maybe then, it wouldn't be so easy for those boys to get their hands on you…"
It was the usually unwelcome voice of Wu Xuanyi that spoke these words. She was a lovely girl. Beautiful too. Her family had been friends with the Xus since the two of them were babies. She was a part-time waitress at his family's hotpot restaurant. Fate put them together. Xuanyi regarded Minghao in a way that was so lovesick, you'd think the sun shone from the boy's ass. On the other hand, Minghao was not interested in women, though this wasn't something he could easily express.
"Ah jiejie… I could weigh five hundred kilos and Jianjun would still find a way."
It would be so easy if he liked her. He could flaunt her to his family. Give her flowers in front of a crowd and grin as she squeals in excitement and turns flush red. He could kiss her on the cheek as they reach her bus-stop, or kiss her lips in the darkened but still very public cinema. It would be so simple, truly. But it wouldn’t be what he wanted. He had to take a backseat. He had to be the secondary character in this motion picture. His truth wasn't safe, and couldn't become a spectacle.
She kept talking to him. She went on about a shift she had taken up the week before, where she accidentally spilled a puddle of hot and spiced broth onto the white suit pants of some snobbish businessman travelling from Chengdu. He only recalled the details of the story because she must have repeated at least twice.
He wasn’t really paying attention though. He was staring. Staring at Wen Junhui who, for some inexplicable reason, was staring right back. There were four tables separating them. A crowd of heads and moving bodies obstructed their view. Minghao’s face was blank, and his puffy lips were parted in confusion. Junhui was smiling in an almost pouty way. His cheekbones caved in and showed off his sculpted face. He had bags under his eyes, but they were just as important to his face as his high bridged nose. They stayed there, even when he seemed energised. Certain things like this piqued Minghao's curiosity, but he knew too that it was not his business to wonder over such things.
And yet, he spent the rest of the week watching Wen Junhui surrounded by his circle of friends, looking everywhere but the table, where his peers chewed on processed burgers, glutinous rice, buttery chicken breasts. Junhui never had a tray in front of him. He had a diet coke, sometimes. Maybe the odd apple or satsuma. Never a strawberry milk - not like the rest of the kids his age. Minghao flicked his lean fingers against his arms as he watched, concerned. Why had he never seen Junhui eat?
His worries spilled further the following week – the week prior to Xiao Zhan's party – when he sat on the top corner of the bleachers, watching the track team run laps whilst his new friend, and new American exchange student, Joshua, sat smoking a lavender stuffed cigarette.
"Aren't you coquettish?" Minghao grinned, knees brushing against the elder's.
Joshua gave him one of his lazy, glossy smiles that Minghao had slowly been getting used to. He put such little effort into looking so beautiful, he thought, before shifting his gaze to the running track as the team wrapped up their session.
"Nice one, people! Sign ups for the 800 metre sprint are outside my office. See you tomorrow," the coach sang, as a flurry of panting boys and girls in tight shorts, vests and leggings stumbled into the main building. The coach followed, though one body was left behind.
As the boy liked to frequently waltz in and out of Minghao's eyesight, it was of course Wen Junhui. His sports tank was a baby blue – a colour that greatly complimented his tan complexion, thought Minghao – and tainted with patches of sweat. His black running shorts were far too tight, and only acted as a second skin, allowing him to weightlessly glide.
He looked exhausted, standing there on the grass, just off the track. His hollow cheeks caved in as he panted breathlessly. Tired. Too tired. He looked frail. Minghao noticed Joshua wasn't paying attention, too focused on the moon and how early it had risen that day. But Minghao couldn't see anything else. He began to clench his fist when Jun positioned himself into a crouch start, before pushing off the pads of his feet and beginning another full sprint of the terracotta surfaced track.
What is he doing?
The boy was talented. Hellishly so. He ran at such a tremendous speed, it was easy to imagine him being chased by some sort of beast. He was like a puma. But it was too much.
The boy's knees buckled just before the 800 mark. In an empty field, he fell forward, collapsing with his arms in front of him. There were almost no witnesses. Almost.
Dropping everything, Minghao began to run down the steps of the bleachers two-by-two, himself risking breaking his legs with the mere speed and carelessness of his running. That didn't matter to him, though. Junhui was laying face down like a dead man, and Joshua was too busy humming to Alanis Morrisette and stuffing fresh lavender into his rollies to notice. Minghao hopped over the barricade and dashed the final few metres before skidding on his knees towards the boy.
"Wen. Wen. Wen! Wen. Wen are you awake?"
He was breathing, at the very least. There was a sharp intake of breath and a grumbling sniff, before Junhui said: "No."
Minghao took in his surroundings for a moment. The track was circled by trees, bleachers, an equipment shed, and a narrow entrance that led to the school locker rooms. There was no sign of life, other than the exchange student who seemed to be in his own little Western world. Minghao bit his lip in consideration, before using all of his strength to scoop Junhui up and hoist him over his shoulder. He felt his heart in his throat. At any moment, Jiajun could appear. He could use such a compromising position to spread a nasty rumour about Minghao, but also even Junhui. Minghao couldn't risk putting a target on someone else like that, so without a second thought, he sprinted towards the equipment shed, bursting through the doors with Junhui in his arms and laying him onto the first soft surface he could find.
The boy's eyes were fluttering open now. The only source of light in the shed was a dangerously dusty bulb that hung from the ceiling like a stalactite, so it didn't take long for Junhui's eyes to adjust.
"Did I faint again?" he asked casually, though his voice wavered.
"Again?" Minghao groaned, making sure he kept an acceptable distance from the boy (even if he wished he could run his cold hands across the boy's cheeks and gently pour water between his lips to cool him down.) All Minghao had was the coolness of his flask to press against Junhui's forehead, but he was sure it wasn't enough. "You were really overworking yourself out there. And on an empty stomach, I suppose."
It wasn't an accident, letting the comment slip. But once it was out, the implications of it became clear. Minghao had been watching. Staring.
Junhui swallowed and tore his eyes away. He looked off into the distance. They had both been caught in their own ways. Jun's face read guilty, guilty, guilty. Minghao teetered over the prospect of asking the imperative question, but there was an issue. This, whatever this was. This back and forth of glances and tension and being unable to rid himself of Jun's presence – it was the only sense of consistency he had left in his life. If he asked this question, and got a truthful answer, they would be tied with this secret. Their hallway eye contact would become heavier. It wouldn't be so easy to sit on each side of the subway cart in silence.
But someone's health was on the line. Minghao didn't know many things, but he knew what was right.
"What have you eaten today, Junhui? And be honest."
A gulp, otherwise utter silence.
"I'm not trying to interrogate, or accuse. I'm not gonna run off to the counsellor or your older sister or whatever. I'm just asking; what have you eaten today?"
From his pocket, Jun pulled out a packet of Marlboro Reds. He puts a cigarette between his lips and lights it with a plastic lighter. He narrowed his eyes, releasing an easy puff of smoke into the air, then, as if to soothe an oncoming headache, he placed his fingertips on his temples and began to stroke.
"Athletics fuck you up," he began, stomping out his cigarette almost as quickly as it was lit. "My dad enrolled me in a running club when I was seven, after he said my three meals a day were starting to 'catch-up on my body.' It started with a meal plan. A diet, perhaps. Cutting back on snacking and sugary foods. Into my teen years, the cutting back became cutting out all candy, all chocolate. Never carbs. Check the packaging to see if it has high amounts of cholesterol."
Minghao had never been so quiet. He watched the boy's lips as he spoke. It felt as if the whole universe had stopped its routine just to watch what Junhui had to say.
"Being restricted when you're young causes rebellion. Everyone knows that. I became a sneak. I'd sneak to the corner store between middle-school classes, finding the most artificially sugary candy and letting it touch my lips just to feel the sensation. Unfortunately, last year, my sneakiness brought me into my mother's study, where I discovered fashion magazines. I know I'm a boy, so I get that it's different… but something shifted in me when I spotted this one magazine tossed onto the couch. It had some blown up photo of one of the slenderest white women I had ever seen. Where there should have been curves were corners. Her cheeks were sunken in. In a sickening way, I found it beautiful." he sighed, guilty, guilty, guilty. "It was the accompanying quote and article that did it for me, though. Kate Moss, was the white lady's name. A rising supermodel in the West. The tabloid quoted her personal mantra. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. That's what it said. A few pages later, it taught me all about calories. Counting them. The supermodel diet. What did Kate Moss eat in a day? She smokes a pack and drinks a diet coke."
The buzz of the bulb was deafening. It began to flicker under the stress of its sudden heavy usage. Or maybe it was tethered to Jun, as his mask began to peeter out, as did the light.
"So yeah, what did I eat today?" he mocked, but it wasn't hostile. "Today, I have had half a packet of cigarettes, and a can of diet coke."
Minghao blinked. He was too overwhelmed to even feel the slightest bit of pride over how Junhui let him listen to something so deeply personal. He couldn't think of himself. His brain was filled with thoughts, images, desire, and empathy for this boy.
"What I say doesn't matter, really. Because I know how these things work. Your brain won't listen to your body, or whatever those stupid wellbeing pamphlets in student support say, but anyways." Minghao spoke. He began to notice dots filling the dim room, but it was the distortion of his sight from the building tears in his eyes. He inhaled sharply. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Because, from here, I see you as the most beautiful person on campus."
He decided then that he had said and done enough. He stood up, brushed his uniform of dust, and left. He went straight to the library, took out a book, then went to the office claiming sickness.
And when Joshua called later to ask where he had disappeared to at lunch break, Minghao swore he had just gone to take a leak, then had a sore stomach.
—俊浩—
His feet and hands were numb. His cheeks were red. He was glad to be inside after the walk he had just had. He was blowing on his hands, thawing them out as he stepped through the double doors, into a small stained glass surrounded foyer. They had been accepted into the party with a secret knock. Minghao couldn’t quite describe the sound of said knock. The rhythm reminded him of the melody to an old nursery song xiao bai chuan, of the little white boat. However it sounded, it was correct. The door opened a crack, and a guy with a shaggy mop of a haircut stuck his head through.
“Cuī Fánguī!” Yibo exclaimed at the sight of the boy. He was pale, and his features were foreign. His lips curled upwards, little whiskers appearing with the presence of a smile.
“Yibo!” Fánguī returned, before glancing at Minghao, and, to his surprise, pulling him in for a hug. “Yibo’s friend!”
He was taken aback with the sudden contact, but he felt warm with the prospect of being included. Yibo’s friend was enough for him. He made no effort to give the boy his name. He just followed him inside.
While they hung their coats on brass hooks engraved with roaring lions, Yibo turned to Minghao, explaining that Fánguī was ‘baked like a red-velvet cake.’ He didn’t get more context than that, but it wasn’t hard to piece together what that meant.
“A potential fuck for you, however,” Yibo had added, going on to explain that Fánguī was a Korean exchange student, and that his Korean name was Choi Beomgyu, son of an immensely wealthy businessman who had branches across East and South-East Asia.
Minghao didn’t take the offer, and he also didn’t ask why the son of a conglomerate daddy would be high off his mind at some shitty Baoting Li college party.
The party was spread like a forest fire throughout the property, but Yibo led him by the hand straight to the basement. The room was quite smoky, with the thick scent of tobacco and marijuhana. He passed Kahei on the way, who seemed to be spread across a small loveseat, in the process of receiving a stick-and-poke tattoo from a pretty girl with her shirt half off. This excited him, in an odd way. Not in the sense that the sight of a woman’s skin made him feel some sort of way, as he had already established that such a thing was of no interest to him. He guessed it was just nice to see someone from school in a casual situation, with her hair down and her uniform discarded, replaced with a tight denim skirt and mesh blouse. It was nice to know that she was a real person.
Somehow on his journey, Minghao acquired a paper coffee cup filled with rum and coke. The caramel taste of the coke made him think of Junhui, and that stupid Kate Moss. Has Jun eaten today? Or has he spent his Saturday working himself to the bone and fuelling himself merely with diet coke?
He was pulled away from his worries after receiving countless questions from strangers. It felt like group therapy introductions.
Are you a college freshman?
“No, uhm, I’m a high school senior?”
Hey, aren’t you Xuanyi’s brother?
“No, uhm, we aren’t related.”
Your name is Sicheng, right?”
“It’s actually Minghao…”
Yibo had disappeared almost instantly. Minghao managed to talk to Xiao Zhan for a second or two. A brief introduction. The older boy had been dressed like a character from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. His shameless party boy reputation preceded him, though Minghao deemed it true very quickly. He had never seen a neck so painted with bite marks. He was like a walking work of art, who left just as soon as he appeared, taking his lovesick friend with him.
After another rum and coke, and a couple cans of beer, Minghao felt the room begin to slip away from him. He wandered from room to room, where the boomboxes changed from The Cure, to Blur, to Faye Wong, to Beyond. Minghao floated between them all, beaming in a drunken fog.
His frenzy took him into the arms of Cuī Fánguī, on the back step leading out to the garden. The younger sat with his back on the cold glass door, legs spread out with a plumply rolled joint hanging from his peachy lips. Minghao found himself with his head in the boy’s lap, watching the black sky and wishing the stars would shine as brightly as they did when he was young.
“So, do you wanna kiss?” Fánguī asked nonchalantly, playing with the strands of Minghao’s black mullet.
Minghao furrowed his brows as he thought. Then, he shook his head, almost childishly. “Is it okay if we just talk?”
Fánguī giggled lightly and nodded. “What do you wanna talk about?”
“Tell me about Korea.”
So he did. He told him about Daegu, the shipping city, and how his dad owned half the boats docked in the harbour, yet never let his son anywhere near them. He told him about how he bought a bright blue sailor hat on his trip to Seoul, and wore it to school as a kid. He told him about Choi Soobin, his first friend, and his last lover. He told him about how he started to fall for him at the age of nine, and hadn’t stopped falling for the last decade. He told him about the distance, and the difficulty of it, and how he kissed dozens of others just to fill the void, but knew he had to be patient. He had to wait for his return to Korea, whenever that would be, so he could see Soobin again. And he would wait a thousand years, if it meant he could taste the lips of the only person he ever loved.
“Cool,” said Minghao.
They both started to cry. No one around them seemed to think they were weird for doing so. They were just boys and they were crying. It was whatever.
By three, he was in the bathroom. He wasn’t vomiting. He wasn’t like that. No, he just wanted to feel the frigid ceramic of the bathtub against his cheek. He clambered into it. He flung his legs over the side, to tall to stretch fully. It was okay. He was comfortable enough. It was if the air had been spiked with chamomile, as he leaned into the strange comfort of the tub. As it had many times, his brain moved with thoughts of Wen Junhui. Somehow, it had ended up that every single fragment of the boy’s existence had become tied to his own, and yet he basked in it. In his drunken state, he wished to be near him. The coldness of the china on his arms reminded him of the boy’s bony hands. He couldn’t help these thoughts. Like a songbird in a cage, he tried to capture them, hold them within, but they were so loud. The melody of his desires exceeded the restraints of the cage. They were songs and sonnets written all over his skin. If anyone paid enough attention to him, it would be clear that he liked Wen Junhui, in a way that he most definitely shouldn’t.
Call it fate, call it Karma, but whatever it was, it was a sick, sick thing. Because it brought the object of his daydream bursting through the bathroom door, which he swore he locked, but it was one of those modern, rich-people locks that he couldn’t wrap his head around.
He also couldn’t wrap his head around why Wen Junhui would be at Xiao Zhan’s freshman party. Sure, he was a popular guy. He probably had a friend of a friend of a friend. The capacity for the party was limitless, he remembered Yibo saying.
But what brought him into this specific bathroom, other than the evident magnetic force that the universe decided to slap on the both of them, so they couldn’t spend more than forty-eight hours apart before having some trajectory shattering encounter.
And handsome Jun had somehow got himself in a state. He was still undeniably handsome, of course, but his umber locs were dishevled, and his brown shirt had wet patches down the front. His eyes were teary and sunken in as ever. For once, his exterior almost reflected the sickness that plagued his mind.
And of course it was Minghao’s instinct to nurse him, as he clambered out of the bath and brought him to the ground in a gentle embrace, leaning against the tile wall.
“What- what are you doing here?” Jun hiccuped, prodding the younger’s cheeks with hard tipped fingers.
Looking at the boy in his arms, Minghao could sob. Through all the pain and hardships he had recounted, his eyes stayed so innocent and pure. Minghao swallowed down the melancholy and shrugged, hoping the intensity of his thoughts weren't evident on his face.
"You called me beautiful, and then you walked away," mumbled Junhui, not giving Minghao a chance to answer his question.
"What?" he managed to gasp out
"You said I'm beautiful, but I worry… What if I'm only beautiful in this sick state. What if I recover, and you don't find me beautiful anymore? Then what do I become? I dropped all of these hints to you… I commented on the yaoi you picked up in the library! Am I not pretty enough for you to want me back?"
Almost sobering up, Minghao shuffled himself so his back became straight. He felt the weight of Jun's words. The hints? He knew what he was doing. The tension, the taunting, the closeness, the proximity. His breath almost stopped with the prospect of being wanted. He picked his hand up off his knee and hesitantly placed it on the elder's face.
"There is no body you could be in that I wouldn't find you beautiful. If it is your soul, It is beautiful. But you know what I think? I think no amount of junk food will change your perfect lips. Your perfect eyes. Your cute pointy ears. That mole, just right of your nose. You've got one there, too…" his fingers pressed against the brown speckle just above the boy's glossy lips. "And there, and there," he continued to press gently, from dot to dot, like he was drawing out a constellation. "And there, and—"
And they were kissing. Maybe it was the fluorescent bathroom lights that finally drove Junhui to do it, or maybe it was the want that he held within himself for sixteen months. Sixteen months of glances. Sixteen months of longing. Sixteen months of praying to every God that Minghao loved like him.
It was so tender. Minghao's feather-light touch moved down, gently grasping Junhui's chin as they sweetly explored each other. Junhui didn't know where to put his hands. They went from brushing the younger's collar, to tentatively resting in his hair, allowing him to pull him closer. Deeper. Sealing them in. They shared the taste of sugary spirits between their tongues, giddy on the drink and the kiss. Breaking apart for a mere second, Junhui's smile stretched, before bringing him back in. Melting into each other. Only stopping for breaths and giggles.
Minghao had never kissed a boy. Part of him was saving such a milestone for this boy particularly. And Gods did he taste sweet. He tasted of lemon soda and lime and sea salt. It should have been messy. It was abrupt and unplanned and so very wrong. But it was perfect. It was calm and it was curious.
They both knew when it was time to pull away, though they had no real concept of how much time had passed. Though their lips disconnected, their bodies stayed weaved together. It would take a lot more than a need to breathe to part them now.
"I've wanted to do that for so long," Jun gushed, placing his hand against the wall beside Minghao's head to steady himself.
"You have?"
Junhui had been the star of Minghao's every thought for months. It being mutual was never a consideration. Being wanted. Being desired. It wasn't something Minghao knew. He was secondary. He was a wallflower. And yet here was his saviour, half in his lap, lips sticky from the slick of his own mouth, and he wanted him.
"You look so pretty like this," Jun smiled, allowing himself to push a gathering of black hair behind Minghao's hot ears. He pushed himself forward so their foreheads were pressed against one another. They didn't kiss again. They couldn't. They were tired, they were breathless. They just wanted to feel each other. "You make me want to break this cycle, Minghao. You make me want to get better. You make me so relieved that I am alive. You didn't- you didn't do anything to make me feel this… You're just here, and for me, that's enough."