Chapter Text
You never fully know a person. Never.
You spend decades as their friend, years as their flatmate, and several more years married to them, and still they surprise you, sometimes disturbingly so.
Rong Changqing had had a shock today, and in order to bridge the sudden gap, he was bringing gingerbread spice lattes from the shop downstairs on his way home, in their own permanent and sustainable Tupper cups. The colours were execrable, but the function flawless, and Yue Feng’ers little cousin had been so proud to sell them.
Family. What wouldn’t you not do for them…
Unless…
Changqing opened the door to the flat and was greeted by nobody, not even Longbei, which was odd. It would be a bit anticlimactic if Baiyi wasn’t home, but eh. You had to deal with life’s little disappointments.
“Baiyi?”
There was an indistinct answer from somewhere, which suggested the glassed-in balcony; with all windows closed, it fully worked as a winter garden, so even now, it was nice to sit there. Of course, the City didn’t have any proper winters, not like places like St. Petersburg, but it was a bit nippy.
Changqing dropped his backpack and shed his puffy vest, and wandered out there with his lattes.
Ye Baiyi was perched on the back of the rattan sofa, with Longbei in his arms, looking out over the City, deep in thought. He turned to look at Changqing, then wordlessly held out his hand for the hot drink.
“Everything all right?” Chagqing asked when Baiyi didn’t say anything for the next minute or two.
Baiyi shrugged.
“Do I get a kiss?”
Baiyi nodded, so Changqing approached, and kissed Baiyi while bending sideways in order to not squash the cat. Baiyi’s kiss was extra sweet from the drink, so he let it linger for a moment before sitting on the sofa and looking up at his little family.
“What’s wrong?”
Baiyi did get grumpy spells, of course, but this was different.
“Xuan-er called; Feng’er didn’t conceive again, and she’s beating herself up about it,” Baiyi said. “You know, not a problem I ever thought about, but it feels terrible not to be able to help my family, not even comfort them properly. You can only listen. And I understand them so well -- you know what they’re like with the little Zhaos. The same disappointment every month wears them down.”
Changching nodded and put his hand on Baiyi’s knee, right beside where Longbei was perching.
“We’re all simply people, and family is important to everyone, one way or another,” he says. “I mean, you’re gay and went in for that whole found family thing early on, but I dragged all the straight drama back in.”
For some reason, Baiyi had always been the go-to parent for Xuan-er’s most embarrassing or emotional questions.
“That reminds me; can I ask a question?”
Because Changqing had had a shock today, and he was enough of a self-centred idiot to want an answer.
Baiyi looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“There was this lady at my meeting today who afterwards came up to me and said she was your niece,” Changqing said. “Assuming I’d heard about her of course, etcetera. What’s the deal with that? I thought you were an orphan and an only child.”
Baiyi shook his head. “What gave you the idea?”
Changqing took a few sips of his own latte and then said, “You living with that auntie where you weren’t allowed to have friends over when we were still at school?”
Baiyi sighed. “Yes, makes sense. But no, my parents live or lived in the country and sent me to the City because of our school. The teachers at our small town middle school were fed up with me asking questions they didn’t know the answer to, and demanding to start a computer club, and sabotaging the school lunches -- don’t ask. So my parents found a distant relative in the City and gave her money to put me up in her son’s former room.”
“Okay,” Changqing said. “Sorry -- I never bothered to ask, I just assumed. But where are -- I mean, you said live or lived…”
“The usual,” Baiyi said. “When I was almost eighteen, I went home for spring festival and found I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about my dad’s homophobic nonsense any more. There was shouting, I outed myself and was kicked to the curb. Qin Huaizhang helped with a job and a dorm; you might remember how proud I was to strike out on my own?”
Changqing nodded. “It made sense, assuming you were an orphan. So, your family?”
“Never heard of them again,” Ye Baiyi said. “Didn’t ask, either. None of them ever tried to get into contact, not even when I got sorta famous on local TV. So, that girl might well be my niece.”
“Fuck, Baiyi, I’m sorry,” Changqing said. “I was so insensitive…”
“Rong Changqing,” Baiyi said, slowly, “you don’t think I would have told you, back then? It was just how things were.”
Pause.
“Do invite her next weekend or so, if you can reach her,” he then said. “I’m curious, and things have changed. We’ve come far.”
He bent to kiss Changqing.
“We’ve come far -- who’d have thought of families like Xie’er’s and Arhat’s, back then? But that doesn’t mean my family of origin is completely irrelevant. Let them come; we’ll see.”