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Spring was the first word in sign language that a twelve-year-old Feng Xin committed to memory when he learned that Mu Qing was deaf.
When Mu Qing signed the word to teach him many, many years ago, he embodied it, holding one of his slender hands as still as the ground below while the other sprouted upwards, fingers fanning out like flowers. It seemed like nature itself flowed from within, welling up to his fingertips to communicate. Even if he’d scowl at him for saying it, Feng Xin always thought it was Mu Qing that made the sign beautiful, not the sign itself.
Feng Xin’s first attempt looked more like an explosion. Clunky and uncoordinated, looking back on it, perhaps that was fate’s way of foretelling how tumultuous their early relationship would be.
Reading Mu Qing’s silent language in addition to his prickly love language only came with patience and time. It wasn’t even until junior secondary school that Mu Qing crossed alternating linked index fingers over one another to let Feng Xin know that they were at least friends in his eyes.
From there, love began as a sprinkling of violets across an overgrown lawn, but as they both matured and tended to their shared garden— watering, adding fertilizer, and pulling out the weeds— it blossomed into a lush meadow of wildflowers.
Each year as they celebrated their anniversary around the Equinox, Feng Xin would unearth a crumpled piece of paper from his desk drawer. On it, scrawled in a child’s barely legible handwriting, is the first question Mu Qing had ever asked him: What does spring sound like?
Feng Xin’s repertoire of vocabulary constantly grew with the years spent with Mu Qing, but it never felt expansive enough to answer this wistful question. At least not until today.
It’s early in the morning, so Feng Xin made sure to pack breakfast. Mu Qing’s advanced courses kept him up late the night before, but he still accepted the invitation to go on a weekend hike at Mount Taicang. Walking less than a pace behind, he scarfs down the biscuits faster than Feng Xin could sign ‘sausage, egg, and cheese’.
‘Was it good?’ Feng Xin asks, turning to walk backwards for a few steps before falling in line with his partner.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Mu Qing replies. He signs each letter individually so he doesn’t have to face away from the direction he’s moving. ‘How much farther?’
‘We’re almost there,’ Feng Xin assures.
The trail continues to the peak at a rapid incline, but ascending the mountain isn’t Feng Xin’s goal today. Instead, he takes Mu Qing by the hand and weaves through the thick brush, following a spring-fed stream to a small glade. He selects a flat patch of grass to spread out the picnic blanket.
Once he sits down, Mu Qing signs, ‘It’s beautiful here.’
‘Not as beautiful as you, Qing-er.’
Mu Qing rolls his eyes, as he always does when met with genuine praise.
The scenery is only second best to his man, but Feng Xin agrees that it is indeed magnificent. The maple forest opens to a clearing awash in a vast sea of green that follows the brook until it cascades down the mountain. Secluded and wild, it hosts a diverse array of plant life from flowers to grasses to lichens that color the rocky hillside. In the mid-morning glow, it’s a set piece from a fairytale.
Feng Xin timidly seeks Mu Qing’s hands, delicately lifting his fingers which fit perfectly inside his own. Thankfully his boyfriend doesn’t resist. Closing his eyes, he opens his ears to absorb the soundscape, which is just as rich as the visuals.
There are so many details to memorize that the task seems overwhelmingly impossible. Breathing in the fresh air to steady himself, he squeezes Mu Qing’s hands tenderly before letting go.
When he opens his eyes, he finds that Mu Qing mirrored him and is quietly sitting cross-legged, long lashes fluttering as the movement rouses him.
‘Do you,’ Feng Xin begins slowly, ‘remember when we first met?’
Mu Qing smirks a little. ‘You mean when you ruined my artwork?’ Feng Xin shrinks a little at that, recalling how a wayward soccer ball he kicked over the goal-post splattered a young Mu Qing’s water color paints all over the page he’d been working on.
‘I’m still sorry about your cherry blossom tree…’ Feng Xin signs, swirling open palms around each other. Thinking back, that was the second word Mu Qing taught him after Feng Xin had asked what the picture was supposed to be. Back then, he had to write it down because Feng Xin didn’t understand at all, but now it was easy to pluck the motions from his memory. He continues, ‘but do you remember what you asked me?’
After thinking on it for a moment, Mu Qing signs with a shrug, ‘Beats me.’ It’s not surprising, given that over ten years had passed since then.
Feng Xin fishes out the paper from his pocket and holds it up so they both can see. A quiet gasp escapes Mu Qing’s lips, even through the hand he positions over his mouth. With a free hand, he asks, ‘How…long have you had that?’
‘As long as I’ve known you.’
That reply earns a jab in the stomach. Mu Qing, ears tipped in red signs, ‘You’re too sentimental. It’s just paper.’
‘Well, I wasn’t able to answer!’
Mu Qing’s hands go into a flurry of positions, but before he can ruin the moment with some of his nonsense logic, Feng Xin kisses his limbs quiet, a tactic that always melts down his rough, icy exterior. Sure enough, when he breaks away from the sweet cherry taste, only Mu Qing’s eyes are still moving.
‘So…are you going to?’ Surprisingly, after a moment of calm, it’s Mu Qing who returns to the conversation with his timid signs. He pulls his paints out of his backpack and sets them out on the blanket.
Feng Xin nods. ‘I’ll do my best. This isn’t exactly easy, you know.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Mu Qing snarks back.
‘Shut up.’ Feng Xin flashes him a glare and the offender raises his arms in surrender. Mu Qing acts haughty, but his eyes are shimmering eagerly, pencil in hand to capture every detail, just like his younger self when he first asked the question.
Feng Xin takes a deep breath. He’s ready for this.
‘Spring is…difficult to describe’ —Mu Qing comments ‘No kidding’, which makes Feng Xin lose his place with a groan. ‘Spring is difficult to describe because there are just as many sounds as there are sights. But it starts with the air. When the wind blows in the spring, it’s light and gentle, unlike the harsh, whipping wind of winter that bites your skin. When it blows through all of the new green leaves on the trees, it makes a light rustle instead of a howl or a snap.’
Glancing over when he pauses, Mu Qing has already taken the break in the conversation to write down the words. He meets Feng Xin’s gaze and puts his thumbs together, keeping the rest of his fingers balled while he moves the sign forward. ‘Continue.’
‘Early spring, when the snow melts, the water trickles through the world as it drains out the winter. And when rain falls on that melting snow, it sounds like tiny pins falling against a pillow. It’s so relaxing it makes you want to fall asleep.’
Mu Qing smiles. ‘I like the way the spring rain smells.’ He flutters his hands and brings a finger under his nose. ‘Petrichor.’ Feng Xin only learned that word recently.
‘Spring is a time of new beginnings, of new life. Migrating birds finally come back home and sing songs in the morning, each species with its own sound. Some of them are sweet little tunes, some are high-pitched, and others are low. You can’t hear spring without the twittering of birds.’
Upon hearing this, Mu Qing shuffles through his sketchbook, holding it up to a page filled with studies of birds. ‘What does this one sound like?’
‘Oh that?’ Feng Xin anticipated this question and thoroughly researched common calls beforehand. ‘That’s a chickadee. It has a tiny voice, fit for a tiny bird. It’s called a chickadee because it says its name when it sings. Chick-a-dee. Sometimes it goes ‘dee-dee-dee’. Like it’s saying the letter ‘D’ in the alphabet. I like it. It sounds cute. And it’s loud considering how small it is.’
‘What about the robin?’
Feng Xin signs, ‘That’s the bird that I think sings spring the most. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up in the springtime without hearing them call in the morning. It’s sharp, but not unpleasant. High, but not too high. I’d characterize it as smooth— the chickadee sort of sounds like there’s tiny pebbles in its throat. But robins sing clearly.’
Mu Qing makes a few notes next to his drawing.
‘The morning is the best time to hear spring. Animals cause the bushes and grass to swish when they walk by. If you listen closely, you can tell the difference between the careful, almost silent pit-pats of a doe and her fawn and the scuttling of a squirrel along the bark of a tree. Squirrels are pretty noisy, flaking off bark with their little paws as they chase each other around and around the trunk. But other creatures use the trees too; when a woodpecker pecks against a trunk, it sounds like construction, like a drill! Not like a squirrel at all.’
Mu Qing makes a face. ‘Woodpeckers don’t vibrate as much as construction, or I would have felt them.’
Feng Xin laughs. ‘Trust me, it’s very similar. You only hear an echo most of the time, but if they forage on your house, it’s easy to mistake it for a contractor!’
Mu Qing doesn’t look too convinced, but he scrawls down a few notes regardless.
Feng Xin continues. ‘Usually, crickets chirp throughout the night, but after it rains, a chorus of frogs join in. Spring peepers make this tiny little…well…peeping noise. They come out when the violets sprout in early spring. Those sounds always accompany the warmer air around this time of year. Oh, and the other insects make noises too! The bumblebees buzz when they fly around from flower to flower, only quiet when they land. It’s not hard to mistake them for the wingbeat of a hummingbird. One bee might not make that much noise, but a whole swarm is terrifyingly loud. I prefer dragonflies. If you push your lips together and push air through, it makes a vibrating noise like the one their wings make when they zip around across the water’s surface— Don’t try it, you’ll spit everywhere!’
Mu Qing crosses his arms. He was almost certainly about to try, if only to get the opportunity to spit at Feng Xin’s face without consequence.
Feng Xin goes on and on for what seems like hours, trying his best to capture the sound of spring in words, the sounds that Mu Qing has never been able to hear. The forest around him provides plenty of things to describe, alive with a symphony of sounds. Before long, Mu Qing has no more questions and is leaning against his shoulder, sketching away. Feng Xin eases back and only grabs his attention and switches to signing the letters with a single hand whenever he hears something worth mentioning. With the flow of words silenced for the most part, the pair relax and enjoy each other’s company blissfully in the sunshine. It’s not until he’s tapped on his hand that it registers how much time has passed.
‘Hm? What is it?’
‘Look,’ Mu Qing signs.
‘At what?’
‘Just look! Here!’ He shoves his sketchbook in front of Feng Xin’s face.
Feng Xin’s face lights up in awe at the artwork he’s presented with; it’s a full scene— the two of them together in the meadow, lightly washed in vibrant greens and a speckling of other colors. In the foreground, a beetle strides across a fallen log, and a dragonfly perches atop a reed. A stream curves its way through the landscape until the swaths of wildflowers overtake it. It’s a gorgeous drawing, but the many details included within are far from the most impressive thing about it. Looking closely, Mu Qing created forms out of words; the feathers on a bird’s wing beat and flutter, the grass swishes and sways. Every word Feng Xin signed to him managed to make its way into his artwork.
‘Qing-er…it’s amazing,’ Feng Xin praises, heart swelling.
Mu Qing can’t quite make eye contact given his fluster, but he signs the cutest, softest, ‘Thank you,’ and after a moment, ‘for showing me spring.’
Feng Xin pulls him into a tight embrace. Bodies close, he can feel Mu Qing tremble. Even when surrounded by nothing but nature, Feng Xin knows that Mu Qing is still too embarrassed to cry in front of a crowd of flowers.
Funnily enough, Feng Xin doesn’t feel like this feat is worth thanking him for. There’s something about spring that transcends description. Spring looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, is beautiful, and is brimming with life. But none of that really comes to mind when Feng Xin thinks about spring.
No, to him, spring is a new beginning, a point where his life changed forever. Spring is when he first met his beloved. Spring is when he confessed. When he thinks of spring, what spring feels like, it’s Mu Qing’s hands and heart that come to mind. And he can only look forward to what memories of the next spring he’ll come to cherish.