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Ayushiridara wasn’t worried about Wang Baoxiang.
He had simply gotten used to him - to being accosted every few days at a party, or to getting a message asking to come over. Or not even asking, not in so many words. Just a picture of Baoxiang in one of his stupid, almost-see through lacy shirts pouting at the camera in a way that he probably thought was alluring but was really just pathetic.
Ayushiridara had gotten used to him, or rather, to the reliable source of orgasms he represented. So when Baoxiang dropped off the face of the earth for almost a week, Ayushiridara was… not worried. But annoyed, yes. Pent up, also. And that was why after class he ditched his study group and went to Baoxiang’s apartment.
Ayushiridara hadn’t technically been there before. When they hooked up, they did so at his place. But he’d walked Baoxiang home a couple of times, so he knew where it was, on the fifth floor of a nondescript apartment building in the downtown area. The door was painted an ugly grayish green, and the doorbell was silver, small and shining. Baoxiang didn’t answer on the first ring. Or the second. Or the third. The fourth ring wasn’t so much a ring as it was a desolate wail fit to wake the dead, since Ayusahiridara simply leaned all his weight on the doorbell and didn’t let up until he heard movement from inside the apartment.
Baoxiang pulled the door open, his pointy features scrunched up in a scowl, his usually immaculately coiffed hair hanging greasy and limp across his forehead, his skin gray, the circles beneath his eyes a purple so deep it was almost black, the tip of his nose bright red and peeling. He was wrapped up in a mystifyingly colored fleece blanket with what looked like a picture of some sort printed on it. He looked ugly and pathetic. He did not look cute. He did not look cozy. He did not, above all, look cuddly. Ayushiridara didn’t want to cuddle him. He was a man. Men didn’t cuddle. Cuddling was the thing you did because your girlfriend wouldn’t have sex with you otherwise.
“What is wrong with you?” Baoxiang wheezed. “I was asleep.”
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you.”
Ayushiridara glanced past him, into his apartment. “Your place looks like shit.”
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Your Highness.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been to your apartment.”
“My apartment is fine.”
“If you say so,” Baoxiang said. He was smiling in that way he did - not quite with his mouth, or with his eyes, but with his whole face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your floor. Have you ever tidied up something in your life?”
“I know how to tidy up,” Ayushiridara said, shouldering past him. “Go lie down. This place looks like a fucking pigsty.”
He was dealing with the bio-hazard zone that was Baoxiang’s bedroom when he realized that he was cleaning the guy’s place like he was a fucking maid or something. He stomped back to the living room, garbage bag in hand, to find Baoxiang sprawled out on the sofa under his ugly blanket, watching some dumb k-drama with Mandarin subtitles, because Baoxiang spoke maybe five words of Korean. The drama was one of the girly ones about some nobody falling love with the heir to a fortune and inexplicably ending up living happily ever after with him. The protagonists seemed to be in the attracted to each other and angry about it phase. The girl had just dumped her cocktail on the guy.
“Something you needed?” Baoxiang asked.
Belatedly, it occurred to Ayushiridara that if cleaning up Baoxiang’s apartment for him was pathetic, throwing a fit about it halfway through was even worse. “Why is there a picture of a horse on your blanket?”
“Did you come out here to take the piss about my blanket?”
“It’s a really ugly blanket."
Baoxiang laughed a little. It made Ayushiridara’s chest feel warm and soft, for reasons he preferred not to examine too hard. “Yes, and that’s why I don’t mind getting snot on it. Esen bought it.”
“I keep forgetting you’re related,” Ayushiridara said.
Baoxiang smiled. The cold, mocking kind that he put on when he wanted to look unaffected but was secretly a bit hurt. “Because he’s the epitome of masculinity and I’m me?”
Yes. Esen, with his nice wife he’d married straight out of high school, his brood of children and his thriving business breeding race-horses, seemed like he shouldn’t have come from the same planet as Baoxiang, never-mind the same family. “Because he’s really stupid.”
“Don’t insult my brother,” Baoxiang said, but he was laughing. A timer went off, and he sat up.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to cook something? I need to take my next ibuprofen in half an hour, and I have to have food with it.”
“I can do that,” Ayushiridara’s mouth said for him.
“You can cook?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Ayushiridara asked, annoyed. He had never cooked anything before, unless you counted cup noodles, but how hard could it be? “I’ll make soup.”
He went to the kitchen, which was tiny, but painted a cheerful green, and full of sunlight. The fridge proved to be well-stocked, and full of more kinds of vegetables than any reasonable man needed, which seemed about right for Baoxiang. He browsed for soup recipes on his phone, but they were full of unfamiliar words, and they also didn’t look right. None of them looked like they would produce The Soup. The one that his mother had cooked for him every time he’d been sick.
He hesitated for some time, staring unseeingly at his phone. He wasn’t sure why it seemed so important to make The Soup for Baoxiang. But it was. Probably because it was delicious and would make him ashamed of ever having doubted Ayushiridara’s cooking capabilities. Also it was a miracle cure and the sooner Baoxiang was healed the sooner he could go back to sucking Ayushiridara’s dick.
So he called his mother. She picked up on the second ring and said, “Why are you calling me? It’s not a Thursday.” Not even a greeting. Typical. “ Did you fail an exam? Did you lose your keys?” And she immediately assumed he had fucked something up massively in some way. Also typical.
“I’m fine, Mother.” And he had actually done fine on his last exam. But it had been on poetry composition, so it wasn’t like it mattered. It wasn’t a real course, not like asset pricing or accounting. “I just wanted to ask you for the recipe for that soup you used to make for me when I had a cold.”
“Are you sick? I can come over if-”
“I’m not sick! Why do you always think that there must be something wrong with me? It’s for a… friend.” Well, that had been mortifying. At least Baoxiang didn’t understand Korean.
Though maybe he understood friend.
Whatever. He had no reason to think that Ayushiridara had been talking about him, anyway.
While Ayushiridara had been having this minor crisis, Mother had been suspiciously silent. “What friend?” she asked eventually.
“Chaghan’s son.”
“Esen? Why are you cooking for him? Doesn’t he have a wife?”
“The other one.”
“Wang Baoxiang?”
“He’s been helping me with my accounting course.” This was true, actually, because Baoxiang was a freak who thought accounting was fascinating. His eyes went all bright and sparkly when he talked about numbers. It was sickening.
“Do you need tutoring? Are you failing accounting?”
“I’m not failing anything! Will you give me the recipe or not?”
She was silent again. “I’ll take you through it step by step.”
First, she gave him a list of ingredients that seemed implausibly long. Shockingly, Baoxiang’s fridge contained them all, except for the beef, because Baoxiang was a vegetarian. Ayushiridara knew this because on a few occasions they’d had dinner together before hooking up. Not a date, obviously. Just two people who sometimes slept together sharing a meal. Once Ayushiridara had been really tired and they hadn’t even hooked up afterwards, but it still hadn’t been a date.
Mother had said to mince the vegetables. When he’d asked, she said that it meant to cut them into small pieces. He did that. Small-ish pieces, anyway. Definitely bite-sized. Ayushiridara knew from personal experience how much Baoxiang was able to fit into his mouth at once, so it would be fine. He put oil in the pot, turned the fire on high, waited for a few moments and then dumped the chopped vegetables into it. This did not go quite as he’d expected.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Mother said flatly, “what is it doing?”
“Splashing oil all over the kitchen?” The pot was pretty tall, too. Kind of impressive the oil could clear it.
“Lower the fire!” Mother said, sounding as though she thought that Ayushiridara was an idiot. “Wait a few moments, then pour water in the pot.”
Ayushiridara did. A few bits of slightly charred vegetables floated to the surface. They didn’t look quite as he remembered them from The Soup. That was fine. Probably they would improve during the cooking time. He raised the flame again. After a few minutes the water started boiling.
“Did you put salt?”
“You didn’t say to put salt!”
“I thought it went without saying!”
Whatever. Ayushiridara could add it now. It wasn’t like it would matter. He dumped about a tablespoon of salt into the water. It boiled up, overflowed and put the fire out. “Is it supposed to do that?” He moved the pot to a dry bit of stove and turned the fire on again. A bit less high this time.
“If you have to ask,” Mother said, “probably not.”
There was nothing much to do but wait, at this point. Ayushiridara was pretty sure you were supposed to stir soup as it cooked, so he did so a few times. There was still stuff sicking to the bottom of the pot, so he scraped it free. It floated to the top, looking black and unappetizing. The smell wasn’t great, either.
“How long have you been friends with Wang Baoxiang?” Mother asked, in a tone she probably thought was casual, but that sent every alarm bell in Ayushiridara’s head ringing.
“I don’t know. A few months.” He did know, of course. Down to the date.
“You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“Do I have to report to you about all of my friendships?” Ayushiridara asked, and then, before she could say yes he added, “I think the soup is done. I’ll send you a picture.” It looked nothing like The Soup. “How do you think it’ll taste?”
There was a small pause. “Terrible.”
Yeah. That was roughly what he’d expected. “Right.”
“But you put effort in it. Wang Baoxiang better appreciate it.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ayushiridara said. His throat felt tight. “Bye.” He hung up before she could reply.
Baoxiang was still watching the k-drama when Ayushiridara returned to the living room with a bowl of soup. The leads were at some fancy date on yacht. This was the bit where the female lead was uncomfortable with being lavished with expensive gifts, showing her good and humble heart.
“Here,” Ayushiridara said.
Baoxiang took the bowl. He looked at it for a long time. Probably there was so much to make fun of that he didn’t know where to start. But he didn’t say anything. He just took the spoon and started eating. His face contorted on the first mouthful, but he still didn’t say anything. He finished the bowl, and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Baoxiang fells asleep soon after taking his ibuprofen. Before letting himself out, Ayushiridara turned the tv off and tucked the stupid fleece blanket a little more securely around Baoxiang’s shoulders. He hesitated for a long time, but eventually he pressed a single kiss to Baoxiang’s brow.
After all, there was no one to see him do it.