Work Text:
When He Jiajia hears from Bai Xiaoxiao that Shi Guang quit weiqi, he feels—for a brief, selfish moment—vindicated. See? He wants to say to Yu Liang, or his father, or anyone else who’s ever looked down on him—Your beloved genius is a coward too. But the moment passes as quickly as it comes, and when Yu Liang shows up at the doorstep of his salon two days later, drenched and looking more panicked than He Jiajia’s ever seen him, he feels ashamed for ever having the thought in the first place.
Yu Liang doubles over in the doorway, out of breath. His bangs are plastered to his forehead and dripping, rivulets still rolling down his face even as he wipes them from his eyes. He Jiajia’s mouth falls open; his hands freeze mid-cut. The customer in the chair doesn’t notice the interruption—is too busy typing angrily into his phone—as He Jiajia stares at the sight of Yu Liang, uncharacteristically disheveled. If Yu Liang was here about anything else, He Jiajia might have relished the sight. But he already knows what Yu Liang is here for, and he couldn’t relish it even if Yu Liang got on his knees and begged.
“Have you seen Shi Guang?” Yu Liang asks, eyes wide and pleading as starts toward him.
Another stylist makes a move to stop him. He Jiajia gives her a look; she backs off, eyebrows furrowed in apprehension, but content to let He Jiajia weather whatever storm is brewing on the horizon.
“I saw him two weeks ago,” He Jiajia answers honestly, and resumes cutting. His client seems to have finished whatever argument he was having over text and is now sneaking furtive glances at them through the mirror, impatient.
“What did he say?”
Yu Liang sounds almost as frenzied as Shi Guang had been that day. He Jiajia is only half as annoyed as he was then—wonders for a second if he’d been a little more patient, a little more gentle, whether Shi Guang still would have quit weiqi. But he stops that train of thought before it can depart on a mobius strip of a track, circular and self-intersecting and never-ending. There’s no point in wondering, he tells himself. It’s not his responsibility any more than his own fate was Yu Liang’s.
He Jiajia sighs. He thinks back to that dizzying trip of a day, and shakes his head—it’ll take too long to explain. “I only have time to talk to paying customers.”
Yu Liang gives in all too quickly. “A trim, then.”
He Jiajia looks at him in surprise. Yu Liang’s always been single-minded to a fault, but He Jiajia thought he would have at least hesitated at the prospect of trusting He Jiajia to get anywhere near him with a pair of scissors in his hands.
He Jiajia glances at the clock on the wall behind him. “You’ll have to wait a while. I’m fully booked until 4:00.”
“That’s fine,” Yu Liang agrees, and retreats to the waiting area.
●
He Jiajia hated Yu Liang from the very first moment he heard his name, spoken from his father’s curled lips, dripping with disdain. Yu Liang is two years younger than you and he could still beat you in his sleep, he’d slurred, and He Jiajia flushed nearly as red as his father with the anger of being underestimated. His father wouldn’t even remember having brought it up the next day, but Yu Liang’s name had already been carved into He Jiajia’s consciousness like a curse, which He Jiajia would spend the next three years attempting to break.
Are you Yu Liang? He Jiajia asked the very next day after weiqi class, with all the arrogance his seven-year-old self could muster, which was still more than he had any right to have. I’m going to destroy you.
Even now, He Jiajia still remembers how Yu Liang looked up at him with those bright, wide eyes. How small he’d been then, and how innocent. Even then everyone could already see the extent of his brilliance, but Yu Liang himself hadn’t yet seemed to realize what it meant. At first, He Jiajia thought that Yu Liang’s delight was borne out of condescension, but it didn’t take long to figure out that Yu Liang was simply delighted—to be playing weiqi, to have made a friend, even if He Jiajia would never really consider him a friend until years after he’d already destroyed any friendship between them.
He Jiajia couldn’t believe it when he lost. Couldn’t even see how it happened until he re-played the whole game over thrice, hands shaking as he placed and re-placed the stones, the welts on his wrists still fresh. And when he finally saw it—the set of moves that had tied his position together and decided the game—all the anger he felt rushed out of him, replaced only with begrudging respect.
○
Yu Liang is flipping through the weiqi magazine that Bai Xiaoxiao left when He Jiajia sees his last customer out. The rain has since stopped outside, and the summer sun shines a mosaic of window-sized rectangles onto the salon floor. Yu Liang’s hair has dried back into its usual shape, but his suit is not as lucky—has become rumpled in strange places where it dried unevenly—and the scowl on Yu Liang’s face seems to have only grown deeper in the two hours since he walked in.
“Ready?” He Jiajia calls, impatient. Yu Liang jumps up, startled or maybe just in a hurry to hear what he has to say, and follows him to a chair.
He Jiajia goes through the motions. Adjusts the chair to an appropriate height; ties an apron at the base of Yu Liang’s neck; resists the urge to let his hands linger, no matter how warm he imagines Yu Liang’s skin is. Runs his hand through Yu Liang’s terrible haircut instead, and notes with amusement that it’s the exact same hairstyle he’s had since he was five.
“You sure you just want a trim?” He Jiajia asks, letting his imagination get the better of him.
Yu Liang shuts it down before it can get very far. “Yes, just a trim.”
It’s just as well—the faster they get this over with, the better. He takes Yu Liang over to the washing station and begins washing his hair wordlessly. Yu Liang doesn’t complain—it’s not like he can hear anything He Jiajia has to say over the stream of the water anyway—and If He Jiajia presses his fingers into his scalp a little harder than he normally would, Yu Liang doesn’t complain about that either.
“So what did you do to him?” He Jiajia asks once he’s shut off the water and started toweling his hair dry.
Yu Liang frowns up at him. “What makes you think I did something?”
“Well, what else could it be?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Yu Liang insists. “I don’t know what happened to him. That’s why I’m here.”
“Huh. Was he on a losing streak or something?”
He Jiajia puts down the towel and goes back to the styling chair. Yu Liang follows without needing to be told, a familiar routine.
Yu Liang takes his seat. “He was doing fine. He had a few losses here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
Yu Liang looks down at his hands helplessly. He Jiajia takes the opportunity to study Yu Liang’s face in the mirror. There’s the faintest hint of a crease between his brows, which is a shame because he’s much too young to be getting wrinkles. His eyelashes are longer than he remembers—they fan solemnly over his cheekbones, hiding eyes clouded over in something akin to frustration.
When he looks up again, his eyes are wide, imploring. “Did he say anything to you?”
He Jiajia sighs. He recounts the scene by the lake in between snips of hair. Somewhere in between the base of Yu Liang’s neck and the left side of his face He Jiajia realizes belatedly that it probably would have made more sense to start with the first time they’d played weiqi by the lake, back before the tournament when Shi Guang was nothing more to him than a proxy for Yu Liang, albeit six years delayed. So he backtracks, careful to leave out the incriminating parts, and Yu Liang listens with all the focus he’d offer a strong opponent mid-game. By the time He Jiajia has made it around to Yu Liang’s bangs he’s relayed the gist of it—the panic in Shi Guang’s voice, the frenzy in Shi Guang’s words, and the bizarreness of all of Shi Guang’s actions, inscrutable to He Jiajia even the second time around.
Yu Liang says nothing until He Jiajia’s dusted off the stray hairs and untied his apron and led him back to the counter. “How much?” Yu Liang asks, his haircut exactly the same as before, only half-an-inch shorter.
He Jiajia crosses his arms. “Normally, 105. But since it’s you, I’ll take 140.”
Yu Liang leaves 200 RMB on the counter, and is gone before He Jiajia can gather the words to protest.
●
Winning against Yu Liang was easier said than done, and so, as it turned out, was hating him. Every Wednesday they played a game after class, and every Wednesday Yu Liang beat him without breaking a sweat. Every Thursday morning He Jiajia would go to school with a split lip, or a black eye, or a broken wrist, and still every Wednesday when Yu Liang played his winning move and asked, Will you come again next week? He Jiajia found that he didn’t care about the loss, or the inevitable punishment waiting for him at home. He never resented Yu Liang when they were together—only afterward, when his father would scream and yell and try to shove the torn up pieces of the game record down his throat. But none of that mattered when Yu Liang was looking at him expectantly, eyes shining, always shining.
He Jiajia was used to being a disappointment, but for some inexplicable reason he couldn’t bear to disappoint Yu Liang. His answer was always Yes.
○
He Jiajia tries his best not to sneak glances at the newest issue of The World of Go clutched tightly in Bai Xiaoxiao’s hands as he works the bleach painstakingly through her roots. It’s been three months since Shi Guang quit, and he’s heard from Wu Di who heard from Jiang Xueming that Shi Guang has gone back to school, which is perhaps the most worrisome thing He Jiajia’s heard about Shi Guang since the lake incident (part 2). Even jumping in the lake is mild compared to the decision to give up a life of professional weiqi in exchange for two more years of high school; He Jiajia wonders (not for the first time) if maybe what Shi Guang really needs is to be admitted to a mental institute.
The color Bai Xiaoxiao has picked this time is autumnal—a soft, reddish-brown, the color of steeped tea. Somehow, fall has crept over Fangyuan city without He Jiajia noticing. It seemed to him as if the trees were green one day then half-naked the next, shedded leaves dancing in troupes around his feet. Perhaps it's just another side-effect of adulthood; the days and weeks that blur together until one day you blink and remember—oh, right, time goes on and takes you with it, whether you’re paying attention or not.
Bai Xiaoxiao turns the page of her magazine. He Jiajia catches sight of a full spread detailing Yu Liang’s recent victories. A generational talent, the headline declares. He Jiajia suppresses the urge to roll his eyes—as if there was anyone in the weiqi world who hadn’t already gotten the memo.
“Do you still play?” he asks mindlessly, the habit of making small talk working faster than his sense of propriety can catch up. He cringes as soon as the words are out—even if it’s not a sore topic for her, it is for him.
Thankfully Bai Xiaoxiao doesn’t see his face twist—doesn’t glance up until she’s finished the article on the page, and by then He Jiajia has schooled his expression back to his usual aloof nonchalance.
“Sometimes,” she admits after a second, and He Jiajia isn’t sure if he imagines the flash of sadness that flits across her face. “I’m busy with school now, and all my pro friends are busy with training and stuff, so I only get to play a little on Weida in between schoolwork.”
He Jiajia nods in acknowledgement, but doesn’t respond. He’s kicking himself for bringing it up in the first place when a sudden flurry of movement in the corner of his eye draws his attention. Outside the salon window, a flock of birds has come to rest on the criss-cross of powerlines, a brief sojourn on their journey south.
Bai Xiaoxiao breaks the silence. “Do you? Still play?”
The powerlines sway; the birds fly off once more. “No. Not really.”
“Well if you ever want to play again, my username on Weida is beifeng.”
He Jiajia laughs at that in spite of himself. “I’ll remember that.”
●
The first time Yu Liang brought up the bruises on He Jiajia’s arms, he lied and said he fell off his bike. By then, the lies came as easily as his empty boasts, and more practiced still. Everyone else in his life accepted the explanations as easily as he gave them, pleased to have done their due diligence, yet always too scared to pry further lest the truth turned out to be exactly what they suspected.
Yu Liang was different. Maybe Yu Liang just didn’t yet know to fear the truth. Maybe all Yu Liang knew was that He Jiajia had lied, and he didn’t understand why. So the third time He Jiajia made up some random excuse—he tripped down the stairs, he got in a fistfight with a middle schooler, he wrestled a bear in the woods—Yu Liang narrowed his eyes and said, I don’t believe you.
He Jiajia faltered, woefully unprepared for this scenario. It’s nothing, he said after a painful pause, and deliberately averted his gaze. Believe whatever you want.
The way Yu Liang looked at him changed after that. It was no longer the wide, innocent doe-eyes that had come to frustrate He Jiajia beyond reprieve, as if he couldn’t believe that He Jiajia was still playing with him even a thousand losses later. It was replaced with something more careful, more suspicious. Yu Liang wasn’t stupid, and He Jiajia wasn’t particularly discreet. Eventually, suspicion turned to realization, then pity. He Jiajia grew defensive; Yu Liang regarded him calmly, placatingly. As if he were a wounded animal, hackles raised, in need of saving.
○
The night He Jiajia hears from Wu Di that Shi Guang decided to participate in the Hokuto Cup preliminaries, he pulls out his laptop and creates a Weida account. He searches up Bai Xiaoxiao’s username and looks through her game records, coming to the impressed realization that she is probably better than him.
He Jiajia isn’t sure how Yu Liang finds his Weida account. The only friends he’s added are Bai Xiaoxiao and Wu Di, and it’s not like his foray back into weiqi is something he makes a habit of shouting from the rooftops. If anything, he’s kept it a secret, close to his chest. Hasn’t even admitted to it out loud, as if putting it out into the world would mean inviting some cruel stroke of fate to come and take it away from him again.
No—this time, He Jiajia resolves to keep his weiqi all to himself.
So when the friend request from akira pops onto his screen in the middle of his game against some random user, he rejects the request outright. Still, it manages to ruin his game—he’s agonizing over what Yu Liang could possibly mean by it when the countdown for his next move finally rouses him from his thoughts, and in his haste he makes a blunder reminiscent of Shi Guang from their high school days. It all goes downhill from there; He Jiajia resigns in the middle game to save himself from the inevitable embarrassment of a crushing defeat.
Barely a minute passes before a game invite from akira pops up. He doesn’t even need to think about it before he’s clicking reject again, but no sooner has the request modal disappeared from his screen than another request pops up to take its place. This time, He Jiajia pauses. Yu Liang has always been this way—single-minded to a fault, and stubbornly persistent. He Jiajia has no doubt Yu Liang would crash the weida server with game requests if given half a chance.
[6/23/05 21:42] you to akira: If you send another request I’m going to tell The World of Go that Yu Liang likes to bully amateurs on Weida
[6/23/05 22:50] akira to you: I’ll give you a three stone handicap
[6/23/05 22:51] you to akira: **** off
[6/23/05 22:53] akira to you: Four stones?
He Jiajia scoffs out loud. He gets the sudden urge to punch his screen, but the laptop cost more than his monthly salary so he begrudgingly restrains himself. He settles instead for deleting his Weida account and imagining Yu Liang’s expression of confused indignance.
●
The three years He Jiajia spent chasing Yu Liang’s weiqi was the only time he ever felt like maybe he could love weiqi as much as his father wanted him to.
It was an open secret that once upon a time, his father had almost become a professional player. He’d pieced the story together from the bits and pieces his father used to let slip through the cracks when he was drunk or half-asleep—how he hadn't started until he was already thirteen, how he’d lived and breathed weiqi for four desperate years, playing catch up to all those who’d started nearly a decade earlier. How he’d almost succeeded—placed thirteenth then tenth then eighth in the grading tournament, until in his very last year Yu Xiaoyang entered the grading tournament for the first time at the age of thirteen and took first place in his bracket with twelve wins, zero losses. How his father had stared at his name on the final rankings, seventh from the top, knowing that he would turn eighteen the next month and instead of celebrating he would be studying for the gaokao until he collapsed from exhaustion.
But He Jiajia didn’t care about any of that. So what, he’d thought bitterly, watching enviously from his room as his friends played soccer outside his window. Why should I have to make up for your stupid dreams?
And then he met Yu Liang, and he threw himself into weiqi with a fervor he didn’t even know he was capable of. Chasing Yu Liang was exhilarating. He’d get close—lose by half a point or so—and then Yu Liang would come back the next week and win by fourteen. For three years they played this game of cat and mouse. He Jiajia couldn’t decide what he wanted more—to crush him or to become him, or even to spend the rest of eternity giving chase, content to leave even a single claw mark on Yu Liang’s untouchable game record.
So when he turned ten, he looked his father in the face and declared, I want to become a professional weiqi player. He’d thought—foolishly, it seemed—that his father might be proud, might give a few words of encouragement. In reality, his father hadn’t even bothered to meet his gaze. Are you dreaming? he spat, eyes trained on the drama that was airing on the TV. I don’t want to hear it until you beat that kid.
○
He Jiajia is too proud to re-activate his Weida account after deleting it for the sole purpose of sticking it to Yu Liang, so when he feels the itch to play a game on his day off, he finds himself wandering down the road to the only place he knows of where people gather to play weiqi.
The last time he went to the Black and White Weiqi Club was after he’d already decided to quit. He only went because he knew he’d find Yu Liang there, and he wanted to give him one last piece of his mind. I’ll never forgive you as long as I live, he said, so angrily it’d reopened the wound on his lip, courtesy of his father’s signet ring. It went about as well as He Jiajia had expected it would go, which is to say not very well at all, and to this day it’s still the only time he’s ever seen Yu Liang cry.
“Two hours please,” he says to the receptionist, who’s squinting at him with an unreadable expression.
“He Jiajia?” she says finally, so gently He Jiajia feels himself begin to blush. “Is that you?”
He Jiajia’s eyes flick to the nametag on her shirt. Qin Mei. He remembers her now as the sweet jiejie who used to volunteer at the weiqi school, and was always keeping an eye on Yu Liang.
“No,” he deflects. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
She hands him back his credit card with a wry smile, and he belatedly realizes with much chagrin that she must have already seen his name.
He Jiajia rushes into the club, face warm despite the biting winter air. Not much has changed since he was last here—it’s still mostly full of old men, though even the old men seem fewer and far between compared to back in the day. In one of the corners is a computer that wasn’t there before—the youngest person besides himself sits before it, clicking every couple minutes on a game on the screen.
He Jiajia sits down and plays a match with an older man whose eyesight seems to be failing. The man asks him to announce all of his moves and place all of his stones, which He Jiajia obliges. In the end, he loses by three and a half points despite a long and lengthy endgame battle for life, in which he ultimately fell one turn short. The old man smiles and thanks him for a match well-fought. He Jiajia looks at him incredulously, searching for some hidden barb behind his smile lines, but the man seems as genuine as can be.
“Likewise,” He Jiajia replies, and stands to leave.
He’s halfway out the door when he turns back on impulse. “Does Yu Liang still come here?” he asks Qin Mei, who looks surprised to be addressed by him again.
“He still comes every Wednesday he has free,” she says hesitantly, as if she isn’t sure if she should be telling him at all.
He Jiajia lets out a short laugh. “He really hasn’t changed at all.”
Qin Mei smiles, a wistful mist in her eyes. “He was sad when you stopped coming to the school, you know.”
He Jiajia doesn’t know what to say to that.
“Please don’t tell Yu Liang—” He Jiajia starts, then falters, the words drying up on his tongue. That I was here. That I asked about him. No really, he’ll get the wrong idea. As if Yu Liang would even care. As if He Jiajia was anything more than just another name in a long list of losers that ended at the only one that still mattered—Shi Guang.
“Tell me what?” a familiar voice sounds from behind him. He Jiajia doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is.
●
(He Jiajia wonders if it would have changed anything if he’d told Yu Liang the truth back then, in all its ugly glory. If he’d told him that he didn’t need his pity, even if his father sometimes made him into a pitiful thing. If he’d told him that the only thing that made him feel strong was playing weiqi. If he’d told him that the only thing he ever wanted more than to beat him was for Yu Liang to respect him—to recognize him as worthy, even if his father wouldn’t.
He wonders what would happen if he told him the truth today, in all its shameful simplicity—I was a coward then, and I’m still a coward now. Too cowardly to tell the truth, too cowardly to continue weiqi. So I don’t blame you anymore, for thinking me unworthy. The bitter truth that He Jiajia has kept under his tongue for a decade, too prideful to say out loud and yet equally too prideful to swallow.
But as much as He Jiajia wants to say it, he knows that Yu Liang doesn’t need to hear it. Not now, not anymore.)
○
So He Jiajia swallows his words. “Nothing,” he says instead, and brushes past Yu Liang without meeting his gaze.
●
In hindsight, He Jiajia should have known there was something off the moment Yu Liang played that terrible hane in response to his nobi. But as out of character as it was for Yu Liang to make a sub-optimal move, He Jiajia wouldn’t be a weiqi player if he didn’t seize the opportunity and punish it. Yu Liang resigned halfway through the endgame with a soft I lost muttered under his breath, and to his credit he’d even sounded half-surprised.
It had been the happiest day of He Jiajia’s life for approximately two hours, until he showed his father the game record and all his father said was: If you can’t even tell he let you win, you might as well quit now. That night, He Jiajia stared long and hard at the penciled-in moves and knew his father was right. So he opened the window and threw out his board and his stones, resolved to never suffer such embarrassment again.
When his father found out he slapped him harder than he ever had and spat, It was bad enough when you were a loser, but I won’t tolerate a quitter. Still, He Jiajia refused to get down on his knees and pick up even a single stone. The beating that followed was the worst he’d ever had, but He Jiajia knew that some decisions, once made, could not be taken back.
Not even Yu Liang, who followed him on his way home from school every third Wednesday like a lost puppy, begging He Jiajia not to quit—Hit me, if you want. Or never talk to me again. Just please don’t quit—could make a dent in He Jiajia’s resolve, hardened by the humiliation of his defeat. He Jiajia had known when he chose a life without weiqi that it meant a life without Yu Liang, too. So no matter how many times Yu Liang called out to him he could pause but could never turn around, could never allow himself to meet Yu Liang’s gaze.
And just like that—proud, bruised, unrelenting—He Jiajia cut weiqi out of his shrinking life, and never looked back.
○
He Jiajia is surprised to see Shi Guang holding up the banner in the bleachers of Experimental High, and even more surprised to Yu Liang there too, stiffly holding up the other end.
When Gu Yu calls him over to join the group picture, He Jiajia hesitates. He was never part of the club—not really—and he can’t help but feel like an interloper among this close-knit group of friends, their bond forged through the trials and tribulations of weiqi. He Jiajia has no right to be among them. He’s older than all of them, and more jaded than them, and he doesn’t even really play weiqi anymore (hasn’t gathered the courage to go back to the weiqi club after that ill-fated run-in with Yu Liang). But when Gu Yu slings his arm around his shoulder and he glances over to the trophy cradled in Wu Di’s arms, he smiles wider than he thought he would, feeling every bit of their happiness as if it was his own.
“Wait,” Wu Di calls, when they’re outside and debating over where to go for dinner. “Does anyone have a camera phone?”
Everyone looks around them. Yu Liang raises his hand sheepishly. Of course he has a camera phone.
“Shi Guang, He Jiajia—come here. Yu Liang, can you take a picture of us?”
“What for?” He Jiajia asks, bewildered.
“To make up for last time, of course,” Shi Guang smirks, throwing his arms around them.
Yu Liang watches them with a curious expression. When they finally manage to settle on an appropriate formation—Should He Jiajia be in the center? He was first board, after all—Yu Liang says Smile! and takes a photo, then another, for good measure. He promises to email them to Wu Di; Shi Guang rushes over to look at the result; He Jiajia lingers on the outskirts awkwardly, feigning apathy.
The debate about their dinner plans culminates in an anticlimactic raincheck after Wu Di confesses that he has a group project meeting to attend, which reminds Shi Guang of his promise to go home for dinner with his mother. The group disperses with ardent promises to reconvene at a later date. He Jiajia makes no such promises—he wields the excuse of adult responsibilities as a shield, foolproof against the appeals of carefree teenagers.
The group disperses. Yu Liang and He Jiajia find themselves at the same curb. Yu Liang attempts to call a cab; He Jiajia waits for the crosswalk signal to turn green.
“Good luck in Korea by the way,” He Jiajia says, to fill the awkward silence. He’s only half-joking when he adds, “Maybe if you bring the championship back I’ll forgive you for letting me win back then.”
“We don’t need luck,” Yu Liang says just as a taxi pulls up to the curb, its Vacant Car light blinking out when Yu Liang pulls open the backseat door. “And we will.”
He Jiajia watches Yu Liang’s cab rejoin the ever burgeoning stream of traffic and disappear into the current. Overhead, a flock of birds fly by, headed north for the summer. The crosswalk signal turns green; He Jiajia sets off, and tries not to feel left behind.
●
Without weiqi, He Jiajia found himself bereft. Restless and aimless, he rebelled against everything just to have something to do. He entered middle school with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, and quickly became known as the crazy first year who would pick a fight with anybody. He ripped his jeans, permed his hair, picked up smoking from a third-year with long fingers and long eyelashes who made him feel things he wouldn’t be able to put a name to until much later. He got beat up by middle schoolers at school and high schoolers by the lake and his dad at home, and didn’t let anyone come to his rescue. Not that there was anyone who cared enough about him to even try—He Jiajia made sure of that, too.
Even Yu Liang, who stubbornly followed him home from school every day for nearly a year, gave up eventually.
I found someone my age who’s even better than me, Yu Liang said, the last time he stalked He Jiajia home for the next three years. This time, He Jiajia’s step faltered, if only long enough to hear Yu Liang say, Is this how you’ve felt this whole time?
○
He Jiajia watches the Hokuto Cup on his laptop at work in between appointments, and watches Bai Xiaoxiao’s recordings of the matches he misses. He’s sharpening his shears during his lunch break when Yu Liang and Shi Guang win the pairs match against Korea, and he nearly stabs the lead stylist out of sheer excitement. She scolds him for his carelessness, but He Jiajia is too ecstatic to care—That’s my high school teammate! he exclaims, pointing at Shi Guang. And when the camera pans to Yu Liang, bowing primly to their defeated opponents—That’s my— He Jiajia hesitates, fishing for the right word—my childhood nemesis!
So this time, when Yu Liang walks into the salon three days after the Hokuto Cup, he’s a minor celebrity even among the stylists, who hem and haw and whisper when they think He Jiajia isn’t listening about how he’s even more handsome in person. It doesn’t help that this time, Yu Liang isn’t wearing a suit. In place of his usual formal jacket is a dark blue sweater vest—equally preppy, but significantly more approachable. Even his hair is less kempt than usual, the effortless tousle in combination with his more casual attire working devastatingly in his favor.
“What,” He Jiajia grits out, “do you want this time?”
Yu Liang opens his mouth to say something, then seems to think better of it and closes his mouth again. When he finally speaks, he says, “Just another trim.”
“It’ll cost you 250 this time,” He Jiajia only half-jokes, and promptly gets slapped on the back of his head by the lead stylist.
“Who do you think you are? You still have a ways to go before you can be charging 250 for a haircut,” she chides, then turns to Yu Liang. “Sorry about him—I happen to have an opening, I can do it for free if you’d like.”
“No it’s okay,” Yu Liang says, with that infuriating earnestness of his. “I can pay. I need to talk to him.”
He Jiajia smiles smugly at his boss as if to say, See? He thinks my expertise is worth 250 RMB. She rolls her eyes but leaves him to it.
“Did you just get back yesterday?” He Jiajia asks as he leads Yu Liang to the chair.
Yu Liang shakes his head as he takes his seat. “We got back this morning.”
He Jiajia raises an eyebrow, incredulous. “Missed me so bad you came running straight from the airport?”
Yu Liang glares at him in the mirror. “We’re celebrating tomorrow night at Fang Xu’s bar. Shi Guang wanted to invite you.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
He Jiajia runs his fingers idly through Yu Liang’s hair. It’s longer than it was last time he was here but not long enough to indicate that he hasn’t had another haircut in between. He Jiajia wonders who Yu Liang’s regular barber is—knowing him, it’s probably the same person he’s seen since he was five—and what they might have thought when they saw his work, whenever Yu Liang had a haircut last.
Yu Liang is frowning when He Jiajia looks back at him in the mirror. “I also really do need a trim.”
He Jiajia can see that. “Shi Guang could have just texted me.”
“He lost his phone in Korea. He’s probably buying a new one right now.”
He Jiajia leaves the conversation at that and gets to work. Yu Liang stares straight ahead the entire time, motionless and expressionless, just like last time. He Jiajia wonders if Yu Liang is like this with his regular guy too, or if Yu Liang only acts like a deer caught in headlights because it’s him wielding a pair of dangerously sharp scissors centimeters away from his head.
Thirty minutes later, He Jiajia brushes the stray hairs off of Yu Liang’s apron and unties it. Yu Liang barely glances at himself in the mirror before he’s following He Jiajia to the counter.
“So will you come?” Yu Liang presses.
He Jiajia sighs, almost says no. If there’s anything he detests more than seeing Yu Liang it would have to be seeing Yu Liang and Shi Guang together. He Jiajia couldn’t stand to witness their easy camaraderie—Shi Guang’s touchiness, and Yu Liang’s fond annoyance—all of it an insult to He Jiajia’s frankly uneventful love life.
But Yu Liang’s looking at him again with those wide eyes, and maybe He Jiajia hasn’t changed at all, either.
“Yeah, yeah,” He Jiajia says as he swipes Yu Liang’s fancy metal credit card. “Since he wants me there so badly.”
●
He Jiajia had known when he chose a life without weiqi that it meant a life without Yu Liang, too. He’d thought he was prepared to bear the loss. And he did—for six long years—until he met Shi Guang. And then all of a sudden it was not-so bearable—the way Wu Di said Yu Liang’s name like he was the second coming of weiqi Jesus; the way Shi Guang boasted about how easily he’d beaten him; the way He Jiajia remembered Yu Liang saying, I found someone my age who’s even better than me. Suddenly all his childhood rage, six years buried and nearly forgotten, ignited once more.
He thought entering the tournament would be a chance to finally prove everyone wrong. To prove that he was worth something, even if it wasn’t very much. To prove that he wasn’t a coward, even if sometimes he could be cowardly. And for a second—when the realization finally dawned on Shi Guang, and then Wu Di, and then himself—it seemed like he had. Had won the tournament; had become champions; had proven everyone wrong.
He Jiajia had learned long ago to mete out his happiness in careful rations, knowing that there wasn’t any source of joy in the world that wouldn’t some day run out. But that day, he allowed himself a genuine smile, wide enough to make his cheeks hurt.
And then he caught sight of Yu Liang among the spectators, and He Jiajia thought—selfishly, foolishly—that maybe Yu Liang was there for him.
But Yu Liang wasn’t even looking at him.
The smile on He Jiajia’s face vanished. Yu Liang was staring at Shi Guang with an expression He Jiajia had only ever seen reserved for the most elegant of life-and-death problems, and He Jiajia felt his stomach twist. When Yu Liang finally looked at him, his expression was replaced with one of uncomfortable surprise, as if he hadn’t even fathomed the possibility that He Jiajia would be there.
Yu Liang nodded carefully in greeting; He Jiajia simply bowed his head and lowered his eyes, struggling to tamp down the roiling feeling in his gut that, despite finally winning for once in his life, he’d already lost the most important part.
○
He Jiajia still considers making up an excuse not to go at the very last minute. It’s not his proudest moment. He imagines all kinds of lies—from sudden sickness to elaborate tales involving alligators—and is struck by how long it’s been since he’s considered telling a lie quite so preposterous. The realization makes the entire exercise feel like a regression, and so He Jiajia throws on his favorite outfit and barrels out the door before his anxieties can get a chance to catch up.
By the time he gets to Fang Xu’s bar, however, the anxiety has long since overtaken him. He’s jittery and tense, and at this rate he’s going to wake up tomorrow sore from the stress, so He Jiajia does the only reasonable thing and focuses all of his efforts on getting drunk. It’s not a particularly difficult task—He Jiajia isn’t a heavyweight by any means, and Fang Xu’s bar is certainly not lacking in liquor. It also helps that he’s not important enough to get roped into any lengthy social obligations apart from those of the drinking game variety.
He’d been planning on ignoring Yu Liang to the best of his ability, but the alcohol loosens his inhibitions and lowers his guard—the laws of gravity do the rest. Throughout the night, he drifts toward Yu Liang like a moth to flame, desperate for light and indifferent to the possibility of getting burned. Yu Liang indulges him—even all these years later, he’s still indulging him—and He Jiajia tries not to feel bad about taking full advantage of it.
“Do you think if you didn’t let me win that day,” He Jiajia slurs into Yu Liang’s shoulder at the end of the night, as Shen Yilang and Hong He are trying desperately to drag Shi Guang off the pool table. He Jiajia and Yu Liang are seated at their booth, and Yu Liang is looking concernedly in Shi Guang’s direction—he’s somehow managed to kick Shen Yilang’s glasses off his face—and He Jiajia is drunk but not so drunk that he isn't acutely aware of the fact that he’s leaning his head against Yu Liang’s shoulder. And he’s definitely not drunk enough to say what he says next, but he’ll use it as a convenient excuse tomorrow when he remembers, nevertheless: “Do you think if you didn’t let me win, and I didn’t quit weiqi, that you would be looking at me instead of him?”
“What?” Yu Liang asks, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
He Jiajia closes his eyes and laughs. Wonders that himself—feels foolish for even asking. He never did manage to beat Yu Liang—perhaps he never would have, even if he hadn’t quit. “I guess not,” he says under his breath, then stands up and goes to help wrestle Shi Guang down.
●
Wait, Yu Liang had called, after the tournament. He Jiajia stopped walking but didn’t turn around. I’m glad you’re playing weiqi again.
The knot in He Jiajia’s stomach tightened; he let out a bitter laugh. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not playing again. When Yu Liang said nothing, He Jiajia felt the inexplicable need to explain—That was my last game. I play xiangqi now. I only entered the tournament because I felt bad for those two hopeless weiqi-heads.
Oh, Yu Liang said at the end of a very long breath. I saw your last game. You played well.
He Jiajia scoffed. Had to remind himself that Yu Liang didn’t mean to be so infuriating; he was just like that, all the time, unknowingly. The reminder didn’t help much—it was almost more infuriating that Yu Liang wasn’t doing it on purpose—so He Jiajia turned his head to the side and stared out over the setting sun and said, Well I still lost that one, didn’t I?
○
The next day, He Jiajia is counting the seconds until the end of his shift when Yu Liang shows up at the salon again. Luckily, all the other stylists are either too busy to notice or too busy to comment, because He Jiajia doesn’t realize he’s there until he catches sight of him himself, lingering awkwardly in the reception area. The sight is even more unwelcome than it normally would be—He Jiajia has just spent the entire day hungover, and the memory of his drunken ramblings is seared into the back of his mind, playing relentlessly on repeat.
He Jiajia stops sweeping, his mood souring. He leans the broom against an empty chair and makes his way over, wondering what Yu Liang could possibly be here for this time.
“Seriously,” He Jiajia says, exasperated, when Yu Liang comes up to the counter, “If I trim your hair any further you’ll be left with a crew cut. I promise it won’t suit you.”
This time, Yu Liang is in a button-up and slacks but has forgone the suit jacket, and He Jiajia supposes that even someone who runs as cold as Yu Liang isn’t immune to the early summer heat. The top button of his shirt is undone, and there’s a few beads of sweat rolling lazily down toward his collarbone, hidden behind the starched cotton.
Yu Liang clears his throat. “What time do you get off work?”
He Jiajia raises an eyebrow, incredulous. “That depends on why you’re asking.”
“I just want to talk,” he says quickly, then corrects himself: “We need to talk.”
He Jiajia glances at the clock. There’s still fifteen minutes left in his shift, but when he looks over his shoulder at the head stylist she simply waves him off with a shooing motion. He Jiajia doesn’t need to be told twice; he hangs up his apron and is out the door in seconds, the sound of the door chime quickly drowned out by the clamor of the city.
Yu Liang follows He Jiajia wordlessly into the streets. Neither of them speak; instead, the honking of rush hour traffic and the bells of cyclists sound between them, urgent and competing for attention. In the distance, the squawking of birds joins the cacophony, and before He Jiajia realizes it, they’ve found themselves once again en route to that familiar path by the lake—He Jiajia in front and Yu Liang behind, silent as a shadow.
“You said we needed to talk, so talk,” He Jiajia prompts, when they reach the edge of the lake.
Here, the sounds of the city seem far away. Instead, an awkward silence looms between them, heavy with everything they’ve left unsaid.
“I— It’s okay if you never play weiqi again,” Yu Liang says finally.
“Is that really all you came here to tell me?” He Jiajia scoffs, his lips curling into a sneer. “Didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Why do you act like everything I say is meant to hurt you?” Yu Liang asks, his voice growing louder all the while, more desperate than exasperated. “I have never meant to hurt you.”
He Jiajia closes his eyes. He knows. Has always known, maybe even from the very beginning, that Yu Liang hadn’t meant to hurt him. It might have been easier, if he had. But He Jiajia knows that Yu Liang only ever wanted to help him—wanted to save him, in the only way he could, from the life He Jiajia had been given. But even if sometimes He Jiajia cursed his life and wondered why it was he who had to live it, he never asked, or prayed, or fantasized for anyone else to save him—had only ever planned on saving himself.
“But you did,” He Jiajia says quietly, petulantly, because Yu Liang hadn’t believed He Jiajia could save himself. “You hurt me.”
Yu Liang makes a pained expression. “You said you’d forgive me, if I brought back the championship. What more do you want?”
He Jiajia looks away. He isn’t sure what he wants either.
Yu Liang continues, “If I had known back then that you would quit weiqi because of me, I never would have done it.”
He Jiajia almost laughs. “If I was a worthy opponent you never would have had to consider it.”
“It wasn’t about that,” Yu Liang insists. “Some things are more important than weiqi. Even to me.”
“Really?” He Jiajia scoffs. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Can you turn around and look at me?” Yu Liang demands, voice strained. He Jiajia has never heard Yu Liang raise his voice before. “All these years, I kept trying to reach out, hoping that maybe this time you’d turn around and look at me, if only just once. But you never did.”
He Jiajia slows to a stop. He closes his eyes and wonders what he would have seen, if he’d ever looked back. Would it have been those soft, pitying eyes? Or that pleading stare, guilt-ridden and full of regret? Would it have changed anything if it was neither of those—if He Jiajia had turned around and saw exactly what he wanted to see, had he known what he wanted to see—would it have made any difference?
Even now, He Jiajia isn’t sure. But this time, for once, he decides to turn around and find out.
Yu Liang is closer than he expected him to be. For a second, Yu Liang’s eyes go wide—bright and clear and innocent—and then he smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle, softening with relief.
He Jiajia looks Yu Liang in the eyes and asks, “What would you have done if I did?”
Yu Liang’s answer is immediate. “This,” he whispers, and closes the distance.
●
The last time Yu Liang stalked him home from school, it had been early fall. He Jaijia had just started his first year of high school, resolved to finally make something of himself. In his hands was a sign-up sheet for the xiangqi club. Have you ever played? the club president had asked after accosting him in the hallway like some shady solicitor, working on commission. No, He Jiajia confessed, apologetic. He’s not sure if the club president heard him—had shoved the paper into He Jiajia’s empty hands all the same, and moved on to scanning the crowd for his next victim.
He Jiajia was staring down at the application form when he noticed Yu Liang out of the corner of his eye, standing idly by the lake. Yu Liang hadn’t noticed him yet. It’d been three years since he last saw Yu Liang there waiting for him, and for a moment He Jiajia thought he was seeing things. But sure enough, Yu Liang really was there—he waved just as He Jiajia walked past, and He Jiajia upped his pace.
Wait, Yu Liang called out. I’m leaving for Korea tomorrow.
He Jiajia looked over his shoulder but didn’t meet Yu Liang’s gaze. Instead, he glanced out over the shimmering lake and said, Why are you telling me this?
A flock of birds flew over the water, headed south. The wind carried Yu Liang’s words to him—So that you know where to find me when you decide to come back.