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There was no surprise on Zhang Jiale’s face when he opened the door. “Zou Yuan said you might turn up,” he said, stepping aside. “Come in.”
Tang Hao came in. “He told you?”
“He said you asked for my address. I think he thought you were also going to send me a parcel.” Zhang Jiale nodded in the direction of several cardboard boxes, haphazardly stacked in the corner.
The labels were still on them, proclaiming the origin to be Kunming. So Hundred Blossoms had finally emptied the building of Zhang Jiale’s things after all, surrendering him to their past. Four years ago, they hadn’t seemed capable of it.
Four years ago Tang Hao wouldn’t be standing in Zhang Jiale’s apartment. He said, “Are you going to keep them?”
“Maybe.” A careless shrug. “I can’t decorate the entire place in black and red. But enough of the pleasantries - you’re not going to say you were just passing by, are you?”
Hard to pass by the kind of tier 3 city Zhang Jiale had picked for his summer hideaway - maybe twenty people altogether were on the platform when the high speed rail left. Tang Hao was certain Zhang Jiale knew it.
“No,” he said. “I came to…”
To see you was objectively true, but the wrongness of it was like falling for a Sand Toss to the face, scratching and dry in his throat. To see your newly renovated apartment was plain creepy without an invitation. To ask - what, why Zhang Jiale hadn’t retired after the championships? He didn’t need Zhang Jiale to laugh him out the door, and even if Zhang Jiale deigned to answer, he’d probably quote Sun Zheping: I wanted to, I felt like it, None of your business.
He was predictable that way, the way Dazzling Hundred Blossoms could be predicted. It still never made anyone prepared for it.
“…hang out,” he finished, lamely.
The expression on Zhang Jiale’s face could have been lifted from his memories: an unimpressed captain, a chastised junior. Defensively, Tang Hao folded his arms. “Problem?”
“You are sending some very mixed signals here,” muttered Zhang Jiale. “Okay. Help me unpack.”
Zhang Jiale’s apartment was the kind of newly renovated that still had half the furniture in boxes and the other half in storage; his bedroom consisted of a bed, a coat stand, and twenty boxes. The only reason Tang Hao hadn’t been able to tell from the hallway was because the living room had already been furnished with the important items. If the computer and the monitors had been set up, did it really matter that the removalists had delayed the sofa until next week?
They assembled the bookshelf together first, providing an excuse to comb through the Hundred Blossoms boxes in search of trinkets to decorate with. Zhang Jiale sat cross-legged on the ground as he sliced through the tape on the first one, strands of darkening hair falling over his face.
Tang Hao had always known Dazzling Hundred Blossoms was a popular target for the merch team; now he was seeing just how popular. Zhang Jiale had clearly put the one free sample per product clause of his contract to full use. Badges, keychains and standee parts sat next to boxed chibi figurines and mint-condition replicas of Hunting Seeker, and - was that a shampoo bottle in the bubble wrap?
Zhang Jiale pulled it out and shook it. “I wonder if shampoo expires,” he said, the bottle’s contents sloshing around.
Tang Hao gave him the trash bag.
The fourth box turned out to be the non-Glory related trinkets, of which Zhang Jiale had many. Before he’d left, Tang Hao had only ever caught glimpses of his room in passing; after, there wasn’t much point entering a shrine. But he still remembered the walls and shelves as drowning in posters and small items, the effect as visually overwhelming as Zhang Jiale’s favoured playstyle.
Whoever had taken the posters down had taken pains to put them back into plastic wrap; Zhang Jiale left them aside without even glancing at them, rooting through the box for what turned out to be a handpainted ceramic succulent. “Put that on the top shelf,” he said.
Two photos and a spinning chibi of Dazzling Hundred Blossoms joined it, the rest sealed back up into the box. “I suppose they have no resale value now,” mused Zhang Jiale, as they dragged it back to the corner. “Maybe I need to get one of those beds with drawers in them and put them there.”
They’re limited items in high demand now, Tang Hao didn’t say. It wasn’t as if Zhang Jiale was going to pour them into the garbage bin.
After the bookshelf was an 8-set of storage cubes, some drawers, and three bar stools for a table that hadn’t arrived. They unpacked the coffee machine, the kettle, and an assortment of mugs, plates and bowls. Tang Hao put the chopsticks away into the drawer and found himself acutely aware that it was the sort of action he only did at home.
“Alright,” said Zhang Jiale, handing him a longan. “You’ve been too quiet. Tang Hao, what’s wrong?”
Tang Hao decided he would rather chew through his own liver than give Zhang Jiale the opportunity to analyse his answer. He stayed quiet. He was being a terrible house-guest, but he could live with that.
After a moment, Zhang Jiale offered him another longan.
He didn’t push. Perhaps he didn’t see the need, or perhaps he wasn’t interested. Zhang Jiale was always only as easy to read as he wanted to be. The longan deformed in Tang Hao’s hands.
“You don’t squeeze it, you peel it.” Zhang Jiale plucked the unfortunate fruit out of his hands, tossing it aside carelessly, and a peeled one made its way into Tang Hao’s hands shortly after. “Don’t eat the pit.”
“I need to leave,” Tang Hao blurted out.
He hated himself for saying it. Running away - that was done by other people, chief among them the one standing in front of him. But the hours already spent needled on his skin, and any moment now Zhang Jiale would be able to pry horrifically senseless words out of him. Tang Hao hated that possibility more. He should never have come.
Zhang Jiale fixed him with a look that rooted his legs in place. “Don’t eat the pit,” he repeated.
What do you want from me, Tang Hao wanted to demand, only he couldn’t even answer the same question. What did he want from Zhang Jiale? An apology that would never be sincere, because Zhang Jiale had finally mastered how to take care of himself, or an acknowledgement he already had, or—
In his moment of distraction, Zhang Jiale had walked him back against the fridge. The thud of his back hitting its door brought Tang Hao back to himself. Zhang Jiale was right in front of him, his eyes slightly narrowed, close enough Tang Hao could see his own reflection. His breathing stuttered.
“You can’t get what you’re afraid of,” Zhang Jiale warned him.
He didn’t look happy about it, at least. Tang Hao stared after him as he walked away to boot up the computer, the invitation to PK it out - on the lowest graphics settings, mind, since one of them would have to use the thoroughly underequipped laptop (though at least he had a spare monitor) - coming soon after. So he was still prying, just in a different language.
Of course it was too much to expect Zhang Jiale to let things go. He was arguably renowned for not letting things go.
Tang Hao ate the longan, spat out the pit, and joined him at the table.