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Ha Noi was strange lately, in the kind of way that made one have a constant change of heart. It felt as if just yesterday, Ta Hoang Long still found the incoming winter as something magical, because he’d have an excuse to lazily curl up in a blanket. But what remained in the present was the cold that could cut through the skin of the capital, like the day Le Duy Lan left, leaving him behind with a heart aching with silent love songs that couldn’t be heard.
He hated that the boy left without a word. Hated even more the thought that he might not have been important enough to receive a proper goodbye.
So Ta Hoang Long blocked Le Duy Lan. For three whole months.
He had blocked that handsome jerk one night after too much thinking. It really was true that you shouldn’t use your phone after 10PM.
He still didn’t expect any sort of messages from Le Duy Lan, but the “puppy” with shining eyes appeared before Long in the flesh, waiting to wrap a scarf around him in the middle of Ha Noi’s freezing winter.
Why is this annoying idiot here?
Le Duy Lan stood there, tall and a bit thinner than he remembered. His thick, black curls were made a mess by the wind, but those eyes were as bright and innocent as ever. They were looking at him, a longing gaze filled with things that Hoang Long couldn’t quite understand.
“Long time no see, Long.”
His voice also sounded a little deeper.
“Let me drive you home.”
Hoang Long instantly turned away. He didn’t want to speak another word with this boy, he was afraid that his heart would weaken like before at the sight of Le Duy Lan’s face. But his sleeves were being tightly gripped in the hands of that teary-eyed puppy who refused to let go.
“It’s cold outside. My car has heating. There’s even boba tea too if you like.”
So Hoang Long let himself be tugged by those warm hands, settling into the comfortable passenger seat with a cup of oolong boba tea, size L with less sugar and a Snoopy stuffed doll on his lap.
But he still wouldn’t look Duy Lan in the eyes.
Hoang Long stared at the yellow streetlights stretching across every street corner through the car window, the sight reminded him how awfully familiar this felt. He remembered the times they would drive each other through Ha Noi’s urban roads, circling the West Lake twice just to be together for longer. Duy Lan would place his hand in his jacket pocket. In another time, they sneaked into an old apartment building, climbing to the upper most floor, where they shouted their wishes aloud for the world to hear. He couldn’t remember what he shouted, but clearly remembered the other boy’s radiant smile, how strange. Those fragments of memories just came crashing over him like a tidal wave, vivid as if they had only occurred the day before.
They say a memory is a thing that can kill a person, and it had killed the lingering stubbornness in Ta Hoang Long’s head.
“Thought you were dead over there.”
“More like missing Long to death.”
Realizing that the way home had become more and more unfamiliar, Hoang Long suddenly realized that he had been a tad too gullible. What if this handsome idiot got caught up in some kind of illegal network abroad and came back to sell him to pay off debt? Of course Long was afraid, but he was more sulky at Lan, so he settled with the decision to use the coldest voice he could muster and asked.
“Where are we going? I thought we were going home?”
“This is the way home, my home.”
And yet as he stepped out into the parking lot of the luxury apartment complex, everything still felt like a dream amidst the winter to Hoang Long. He was scared that when he woke up, the warmth of that hand over his would disappear as always, just like every single day before this.
Noticing his uneasy expression, Duy Lan gently patted his back a few times before he quietly spoke.
“Wanna go for a little walk?”
And Long mumbled a tiny agreement, as if the winter breeze could whisk his reply away in the next second.
So the two of them fell into steps side by side, strolling Ha Noi’s streets in the middle of the night. The lights of streetlamps hovered above their heads as the rustling of leaves mixed with the howling wind. Only after a long while did the question that had been troubling Long for months slipped from his tongue.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
He was questioning the obvious, but his eyes had already started to shimmer, lips pressed tightly into a thin line to force the redness on his nose bridge away.
“... It’s because of Long.”
“How is that because of me?”
Hoang Long swore he would ask only one question more, before the hurt turned into anger, then he would kick Duy Lan’s legs so hard the boy would fall on his face. The one being left behind without a word of notice was clearly him, and yet in the other’s mind, apparently he was at fault.
“Because if Long had held onto me even just a little, I would have stayed in a heartbeat.”
“Also, I didn’t know what to say at the time. What was I supposed to do? Make you wait?”
“I thought maybe I should just go, then everything would be different after a few years. But it seems that’s not the case.”
The boy paused, voice lowered a little, as if talking to himself.
“I’m so happy, knowing that Long still worries about me.”
Truthfully, after that entire monologue of the 6 foot puppy beside him, the restlessness in Long’s heart had calmed a great deal. But he couldn’t quite forgive Le Duy Lan so easily just yet.
“So, are you still mad at me?”
Seeing that he wasn’t getting a response, Duy Lan quickly took a few extra steps, stopping right in front of Hoang Long. The boy was caught off guard, causing him to swiftly slam right into Lan’s chest.
“No, why would I be?”
Ta Hoang Long hated tall and handsome people. Especially Le Duy Lan.
But at the end of the day, what right did he have to hate the other? Why should he waste more tears for a love that didn’t work out?
“If you’re back then don’t go anymore.”
“I won’t. It’s nicer to stay here.”
He said, then circled his arms around Long’s waist from behind, tugging the smaller boy under his chin.
“I don’t have to be apart from Long anymore.”
Long had told himself a thousand times over that he hated Le Duy Lan, but that didn’t stop the warmth of the embrace from clouding his mind. He could hear Lan’s heartbeat, a steady rhythm filled with something like longing.
The streets of Ha Noi were sparse at 11 in the night, so they just stayed in the hug, until Hoang Long no longer felt the cold biting at his fingertips. Every wall he had tried to build in the past months shook, then came crumbling down as the familiar scent of Lan's fabric softener hit his nose.
He wanted to kiss the other boy so badly, but his mother advised against kissing unfamiliar men. But if this “stranger” leaned in first, Ta Hoang Long wouldn't refuse it.