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The train announced the stop, and so began the complicated dance of standing while it was still moving, Wei Ying swaying and Lan Zhan gripping the seats tight as they made their way down the aisle to the doorway, while Wen Ning held his crutches with one hand and held Wei Ying with the other so he wouldn’t fall and tip them all over.
The platform was low, the train’s four tall steps not even coming close to the ground, and so began another maneuver, Wen Ning descending first, then Wei Ying passing from Lan Zhan’s hands to his, and finally Lan Zhan himself, falling the last step into their waiting arms.
They took a few steps back and the train began to move again, and sucks to suck if they forgot anything on it, because there was no conductor at the station, and the few people who’d gotten off with them had already left in the time it took them to get their bearings.
“Yikes,” Wei Ying said. Trains were better than cars, which were better than buses, but he took a seat on the platform bench anyway, and lowered his head between his legs to chase away what Lan Zhan hoped was dizziness and not pain.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agreed.
He’d taken his crutches back from Wen Ning, and approached the map not-so-proudly displayed below the name of the station. It was faded yellow and one road had entirely peeled off.
“I got it,” said Wen Ning said, having taken the time to take out his phone and look up the farm they were headed to.
Then there was a pause.
Lan Zhan turned back and joined Wei Ying on the bench. He patted the seat between them, then, when Wen Ning got the hint and joined, looked expectantly at him.
It had not been an empty pause.
“They’re not doing strawberries right now,” Wen Ning said, looking like he wanted to sigh, but had instead chosen to look mildly guilty. “They ended last week.”
He tilted the phone screen so Lan Zhan could see, then so Wei Ying could see, the font enlarged and contrast adjusted so he could read easily even dizzy and upside-down. True to Wen Ning’s words, the farm’s website proclaimed: Thank you for joining us for strawberry season! See you next year!
“That can’t be right,” Wei Ying muttered. He levered himself upright. “Let me see?”
Wen Ning passed the phone over. It took only a second for Wei Ying to huff and hand it back, then pretend that the light hadn’t made his head hurt.
Wen Ning held the phone in both hands in his lap, flipping off the farm website and onto a map of the area. “I forgot to double-check.”
“That wasn’t your job,” Wei Ying argued. “I’m the one who suggested going.”
“But we found the farm together—”
“It was my idea—”
“I didn’t check, either,” Lan Zhan said, shrugging gingerly to test his range of motion and realizing that, well, maybe, even having taken it easy and having grabbed his crutches for the day instead of his cane, strawberry picking might have gone less than ideally. Forget stumbling through the hedges, how had he been planning to lean down and grab the berries?
“So no one’s fault and everyone’s fault—”
“Which evens it out perfectly.”
Lan Zhan hummed. Wei Ying sounded doubtful, a bit sarcastic, and in the meantime Wen Ning had slipped away from the map—for a second, Lan Zhan thought the movement had been accidental—and pulled up the train schedule.
He sighed, disappointed, once again tilting the screen first to Lan Zhan then to Wei Ying, holding it as steady as he could. “Next train isn’t for two hours.”
“Are there any other options?” Wei Ying rested his head on Wen Ning’s shoulder, hands hanging limply between his legs. Lan Zhan desperately wanted to recreate the position, but instead took out his own phone and, tilting it away from the sun, pulled up his own map.
There were buses—running every hour instead of every two hours like the train, thank you holiday hours and road construction—but not much else. And a small café on the corner. And a shop nearby, even closer and on their side of the street. It sold winter gear, of course, in late July.
Wei Ying wiggled a bit on Wen Ning’s shoulder, somehow craning his neck to view the station behind them without actually turning around. “Can we wait inside?”
Wen Ning steadied a hand on his waist, putting his phone down to do so, so it was Lan Zhan instead who turned on the side of the bench, and, facing backwards, was able to read: Waiting area closed for maintenance. Sorry for the inconvenience!
He turned back, biting off a number of words that would have made Wei Ying laugh—“So you do have it in you, Lan Zhan!” he’d cried out the first time he heard Lan Zhan swear back in high school—and shook his head. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the pain in his back that increased with every movement and every second on the uneven bench, or this realization.
Behind him, Wei Ying sighed and said, without taking out his phone to check, “So what now?”
Lan Zhan didn’t bother to turn his own phone on again, either, and instead plucked Wen Ning’s out of his hand; Wen Ning himself was busy unfolding Wei Ying’s sunglasses and nudging them onto his face.
“The winter store’s open,” he offered. It no doubt lacked all public amenities, but perhaps they’d make a pathetic enough sight that they’d be given a stool to share while they took advantage of air conditioning.
And it was closer than the café. They’d have to stop near it anyway if they chose the latter.
“Just winter gear?”
“I’m sure there’re trinkets.” Overpriced trinkets that none of them needed but would likely buy anyway—unless there was no seating and they gave up halfway through.
It would be the café, then.
“I’m down for trinkets,” said Wei Ying, who was definitely down, but perhaps only in the general sense, and not for trinkets specifically.
Lan Zhan exchanged a glance with Wen Ning as Wei Ying made a valiant wiggling motion that soon turned into something resembling standing.
So Lan Zhan stood, too, and followed Wei Ying and Wen Ning, the latter leaning on the former and neither looking at Lan Zhan grimacing behind them, which was exactly what he wanted—and anyway, he let them see the grimace when he sat on the bench outside the store—hello, bench!—and idly looked at the display of ski helmets—July, thank you very much—before contemplating just how long he needed to sit before crossing the street to the café if he wanted to have the strength to eat the pastry he wanted more with every second.
He didn’t want to shop, despite the distraction it would provide. He wanted a pastry.
So Lan Zhan sat a bit more, until he had more confidence in the whole walking thing, and took the time to think through the whole enterprise: what had convinced him he’d be able to pick the berries? What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t. He’d just wanted to do it.
So he stood, and gestured to the café; Wen Ning saw him, Wei Ying intently looking at something red and black—gloves? Something that matched his aesthetic and kept him from looking at his phone or the bright sun outside.
Get us some cookies?—the text from Wen Ning buzzed in his pocket as he waited in line for his own pastry. The one with the strawberries, though ironic, looked absolutely delicious.
Lan Zhan bought them some cookies.
And he even got to do it faster than he thought he would, since someone let him cut in line.
We got the gloves, came another text when Lan Zhan started eating, and a photo of Wei Ying trying them on, then another one of them in a nice bag that looked too stuffed to only be holding one purchase.
What else? Lan Zhan texted back.
Not telling!—from Wei Ying, who, as Lan Zhan could see through the window, stumbled over the curb, because he’d decided that texting while walking was a good idea.
Lan Zhan shook his head. Very subtle. He began to think of where on his bookshelf this new gift could fit.
“Think the strawberries are from the farm?” Wei Ying asked when he plopped down at the table.
“I’m trying not to,” Lan Zhan replied.
Wei Ying, in the time it took him to answer, had rested his head on the table and was looking sideways at him. Wen Ning, very wisely, had started in on his cookie before Wei Ying could absentmindedly eat both.
Lan Zhan was also trying not to think that Wen Ning was the only one of them who could have bent down to the strawberries. And, seeing Wen Ning fumble the cookie, trying not to think how futile that would have been, anyway, with Wen Ning unable to pick the berries when he actually got there.
“So when’s the train?” Wei Ying asked after a while, after he’d sat up straight and eaten his cookie (not quite in that order).
“Two hours?”
“One and a half by now.”
“So an hour before we think of moving,” Wei Ying concluded with a triumphant nod, and immediately put his head down. He said to the table: “Lan Zhan, wanna see the gloves we got?”
Lan Zhan saw them already, but dutifully gave them another look and faithfully said, “They’re lovely.”
Wei Ying whipped up—“Don’t look under them, though!”
Very subtle.
“I won’t,” Lan Zhan said to the top of his head, as Wei Ying had gone back to resting on the table.
“No reason though,” Wei Ying mumbled.
“None, I’m sure.” Lan Zhan exchanged a smile with Wen Ning.
“No reason,” Wen Ning echoed, still smiling. “Promise.”
He was still smiling, quietly mischievous, and Lan Zhan felt a zing of mischief as well—or not even that. It was so ridiculous, this whole situation. He leaned forward and landed a kiss on Wen Ning’s lips, because in the moment he couldn’t not do that.
He was still smiling when he leaned back, though the café chairs did his back no favors, and neither did the quick movement. But where would they be if they didn’t take risks every once in a while?
Still at home and with storebought strawberries, of course, instead of the no strawberries and the no-more-excursions-for-at-least-a-week exhaustion they had accumulated. But they could still buy the berries, so—why not embrace it, in a few hours from the safety of their soft bed?
Lan Zhan looked over the top of Wei Ying’s head at the pastry display, and at the clock promising them another hour, and turned to Wen Ning, already expecting an affirmative answer for how to fill the time in the meantime. “Want to get something else?”