Chapter Text
♡
2022年8月29日 · 星期五 · 凌晨 · 多云
仿佛过去那漫长的十八年只不过是一场虚幻的梦境，浮生若梦；而今日我才苏醒了过来…… 但从今往后，我誓要逃离这片清汤中的罗网，一笔一画地夺回生命中绚丽的色彩。
Friday, August 29th, 2022, before dawn. Partly cloudy.
I awoke, as if these past eighteen years were simply a dream, one that cast me adrift within the ocean’s sweeping embrace… but from today onwards, I promise to escape the net cast around me in this colorless haze, and to reclaim the world’s iridescence one brushstroke at a time.
♡
He wasn’t quite sure.
Ricky’s pen hesitated above the next line. Instead of writing, he let his fingers smooth the glossy surface of the page, leaning his head back and taking in the fresh scent of a new diary.
He wasn’t quite sure what to write down.
Beginnings were always the hardest. The blank page staring back at him was daunting, like the first note in a symphony, setting the tone, cultivating the pace. After that, he could fill the lines swiftly, letting the words flow from the tip of his tongue, black lines of ink that swooped and dipped on the paper.
He didn’t force them to come. Ricky waved a hand over the words to dry them, then let the book fall shut on its own. His eyes flickered shut, exhaustion bleeding into his corneas in the same pink that tinted his whole room, filtering through the gauzy white curtains from the lazy glow of dawn.
He should have slept. He knew his day would be eventful, and he’d tried, turning off the light and feeling the comfortable coolness of the bamboo mat under his skin. Maybe he’d drifted off somewhere, some lost space between darkness and the heat that crept up his limbs anyways, but something kept him from falling deeper into the reaches of repose.
Instead, by the time his bedside clock blinked 2:30 at him innocently, Ricky forced himself to drag his body out of the delicate somnolence and rub the sleep from his eyes. If he couldn’t fall asleep, he might as well do something anyway. His gaze had fallen on a little white journal, the one that his cousin had gifted to him on his birthday in May, and something compelled him to reach out for the leather-bound book.
Now it sat on his lap, his thoughts drifting across the first page, cover closed so as not to let those precious glimpses of his half-dreaming mind wander and vanish like smoke the way they often did. Captured in a neatly dated frame.
A new beginning. Ricky’s fingertips brushed gently over the soft leather nestled in the folds of his pajamas. Maybe he’d thought to start one today, even though the last diary was only half-finished, still sitting silently on his desk like an afterthought, because today would be the day that Ricky left his life in China behind, a chapter just as incomplete as the entries he’d never filled those pages with. A white cover that he’d fill once he had something to put there. A picture to the foreign name, the half-foreign whisper that danced through his mind, fleeting and as hard to grasp as his own mind sometimes. Korea.
He still didn’t know what to think of studying abroad. It had been a last minute decision, one made in hushed voices through closed doors where his parents thought that Ricky couldn’t hear. As if he hadn’t spent his entire life with his ears pressed to cold walls, waiting for his name to be said the way it never quite was when he was around.
His mom was worried. 此行…… 真的是对的吗？Is this really the right path?
Ricky’s father was silent for a moment. 只能这样了。It has to be.
我就生怕会后悔。I’m just scared that we’ll regret this decision.
滢薇，小锐已经不小了。他若是找不到自己的方向，那就只能由我们来为他指一条路。Ricky isn’t a child anymore, Yingwei. If he can’t find his own way, we’ll have to pick a path for him.
What did they mean? Ricky’s heart caught in his throat, halfway between silence and a soft cry. What did they mean by choosing a path for him? What path? And… would he regret it, just like his mom worried?
He’d come to find out a week later.
“Ricky, we should talk to you about something.” His father chose the words carefully, his tones more clipped and upright than they usually were, making him sound like every bit the Beijing-born businessman that he was.
Ricky felt a pit of dread settling in his stomach, but he let himself be led to the living room, where the white couch lay in silent predatory wait. The stiff rough fabric he’d run his fingers on when he listened to his father talk about his grades, or his mom had made him promise to be careful after he broke his arm falling from a swing, or they’d broken the news to him over Facetime that his grandma had passed away in her sleep.
At the time, he didn’t know it might be his last time digging his skin into the weave to stop the tears from cropping up in the corners of his eyes.
“We’re sending you to Seoul.”
“To… Korea?” Ricky was stunned. They’d never even talked about the country at home before, except in passing when it came to politics or the latest trend in fashion, and Korean had been just one of the languages that his renowned international private school had taught. It had never been his favorite. And now they were talking of sending him there, as if he might belong with round unnatural letters and colorful silk sashes and music that told about young love without the familiar melancholy in their tones, the strumming of the guzheng in the background, the sweet sound of his language curling in around the edges.
“You’re kicking me out.” The bitterness spilled from his mouth and he clamped a hand over it before he could let anything else fall, words or tears.
His mom’s eyes shined in a way that made Ricky suspect she was doing the same. “No, Ricky. We just think that—” Here her voice broke a little, and she struggled for the right words in Mandarin. “山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村." Where mountains and rivers wind your path down, beyond dark trees the shining flowers lead on.
It was a line from Ricky’s favorite poem. His grandma had taught it to him, and he repeated every word with her in his head like he was still reciting for the poetry-reading competition in grade school, the red ribbon he’d won from it still hanging on the mantle just past his mom’s head.
When hope seems scarce and reaching for a dream feels like an impossibility, his grandma had explained, you push past the darkness in your mind until you see the light again. That’s what the words of the poem meant. That sometimes a path had to end before a new one could open up.
And he knew in the back of his mind that they were right, that his mom and his grandma and his father were right, that China just didn’t feel right for him anymore, that it was time to explore something new, but that didn’t stop him from burying his face in his mom’s jasmine-scented warmth and letting the sobs wrack his chest as he cried for all the times he couldn’t before and wouldn’t now.
Two and a half months after the announcement that had come just on the tail of his college exam, Ricky was finally leaving. He hadn’t cried since that day. It had been an embarrassing moment of weakness for him, and curiosity had since worked its way into his chest and settled there like a dandelion seed that had ridden the wind before taking root somewhere deep in his heart. He was scared of this new path, but somehow, he was excited too. Because maybe he’d known all along that he needed something different. From the moment he’d heard his grandma’s voice in his head, from the moment he’d turned in his exam paper and realized he didn’t really care if his score exceeded 700, and maybe from the moment he was six years old and reciting Visiting a Village to the West of the Mountain in front of his classmates.
He was standing in the shadow of the trees now. And already he could smell the dizzying scent of the flowers ahead, sweet nectar lacing through the damp air, promising something ahead. He just needed to keep going.
Ricky checked off his suitcase in his head one last time. Formal clothes. His navy pullover, two white sweaters, folded slacks in every shade of monochrome, plain corporate ties, long black coat flattened as tight as possible. Check. Sleepwear, the striped silk set he’d just cut the tag off of just last night and had been pleasantly surprised by the length of, just right, even though he hadn’t checked the sizing before purchasing. Check. Underclothes, T-shirts for both warm and cooler weather, a dozen pairs of socks. Check, check, check.
Then, with an amused smile on his face, he slipped something in with the neat white bundles of footwear. Bright pink socks, far too small, stitched with sunny yellow daisies and an embroidered “Happey”—misspelled, because Chinese textiles were unbelievably fond of their broken English, as was his grandma.
He’d be damned if he wasn’t taking the horrible things with him. His grandma’s last gift to him, because she’d said lovingly that little ten-year-old Ricky’s hair was getting too long and that if he was going to look like a girl, he should dress like one, too. Ricky didn’t know any girls who would wear even these socks without monetary compensation, but something about the ugly pink mar in a suitcase packed full of black and white and gray felt… right.
He rocked back on his heels, shutting the lid of the suitcase and zipping it tight. His black crossbody bag sat slouched at his side, and he ran a hand through the bangs that had fallen in his eyes. If only his grandma could see him now, hair long and loose and platinum and more like a girl’s than ever, waterline carefully drawn with the same eyeliner that she’d always insisted was too feminine for a “strong young man” like him, and packing those silly socks on the most important departure of his life.
“Ricky?” His mom’s voice was dampened by the door. “I just let Mingze in. Hurry up, alright? Before he drinks all of my good Longjing.”
Ricky grinned. His favorite cousin, who liked to go by MZ recently—because he thought it made him sound like he was younger than he was, when he was really squarely on the Millennial side of the trending term—was dropping him off at the airport. And his mom’s badly disguised distress meant that MZ had probably hung up his coat in the foyer and was kicking back in the dining room where they welcomed guests, helping himself to the tea his mom always boiled at breakfast.
“I won’t make you wait long,” Ricky called. His mom’s footsteps shuffled away from the door slowly and Ricky sighed. He slowly stretched himself off of the floor, groaning at the way his neck creaked in protest, and gathered his bags. At the last moment, his eyes fell on the white diary, and he slipped it, too, into his carry-on.
Ricky cast one last look around the room that he’d called home for eighteen years. It had been his nursery, then his study room during his school years, and now, it would become just a part of his memory, his past that he was leaving behind. Here he’d lain on his bed, body shaking with laughter and his covers pulled up to his chin while Mingze teased him, here he’d insisted on rolling out a traditional bamboo mat atop his mattress instead of turning up the air conditioning because it made him feel like he was a poet studying for the Chinese civil servant exam in the 1200s instead of a first year who’d rather go to a Jay Chou concert than study actual Chinese civil servants for his history quiz, here he’d smiled and here he'd cried and here he'd talked to the walls more times than a normal boy should.
He was leaving, and leaving for real. Tonight the sound of him unlocking the front entrance at ten after evening studies wouldn’t echo through the house, and his parents wouldn’t have to reprimand him for eating cup noodles in his room again. It was bittersweet, closing the door on the longest chapter of his life. The only one, thus far.
He thought he whispered goodbye, but in the daze of the chaotic hours that followed, he would never remember if he really had. All he recalled was ending up downstairs in his cousin’s familiar suffocating bear hug.
“Ruirui!” MZ breathed the stupid nickname that only he used somewhere near Ricky’s neck, slightly muffled by the hair in his face.
Ricky peeled himself out of the older boy’s grasp. “Uh-huh. Try not to slobber on my shirt too much.”
MZ laughed and pulled back, his muscled arms gripping Ricky’s shoulders. “Are you ready to go?” His delighted eyes found Ricky’s.
“You sound far too glad to get rid of me,” Ricky said, but he couldn’t help flashing a grin back. MZ always made people want to smile. His energy was simply infectious.
“Don’t be silly.” MZ turned to Ricky’s parents, who were standing slightly pressed together, worry and relief warring in their expressions. “If it’s not too much trouble, Auntie and Uncle, I’ll be taking him off of your hands now.”
Ricky’s mom leaned in first and gave Ricky a light peck on the cheek. “Stay safe, and eat well in Korea, okay? Don’t forget to give us a call.” Her reassuring arms found Ricky and he let himself melt into her hug one more time, the scent of her jasmine incense even stronger as he closed his eyes and squeezed her back.
“I won’t, Niang.” The old fashioned term slipped out and made his mom chuckle a little, as if recalling the exaggerated historical dramas Ricky used to love watching, where the hero always bid his own mother a tearful goodbye with the word before leaving on his journey to defeat a monster and rightfully claim the royal crown.
His father stood quietly to the side as Ricky let go of his mom. He was never the hugging type, and he wasn’t now, but he reached out and gave Ricky a firm handshake. It wasn’t intimate, it wasn’t warm, because his father wasn’t an intimate or warm person. But it carried a quiet acknowledgement that Ricky couldn’t help but smile at.
“Fuqin.” He didn’t try to use a casual title to address his father, instead choosing something formal, respectful, like he always had. “Take care of yourselves, okay? I’ll do something useful. Don’t worry.”
Ricky’s father just nodded. “Take care, son.”
It wasn’t really the typical father-son goodbye. They weren’t the typical father and son at all. But it was enough for Ricky. He let his hand drop, smiled one last time at his mom, and then, one arm linked with his cousin and the other dragging his suitcase behind him, he stepped over the threshold and towards the waiting car.
♡
Pudong airport was busy; it always was. If you were traveling abroad in Shanghai, you’d end up in PVG, and if you didn’t know that, it would be obvious once you stepped inside. Two types of people filled the airport: tall, put-together figures with sharp silhouettes in their tailored suit jackets and well-fitted slacks, polished dress shoes tapping the ground as they spoke to someone on the other end of a phone, and families with small children that bounced around or slumped over luggage carts, conversing fluidly in foreign tongues.
Ricky didn’t quite belong to either, in his casual short-sleeve black tee and gray dress pants, but nobody gave him a second look, too preoccupied with their own affairs. He followed MZ as his cousin weaved expertly through the thoroughfare, ducking past stray suitcases and completely at ease with the complex layout.
“You’ve really never left home before?” MZ asked, already knowing the answer. It was more teasing than questioning.
Ricky just smiled. He’d only ever travelled from Hongqiao, the city’s other airport, on domestic flights to visit family every other New Year’s. Otherwise they just stayed home, or maybe took the high-speed train if the destination was closer. On the other hand, he knew that MZ travelled recreationally, and that if he wasn’t in Shanghai to hang out with Ricky, he’d be somewhere under the sun in the Caribbean or surveying breathtaking mountaintop views on the coast of Iceland. In some ways, the cousins were polar opposites. But their differences only brought them closer to each other.
“Passport, please.” The man running the document check looked utterly bored by the scene of the two boys in front of him, probably having seen it a hundred times before. Ricky passed him the document, then squeezed MZ’s hand softly.
The officer scanned the pages of the red booklet, his eyes lingering for a second on Ricky’s picture before glancing up to confirm. He entered something on the desktop in front of him, then slid a little machine not unlike a card reader across the counter. “Right hand.”
Ricky placed his fingers one by one on the tablet in front of him, watching it light up green at each identified fingerprint. MZ let go of his hand as he repeated the process on the other side, and then took a further step away from his cousin to let him scan his face.
“You’re all set.” Ricky took the passport that was offered to him and pocketed it. Then he turned to MZ, studying his cousin’s features carefully, just in case.
“Go on, Ruirui,” MZ said, nudging Ricky’s shoulder lightly. “You’re all grown up now.”
Ricky laughed quietly and swatted MZ’s arm. “I’ll miss you, dude. I promise to call you sometime.”
“Oh, you better. I won’t settle for less.”
“Next, please.”
The two boys exchanged a smile at the immigrations officer’s impatience and carefully slipped away from each other. Ricky caught a glimpse of his cousin’s reflection waving in the metal partitions and turned back to return the goodbye, but the growing line had already swallowed Mingze, and he couldn’t see him anymore.
He really was on his own now.
♡
Killing time was a lot harder than Ricky had expected.
He’d even brought out his sketchbook, absently filling out the lines of the terminal with long, imperfect strokes, not really paying any attention to the drawing. He’d popped in wired headphones and played a few of his favorite ballads before something made him search for K-pop music, clicking on the first radio that Spotify suggested. If he was going to Seoul, he might as well start getting used to it now.
Ricky spoke Korean fine. Well enough, he told himself. He’d picked up the slack after finding out where he was headed, armed with a decent foundation from a couple of year’s classes at his international school in Shanghai, but if he was to be completely honest with himself, he wasn’t ready. Of the languages his school had offered, he’d really only excelled at English. Other than that, he’d have to work harder if he wanted to keep up in Seoul with native speakers.
He sighed as the voices in his headphones continued to belt their notes. If he heard one more line about “being himself”, he'd seriously consider jumping out onto the runway and letting the plane roll over him.
And yet, Ricky still hummed the tune softly to himself as he tuned out the lyrics, turning to watch the oncoming planes through the tall glass windows.
It wasn’t too long after that they started to board passengers. Business class first, then by group number. Ricky was in economy, boarding group five; and he watched four more waves of tired travelers scan their passes and disappear through the jet bridge before they finally called his group. His parents might have been well-off, but they weren’t generous with their expenses. Rich people didn’t stay rich by spending money, his father had told him. And Ricky was fine with it. Just as his parents weren’t lavish, Ricky wasn’t spoiled. He could go a few hours without eating caviar in the clouds.
The announcement finally came when Ricky was contemplating walking to the fountain for a drink. “Now boarding: Group Five. Please line up at the gate and have your boarding passes at the ready.”
Ricky stood unhurriedly and stretched his limbs not unlike a cat. There was barely anyone still left boarding, and he didn’t see why he should rush to get on as if the plane would move faster if he did.
He was just sliding into the end of the line when the first disaster happened.
Without so much as a warning, Ricky tumbled to the ground hard. His boarding pass slipped from his hand and landed on the floor to mingle with a collection of items that weren’t his—sunglasses, documents, a designer scarf, two half-used tubes of lip balm. He sat on the floor, slightly stunned, the wind gone from his lungs.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” he heard someone say. He untangled the words’ meaning first, slowly, before realizing that whoever had apologized had done so in Korean.
Had he gotten hit so hard that he’d lost his recollection of the flight? Was he sprawled on the linoleum at ICN like a moron? Ricky searched weakly for the owner of the scattered items and the apology, trying to make sense of everything in his aching head.
On the floor, looking just as miserable as Ricky felt, was a young boy, certainly no older than he. He’d clearly dressed and arrived in a hurry, because both his hoodie and baggy sweatpants were rumpled and the pieces two conflicting shades of blue and brown. His left shoelace was untied and the other was laced up so sloppily Ricky wondered if he was seeing double from the collision. Long brown hair and a mask hid most of his features from view, but he noticed a fading redness on what showed of his face and dark brown eyes still wide with embarrassment.
“It’s okay.” Ricky tested the Korean words on his tongue, running them through his head once, before letting them pass his lips. “It’s not your fault.”
“You speak Korean?” The boy looked up quickly. “Oh my god, I’m so fucking sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I thought I was going to be late because they wouldn’t let me through and I overslept and I was scared I was going to miss the plane and this is the only flight out that I could get a seat on, and…” his rambling voice trailed off and the red flush reclaimed what was visible of his skin.
Ricky blinked. Second disaster: maybe only about half of the words had actually made it into his head and untangled themselves. The rest were floating somewhere between the two boys, their meaning dangling just out of reach like forbidden fruit that Ricky could reach out for, even graze, but not quite pluck, and certainly not taste. The other boy spoke so fast, and so passionately, and Ricky wasn’t used to the pace.
“Uh… just a little.”
The other boy evidently registered Ricky’s foreign accent this time, because he spoke slower, more sheepishly. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”
It was then that Ricky noticed the other boy was holding a hand to his head, too, and he felt his own temples throb sympathetically. They must have hit their heads in the tumble. He laughed a little, trying to sound calm while grasping onto the last shred of his dignity, and got to his feet. “Don’t worry about it.”
He held out his hand. After a moment, the boy took it. Ricky pulled him up, surprised to realize that the other boy was in fact taller than him by a few inches. They stood looking at each other awkwardly for a moment before Ricky broke his gaze and bent down to pick up the items on the ground.
“Here.” He handed the boy the fallen objects. “I don’t see anything else, unless it rolled under…” The word, seat, which should have been easy vocabulary, escaped him, and a frustrated huff left his lips despite himself. “One of these.” He gestured towards the rows of terminal seating.
“That’s alright. Thanks,” the boy mumbled, only giving the area a brief cursory sweep with his eyes. “I’m really sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I’m not mad.”
“Sorry.” The boy apologized anyways, the word filling the air again like an automatic reflex. “I mean, not sorry, but I am. I’m sorry for saying sorry, but… shit. Sorr–no, my bad.”
Ricky tamped down the smile creeping up his lips, not wanting to look like he was poking fun at the boy. Instead he handed his boarding pass to the gate agent who’d been waiting patiently as the whole scene unfurled in front of her, doing so before the other boy could respond. He gave her a polite smile, which the agent returned before running the ticket over a scanner, hearing the beep of confirmation as she did so.
“14D.” She tore the stub carefully from the pass and held it out to Ricky.
He accepted the slip of paper gratefully. “Have a nice day, Miss.”
He slipped through the gate and strolled down through the jet bridge. He could hear the thrum of the plane’s engines get louder as he approached, and he tossed each flight attendant he passed a quick “thank you”. One of them, in her neatly ironed red uniform and hair pulled in a tight bun, gave him directions to his seat, and he thanked her, too.
At his first glance while he walked down the narrow aisle, seat 14D looked fine. An aisle seat, so he’d have to put up with people squeezing by him, but it was also easier for himself to get in and out of. Plus, he wasn’t really that enthusiastic about heights. The lack of view didn’t bother him. It was also in the center of the cabin, meaning it was a good distance from the bathrooms. All in all, a pretty decent arrangement.
That was, until he approached it with his bag in hand and heard crying.
Ricky froze. Then he carefully lowered his gaze until it landed on the offending creature, and it took all of his willpower not to groan out loud.
Sitting there, taking up his rightful seat and with chubby hands wrapped around his seatbelt like he owned it, was a baby.
Ricky shuddered. He didn’t hate children, not exactly, but he didn’t have much love for them, either, what with their nonstop whines for attention and grimy little fingers. He tore his eyes away from the blubbering thing as he shoved his bag in the overhead storage.
His mother, maybe in her late twenties or thirties, mercifully lifted the baby from Ricky’s seat, apologizing in Mandarin. Ricky laughed gracefully and pretended it wasn’t a big deal, even though he was absolutely dreading sitting next to the thing for the two hours. Just two hours, he told himself, as he fastened his seatbelt and did his best not to even look at the baby, just in case giving it any attention made it realize his presence.
It didn’t work. Ricky felt two small, wet hands on his arm and barely stopped himself from breaking away in disgust. He didn’t want to seem rude in front of strangers, so he let it happen, trying not to think about all of the reasons the baby might be wet and what kind of horrible substances it was rubbing all over Ricky’s skin.
Then, like an angel, a flight attendant appeared in front of him.
“Shuaige, is this your seat?” She spoke in Chinese and tapped lightly on Ricky’s armrest to indicate she was speaking to him. He knew the informal term—handsome guy—had become colloquial nowadays, especially among younger people and for employees to refer to any customers, but it still surprised him a little, maybe because he himself wasn’t used to using it. His father had always said that Ricky felt like an old soul trapped in a young body, always referring to everyone as Sir or Ma’am like he’d been taught to.
“Yes. Yes, this is my seat, Ma’am. Is there a problem?” Ricky’s eyebrows knitted together, slightly confused and a little hopeful.
“No problem at all, unless you were becoming attached to it.” The flight attendant smiled.
“No!” Ricky nearly stood up out of his seat, somehow already unbuckled, his fingers acting before his thoughts could collect themselves. His enthusiasm embarrassed him, and he leaned back quickly, trying to look relaxed. “I mean, no, I’m not attached. Why? Did something come up?”
“We had a request for a seat upgrade for the gentleman in 14D. If that’s you, feel free to grab your stuff and head along with me.”
Ricky tried not to look too excited as he nodded a polite goodbye to the mother, carefully avoiding the drooling baby’s eyes as he tugged his bag out of the overhead bin. The flight attendant glanced at his boarding pass and nodded at him to follow her.
They drew closer to the front of the plane and Ricky swallowed a bit as they got closer to the bathroom. He was glad to leave the baby, but he didn’t want his closest neighbor to be the toilet seat. To his dismay, it started to look more and more like the only option left as they passed row ten, then five, then—
The flight attendant didn’t even glance at the only remaining row of seats before herding him on further, pushing past the washroom and through a set of gray curtains he hadn’t even noticed while boarding.
“Wait, where are we going?” Ricky felt alarmed. Were they kicking him off? A ridiculous vision flashed through his mind of them guiding him to the cockpit and asking him to pilot the plane.
The flight attendant just laughed. “I told you. You’ve been upgraded.”
Ricky’s eyes widened slightly as he followed the attendant into the business class cabin. The seats here were way larger, with adequate leg room, and infinitely more luxurious. Backrests that reclined all the way and a real duvet. Large televisions with actual headsets, not just the cheap tangled plastic wire that he’d been offered when he’d stepped onto the plane.
Had his parents paid for this? Even though they were never the type for huge expenses, maybe they’d gone out of their way just this once for Ricky’s last hours over China. The flight attendant stopped in front of an empty seat and took Ricky’s bag from him.
“Enjoy your flight,” she told him, sliding it into a compartment he’d been too distracted to register.
“Thanks,” Ricky murmured, running a hand through his hair as he sat down in mild disbelief.
He just really couldn’t picture his father or even his mom forking over more money than necessary on such a short flight. If it had been one of those transpacific flights to America, they might have entertained the idea, but on practically domestic travels, this treatment was something new. He allowed himself a smile as he imagined his parents discussing how they might make his journey easier, let himself envision their quiet kindness.
His fanciful dream disappeared when he noticed who was sitting across the aisle from him, hoodie wrapped around his waist, mask folded and jammed into the pocket of magazines at his side, and most damningly, credit card lying face up on his foldout tray, winking up at Ricky.
“I never got your name,” the boy who’d run into him at the terminal said, still speaking in Korean.
Ricky stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then, like two pieces of a puzzle he’d only tried together because he was out of options and not because they looked like they’d ever connect, things started to make sense.
The designer scarf he’d picked up and handed back without a second thought. The deceptively simple white tank top that had been hiding under the disheveled hoodie which Ricky recognized, a little late, as a piece from the spring sports collection at a runway show his mom’s investment firm had helped finance. The way he leaned back on the business class seat, looking not one bit out of place against the expensive backdrop. Add Ricky’s mysterious upgrade, and the picture started to grow clearer.
This boy was rich rich.
“Hello?” The voice jolted Ricky out of his observations. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself first, hyung. I’m Gyuvin. Kim Gyuvin, born in 2004.”
Ricky tore his eyes from the expensive top and forced himself to meet the boy’s—Gyuvin’s—gaze. Now that he was looking, Gyuvin did, sort of, resemble wealth. Small face, fair complexion, a delicate nose, and of course the height that had astonished Ricky earlier, now more obvious with his long model-like legs straightened leisurely in his seat. But the skin under his eyes were gathered into the natural full folds that girls were always trying to emulate with makeup, and there was something youthful in the line of his jaw, maybe part of the reason Ricky had pegged him for much younger than he must have really been earlier—since the mask had disguised most of his countenance—when really they were the same age.
He pulled himself together. “I… was also born in 2004. Shen Quanrui.”
“Oh! I’ll speak to you casually, then.” Gyuvin’s brows furrowed after a beat. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name. Cheongye?”
Of course. Gyuvin didn’t speak Chinese, and Ricky’s name was particularly hard for foreigners to pronounce. Somehow he hadn’t even thought about the fact that he was on a plane to Seoul, South Korea, and he didn’t even have a Korean name. He wasn’t about to admit that, though. Some mix of his own pride and wanting to prove himself to this total stranger stopped him from saying anything.
Once, he’d watched a Korean movie, Christmas in August, with his mom. The sound was turned low so as not to disturb his working father, Mandarin captions scrolling by, as the characters danced across the screen with the slightly grainy romance of twentieth century films. Even through the tears which blurred the movie’s conclusion, the ones which back then he couldn’t control, he’d recalled in particular the classically beautiful female lead. His mom had even pointed her out, a soft smile on her face.
Look, Ricky, she’d said to the sniffling seven-year-old. She has the same last name as you. Shim Eunha. Shen Yinhe.
Yinhe? Like the Milky Way? Little Ricky had asked, tears slowing.
His mom smiled. Just like the Milky Way. She’s beautiful, just like you, Ricky.
“Shim Cheongye,” present-day Ricky said, repeating what Gyuvin had called him. “But you can call me Ricky if you like.” Ricky was the English moniker that he’d gotten in his international school from a British transfer student who’d found both Quan and Rui too hard to pronounce.
Gyuvin laughed. He had a high, bright laugh that made you want to laugh along, just like his cousin’s. God, he already missed his cousin and the way that MZ filled the room so Ricky didn’t have to.
“I’ll call you Ricky,” the boy decided. “It’s kind of cool. An expensive name.”
“Expensive. That’s me.” A smile tugged at Ricky’s lips. “Young and rich, tall and handsome,” he said in English.
“Charisma.” Gyuvin said the word teasingly with a heavy Korean accent, or maybe it was Korean. Ricky knew that Korean often borrowed upon English and Chinese for loan words. It made navigating all three languages a little easier whenever he heard familiar words in an unfamiliar tongue.
“So… this was you?” Ricky patted the seat questioningly. “Business class?”
“Only because the plane doesn’t have first class.” Gyuvin said it jokingly, but Ricky was pretty sure the boy was serious.
“Do you travel like this a lot?”
Gyuvin shook his head. “Actually, this was my first time being outside of Korea.”
“So why were you in Shanghai?” Ricky didn’t want to pry, but his curiosity got the better of him.
Gyuvin didn’t answer. Ricky became uncomfortably aware of the thick silence in the air, of something unspoken but written in the tense line of Gyuvin’s jaw and the way he picked at the skin of his thumb. Ricky changed the subject.
“This is my first time travelling too,” he offered, and he watched the guardedness leave his eyes, unravel itself from Gyuvin’s shoulders. “Leaving China, I mean.”
“Really? What brings you to Korea?”
Ricky tilted his head. “I guess… to try something new. Things in China weren’t bad, you know, but they weren’t really right either.”
“I know that feeling.” Gyuvin sighed, his words clear and deliberate so that Ricky could understand. “Like you’ve been following a path your whole life, and then one day you ask yourself why, and then you can never look at yourself the same again, because you’ll realize that you’ve always been doing what other people want of you instead of what you want of yourself."
He stopped to bite his lip, then continued. "And it’s so hard to leave that path even when people are allowing you to, even encouraging you to, because it’s the only one you know, and it’s terrifying to think about wandering off-course and being wrong, but it’s just as terrifying thinking that you might blindly chase that road to the end and find that there’s nothing there waiting for you. Like no matter what you choose, you’ll have regrets for the rest of your life.”
“That’s… exactly it.” Ricky wondered how a stranger could sum up his entire life in just a few sentences in a foreign language better than he could ever describe it himself.
Gyuvin opened his mouth to continue, but the overhead speaker cut him off, announcing that the plane would be taking off shortly and reminding everyone to fasten their seatbelts. The next minute, Ricky felt a jolt, the strip of fabric crossing his shoulder digging into his chest, and the plane began to glide forward, wheels rattling against the concrete.
He leaned over and slid his window shut as they entered the straightaway, picking up speed, blocking out the calm blue taxiway lights giving way to glowing red rivulets somewhere that blurred the line between the runway and the horizon. He closed his eyes and slipped his headphones back into his ears, letting Teresa Teng’s softly nostalgic voice wrap around him, delicate piano and smooth bass drowning out the rumble of the industrial engine, the whine of unfurling wings, the terrifying hum of the hydraulic pump.
“Ricky?”
He opened his eyes to find Gyuvin standing over him, one hand on the window shade that was now lifted and overlooked the sprawling sky, an amused smile on his face. “You can open your eyes. I’m not that ugly.”
Ricky swatted his arm and lowered the volume on his music to almost silence, barely glancing out at the wide sea of clouds hundreds of meters above solid ground—he tried not to think about that part—as he rolled the shade back down. “Speak for yourself. Your face is terrifying.”
“I wasted good money on your seat upgrade, and this is how I’m thanked?”
“This is your apology for trying to kill me earlier. If you want a compliment, you’ll have to pay extra.”
Gyuvin pouted, and on any other older teen boy it would have looked stupid, but Gyuvin’s big eyes and baby face allowed him to get away with it. Just barely.
“If you think that look is going to make me feel sorry for you, think again,” Ricky warned. “I’m here because I didn’t want to sit next to a little kid earlier. You’re making me think the one-year-old might be the more mature option.”
“Mature? Says the one who was too scared to even look out his window,” Gyuvin shot back.
“I wasn’t scared. Not everyone needs to be entertained by something all the time.”
“You were shaking.”
“I didn’t shake.”
“Hmm.”
Gyuvin sat back down in his own chair as the flight attendant from earlier offered him a drink. He chose mango juice, much to Ricky’s amusement.
“What? No champagne for our rich friend here?”
The pout returned. “I can’t have that. I’m eighteen.”
“I’m eighteen, too.” Ricky raised an eyebrow as he sipped the sparkling alcohol that the flight attendant poured him.
Gyuvin looked alarmed. “You can’t do that.”
“Are drinking laws different in Korea? Back home, you can drink as soon as you’re an adult, on your birthday.”
“We do it by the year you turn nineteen in Korea,” Gyuvin said. “Like, if you’re an 04, everyone is legally allowed to drink on January 1st, 2023. Hold on, if we’re on a plane between China and Korea, whose laws do we follow?”
Both boys turned and glanced helplessly at the flight attendant.
“You’re flying Air China, so until we land on the tarmac, we follow Chinese jurisdiction,” she said in Korean, as if she got this question all of the time. “But if you’re still legally seventeen in China—” she shot a pointed glance at Gyuvin— “Then you can’t drink either way.”
“You’re seventeen?”
Gyuvin tossed his hands in the air. “Barely! You should be allowed to round up if you’re the lesser part of the day away from being an adult.”
“Wait, your birthday is… tomorrow?”
Gyuvin nodded.
“I guess I should wish you a happy birthday right now, then, since I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other soon,” Ricky said, taking another long drag of champagne.
The Korean boy looked thoughtful, like he was contemplating something. Then he clapped his hands together. “You can come to my birthday party.”
“You’re having a birthday party?” Ricky snorted, a little surprised that he was being invited to a party hosted by someone he’d met in the most awkward way possible just a half hour ago. “What are you, four?”
Gyuvin pouted again. “Not everyone hates joy, you know. Besides, it’s not going to have a bouncy castle or anything. Just friends and games and cake in my apartment, maybe.”
“No bouncy castle? And here I was looking forward to it.”
“Really? If you want, I can make sure there’s one there…”
Ricky eyed him. “I was joking, rich boy.” He wasn’t sure what made him say it like he wasn’t also technically rich and a boy, but the nickname slipped out easily, even felt like a given seeing that one of them had paid for two business class seats and it wasn’t him.
“No, you weren’t,” Gyuvin said, already looking completely set on the idea of a bouncy house at his birthday party. “You meant that, or my name isn’t Kim Gyuvin.”
“If you say so, Qubing,” Ricky murmured.
“Gyuvin.”
“Qubing.”
“You’re horrible.”
Ricky leaned back, the plush comfort of the expensive seats welcome against his weary joints. “Yet you’re inviting me to your birthday party.”
Gyuvin scoffed. “Don’t make me regret my actions.”
“You? Think about consequences?” Ricky teased. “Hell, you just met me and you’re already buying me business class tickets and inviting me to your home. What if I was an assassin, or something?”
Gyuvin rolled his eyes. “Even if you were, you couldn’t catch me.”
“Excuse me? You practically threw yourself at me earlier.”
“Yeah, and?” Gyuvin said defensively. “We both fell, so clearly, you didn’t catch me.”
“But you fell harder,” Ricky pointed out. “I had to physically pull you up because you were sitting on the floor like you’d been stunned.”
“Hey, you didn’t look all that steady either,” Gyuvin protested.
Their conversation fizzled lightly to a stop as a different flight attendant came around, pushing a cart full of appetizers. Ricky’s stomach growled quietly despite himself, and he let himself take a roll of bread that was dipped in seeds and a strange savory pastry with apples and smoked duck arranged in slices in a tart crust. He hadn’t eaten since… since yesterday, he realized. That champagne was going to do a number on him later. He sighed and accepted the cup of honeydew that he was offered, trying to calm his unhappy stomach.
Sated, he continued like this, eyes half closed, half focused on the plane’s slow movement across the digital map in front of him, until the flight attendant came around to collect his plate. But by that time, exhausted from waking up early, Ricky had already fallen asleep, the faint sound of music still wrapped around his thoughts. Peacefully unaware, so that even when the plane began its descent, Ricky wasn’t afraid like he usually was, because the only 'boundless oceans' and 'vast skies' in his world existed not through the window of reality, but as the band’s name itself suggested, somewhere Beyond, in the late lead singer’s smooth voice.
原谅我这一生不羁放纵爱自由，也会怕有一天会跌倒 ……
Forgive me, for despite my lifelong love for freedom, I, too, fear falling…
♡
“You fell harder.”
Those words had been playing in Gyuvin’s head ever since they’d landed on the tarmac and he’d given the blonde foreigner his number, promising to text him the time of the party and his address, since he’d bid him a goodbye too hasty for his own since he’d clearly had somewhere more important to be, since he’d watched Ricky’s silhouette vanish somewhere in the crowd and he’d finally collapsed on the nearest chair.
God, if only Ricky knew that his statement had hit way closer than intended.
Gyuvin groaned. He needed to call Hanbin. He needed someone, someone who would understand everything that had just transpired, and wouldn’t burst out laughing at how ridiculous he was being.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Sung Hanbin’s number. The phone rang out, too loud in the wide space for someone as nervous as Gyuvin. Once, twice, three times. Then voicemail. Gyuvin threw himself across the row of seats instead of responding after the tone. He needed a real voice, not a robotic Hanbin telling him that sorry, he was out, please leave a message, fuck you Gyuvin, and okay, maybe he was making that last part up, but honestly his best friend not even returning his call was just too much for an overwhelmed Gyuvin. It felt like just another middle finger in the sea of providential screw overs that he’d gone through in the span of a few hours.
He didn’t even bother to get up, just let himself lie there, knowing how unbecoming it was. If the mask and hoodie hadn’t obscured his face beyond recognition, he’d probably be embarrassed. Kim Gyuvin, worth a fortune and directly in line to inherit two more, the son of one of South Korea’s biggest logistics companies and of the country’s most successful jewelry chain—Kim Gyuvin, teen businessman, entrepreneur, and model—was freaking out over a hot stranger that he’d just met, for goodness’ sake.
“Hanbin, pick up,” he muttered, staring desperately at his screen. “Please.”
Fortunately for Gyuvin’s waning sanity, the other boy eventually did, picking up the phone with a casual and completely insensitive “Hey”.
Didn’t he care that Gyuvin was losing it?
“Hyung, I need to tell you about today,” he began, slumping against the back of the chair defeatedly as he attempted to take up a little less space by tucking his legs in since an old woman was giving him a peeved look. “Nothing’s gone right.”
Hanbin responded, a little muffled—something Gyuvin had become used to, because the older boy always had his hand covering the device’s microphone, no matter how many times Gyuvin had told him off for it. “Okay, I’m listening. But Hao’s here, is that okay?”
“Fuck it, let him listen too.” Gyuvin waved a hand in the air as if Hanbin would see it. “I need as many voices of reason as I can get.”
“I wouldn’t call either of us voices of reason,” Zhang Hao—Hanbin’s boyfriend as of late—said, his voice even quieter because evidently he was standing a distance away from the phone. “But I won’t judge.”
Gyuvin sighed, relieved to have two people listening to him. He combed his fingers through his listless hair and began to recount the day’s misfortunes, one by one.
“Where even to begin?”
He began with waking up. He’d stayed up late making sure everything was packed, and at midnight, finally allowed himself to sleep, making sure he had set his alarm to five in the morning, which was when he needed to get up to make it to the airport for his early morning flight out of Shanghai. Except when he woke up, he immediately knew something was wrong from the hot sunlight that spilled across his bed and had been warming his face for a while.
He’d gotten up in a panic, but it was too late—every clock he picked up read 8:00 AM, no matter how much he shook it and willed the numbers to change to something salvageable. But it was useless, he’d missed his flight completely, and a glance at his phone told him that he’d had the device on do not disturb the entire night, which was why he’d slept way past his cue.
Okay, so he’d gotten dressed, headed to the airport anyways at ten, hoping that someone could sell him a last-minute ticket on some other flight to Seoul. He was desperate and he’d pay whatever it took, because he was not spending his birthday in a foreign land, especially not one that he’d only associate with unhappiness after what it had done to him.
He’d stopped for lunch at a convenience store in the airport, only to see the one person that he absolutely didn’t want to see again, walking by with a calm smile as if they hadn’t literally ruined Gyuvin’s life just days prior: his ex-boyfriend, Seulwoo, looking completely at ease as if he owned the place. He’d nearly choked on his egg salad sandwich. He was starting to think that Shanghai hated him, because what even were the chances?
If his day couldn’t get worse, he’d finally dropped by the ticket desk after wasting his entire morning, only to learn that the only flight out of China left before the semester started was boarding at that exact moment, and he’d have to buy business class because every seat in economy was full. Fine. He bought the ticket in a hurry, then sprinted like his life depended on it, because of course the terminal was the farthest one from the baggage check.
For the cherry on top of the entire disaster, he’d somehow managed to lose control of his rolling suitcase and tripped just as he approached the gate, and he took some poor guy down with him.
And it got worse. The guy he’d just generationally embarrassed himself in front of was also the hottest guy that Gyuvin had ever seen.
He hadn’t even been able to speak when the guy flashed Gyuvin a cool smile, platinum blonde hair somehow just as attractive when slightly mussed, impossibly deep eyes fixated on him. He’d just stared. And when he stretched out a hand to help Gyuvin up, Gyuvin had just stared at him blankly like an idiot. And then he’d rambled about absolutely nothing, because he was an expert at nothing if not making a fool of himself.
“I wish I could blame it on knocking my brains loose in that fall, but honestly, I don’t even think I can say that,” Gyuvin concluded mournfully. “I probably would have lost my shit looking at him even without it.”
True to his word, Hao didn’t laugh, but Hanbin chuckled slightly, having not made any such promises.
“You’re hopeless,” his best friend said. “But don’t worry. Me and Hao will give you some pointers before you have to see this ‘beautiful blonde angel’—your words, not mine—again tomorrow so that you hopefully have a better second impression than your mess of a first.”
“Who are you even to be giving advice? All you did was stare longingly at Hao and trail him like a lost puppy for months before he started giving you any attention.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?”
“Only because you’re pretty,” Hao said from somewhere barely within the call’s range. “Still, we’ll do our best, Gyuvin. I’ll even teach you Chinese, right now.”
Gyuvin perked up. “You would? I always knew I liked you better than Hanbin for a reason.”
Hanbin’s protests were drowned out by Hao’s laughter. “Of course I would.”
Gyuvin didn’t hang up the call until he found himself outside the airport, loading his suitcase into his attendant’s familiar silver car. He promised to call them back before opening the passenger’s door and getting in.
“Have a nice trip, Mister Kim?”
“Sure.” Gyuvin leaned his head back, only to find empty air where the headrest should have been, so he ended up hitting his skull against the hard plastic slots where the cushion should have been inserted. “Ouch.”
“Apologies, Mister Kim. Your sister must have adjusted the seat while you were away. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, now.”
“No,” Gyuvin sighed, rubbing the sore spot. “I’ll be fine.”
He just couldn’t seem to catch a break.
The car maneuvered expertly out of the throng of cars all waiting for passengers, cruising down the road with expert control. Gyuvin didn’t say anything, just turned on the radio so that he wouldn’t have to make small talk. Usually he didn’t mind, but there had been too many things going on that he needed to dissect, and he really didn’t want to bother with pleasantries.
Familiar roads began to come into view outside the window. Sidewalks that he walked down every day. The 7-11 that he frequented whenever he craved something at an ungodly hour. Then the dark dampness of the underground garage that sat under the apartment complex where he climbed out of the SUV and trudged up the stairs—because the elevator was broken, of course—to his place. At least there his keys still worked, the penthouse was as clean as he’d left it, and the ocean view from the floor-to-ceiling windows couldn’t hurt him.
Unpacking was a blur. Hanbin and Hao had shown up to help him, but there wasn’t really much to unpack, so for the most part they just laid on his bed and discussed life. Hanbin’s upcoming dance competition. Hao’s exams. And always coming back to the forefront, Gyuvin’s horrible luck with dating.
“How are we going to make Gyuvin less awkward?” Hanbin said contemplatively at one point, pulling Gyuvin to his feet as he tripped, which ended up catapulting both of them forwards so that they landed right on top of an unfortunate Hao.
“You can’t,” Hao said, once he extracted himself from the pileup and caught his breath. “It’s part of his charm. Like a baby giraffe. It’s kind of cute.”
“I’m cute too,” Hanbin whined, and then Gyuvin had to roll his eyes while the conversation devolved into the Chinese boy doing his best to appease his boyfriend’s never-ending want for attention.
They’d come up with several ideas. Wear cologne. Gyuvin didn’t even like cologne. Buy him a ring. Probably too early for that. He realized that he didn’t even know Ricky’s favorite color, let alone anything about him besides his name and a lingering impression of his elegance.
He buried his face in a pillow. “What am I supposed to do?”
Hanbin patted his back comfortingly. “Stop falling for every hot guy you meet?”
“That’s not my fault! He’s not just hot, he was also nice, and funny, and he didn’t seem to mind that I literally shoved him to the ground.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you’d bought me a business class seat either,” Hanbin mused, earning a punch in the arm from Gyuvin.
“Hao,” he said, deliberately ignoring Hanbin. “Will you teach me something in Chinese?”
Hao rolled over on Gyuvin’s mattress. “What do you want to learn?”
He thought for a moment. “What about this: I think you’re really hot and—”
“No.”
“You take my breath aw—”
“Absolutely not.”
“At least tell me how to say his Chinese name.”
Hao sighed. “How am I even supposed to know that? I’m not psychic.”
“Fuck, you’re right.” Gyuvin rubbed his temples and plopped down on the sheets next to Hao. “I’m not thinking straight.”
Hao ended up spending the next hour teaching both of them how to say basic Chinese phrases. Hello, have you eaten yet, thank you, goodbye, and even I love you for good measure, and even though he didn’t plan on saying it—he wasn’t that hopeless—Gyuvin still stored away the information carefully.
Hanbin, on the other hand, delighted in spending most of the hour repeating I love you over and over again until Hao shoved him off the bed. Then Gyuvin kicked the two from his apartment, saying they were insufferable. The last he saw, his best friend was clinging to Hao’s arm, head leaning into the crook of the older boy’s shoulder as they stumbled down the hallway, laughter ringing out in their wake.
Gyuvin sighed and leaned back against his bedframe, a subdued quiet falling over the apartment.
When was he going to find love like that?
He wasn’t bitter, not at all. Seeing his best friend so happy made Gyuvin’s heart ache with joy. It was just that watching everyone around him fall in love so naturally, as if loving came easily, made his own misfortune hurt more. He’d probably put himself out there the most out of anyone he knew, but it hadn’t yet worked. Every relationship he touched seemed to end up in shambles.
He got up, intending to make himself something to eat—ramyeon, or maybe he’d just heat up some microwave rice. The kitchen floor was cold under his bare feet as he made his way towards the pantry and pulled out the first packet he saw. Ramyeon it was, then.
Gyuvin filled a small pot halfway with water and put it on the stove to boil. He scrolled aimlessly on his phone while he waited, when suddenly, a text from an unsaved number came in.
+86 (21)-555-3920
is this gyuvin?
He dropped the block of dry noodles he’d been holding into the hot water with a splash and winced as several drops flew up and singed his skin, hissing as the liquid sizzled against sensitive flesh. Gyuvin rubbed his wrist with a curse and then quickly opened his messages to respond.
yes, is this ricky? He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the response pinged on his screen and he exhaled, feeling far too much pressure come off of his chest.
yeah, it’s me. so, about that address…
Gyuvin quickly typed out the penthouse’s location and included a time for tomorrow. He followed it up with several apologies for not texting earlier, because he’d been stupid and forgotten that he didn’t have Ricky’s number. Ricky responded saying that it was no problem, he didn’t mind reaching out, and after the texts stopped Gyuvin clutched the phone to his chest and stared up at the ceiling.
He couldn’t believe such a simple exchange had him glowing warm, like someone had lit a candle in his lungs, and it wasn’t from the heat radiating off of his phone.
Gyuvin shook his head. He barely knew Ricky, had exchanged nothing more than one pleasant conversation with the boy, had no reason and no right to be feeling this way. But he did, and as he dished the ramen into a bowl and carried it to his couch with a pair of chopsticks, where he burrowed under the blanket he kept there and turned on the television to watch his favorite show, and even still when he dozed off, empty bowl resting snugly against his chest, remote having rolled somewhere underneath the coffee table, he continued to revel in that warmth.
It stayed with him all night long.