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***
The little thing's first memory is Xie Lian's voice.
“There's something under my bed,” Xie Lian tells his parents. The little thing cannot see Xie Lian, or his mother or father. He cannot see anything at all at first, from his place in the dark.
“Be brave,” Xie Lian's mother tells him. “The boogeyman feeds on your fear. If you're brave, he'll go away.”
His mother may not believe something is under her son's bed, but her advice is not wrong. When the little thing shifts from below, scratching at the floorboards, he can feel the rush of fear. The more nervous Xie Lian gets, the more the little thing feeds and the stronger he becomes. The stronger he becomes, the hungrier he feels.
Eventually, the darkness around him takes shape and he opens his eyes for the first time. With sight comes his first understanding of himself. That he is a thing, that he exists, that he has thoughts and senses and can touch and feel and know. He lives in a square of black, surrounded by a strip of dim light. Half the time, the light grows brighter. In these hours, the little thing shrinks back to safety. But then, the light fades and he can see a world beyond his own.
He hungers. It hurts—he is ravenous, starving. He can feel Xie Lian, hear him whimpering quietly, and he wants. And then one night, he sees a pale ankle descend just beyond the edge of the bed. On instinct he reaches out to grab it.
The crying terror of a child fills him to bursting, and when he shrinks back he is full. Satiated, he goes to sleep.
When he wakes up, he is hungry again. But Xie Lian no longer whimpers in the night. Instead, he spends the evenings murmuring to himself quietly, some sort of mantra, until he is so exhausted he falls asleep. Whatever the mantra is gives him courage; there is no trickle of terror, no fast breaths or small shivers vibrating from above.
The little thing grows hungrier and hungrier. The days pass, and then the weeks, and the little thing begins to shrink.
He doesn't want to go. He wants to know what's beyond the confines of this bed. There is a world out there, he knows. Sometimes, he hears Xie Lian talk about it, talk about the stars in the night sky and his school and his friends. Xie Lian is constantly fidgeting with things too, taking them apart and putting them back together. He mentions countless odd items he finds on the playground. Once, Xie Lian even drops a shiny red bead over the edge, right where the little thing can reach it.
But when Xie Lian finds his courage, the little thing must accept that he will never see the places beyond the bed. He is doomed to die here in the dark, never to grow larger.
One by one, he loses each of his senses. Soon, he can't hear Xie Lian. Can't smell him. Can't feel the vibrations through the floorboards or the mattress up above. But he clings to sight, fighting to keep his eyes open as long as he can, staring at that little strip of light that marks the limit of his world.
His eyes are closing, slowly, when a small head pops into his view, set against a waterfall of brown hair and a determined, fierce expression. There's a lurch of fear that surges into the little thing like a wave—water into the mouth of an animal dying of thirst.
It's Xie Lian. Xie Lian is looking below the bed. Looking right at him.
The little thing scrambles back. Xie Lian can see him.
No monster below the bed is scary once you look it in the face and see how pathetic it is.
“Oh,” Xie Lian says. His face pushes forward, even closer, and the little thing cowers back, away from him. “You're small, like me,” Xie Lian says. “Your eyes are so red. They glow a little.”
Panicked, the little thing closes his eyes and the world subsides. He opens them again almost instantly, afraid that he will fade to nothing and the world will cease to exist as soon as he can't see it. Xie Lian is still there. He's no longer scared.
“Do you have a name?” Xie Lian asks. He doesn't answer. Can't answer, doesn't have a tongue for speaking. The little thing has a mouth, but all it can do is devour. He blinks a few times at Xie Lian.
“Okay,” Xie Lian says. “I'll call you Hong'er.”
Xie Lian begins to talk to Hong'er, at night. The wave of fear when he first looked under the bed was enough to restore Hong'er's senses, but it's of little use. Hong'er can hear him, but the fear is still gone, and he's starving.
When Xie Lian looks at him under the bed again, he frowns.
“You're smaller than you were before,” he says.
Abruptly, Hong'er reaches out one of his small hands, and Xie Lian, startled, darts back. Hong'er retreats. It's just a little bite, but he doesn't want it. He didn't even mean to frighten Xie Lian this time. He knows it won't be enough to survive, anyway. He just…wanted to feel him. While his sense of touch lingers, he just wanted to know what Xie Lian was like.
Xie Lian leaves, scrambling back on top of his mattress, but the next day, he looks down again. Hong'er doesn't notice the bedframe shake, or hear the creak of the floorboards. When Xie Lian opens his mouth to say something, he can't make out the words, only see the furrow in his brow.
Xie Lian pushes something under the bed. It's small and soft and white. Hong'er doesn't move.
Sighing, Xie Lian pulls it back out and breaks it in half. He puts part of it in his mouth. Then he shoves the other half back under the bed and disappears.
Hong'er doesn't take it—he's not sure if Xie Lian will want it back. Sometimes, he reaches down to grab things he's dropped on the floor through the crack between the furniture and the wall, and Hong'er thinks he might come back for the white thing too. But the next night, instead of reclaiming it, Xie Lian pushes another soft white roll toward Hong'er. And then the next night, another.
Curiosity gets the better of Hong'er the third night and he opens his mouth, devouring the offerings whole.
“Oh!” Xie Lian says, checking. “You took them!”
Hong'er blinks out at him, unsure.
More things start appearing under the edge of the bed. Fruit and biscuits and anything else Xie Lian can squirrel away from the dinner table without his parents noticing. And then, other things besides. Things that Hong'er learns are no good to eat, but that interest him all the same. Little paper cranes and drawings and then one day, a flower.
Hong'er likes the flower the best. The smell of it is sweet, and gentle, and reminds him of Xie Lian and his oddly placed kindness. Eventually, he gives the other items back—after a day or two of feeling them, getting their shape—but he keeps the flower.
Xie Lian must notice, because he begins to bring Hong'er a flower every day.
*
One evening, Xie Lian has a slumber party. There are two others with him—Mu Qing and Feng Xin, Hong'er gathers. He doesn't like them.
All evening he listens as both fight—he can feel Xie Lian's distress over it. And then, when Xie Lian offers to show them his friend under the bed, Mu Qing scoffs.
“That's stupid,” he says. “There's nothing down there, Xie Lian, grow up.”
Hong'er feels something he's never felt before. Anger.
That night, Xie Lian's two friends sleep on the floor. Xie Lian doesn't leave anything for Hong'er, but Hong'er has been well fed for weeks. He feels strong, so he creeps silently toward the strip of dull light. Xie Lian is breathing rhythmically above him, asleep.
Hong'er can see out from the gap to where Mu Qing sleeps under the window. He extends one arm, which grows impossibly long, and begins to scratch quietly at the floor right next to Mu Qing's ear. Finally, the boy blinks awake, looking confused.
Hong'er eases forward, blinking out from the edge. He's never crossed this invisible barrier before, but he thinks, just this once, it's worth it. Xie Lian never scolded Mu Qing for not believing him. But Hong'er doesn't mind doing it for him.
Hong'er oozes out from under the bed in a soft cloud. Mu Qing doesn't see him at first—the room is very dim, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window. But by the time he does, it's too late. Hong'er looms over him and blinks open his red eyes. He smiles and lets his many teeth show, then descends right toward Mu Qing's frozen, terrified face.
The scream he earns sustains him for weeks, which is good, because Xie Lian is furious with him.
If Hong'er could speak, he would whine. Gege, he would say. Gege, he was mean! It's only fair and it was just a little fun! But he can't say anything at all, because he doesn't have a tongue.
When Xie Lian finally pokes his head down again, Hong'er is waiting for him, just pulled back from the gap. He opens his eyes as wide as he can and does his best to look sad. It's much more effective than he expected—Xie Lian's face softens.
“Don't do that again,” he scolds, and Hong'er blinks twice, saying nothing.
Xie Lian hands him a small flower and a chocolate chip cookie and Hong'er reaches out one black arm, grabbing both from him lightning-quick. Xie Lian flinches a bit at the sudden motion, but Hong'er doesn't taste any fear, just a prick of surprise. Then, to his joy and relief, Xie Lian smiles.
*
Hong'er grows more bold. After scaring Mu Qing, he knows something he cannot unlearn.
He can leave the bed.
It starts small—little trips into the darkest shadows of Xie Lian's room at night. Then, he slips below the crack in the door and into the hallway. One night, he makes it all the way to Xie Lian's parents' room. But there, to his horror, he finds that Xie Lian's father is awake, reading light still on.
Hong'er flees as quickly as he can back to the bed and stays below it for days.
It's better to wait, he decides, until everyone is out of the house. Then he can look around. The trouble is that Xie Lian's parents are always around at night. The only time they leave is during the day.
He bides his time and builds his strength and his courage, and then the day comes that he ventures out into the daylight. He tries to pass the window.
The sun, when it touches him, is agony beyond anything he has ever felt before. His flesh bubbles, then turns to steam. He jerks back but it's too late. By the time Xie Lian gets back that night, prattling along to him about his day, oblivious, Hong'er is nearly dispersed, clinging desperately to life.
Xie Lian leaves a flower on the floor for him, but Hong'er cannot reach out to take it. Xie Lian pauses, confused, when it does not immediately disappear.
“Hong'er?”
His face appears in the crack.
“Hong'er!”
A torrent of fear hits Hong'er and it helps, but barely. Xie Lian begins talking a mile a minute, begging him to hold on. After that there are little bowls of water and jolly ranchers and even a bandaid, all thrust below the bed. Hong'er can only blink at them, pained and unsure.
“Hurts,” he sighs out softly. “Gege, hurts.”
Xie Lian's responding cry haunts him, but also gives him the strength to go on.
*
Xie Lian's parents forbid him from mentioning Hong'er. Then, when they catch him up, late at night murmuring softly about his day and asking questions that Hong'er is not strong enough to respond to, they forbid him from talking to Hong'er at all.
Xie Lian's father's fury is fiercer than anything Hong'er has ever seen, but it does not scare Xie Lian. He is obedient enough that he largely goes quiet, murmuring only the slightest of messages to Hong'er, but he does not ignore him completely. Every day, there comes a little bit of candy or leftover dinner and a flower, and every day Hong'er persists.
*
Hong'er snaps his eyes open. It is late, Xie Lian long since having fallen asleep. Dawn will arrive in an hour or two. But Hong'er hears it, just outside Xie Lian's bedroom door. Something small, with many legs, is climbing through the crack.
This is the first time Hong'er realizes he is not alone in the world.
The ugly thing that crawls under Xie Lian's door is foul, with eight hairy legs and two dozen eyes. It makes soft clicks as it stands and then walks forward, ungainly and disjointed.
Hong'er eases out from below the bed.
“You can't be here,” he hisses.
The ugly thing clicks at him stupidly.
“Go away,” Hong'er says. Unease prickles at him when all of those eyes spin around to face him. Then, without warning, the ugly thing attacks, flinging itself forward at him with a violent lurch.
Hong'er is not prepared, had not known the ugly thing would try to fight him. The ugly thing latches onto one of his long arms and bites down. Hong’er holds in an aggrieved wail, not wanting to wake Xie Lian. Frantically, he sends out another arm and then another and another, trying to bind the ugly thing down. When at long last he gets control over it, the ugly thing continues to twitch in his grasp, straining and fighting against him. But now that Hong'er has it, what is he supposed to do with it?!
Xie Lian shifts above him, and Hong'er, in a fit of madness, opens his giant mouth and swallows the other thing whole.
It fights all the way down, but eventually it must die, because it goes still, and Hong'er feels very full.
Blurp.
Horrified and ashamed, he withdraws again. But from then on, Hong'er never, ever sleeps at night, keeping his eyes always on the door.
*
Something was always going to break through Hong'er's defenses, eventually. He stops all the scuttling low-lifes that go thump in the night, guzzling them down to remove them from the world. But when the monster finally comes, it doesn't come from the dark. It knocks at the door.
*
“Hong'er?” Xie Lian calls. “Hong'er, come out. I need to talk to you.”
That's strange. In all the years he's been living under the bed, Xie Lian has never demanded Hong'er come out before.
It's sunset and he can't actually come out, but Hong'er dutifully pushes himself as far as he can to the edge, blinking out at Xie Lian, who is kneeling down.
“I'm going to go away for a while,” Xie Lian says. He looks very nervous. Worried. Hong'er can taste a hint of fear, wafting off him, but ignores it.
Hong'er tilts his eyes to the side, confused. Why would Xie Lian go anywhere? He lives here. With Hong'er.
“I'm going to summer camp,” Xie Lian says. “My parents signed me up. It will only be a few weeks, but it's a prestigious academic program I'm supposed to complete before high school. They want me to do well.”
Of course his parents want him to do well. Everyone should want Xie Lian to do well.
Looking around, Hong'er spots Xie Lian's discarded backpack, just a few inches from him. He shoots out one arm—Xie Lian jerks back in surprise—and tugs it to the edge. Undoing the zipper, he begins to crawl into the pack's dark interior.
It takes Xie Lian some time to realize what he's doing, but then he laughs and shoos Hong'er back out of the bag.
“No,” he says. “You can't come with me.”
Hong'er blinks at him again. “Gege.”
“No, you're going to stay here. It won't be that long and it's too dangerous for you at summer camp.”
Hong'er puffs up angrily. Too dangerous for him? Doesn't Xie Lian know how Hong'er has been protecting him this whole time?
Xie Lian laughs again and from his pocket pulls a beautiful white flower.
“Don't worry,” he promises. “Everything will be fine. Soon I'll be home and things will go right back to normal. You won't even notice I'm gone.”
As promised, Xie Lian leaves. He comes back within just a few weeks.
But when he returns, things do not go back to normal.
*
When Xie Lian comes home, Hong'er waits, quivering with excitement. But when he enters the room, slamming his door, locking it, he doesn't kneel down next to the bed, or greet Hong'er. He doesn't drop anything over the side of his mattress. He doesn't even take off his clothes, just climbs under his blankets and goes to sleep.
That night, Hong'er drowns in fear.
At first, when Xie Lian begins to cry, Hong'er consumes his terror on reflex, guilt settling over him. But once he does, Xie Lian seems to settle. Only, it builds again, overflowing, and he's forced to swallow more, trying desperately to contain it. He crawls out from under the bed and up Xie Lian's walls into every corner, trying to expand so he can hold back the flood.
But the wave just continues to swell, more and more and more, until Hong'er has to vomit it back out. The entire room dims.
“It hurts,” Xie Lian whines. “Stop—please, it hurts!”
“Gege, Gege!” Hong'er calls. But Xie Lian doesn't wake at first. Hong'er just keens louder, wailing into the night, until finally Xie Lian jerks to a seated position. If he can see Hong'er, spread across the ceiling of his room like a roiling void, he doesn't show it. Instead, he gasps for air, ashen-faced and sweating.
It takes Xie Lian weeks to come back to himself. The first time a soft-petaled flower appears again through the gap, Hong'er cries.
*
Xie Lian goes to summer camp every year. The third time, Hong'er reaches out with all of his arms, trying to drag Xie Lian back, but the sunlight burns him and Xie Lian makes a fuss. And every year, when he returns, it takes Hong'er longer to consume all of his fear. He feels bloated, sickly, with no outlet, so he must sit quietly in the dark digesting until the autumn rolls around again.
The year Xie Lian enters high school, his parents do not make him go to summer camp and Hong'er is relieved.
But then it comes. The knock-knock-knock at the front door.
Xie Lian freezes. He's sitting at his desk, bent over a textbook.
Then it comes to the bedroom door. The monster. Knock-knock-knock.
“Xianle,” a voice calls.
“Don't come out,” Xie Lian says. His voice is low. “No matter what you hear, Hong'er. Don't come out.”
Hong'er doesn't come out, at first. The monster is a hulking black mass wearing human skin and Hong'er is just a small thing that Xie Lian has commanded to stay back. He twists himself into knots and tries to feast on his own limbs and drips colorless blood onto the ground. He claws at one of his eyes and howls in silent anguish and roils and rages. And then, in defiance of Xie Lian, he flies out from under the bed, a whirlwind of arms and teeth, and attacks the monster.
Hong'er is ripped to shreds, and all the while the monster laughs.
*
The little thing's first memory is Xie Lian's voice. Then:
“Don't make up such stories, Xie Lian,” a man says, and the little thing burns with unknowable rage.
*
The little thing grows slowly. He eats nightmares. They come like clockwork, once a week, and he gorges on them, doing his best to grow.
There's a bigger monster who haunts this house, the little thing knows, but it doesn't come upstairs. This is Xie Lian's mother's concession. He must be tutored until his grades improve, but it will happen downstairs, under her watchful eye.
It doesn't help much, though. After all, the monster gets what it wants. Xie Lian is always scared.
Once, the little thing creeps out, blinking his red eyes at Xie Lian, who sees them and flinches back in horror, chest heaving as he gasps. The little thing flies back under the bed and quakes there and never wants to come out again. He is careful, after that, that Xie Lian never sees or hears him.
Except at night, all manner of nasty things come into Xie Lian's room. The little thing eats them—oil-slick cockroaches with giant pincers, and crusty rodents with two heads, and grey-skinned bloodless hands. They come from everywhere: the bedroom door, the closets, the attic, the window. The little thing, ferocious and angry, devours them all with frenetic, frantic energy.
The little thing sees the malicious vermin that comes into the room then looks at himself. He is made of teeth, arms and darkness. Ugly. Horrible. He studies Xie Lian—beautiful. He does his best to force himself into a new shape. Just two arms. Two legs. A head. He cannot form a human skin, does not even try. Just the shadow, he thinks.
The problem is, every time he eats another rat or nightmare, he gains extra mass. He doesn't know what to do with it, so he grows hair, longer and longer by the day.
Below the bed, the little thing has a host of treasures. Dried flowers and a spool of red string, and most brilliant of all, a vibrant coral bead. He hides his treasures in his chest, where they cannot be stolen, and carries them with him.
On Fridays, Xie Lian rehearses for the school play. The little thing hears him practice his lines, struggling to memorize them. Xie Lian refuses to allow his friends in his room. Instead, he practices alone. If the little thing could speak, he would join Xie Lian, rehearse with him, but alas even in his new superior shape, he has no tongue.
The play must happen, and go wrong, because when Xie Lian returns to his room one night, he is crying, although not afraid. The little thing watches as he strips off his costume and kicks it into a corner. Then a mask gets cast aside, landing by the gap.
When Xie Lian sleeps, the little thing takes the mask like a prize. He's not sure if Xie Lian meant to give it to him, but he has it now. In the narrow darkness he slides it over his blank face then crawls out from under the bed.
For the first time, the little thing stands and realizes he is not as little as he thought. He moves forward silently and opens Xie Lian's bedroom door, leaving it open as he exits the room.
The thing can't quite walk correctly, but he mimics the motions of Xie Lian's feet as best he can. His gait is stilted and stuttering at first, but for a decade he has studied his gege. He practices a bit and gains his footing. His new legs take him down the long hall, to the room of Xie Lian's slumbering parents.
He opens the door and looks into the room. He decides whether he will devour them whole.
Before he makes up his mind, a hand touches his shoulder and the thing spins around. Xie Lian was not asleep after all. He stands there in his white rabbit pajamas, looking at the thing skeptically. When he turns back to his room, the thing obediently follows.
Xie Lian sits on his bed, looking over the thing, who shrinks himself into a shadowy corner, white mask standing out like a moon against the night sky.
“So,” Xie Lian says. “You're back.” His voice is dull and tired, but he's not afraid. The thing would know.
The thing cocks his new head to the side, unsure what Xie Lian means. He has always lived under Xie Lian's bed.
“Do you have a name?” Xie Lian asks. The thing shakes his head.“Huh. Wu Ming then.”
Xie Lian lifts his chin in a challenge, as if he expects Wu Ming will protest, but he doesn't. If Xie Lian wants him to be Wu Ming, he will be Wu Ming. It makes no difference to him.
“Do you hate?” Xie Lian asks him suddenly. If there's a question buried there that runs more deeply than the spoken words, Wu Ming does not understand it. He shrugs and then nods.
He hates a little, he thinks. He might hate Xie Lian's parents. He hasn't decided. He hates the monster. He hates the little pests that crawl into Xie Lian's room at night.
“This is stupid,” Xie Lian says angrily. He lays back down, rolling over as if Wu Ming isn't even there.
Looking around, Wu Ming tries to find a solution, but there is none. So, he pulls out a hank of his hair and changes its shape: a perfect obsidian flower. He circles the bed, carefully avoiding the moonlight coming through the window and kneels beside it, staring at Xie Lian's sulking face. His eyes are still open.
Wu Ming holds out the flower.
For a moment, Xie Lian studies it, then reaches out to take it from Wu Ming's shadowed hands.
“Whatever,” he decides, finally. He casts the flower onto the nightstand, rolling over again to show Wu Ming his back once more. “Leave my parents alone. If you hurt them, I'll throw you out.”
Wu Ming draws away slowly, easing back. The next morning, he watches Xie Lian throw the black flower into the garbage can by his desk.
The monster continues to show up in Xie Lian's kitchen.
At night, Wu Ming can hear his parents talking. His mother is growing increasingly worried about Xie Lian. She mentions to Xie Lian's father that perhaps they should ask that tutor to leave. Xie Lian is only getting worse. His grades are still deteriorating and Feng Xin's mother has called to say Xie Lian refuses to speak to Feng Xin anymore. Wu Ming listens to them discuss the situation, and does not devour them.
And then, mid-afternoon while Wu Ming sleeps through the day, he is woken to the sound of screaming and flaring terror and then nothing. It is too bright for him to investigate, and anyway, Xie Lian is not home, so he waits.
Xie Lian arrives, just after dusk, calling into the house for his mother.
Wu Ming, nervous, creeps out from under the bed and slowly down the hall. He peers worriedly down the stairs. Below him, on the landing, are two bodies. He did not devour either of them, but worries at first that Xie Lian will blame him for what the monster did.
He is worried about the wrong thing. The monster is still in the house.
Wu Ming realizes, as Xie Lian sees the corpses from the bottom of the stairs and his fear begins to build, that this is a moment the monster has waited for. Wu Ming might not see him, yet, but he is here, watching. Wu Ming is sure of it. The build-up, the anticipation—it's sweet. He can taste it too, even as it burns in his throat. Hurtling himself down the stairs, he grabs Xie Lian by the arm and struggles to force him past his parents on the threshold. Xie Lian fights him at first, confused and yelling, but Wu Ming gains arms, dragging, pulling Xie Lian to keep him away. And then it comes.
Knock-knock-knock.
The door creaks open without either of them touching it, revealing the outline of a man. He's wearing normal clothes over his human skin, but Wu Ming can smell the blood on his hands.
Wu Ming flings himself at the doorway, at the monster, trying to get between him and Xie Lian. He has changed his form, but he still has teeth and he opens his mouth to swallow the monster whole. Thunder booms outside, darkness rises, and—
Wu Ming is flung backward. The monster is laughing. Xie Lian is screaming. But instead of dragging Xie Lian up the stairs, or toward one of the rooms, the monster drags him out of the house and into the night slamming the door behind him.
Wu Ming is bigger now than he was before. He remembers the monster, remembers the feeling of disintegrating. It hurt. It hurt.
He climbs back to his feet, aching. Xie Lian is screaming in the night, but Wu Ming is stronger now, strong enough to bear the streetlights and the moonlight, he thinks. He prays. He launches himself toward the door, growing his hands into enormous claws, ready to—
The light blinds him first, and then the heat. Wu Ming cringes back, shrieking.
The house is on fire. The door is blocked.
He is too big, now, to fit in the cracks below doors. He pounds and pounds at the wood, but it's no use. He tears at the weatherproofing at the door's base, finding a fraction of space, but it's too small. He cannot squeeze through. It's just big enough to hear Xie Lian's voice, crying out just beyond it.
Wu Ming cannot go under the door. Or at least, not all of him can. He reaches his clawed hand into his head and rips off part of his face, with one of his eyes so he can see where he's going, shoving the whole thing through the thin gap. He feels it separate and then it flies out into the night, chasing after Xie Lian.
The smoke is terrible, burning. He squeezes everything he can into the first cranny he can find: the space behind the refrigerator. But it's no use.
The fire blazes around him, picking up speed, growing and growing, until Wu Ming is nothing but ash.
***
Xie Lian visits the burnt-out remnants of his old house every year. It's been condemned, of course, but the city hasn't bothered clearing the debris. He still has nightmares about that house, although anymore, it's difficult to tell which are real.
Every time he comes back here, he brings an umbrella in offering. There ought to be a little shrine of them, he's left so many, but someone must take them, because the next year, they're never there. That's alright. If someone can use one to take shelter from the sun or rain, then Xie Lian is happy.
It was raining this morning, so the umbrella he brings today is a bit damp—no reason not to use it on the way—but he doesn't hesitate to place it carefully by what remains of his old front door. Just in case.
He's waiting at the bus stop, now umbrella-less, when it begins to pour. Xie Lian sighs. Just his luck.
“Ah, Gege—here! We can share,” someone says next to him. Abruptly, the rain is blocked.
Xie Lian turns to find a young man seated next to him, a wide smile on his face and a large red umbrella in hand. It reminds Xie Lian of the very first one he'd left at the house. At the time, he'd borrowed it from Mu Qing, who'd been irritated when he didn't return it. This red umbrella is a little different though, he notices. Black flowers have been painted all along the outside.
“Oh, thank you,” Xie Lian says. He can't help but smile in return—the young man seems so up-beat, relaxed and casual. He's wearing a soft red hoodie that emphasizes the rosiness of his cheeks. One of his eyes though, Xie Lian notices, is a bit odd.
Oh. It's glass. There's even a little flower around the pupil. How interesting!
Xie Lian sticks out his hand.
“I'm Xie Lian,” he says. “It's nice to meet you!”
For a moment, the man seems a little dazed. Tentatively, he reaches out and grasps Xie Lian's hand in his own. His skin is cool to the touch, a bit clammy really.
“I'm the third in my family,” he says. “So Gege can call me San Lang.”
Ah, Xie Lian thinks. How cheeky. The stranger is a charmer, for sure.
“You know,” San Lang says, “I've had a really lucky day, today, Gege!”
Xie Lian chuckles. San Lang wears his hair in a long, messy ponytail, knotted in the back with a tie struggling to contain the thick mass. A small braid hangs there too, plaited with a coral bead for decoration. The inky strands are drenched, hanging sodden down his back, soaking the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Being caught in the rain is lucky?”
San Lang shrugs.
“I prefer the rain,” he admits. It makes sense—his skin is very fair. “And now I've met you. Plus, this morning, I found this—isn't it cool?”
To Xie Lian's bemusement, San Lang reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and pulls out a series of objects: a paintbrush and small notebook; a carving knife and half-done carving; and then, last, an ethereal shining butterfly, made of blown glass.
“Well,” Xie Lian says, “That certainly is a good find.” He's not lying. The butterfly is beautiful. “What will you do with it?”
“Well, I heard there's a thrift shop nearby,” San Lang says thoughtfully. “I thought I might sell it!”
Xie Lian's stomach gives a happy twinge.
“I'm heading to a thrift shop now,” Xie Lian admits. “I run one, actually, just a couple of stops away. You're welcome to join me, if you'd like!”
The smile he receives in response is so bright, Xie Lian is practically blinded.
He notices several things about San Lang over the following few hours.
First, to his terrible embarrassment, he notices San Lang's tongue ring. It's a barbell, with red gemstones on each end. He fidgets with it all the time. Xie Lian can see San Lang rub his tongue against the back of his teeth every few minutes. Next is San Lang's effect on the people around them. On the bus, heads turn to follow him. Then, when they depart, strangers' eyes stubbornly linger as they walk. The gazes range from admiring and attracted to concerned and even fearful. It's very strange. Then, Xie Lian notices San Lang's penchant for flowers. As they stroll by the park on their way to the shop, he keeps plucking them, sometimes offering them to Xie Lian, sometimes tucking them greedily into his own pocket.
He stops cataloguing oddities after that. They arrive at Xie Lian's shop, and he lowballs San Lang for his butterfly, giving him a sweet smile. San Lang's eyes become happy crescents.
“Now, Gege, I think it's worth more than that.”
They spend twenty minutes haggling happily, until San Lang sees Xie Lian's workbench toward the back and gets distracted, seemingly forgetting about the butterfly altogether. Xie Lian's shop is full of things, little bits he buys or finds or trades for. There are clothes in the front and a whole selection of homewares and knick knacks and even art works in the back. His workbench is where he repairs the broken things that people typically leave out in the alley. San Lang asks if Xie Lian will show it to him and together they comfortably lose the afternoon.
It's not until after the sun sets that Xie Lian realizes how late it is.
“Ah, where did the time go!” he wonders. San Lang nods.
“Fortunately,” he says, “I live nearby. But you're right—I'd better get home.”
It's bittersweet. Xie Lian has never met someone like San Lang before. But there's nothing to be done. Xie Lian's luck is what it is.
Xie Lian waves, feeling a bit dejected, as San Lang disappears into the night.
*
“Gege?”
Xie Lian is just opening the next morning, putting the sign out on the side door—Inquiries, ring the bell. Do not knock (Can't hear you inside!)—when San Lang appears behind him, looking surprised. He's holding half a pastry (the other half having been devoured, little crumbs still stuck to his lips) and a steaming cup of coffee. It's cloudy again today, but not raining. The red umbrella is tucked into his belt.
“San Lang!”
“Well, fancy meeting you here,” he says with a smile.
“What are you doing here?” Xie Lian asks.
San Lang glances at his coffee—branded as the coffee shop not half a block away. Xie Lian blushes, feeling silly.
“I normally make my coffee run a bit earlier,” San Lang says, “but this is my normal route. I told you I lived nearby!” He flashes Xie Lian a broad grin and Xie Lian glimpses his tongue ring, just past his teeth. They're so sharp, Xie Lian thinks. San Lang smiles with his whole mouth.
This morning, San Lang is dressed in a casual red T-shirt. He's wearing half a dozen silver necklaces, Xie Lian notices, and his ears are pierced in several places. Each ear is decorated with five or six earrings, not one matching.
San Lang flicks his tongue against his teeth.
Xie Lian wipes his palms on his trousers nervously. San Lang is so handsome, it's distracting. Scary. But he wants…he might as well try…what can it hurt?
San Lang's forehead creases into a small frown.
“Gege—”
“Do you want to come inside?” Xie Lian blurts.
Whatever San Lang expected, it clearly wasn't an invitation. He cocks his head at Xie Lian in confusion.
Oh, he. Ah, Xie Lian feels silly.
“Sorry, you don't have to—”
“Yes.”
*
San Lang comes every day. He can't help but tinker with things, fixing the lock on the front door, repairing a dent in the cash register cabinet, replacing a broken window. He also brings things to Xie Lian, like a dog playing a peculiar game of fetch. The objects San Lang locates are, well, strange. Remote controls are common and dead cell phones. Once, he brought a vibrator, which made Xie Lian blush, to San Lang's delight. But he also finds necklaces and single earrings and the odd unmatched sock. Xie Lian accepts each one with a smile, taking some things to resell and others just to keep, or use for parts. There's no need for waste.
And always, always, San Lang brings him flowers. Xie Lian starts using mason jars all around the shop to hold them all.
“San Lang,” Xie Lian asks one day. “Don't you have to work?”
Xie Lian had brought in a tin of burned cookies today and now San Lang stuffs them into his mouth two at a time. He eats so fast, his San Lang.
“No, Gege,” San Lang says. “I'm independently wealthy.”
Xie Lian isn't sure whether to believe him—San Lang's jeans are a bit threadbare and none of his jewelry ever seems to match—but in the end he supposes it doesn't matter. If San Lang ever needs help, Xie Lian trusts that he will ask.
*
The first time Mu Qing and Feng Xin meet San Lang, it doesn't go well. Mu Qing, in particular, seems to aggravate San Lang.
“You can call me Hua Cheng,” San Lang corrects, when Xie Lian first introduces them. It's a bit unfair that he refuses to let them address him by his nickname. After all, he spends the entire evening calling them Idiot Number One and Idiot Number Two.
Eventually, Xie Lian resorts to desperate measures, to break up their tense stand-off: inviting everyone to his house for dinner.
“I'll cook!” he says, eye twitching.
Mu Qing and Feng Xin leave. San Lang follows him home, tail wagging behind him.
*
Things with San Lang are so good, even Xie Lian's nightmares fall away. His apartment seems brighter come morning and he's more well rested. Once, he even wakes up to find flowers have started blooming right outside his bedroom window, which is strange because there's nothing but an old asphalt alley back there.
Things are, for the first time since his childhood, easy.
So, when trouble comes knock-knock-knocking at Xie Lian's door, he's not prepared for it. The sound sends shivers down his back.
San Lang freezes where they sit, tinkering together with an old doorknob at Xie Lian's workbench. The sunset is streaming in through the front window of the shop, but the workbench is too deep into the room to be lit. It also means he and San Lang can't see out the window.
“Gege,” he says quietly. Xie Lian has never heard that tone in his voice before: hard. Almost angry. “Are you expecting company?”
“No,” Xie Lian says.
“Don't answer it, Gege,” San Lang says.
“It's fine,” Xie Lian says, voice shaky. He gives a hollow laugh. “It's not the boogeyman, silly.” But, he doesn't get up to answer the door. He's frozen in place.
“No,” San Lang agrees. “It's not the boogeyman.”
Then, to Xie Lian's horror, there's a croon from the other side of the door.
“Xianle, Xianle, let me come in!”
San Lang is on his feet in a flash, faster than anyone should be able to move. Xie Lian cannot breathe. There's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to hide.
“San Lang, get back,” he says desperately. San Lang hesitates, looking at him. There's something feral in his good eye. “Don't get near it!”
He does not want San Lang to confront whatever is on the other side of that door. He doesn't want it to touch his San Lang, a canyon between them would be too close.
Xie Lian should've known it was never up to him. His luck is terrible, and monsters at the door don't wait for invitations. The door is kicked open, revealing a figure all in white; sunlight comes pouring in behind him. But before Xie Lian can even get a good look at the face, a curtain of black smoke encases the room and the temperature plummets. San Lang fades, moving through the smoke until Xie Lian can’t see him anymore. Xie Lian’s heart throbs in his chest and he can’t quite catch his breath.
“Oh, pathetic little creature, have you come to play again?” the laughing voice asks.
“No,” comes a deep, warped response. The air quivers with a rumbling growl.
“Smells like fear, Xianle. Such an ugly friend you have. Ah, but what's this? That's not the fear I'm looking for.”
Something crashes into Xie Lian, flinging him to the side. Glass breaks and a loose shard cuts into his hand where he'd reached out to catch his fall. The reading light San Lang had brought him. Xie Lian had meant to fix it—
A creature howls.
“San Lang! Get away from him!” Xie Lian is so afraid. It's going to get his San Lang, it's going to hurt him. The smoke is too thick, clinging to Xie Lian, clinging to everything in the room.
Xie Lian grabs a thin rod of broken metal from the lamp and gets to his feet. There is just a shred of daylight still coming through the shop's front window, barely enough to see by. But when the white-clad figure steps into the light, Xie Lian lashes out, digging the metal rod as hard as he can into the expanse of exposed neck. The man—monster—staggers back.
Xie Lian's fear crests like acid in his throat and then…it's gone.
Something is breathing next to his ear. It's all around him, along his skin and in his chest and suddenly Xie Lian isn't afraid anymore. The fear is being gently siphoned off. The most familiar feeling in the world.
From the black void, a mouth filled with ten thousand teeth appears, opens, and swallows the monster whole.
*
The shop lights flicker back on; or rather, the darkness fades. Everything is a mess. There's a spray of blood in front of Xie Lian, staining the wooden floors, and fragments of broken merchandise all around. The door hangs on the single remaining hinge, letting in the evening air.
Xie Lian turns, but he's alone. San Lang is gone. Or, not gone, just hiding. Xie Lian knows he's here, somewhere.
“Ah,” Xie Lian says. “You must be full now.” His voice is shaky, but strong enough still that he's not too embarrassed. It's strange to talk to a seemingly empty room.
Xie Lian, unsure of what to do, limps over to his backpack. Inside, he keeps a handful of jolly ranchers. Looking around the room, he thinks carefully. There—an old ottoman he's been planning to reupholster. He slides a jolly rancher underneath, just past the edge where he can see it.
At first, nothing happens. Then, a tiny black tendril streaks out, nearly too fast to see, and pulls the candy back into the dark.
“Ah, my San Lang, won't you come out?” Xie Lian asks. His hand aches where he cut it. “This Gege is tired and wants to go home.”
He reaches out for a nearby vase and drops a flower at the edge of the ottoman. It's stolen just as fast. Xie Lian sighs. He pulls over his backpack next, turning it so the open zipper points toward the gap. But San Lang, to his disappointment, doesn't climb inside.
“Gege,” he whines, instead, “it's too small for this San Lang.”
Xie Lian hums, considering. “That's true,” he says. “My San Lang is so much bigger now. And even bigger soon, I suspect.”
The shadow below the ottoman—not just the ottoman, he thinks; San Lang is probably in every one of the room's shadows—groans and then hiccups pathetically.
“Well, if you won't fit in my bag you're going to have to grow legs,” Xie Lian says. There's a feeling of rushing cold air, followed by a pair of long arms circling his shoulders. A forehead presses into the back of his neck.
“Tastes terrible,” San Lang whispers. His breath smells like green apple and blood. Xie Lian can hear the hard candy, clicking against his tongue ring.
“Let's go home, then,” Xie Lian says. “I know you've been using my bath supplies. It's time to brush your teeth.”
Tomorrow, they will talk, and Xie Lian will think about what it means that the monster who has spent a lifetime haunting him has been all gobbled up. But for now, he decides, it is time for bed.
***