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Gao Tu found out he was pregnant on Monday morning, exactly thirty-seven minutes before his mock math exam and approximately two minutes after throwing up his breakfast into a bush behind the school gym.
In his defense, for the past three weeks, he had genuinely had very good reasons not to suspect pregnancy.
He was tired because he was a high school senior.
His back hurt because he was a high school senior.
He had no appetite because he was a high school senior.
He felt like crying every time his math teacher mentioned final exams because he was a high school senior, he was eighteen years old, and unlike Shen Wenlang—who had apparently been born knowing that one day he would take over the family business, wear perfectly tailored suits, and look at everyone as though they had personally disappointed him—Gao Tu still had no concrete plan for the rest of his life beyond getting into a good university, moving out of his parents’ house, and preferably living far enough away that every unannounced visit would require the purchase of a train ticket.
The nausea could also be logically explained by stress.
His sudden aversion to the smell of fried eggs was a little more suspicious.
Crying over a dog food commercial was definitely suspicious.
And when Gao Tu had spent twenty minutes standing in his room on Sunday evening with Shen Wenlang’s hoodie pressed to his face—the one he had stolen from him three months ago and consistently refused to return—he probably should have realized something was wrong.
He did not.
Because he was an idiot.
On Monday morning, the school nurse informed him with all the gentleness one might use to tell a model senior student that his meticulously planned future had just grown its own tiny heartbeat.
Gao Tu sat on the examination bed.
He stared at her.
The nurse stared back.
Gao Tu looked down at the piece of paper in his hands.
Then back at the nurse.
“I can’t…”
The woman sighed.
“Gao Tu…”
“I have an exam.”
“I know.”
“In thirty…” He checked his watch. “Twenty-nine minutes.”
“We can call your homeroom teacher.”
“No need.” Gao Tu slid off the bed. “I’ll take the exam.”
“Gao Tu.”
“I studied.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten trigonometry.”
For a moment, the nurse looked very much like she wanted to tell him that trigonometry was currently the least of his problems, but apparently decided that an eighteen-year-old Omega who had just discovered he was unexpectedly pregnant and responded to the news by worrying about his mock exam score had the right to choose his own preferred method of nervous breakdown.
“You should tell the baby’s father.”
Gao Tu froze with his hand on the door handle.
And that was when the first real problem appeared.
Because the baby’s father was Shen Wenlang.
His best friend.
His boyfriend, although figuring out what exactly they were to each other had taken them nearly six months and three arguments.
An Alpha.
The heir to the Shen family.
The person who had texted Gao Tu go to sleep the previous night because he had noticed he was still online at 1:17 a.m., and when Gao Tu replied that he couldn’t sleep, Wenlang had appeared beneath his window twenty minutes later carrying warm soy milk and biology notes.
Shen Wenlang, whom Gao Tu loved.
Shen Wenlang, whose parents had more plans for him than Gao Tu owned pens in his pencil case.
Shen Wenlang, who was supposed to graduate from high school in a few months with one of the best scores in their year, get into his chosen university, and begin the life that had probably been planned for him before he was even born.
Gao Tu placed a hand over his stomach.
He felt nothing.
Of course he felt nothing.
And yet, suddenly, it seemed as though his entire future was sitting beneath his palm, except someone had taken the carefully written plan, crumpled it into a ball, and thrown it out the window.
“I’ll think about it,” he answered, trying to remain calm.
+++
He didn’t tell him.
At least, not immediately.
He took the exam.
He scored ninety-six percent.
He lost four points on a problem he happened to be solving at the exact moment Shen Wenlang, sitting two rows ahead of him, turned around, looked at him, frowned, and silently mouthed:
Are you okay?
Gao Tu nodded.
And then spent the next five minutes unable to remember the sine of thirty degrees.
It was the beginning of the end.
After the exam, Wenlang was waiting for him outside the classroom.
Of course he was.
He stood with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, wearing the expression of a man who had no intention of moving until Gao Tu explained everything that had happened since the moment Wenlang saw him running into the nurse’s office that morning.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Wenlang straightened.
Gao Tu walked past him.
Wenlang followed.
“You threw up.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw you.”
Gao Tu stopped.
“You saw me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I have eyes.”
“You don’t have to be unpleasant.”
“I’m not being unpleasant. You’re acting weird.”
“I am not acting weird.”
Wenlang looked at him.
Gao Tu hated that look.
Not because it was cold. Contrary to what most of the school seemed to believe, Shen Wenlang’s gaze was very rarely genuinely cold. Wenlang simply had the face of a man who considered the world an exceptionally exhausting place most of the time.
Gao Tu knew the difference.
Right now, Wenlang was worried.
That was worse.
“Tutu.”
“Don’t call me that at school.”
“Tutu.”
“Wenlang.”
“What did the nurse say?”
Gao Tu opened his mouth.
It was the perfect moment.
The hallway was almost empty. Wenlang stood in front of him, tall, familiar, and infuriatingly calm. Gao Tu knew him almost as well as he knew himself. He knew the way Wenlang frowned when he was worried, knew his handwriting, knew which brand of milk he hated and that he always left the last fish ball in his soup for Gao Tu even though he loved them himself.
Telling him should have been easy.
I’m pregnant.
Three words.
We’re having a baby.
Four.
Congratulations, we’ve ruined our lives.
Five, but definitely more appropriate.
“I have gastritis.”
Wenlang stared at him for several seconds.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“When you lie, you rub your thumb against your index finger.”
Gao Tu immediately stopped rubbing his thumb against his index finger.
Wenlang narrowed his eyes.
“Gao Tu.”
“I have to get to class.”
“Tutu.”
“I’m going to be late.”
He fled.
It was the first in a series of very bad decisions.
+++
By Wednesday, Gao Tu had developed a plan.
The plan was as follows:
Step one: Do not panic.
Step two: Pass the exams.
Step three: Get into university.
Step four: Figure out how studying while pregnant actually worked.
Step five: Tell Wenlang.
Step six: Do not let his parents find out before graduation.
Step seven: Absolutely do not panic.
Step eight: Check how much diapers cost.
Step nine: Panic later.
It was a very good plan.
The plan stopped being good at approximately twelve-thirty when Gao Tu opened his lunchbox and the smell of pork made him immediately close it again.
The girl sitting across from him raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not eating?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Then someone placed another lunchbox in front of him.
Gao Tu looked up.
Wenlang sat down beside him.
“Eat.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“And you’ve barely eaten anything for two days.”
Gao Tu looked at the contents of the box.
Rice.
Vegetables.
Slices of fresh cucumber.
An apple.
No meat.
No eggs.
Nothing greasy.
Everything mild.
He looked up.
Wenlang was already eating his pork.
“Why did you bring this?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t eat yours.”
Gao Tu’s heart did something stupid.
It was extremely inappropriate.
“How?”
“You felt sick from the smell of food in the cafeteria yesterday.”
“Are you watching me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“You’re my boyfriend.”
The girl sitting across from them very slowly stood up with her lunch.
“I’m going to… go somewhere else.”
Gao Tu covered his face with one hand.
Wenlang didn’t even blink.
“Eat.”
Gao Tu ate.
He ate everything.
And then he cried in the bathroom because the apple had been cut into little rabbits.
+++
On Thursday, Wenlang found the pregnancy test.
Not because he had been snooping through Gao Tu’s things.
Shen Wenlang had many flaws, but that was not one of them.
Gao Tu himself had tossed the test into the side pocket of his school bag because on Monday morning he had apparently been in enough shock to forget that trash cans existed.
Then, on Thursday, he asked Wenlang:
“Can you get my charger?”
Fate was cruel.
Wenlang opened the pocket.
He found the charger.
He found the test.
He went silent.
Gao Tu, sitting at his desk highlighting a passage in his history textbook, initially noticed nothing alarming.
“Did you get it?”
Silence.
“Wenlang?”
He turned around.
And saw his face.
Then his hand.
Then the test.
“Oh.”
Wenlang stared at him.
Gao Tu stared at Wenlang.
“I can explain.”
“You’re pregnant.”
It wasn’t a question.
Gao Tu put down his highlighter.
“Yes.”
Wenlang took one step toward him.
Then stopped.
“How long have you known?”
“Since Monday.”
“Since Monday?”
“Don’t yell.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“You are. You’re just doing it quietly. You’re yelling with your entire face.”
Wenlang was, in fact, yelling with his entire face.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Gao Tu felt something tighten in his throat.
This was exactly what he had been afraid of.
Not shouting. Not anger. Not even Wenlang saying something cruel, because somewhere deep down, Gao Tu knew that was one thing he would never do.
He was afraid of the silence.
Afraid of the moment Wenlang would look at him and see a problem.
An obstacle.
A complication.
Gao Tu had spent his entire life being very good at being someone who didn’t cause problems. He brought home good grades, sat straight at the dinner table, answered adults politely, never raised his voice, and had learned early that his parents’ love was easiest to earn when he required nothing from them.
Now he required a great deal.
And not only him.
Their child did too.
“If you don’t want…” he began.
Wenlang flinched.
“What?”
“If this changes everything…”
“Of course it changes everything.”
Gao Tu lowered his eyes.
Wenlang immediately went pale.
“No. Not like that. Tutu, not like that.”
He crouched in front of him.
Gao Tu stared at his knees.
“Look at me.”
He didn’t want to.
“Gao Tu.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“Look at me.”
Gao Tu raised his head.
Wenlang looked terrified.
It suited him so poorly that Gao Tu could only stare for a moment.
Shen Wenlang wasn’t afraid of teachers. He wasn’t afraid of his parents. He wasn’t afraid of the future. He wasn’t afraid of people twice his size, and when three older Alphas had tried to lock Gao Tu in a bathroom during his first heat at school in their freshman year, Wenlang had broken one of their noses and accepted a week-long suspension with the expression of someone who considered the punishment entirely worth it.
But now his hands were trembling slightly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“Of everything.”
Wenlang swallowed.
“Are you scared of me too?”
Gao Tu wanted to deny it.
He couldn’t.
“A little.”
Something on Wenlang’s face broke.
He sat down on the floor.
Just like that.
The heir to the Shen family, future CEO, top student in his class, sat on the carpet in front of Gao Tu and rested his forehead against his knee.
“I’m sorry.”
Gao Tu blinked.
“For what?”
“For making you think you had to be afraid of me.”
“Wenlang…”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Gao Tu released a trembling breath.
“Neither do I.”
“Good.”
“What’s good about that?”
Wenlang lifted his head.
“That neither of us knows.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does. We’ll figure it out.”
Just like that.
Not you’ll figure it out.
Not decide what you want to do.
Not what are we going to do now?
We’ll figure it out.
Gao Tu felt his eyes begin to burn.
“I’m eighteen.”
“So am I.”
“We have exams.”
“I know.”
“I want to go to university.”
“You will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I want to go to university, and you assume I will.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
Gao Tu opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Wenlang frowned.
“You’re not giving up university.”
“But the baby…”
“Is ours.”
Gao Tu fell silent again.
“Ours,” Wenlang repeated. “Not yours.”
And that, perhaps, was when Gao Tu truly started crying.
+++
The first thing Shen Wenlang did after finding out he was going to be a father was buy seven books.
The second was create a spreadsheet.
The third was argue with the doctor.
“He shouldn’t be throwing up this much.”
The doctor looked at him over his glasses.
“Nausea is normal.”
“Six times yesterday.”
“Wenlang. Five,” Gao Tu corrected.
“Six.”
“The last one doesn’t count.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing came out.”
“That was still vomiting.”
The doctor took off his glasses.
“Are you two always like this?”
“Yes,” they answered simultaneously.
The examination showed that the pregnancy was progressing normally.
That should have reassured Wenlang.
It did not.
Wenlang wrote down the name of every supplement. The times Gao Tu was supposed to take them. Recommended foods. Foods to avoid. The date of the next appointment. The doctor’s phone number.
When the doctor said stress wasn’t advisable, Shen Wenlang looked at Gao Tu as though he had just received official permission to eliminate every source of stress from the face of the earth.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I know that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you had when you wanted to burn down the principal’s office.”
“I didn’t want to burn it down.”
“You said the school would look good in flames.”
“That was an aesthetic observation.”
The doctor covered his mouth with one hand.
Gao Tu suspected he was laughing.
+++
In the fifth week, Wenlang started bringing him breakfast.
In the sixth, he learned how to make congee.
In the seventh, Gao Tu discovered that the baby couldn’t tolerate the smell of coffee, and Shen Wenlang—who had drunk it every day since their sophomore year—stopped drinking coffee.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“You can drink it before school.”
“I know.”
“Or outside.”
“Tutu.”
“What?”
“I don’t need coffee.”
He was lying.
Gao Tu knew he was lying because on the third day without caffeine, Wenlang fell asleep in history class with his eyes open.
But he didn’t drink coffee.
In the eighth week, Gao Tu started nesting.
He didn’t notice.
Wenlang did.
First, one hoodie disappeared.
Then another.
Then his school blazer.
Wenlang found it that evening curled up on Gao Tu’s bed alongside a blanket, two pillows, and the sweater he had been searching for all week.
“Tutu.”
“Hmm?”
“That’s my blazer.”
Gao Tu looked at it.
“No.”
“It has my name on the label.”
Gao Tu pulled the blazer closer.
“Mine.”
Wenlang said nothing for a moment.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll buy another one.”
Gao Tu narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
The next day, Wenlang brought him another hoodie.
The day after that, a sweater.
Then a scarf.
“Stop.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re deliberately leaving things at my house.”
“Possibly.”
“Wenlang.”
“The doctor said nesting is normal.”
“I’m not building a nest.”
Wenlang looked at his bed.
Gao Tu looked too.
The bed looked as though Shen Wenlang had exploded across it in textile form.
“This is…” Gao Tu began.
“Yes?”
“Organization.”
“Of course.”
“I need them.”
“That’s why I bring them.”
Gao Tu threw a pillow at him.
Wenlang caught it with one hand.
And then he smiled.
Not that small, arrogant curl of his lips he showed everyone else.
A real smile.
Soft.
Gao Tu hated him a little for looking so beautiful.
He loved him considerably more for doing everything he could to make Gao Tu’s life easier.
+++
The nights were the worst.
During the day, there were things to do.
Go to class.
Study.
Complain about nausea.
Argue with Wenlang about whether three mandarins counted as a proper lunch.
In the evening, there were problems to solve, notes to make, plans to prepare.
But at night, everything went quiet.
And then the future came back.
One night, Gao Tu woke at 2:37 a.m.
He lay still for a moment.
Then picked up his phone.
Are you asleep?
The answer came eleven seconds later.
No.
Liar.
I’m scared.
His phone rang.
Gao Tu answered.
“Hey.”
Wenlang’s voice was rough with sleep.
“Hey.”
“Of what?”
Gao Tu tightened his fingers around the blanket.
“That I won’t be able to do it.”
Silence.
“Do what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s not very specific.”
“Wenlang.”
“I’m asking seriously.”
Gao Tu closed his eyes.
“The exams. University. The baby. My parents. Your parents. Everyone staring. Teachers finding out. People talking. Getting into university and not being able to go. Or not getting in because I’ll be too tired. Or giving birth and…”
His voice broke.
“And what?”
“And being like them.”
Wenlang went quiet.
He didn’t need to ask who Gao Tu meant.
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re afraid of it.”
Gao Tu frowned.
“What?”
“Your parents never stopped to wonder whether they were hurting you. Neither did mine. They just assumed that because they were doing it for our own good, anything was allowed.”
Gao Tu said nothing.
“You’re already worrying about someone who’s only a few centimeters long.”
“They’re not even a few centimeters yet.”
“Two?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll check.”
“Don’t check now.”
He heard rustling.
“Wenlang.”
“Three centimeters.”
Gao Tu laughed through his tears.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Three centimeters and already making you cry. Definitely my child.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the one throwing up.”
“I’m suffering too.”
“Because of the coffee?”
“Immeasurably.”
Gao Tu laughed for a little longer.
Then, more quietly, he asked:
“Do you really think we can do this?”
This time Wenlang didn’t answer immediately.
And Gao Tu was grateful for that.
He didn’t want empty reassurance.
“I think it’ll be hard,” Wenlang finally said. “I think we’ll be tired. We’ll argue. Probably a lot. I don’t know what our parents will say. I don’t know how we’ll manage everything with university.”
“That is a terrible motivational speech.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Okay.”
“But we don’t have to know everything right now. We only have to know what we’re doing tomorrow.”
“And what are we doing tomorrow?”
“You have your English mock exam.”
Gao Tu groaned.
“And I’m bringing you breakfast.”
“Congee?”
“Congee.”
“With dates?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Wenlang sighed.
“And apple rabbits.”
Gao Tu smiled in the darkness.
“Okay.”
“So we have a plan for tomorrow.”
Maybe that was what he needed.
Not a plan for the next twenty years.
A plan for tomorrow.
+++
Their parents found out in the twelfth week.
It was a disaster.
Then a bigger disaster.
Then Shen Wenlang told his father to stop talking.
Gao Tu fell a little more in love with him.
“Do you understand what you’ve done to your future?” Wenlang’s father asked.
Wenlang sat straight at the table.
“Yes.”
“No, clearly you don’t.”
“I understand perfectly well.”
“You’re eighteen!”
“I know how old I am.”
“Wenlang!”
“And I’m not going to let you talk about Gao Tu as though he’s done something wrong to me.”
Silence fell.
Gao Tu sat beside him, feeling his heart pound against his ribs.
His own mother had cried earlier.
Not from happiness.
His father had asked what people would say.
Neither of them had asked whether Gao Tu was afraid.
Shen Wenlang did.
Every day.
“You’ll ruin your life,” Wenlang’s father said.
Wenlang looked at Gao Tu.
Then at the barely visible curve beneath his sweater.
And answered:
“No.”
One word.
Calm.
Certain.
“My life will just look different.”
Gao Tu pressed his lips together.
He didn’t want to cry.
He had definitely been crying too much lately.
“And if Gao Tu doesn’t finish school?”
“He will.”
“If he doesn’t get into university?”
Gao Tu felt his nails dig into his palm.
Wenlang noticed.
Under the table, he slipped his fingers between Gao Tu’s.
“He will.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Wenlang shrugged.
“He’s smarter than me.”
Gao Tu turned his head.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Your average is higher.”
“Because you waste your time helping half the class.”
“That’s not—”
“Tutu.”
Their parents were staring at them.
Gao Tu closed his mouth.
Wenlang squeezed his hand.
“He’ll get in.”
And Gao Tu suddenly thought that if Shen Wenlang could believe in him with such absurd, unwavering certainty, then perhaps he could try believing in himself too.
+++
Gao Tu took his final exams in his sixth month of pregnancy.
His stomach was impossible to hide by then.
For the past several weeks, the entire school had known.
People stared.
People whispered.
One teacher even asked whether, “given his current situation,” he shouldn’t focus on his family instead.
Gao Tu smiled sweetly at her.
Then got the highest score in her subject.
He did it purely out of spite.
Wenlang was very proud.
“I’m not sure spite is a healthy source of motivation.”
“It works.”
“That’s true.”
On the day of his last exam, Wenlang waited for him outside the building.
He was holding an umbrella.
A bottle of water in his other hand.
Snacks in his bag.
Gao Tu came down the steps and stopped.
Wenlang looked at him.
“How did it go?”
Gao Tu tried to keep a straight face.
He failed.
“Good.”
Wenlang smiled too.
“How good?”
“Very good.”
“I knew it.”
“The results aren’t even out yet.”
“I don’t need the results.”
Gao Tu walked closer.
Wenlang adjusted the umbrella so the sun wouldn’t fall across his face.
It was a small gesture.
Wenlang made hundreds of them.
He pulled out chairs for him.
Carried his school bag.
Bought sour plums.
Remembered his vitamins.
When Gao Tu fell asleep while studying, he covered him with a blanket and then took pictures to blackmail him with the next day.
When the baby kicked for the first time, Wenlang kept his hand on Gao Tu’s stomach for a full three minutes without saying a word.
Then he went to the bathroom.
Gao Tu was almost certain he had cried.
He never mentioned it.
After all, Gao Tu himself had cried earlier that same day because the store was out of his favorite buns.
Everyone had their dignity.
“We finished high school,” Gao Tu said.
Wenlang looked at the building behind him.
“We still need the results.”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Okay.”
Gao Tu rested a hand on his stomach.
The baby moved.
Wenlang immediately looked down.
“Did he kick?”
“Yes.”
The Alpha’s hand landed on his stomach with a speed that still made something inside Gao Tu soften.
They waited.
Another kick.
Wenlang smiled.
Gao Tu looked at him and thought about how eight months earlier, he had been convinced that the future was something you could plan.
A good high school.
Good grades.
A good university.
A job.
An apartment.
Independence.
In the right order.
At the right time.
No mistakes.
No complications.
Nothing that couldn’t be written into a calendar.
Meanwhile, his future was now standing outside their school in a badly buttoned uniform, holding an umbrella over his head and carrying a bag stuffed with crackers, water, supplements, tissues, and three different kinds of sour candy because Shen Wenlang apparently believed pregnancy required a level of preparation comparable to a military expedition.
And the other part of his future was currently kicking him in the ribs.
It wasn’t what he had planned.
It was terrifying.
It was difficult.
It was definitely far too early.
But when Wenlang lifted his head and looked at him with that soft expression he still reserved exclusively for Gao Tu, Gao Tu thought that maybe the future didn’t have to be perfect to be good.
“Wenlang?”
“Hmm?”
“What are we doing tomorrow?”
Wenlang considered it.
“Sleeping.”
Gao Tu burst out laughing.
“All day?”
“All day.”
“And then?”
“You choose.”
“You don’t have a plan?”
“I do.”
“What is it?”
Wenlang adjusted the strap of the bag over his shoulder, then intertwined their fingers.
“Tomorrow.”
Gao Tu waited.
“And then the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“It’s worked so far.”
That was true.
So Gao Tu squeezed his hand.
And they went home.
+++
Three months later, Shen Wenlang discovered that his child could scream for forty-seven minutes without stopping.
“Let’s give him back,” he said at three in the morning.
Gao Tu, sitting in the middle of their nest with a tiny, red-faced, furious baby pressed against his chest, stared at him in disbelief.
“Where?”
Wenlang fell silent.
Apparently, his plan had not accounted for this particular stage.
“The hospital?”
“They won’t take him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s not a store.”
“We could ask.”
“Wenlang.”
“I’m tired.”
“I gave birth to him.”
“I know.”
“For eleven hours.”
“I know.”
“So if anyone has the right to give him back, it’s me.”
Wenlang stared at him for a moment.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You have priority.”
Gao Tu threw a diaper at him.
It hit Wenlang in the face.
The baby stopped crying.
Both of them froze.
Their son blinked up at them with enormous eyes.
Wenlang very slowly removed the diaper from his head.
The baby made a sound that resembled a sneeze.
Gao Tu pressed his lips together.
Wenlang gave him a warning look.
Gao Tu lasted three seconds.
Then he started laughing.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“No.”
Wenlang threw the diaper back at him.
Gao Tu leaned away, still laughing, while the baby between them made another pleased little noise.
And so, at 3:14 in the morning, in an apartment rented near the two universities they had both ultimately gotten into, surrounded by books, notes, bottles, diapers, and far too many blankets Shen Wenlang had bought for the nest, sat two eighteen-year-olds who had absolutely no idea what they were doing.
In a few hours, Gao Tu had class.
Wenlang had a lecture at nine.
The baby would probably wake them at least twice more.
Their parents were still a problem.
Money was sometimes a problem.
Sleep had become a legend passed down from generation to generation.
Their life was harder than it should have been at their age.
But Wenlang leaned over and kissed Gao Tu on the forehead.
Then kissed their son’s tiny head.
And when Gao Tu rested his head against his shoulder, Wenlang pulled the blanket more securely around all three of them.
“Hey,” Gao Tu whispered.
“Hmm?”
“What’s our plan for tomorrow?”
Wenlang looked at the sleeping baby in his arms.
Then at the stack of textbooks.
Then at the clock, which read 3:16.
He sighed.
“Survive.”
Gao Tu smiled.
“Good plan.”
And for now, they really didn’t need a better one.