Chapter 15

Xu Zhengdong waited outside the door for a moment.

A server came over and started to speak. Xu Zhengdong raised a finger to his lips. He waved her in to refill the water, then leaned slightly to one side and peered through the gap in the door.

As expected, Su Xingchuan had moved to sit beside Li Xuan.

The two of them were being awkward about it — a deliberate inch of space between them, bodies angled toward each other anyway, saying something he couldn't quite catch.

Xu Zhengdong smiled to himself.

He'd thought Su Xingchuan was so composed. Turned out he was just a kid like any other.

A kid was fine. As long as he treated Xiao Xuan right.

He could see it — Su Xingchuan was holding something back, nursing some grudge. Xiao Xuan apparently couldn't. But Xu Zhengdong had no intention of spelling it out for them. With feelings like these, you could nudge, but the moment you explained it too plainly you'd killed it. Besides, the tissue between them was already so thin it was nearly gone. If they still couldn't figure it out, that was just fate telling them no.

He told the server to pull the door shut and leave the guests inside undisturbed, then paused on his way out: 'Oh — box up some of those mantis shrimp for me to take home. They smelled amazing.'

The door clicked softly closed. The sound of footsteps in the corridor faded in an instant, and the private room went very quiet.

Which made Li Xuan's 'hate you' ring out with startling clarity.

Li Xuan had a whole arsenal of go-to phrases, and each one could carry half a dozen different feelings at once. It was always up to Su Xingchuan to figure out which.

'Back to hating me again.'

Su Xingchuan smiled, helpless. 'Is that all you've got? Anything else you want to say to me?'

'Bad taste.' Li Xuan said it flatly, like a verdict.

'What?' Su Xingchuan didn't follow.

Li Xuan didn't bother repeating himself. He wiped his hands slowly with a wet napkin, then picked up his chopsticks and lifted a piece of shrimp.

It took Su Xingchuan a beat. Then it clicked.

'You mean Xie Liang?' He laughed a little. 'What's wrong with my taste? I think he's great.'

Li Xuan's expression got worse.

'He's got a good personality, never loses his temper for no reason, he's hardworking, he doesn't order me around all day — and looks-wise, yeah, he's just a different type from you, but that doesn't mean he's not good-looking,' Su Xingchuan said, deliberately needling Li Xuan. He even turned to look at him, a little mean about it: 'You don't think he's good enough? What's wrong with him?'

Li Xuan's eyes almost went.

Every word was a needle straight to the chest. He'd always taken Su Xingchuan for granted — always assumed his neediness, his mods, his little performances of being difficult would never actually wear on him. Then they broke up, and whenever he looked back on those four months, he'd feel sick with it. He shouldn't have pushed so hard. Because now, trying to remember what he'd given to that relationship, he came up empty.

He'd only ever taken. And he was terrified that Su Xingchuan knew it — that Su Xingchuan had moved on to someone better and was slowly forgetting him.

The more he thought about it, the worse it got. His stomach was turning.

'Have some soup.' Su Xingchuan caught the slight furrow of his brow and spoke up. 'Something wrong?'

'None of your business.' Li Xuan turned away.

Su Xingchuan ladled out a bowl of hot chicken soup and set it in front of him.

The steam hit Li Xuan's face and made his eyes sting even more.

'How many surgeries today?' Su Xingchuan started reaching for something to say — they used to be able to talk about anything, and now all he had was this. 'Do you only do clinic on Wednesdays and Thursdays? What time do you eat lunch — did you skip the whole afternoon?'

The second Su Xingchuan said it, Li Xuan realized he was starving.

And right behind that came something else. A kind of ache.

Li Xuan had never been a snacker. Back then, Su Xingchuan had late classes — sometimes the last one ran until five-thirty — and he'd always worried Li Xuan would get hungry waiting, so he'd stuff two little packets of crackers into Li Xuan's pocket. Li Xuan never really wanted them. He'd only tear one open when he was desperate, eat a few pieces, then fire off a message to Su Xingchuan with full hostility: [These are SO dry, my throat is completely blocked, Su Xingchuan you're dead.]

Su Xingchuan would read those messages in the middle of class and nearly lose it trying not to laugh. Dead, sure. But he already knew exactly what the punishment would be — a few extra kisses at most. Hardly a penalty.

They'd probably just landed on the same memory.

'Not your problem,' Li Xuan said, voice flat.

Su Xingchuan eased his shoulder back — he hadn't even noticed it drifting toward Li Xuan. He kept shelling shrimp. 'I know. Not my problem.'

He dropped the shrimp into Li Xuan's bowl.

Li Xuan lowered his head and drank his soup.

Then Su Xingchuan asked, out of nowhere: 'What's Xu Zhengdong's angle — leaving the two of us alone in here?'

'I don't know,' Li Xuan said, head still down.

He thought for a second, brow creasing. 'Why are you calling him by his name? He's ten years older than you, at least.'

Su Xingchuan's hands went still.

God, he was pathetic.

How pathetic could one person get?

Xu Zhengdong parks him in this room and he just — goes along with it. Crawls right over to Li Xuan and shells his shrimp and fusses over him like nothing ever changed.

Seven years. He hadn't grown at all.

Li Xuan's words hit and something swelled up in his chest — a hot, directionless pressure that had nowhere to go, just ricocheting around inside him.

He was so angry he could barely breathe.

'So what am I supposed to call him?' he asked, jaw tight.

Li Xuan didn't get it. 'Just call him what you'd normally call him. You literally just called him Director Xu.'

That was it. Whatever was left of the warmth in his eyes drained out in an instant. He shoved back from the table and stood, jaw clenched so hard the line of it went sharp. He grabbed the damp towel beside him, wiped his hands without thinking, and walked out — chair scraping loud behind him. He didn't have a single word left for Li Xuan.

The server waiting outside had been quietly dreading how to bring in the last dessert. Then the door swung open.

Su Xingchuan walked past her without slowing down.

Out of Sizhuan Private Dining, and into the crowded dusk of Changting Street.

Changting — the old name for the place where people say goodbye, where the grass runs pale and endless.

Fitting, really.

He thought he might actually hate Li Xuan a little. Why did Li Xuan have to show up again? Giving him hope and then pulling it away — just like seven years ago, no reason, no warning, just: it's over.

A love that stops like that does something to you. Like a roller coaster frozen at the top of its climb — no going up, no coming down, no way in or out.

It had taken Su Xingchuan so long to bury himself in work enough to get back to something like himself. And now Li Xuan was back. It felt almost cruel.

Flashes of memory — then and now, seven years apart, laid side by side. Li Xuan had changed so much, and yet somehow not at all. Or maybe it was him. Maybe he'd had Li Xuan wrong the whole time.

He wanted to just keep walking down Changting Street, one foot in front of the other, no destination. But somehow, without meaning to, he loped back.

Crunching through dead leaves at the curb, back to the entrance of Sizhuan Private Dining.

And there was Li Xuan — sitting on the stone bench out front, hugging Su Xingchuan's briefcase to his chest, swallowed up by that oversized puffer jacket, curled into himself.

He used to do the same thing with Su Xingchuan's school bag.

Sitting on the edge of the basketball court, swinging his legs.

Su Xingchuan stopped in front of him.

Li Xuan looked up slowly. His eyes were red.

Since they'd run into each other again, this was the first time he'd let the coolness drop — the first time he'd let Su Xingchuan see what was actually underneath.

Su Xingchuan didn't know what Li Xuan had to feel wronged about. But it still got to him. He crouched down in front of Li Xuan and reached up, pressing his thumb gently to the corner of his eye.

Li Xuan couldn't hold it anymore. His voice broke: 'Su Xingchuan. Do you really only like men now?'

So Li Xuan wasn't special. Didn't matter. Swap him out for any other guy — call him Wang Xuan, Chen Xuan, whoever — as long as he knew how to be a little coy, a little forward, Su Xingchuan would've fallen just the same. Su Xingchuan had always been like this. Li Xuan was just whoever happened to be standing there at the right moment. Everything that came after had nothing to do with him.

Li Xuan didn't want that to be true.

'That's really all you care about?' Su Xingchuan didn't know what to do with him.

Li Xuan shoved the briefcase back at him, crying: 'Yeah, that's all I care about! I don't give a damn whether you like me now — I just want to know how much I mattered back then. That's it. That's all I want. I'm selfish, I'm being unreasonable, fine!'

He stood up to go. Both hands fisted tight around his own cuffs. He wanted Su Xingchuan to say something. He was terrified to hear it.

He took a step forward. His legs felt like they were full of concrete.

Then he heard Su Xingchuan say: 'You mattered.'

The tears came all at once.

He'd gotten the answer he wanted. It didn't make him feel better. It made something heavier settle in — a deeper kind of hopelessness. He'd mattered then. And now? Now he'd already been replaced.

Did he still have a chance? Was there anything left to fight for?

Li Xuan's hand snapped shut into a fist.

Su Xingchuan watched Li Xuan walk away, that quick, stiff retreat, and said to no one: 'You really did matter.'

Mattered enough that even while he was furious at you — even after twenty years of never once thinking about liking a guy — even as his better judgment kept telling him, again and again, don't choose a path that hard — he still fell for you. Completely out of his control.

*

*

Seven years ago, Yu Qinglan had told Su Xingchuan: 'You're done for. You know that, right? Have you not noticed how much you care about that kid?'

Su Xingchuan had shrugged it off. 'Really? I don't think so.'

He'd always thought of Li Xuan as some strange, high-maintenance little kid. Until that afternoon — midsummer, a breeze cutting through the trees — when Li Xuan leaned in and pressed a kiss to his face.

The wind stopped. The woods went still. Everything just — paused.

That night, Su Xingchuan had his first sleepless night in twenty years of living. He hadn't even been this wrecked the night before his college entrance exam.

It wasn't like he'd never been around gay people. He'd known guys who read as more feminine, heard the rumors that one of them liked men. He'd never cared, never thought any of it had anything to do with him — until —

Li Xuan's lips. Soft and warm against his face.

Su Xingchuan pulled in a slow breath.

He pressed a hand over his forehead and tried to clear his head. The harder he pushed, the sharper it all came back.

He didn't dare think about it too closely.

He got maybe half an hour of sleep.

Three classes the next morning. He dragged himself through all of them, then shuffled to the dining hall with his roommates.

He prayed the whole way there that Li Xuan wouldn't show up.

Li Xuan showed up. With a bowl of water-boiled beef, walking straight toward him.

Su Xingchuan snapped awake. He pulled his expression tight — rejection, distaste, the whole thing — already bracing to put distance between them in front of his roommates. Then Li Xuan set the water-boiled beef down right beside his hand.

'Eat this.'

Su Xingchuan choked. He had no idea what was happening.

Li Xuan reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of chocolates, pressing it into Su Xingchuan's hand. 'These are good too.'

Su Xingchuan stood there, frozen.

And then, delivery made, Li Xuan turned and walked away.

Was Li Xuan — pursuing him?

His roommates' eyes lingered on Li Xuan for a moment, then swung over to Su Xingchuan. 'What was that?'

Like Su Xingchuan had any idea.

He decided to stay away from Li Xuan.

No dining hall, no basketball court, no library study rooms — he refused to show up anywhere Li Xuan might find him. When Li Xuan texted, he didn't reply.

kitty face: [Where are you?]

kitty face: [Why aren't you eating?]

kitty face: [Forget it, I don't want you to feed me anymore. I'll eat myself.]

Su Xingchuan let out a cold laugh, pocketed his phone, and thought: since when is you feeding yourself supposed to be a reward for me?

Li Xuan kept texting.

kitty face: [Are you mad? Sorry.]

kitty face: [Pay attention to me.]

kitty face: [I got you a present. Pay attention to me.]

kitty face: [You don't want me to hate you, do you.]

When Su Xingchuan didn't respond, Li Xuan escalated. That evening, Su Xingchuan got a message — one that came with its own built-in voice effect.

kitty face: [I hate you.]

Su Xingchuan wasn't surprised at all.

Li Xuan had always been that type — spoiled rotten and used to getting his way.

He'd thought that if he just kept ignoring Li Xuan long enough, whatever this was between them would die on its own. It didn't work out that way.

One week later.

Su Xingchuan saw Li Xuan at the skateboarding club.

He was in two clubs total — debate and skateboarding. He had no idea how Li Xuan had found out, but somehow he had, and now here he was, showing up with an actual skateboard like he belonged there.

The club met every Wednesday and Sunday at seven in the evening, out front of the main auditorium. Su Xingchuan came when he felt like it.

He'd just sat down when he spotted Li Xuan walking toward him, a longboard tucked under one arm, his right hand wrapped up like a little bandaged paw.

He thought: God, this guy is clingy. There's no shaking him.

He was about to get up and leave — but one of the older club members got there first, moving to welcome Li Xuan before Su Xingchuan could. Su Xingchuan pressed his expression flat and sat back down.

He watched from the corner of his eye. The guy was good-looking in a soft way, and his whole manner was gentle — exactly the type Su Xingchuan figured other gay guys went for. Whatever he said, Li Xuan kept nodding along.

Under the streetlight, his eyes were bright.

For some reason Su Xingchuan couldn't name, something small and sour shifted in his chest.

So that was just how Li Xuan looked at people.