Chapter 26
THE NOTES FROM THE TIN WHISTLE were bright, spirited, and melodious as the harmonies echoed within the closed room. Gu Fei had no idea why anyone would consider an instrument capable of producing such beautiful sounds less impressive than a piano. From where he sat, Jiang Cheng cut a rather impressive figure, leaning against the table with the thin black whistle in his hands.
The tune was a light and cheerful one, but somehow, Gu Fei managed to glean a trace of loneliness from it. He wasn’t sure whether it came from the instrument itself or its player.
At last, the final note reverberated around the dancing flames and eventually disappeared. Jiang Cheng lowered his hands amidst their mutual silence.
He looked up after a moment, the tiniest smile playing at the corner of his lips. “So?”
“Aww, wonderful,” Gu Fei cooed as he clapped enthusiastically.
“Please speak normally.” Jiang Cheng wiped the mouthpiece with a small cloth. “How do you manage to make me want to smack you with a single word?”
“Bravo,” Gu Fei tried again. “It must’ve taken a long time to learn.”
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng answered automatically, but after a moment, he shook his head. “Not that long, actually. Not as long as the time I spent learning piano.”
“And you managed to play so well in such a short time,” Gu Fei remarked.
“It’s no wonder you’re such a…” He paused then, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Jiang Cheng sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m an overachiever, I get it. Will you ever get tired of that bit?”
Gu Fei laughed for a while, then finally said, “You really do play well.”
“It’s not that hard, actually. It’s very easy to pick up.” Jiang Cheng spun the whistle in his hand a few times before offering it to Gu Fei. “Wanna give it a try?”
“…Sure.” Gu Fei walked up to him and accepted the whistle. “Can I play it just like this?”
“What’s your point?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“I mean, are you a germaphobe?” Gu Fei said.
Jiang Cheng started laughing. It was as if a dam had somehow been opened in him tonight, and he couldn’t stop laughing at everything. After a while, he got himself together long enough to point at the walls.
“A germaphobe would’ve had a breakdown as soon as he came in here.”
“True. And you just grabbed a dead rat’s blanket, too.” Gu Fei studied the whistle in his hands, mimicking Jiang Cheng as he placed his fingers on the holes. “Like this?”
“Yep.” Jiang Cheng reached out and gently tapped Gu Fei’s fingers.
“Press down tightly, you’re letting the air out.”
After adjusting his grip, Gu Fei attempted to make a sound. The whistle let out a short and shrill screech like a voice cracking. Gu Fei turned his face away with a frown. “Ah, what the heck was that? Scared me.”
Holding back a laugh, Jiang Cheng said, “Relax a little more. Don’t hold your breath back; you have to let it out for it to sound good.”
“All right.”
Gu Fei puffed up his cheeks and tried again. This attempt was much better; the note was long and loud, but it sounded like… “Never mind,” Gu Fei said, taking his mouth off the flute. “Just because it’s easy to pick up doesn’t mean it’ll sound good. With noises like these, you’d think there was a husky in here or something.”
“You’re still too tense.” Jiang Cheng took the flute and wiped the mouthpiece carelessly on his pants. “Watch my face. You have to relax more.”
He played a scale as Gu Fei watched him intently. “Understand?”
“If I say no,” Gu Fei chuckled, “will you start cursing at me?”
Jiang Cheng didn’t answer, continuing to play scales and snippets of tunes.
After a moment, Gu Fei lifted a finger and poked his cheek. “When you say relax, do you—” The music abruptly stopped as the whistle smacked sharply against the back of Gu Fei’s hand.
“Agh! Fuck!” Gu Fei yanked his hand back. He shook his hand out and rubbed it vigorously. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jiang Cheng was suddenly overcome with a wave of embarrassment so strong that he wanted to jump out the window. It might’ve been the alcohol, but being in such close proximity to Gu Fei made him feel like the tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Gu Fei’s voice… The caress of his breath as he spoke… All of it made him feel light-headed.
The touch of his fingertip against his cheek was light—so light that it was barely noticeable—but Jiang Cheng still overreacted. In that instant, he couldn’t quite tell if that was a reflex or a subconscious evasion. But more importantly, Gu Fei was left utterly flummoxed by his smack, and it wasn’t as if he could explain himself.
Hi, my name is Jiang Cheng, and I don’t really like it when people touch me.
Because I like men, I especially don’t like to be touched by them.
Hello, when Wang Jiuri called me a fussy bastard, it was actually an extremely accurate assessment…
“Wang Xu said you’re fussy and you don’t let people pat you on the shoulder.” Gu Fei took the words right out of his mouth. “I see that’s true.”
“Uh huh.” Jiang Cheng looked at him. “Did you just realize that?”
Gu Fei stared back without a word. Unable to explain himself further, Jiang Cheng could only stand there and hold eye contact.
After about ten seconds of staring, Jiang Cheng got a bad feeling: the urge to laugh. A very strong urge. If he ended up laughing hysterically after smacking Gu Fei with a metal tube, Gu Fei would probably fight him.
There was a lesson to be learned here: You shouldn’t drink so recklessly, lest it impair your judgment.
Through the tangle of a hundred thoughts swirling through his head, he managed to clench his jaw and keep from laughing. Meanwhile, apparently tired of staring at him, Gu Fei rubbed his hand again and grumbled, “Good thing you’re not a girl, otherwise you’d probably end up alone.”
This was when Jiang Cheng erupted into hysterics.
What the fuck are you fucking laughing about?! What’s so fucking funny?! One tiny paper cup of erguotou was enough to turn you into a total idiot!
Are you a dumbass, Jiang Cheng?
Why yes, I am.
He admonished himself internally, while on the outside, he convulsed with laughter so violent the table he leaned on quaked from the impact.
“You want me to beat you up?” Gu Fei said.
With one hand holding the wound on his rib, Jiang Cheng continued giggling. In the end, Gu Fei was infected by his idiocy once again and started laughing along. Aside from the foolishness of it all, there were certain benefits to this bout of laughter: It dissolved the brutal awkwardness that had enveloped Jiang Cheng just before.
It only made his sides ache, that was all.
“Ay…” He heaved a big sigh as he collapsed on the sofa. “Sorry, I might’ve had too much to drink.”
Gu Fei let out a long breath, probably still waiting for the giggles to pass.
He walked over to the couch and plopped heavily down on the seat next to Jiang Cheng. “Wang Xu said you were ready to fight him because he patted your shoulder once.”
The sofa might have been old and tattered, but it retained a surprising bounce. Gu Fei’s cannonball-like impact on its surface sent Jiang Cheng shooting right up. In his dizziness, he felt as though he was about to take flight.
“I’m not interested in fighting that scaredy-cat,” he said, then patted the sofa before rising up and letting himself fall back down.
Beside him, Gu Fei bounced.
“Are you a child?” Gu Fei said, then got up and dropped himself on the seat again.
“You started it—” Jiang Cheng landed a little off-balance this time and started rolling over toward Gu Fei.
The sofa wasn’t large, only a two-seater. When Jiang Cheng fell, the two of them ended up squished together, their heads almost knocking into each other.
“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng cursed quietly. He reached out to brace a hand on the sofa and right himself, but he ended up pressing against Gu Fei’s hand instead.
Gu Fei’s hand was warm. The sensation of his knuckles grazing against Jiang Cheng’s palm was clear and visceral.
This time, Jiang Cheng didn’t lash out reflexively. He didn’t know why, but he froze in place, as if someone had pushed the pause button on him.
Gu Fei didn’t speak or move away. As he turned to face Jiang Cheng, his breath brushed along the edge of Jiang Cheng’s ear.
“You…” Jiang Cheng began, though he had no idea what he wanted to say.
“What?” Gu Fei asked.
Under the effects of alcohol and physical proximity, the simple word turned into an electric current, zapping him with sparks. Jiang Cheng felt as if all the pores on one side of his body had been blasted open at the sound of Gu Fei’s voice.
He turned his face and kissed Gu Fei on the cheek.
Madness.
That was the only light still flickering in Jiang Cheng’s mind. Everything else had been cleared out. Emptied. There was not a single brain cell to be found.
Gu Fei remained still and silent. In that instant, they seemed to have turned into statues frozen in a pocket dimension. He couldn’t discern any reaction from Gu Fei, and because his head was swimming, Jiang Cheng couldn’t read his eyes, either.
All he wanted was for a lightning strike to descend at this very moment and smite away their memories.
***
When Jiang Cheng woke up the next morning, his phone showed that it was 10:30 A.M., and he had three missed calls from Lao-Xu.
It was his first time being late for class since the semester started. Any later, and it would count as a half-day of absence.
Pushing against the bed for support, he sat up, though his head still sagged and his eyes were half-closed.
He didn’t want to go to school. Absolutely not.
Obviously, it was because of what happened last night.
The last memory he had was of his lips on Gu Fei’s cheek. Anything after that was gone from his head. Even if he could remember, he didn’t want to. He’d convinced himself to black out and persuaded himself to forget. He would’ve forgotten the kiss itself too, if he could—it wasn’t for lack of trying.
He’d tossed and turned the whole night, troubled by dreams he no longer remembered. When he tried to recall them, all that remained were clouds of smoke in grayscale.
It exhausted him. And yet, the first thing he felt after waking up was embarrassment. Well, that, and unease. He’d only known Gu Fei for the latter half of the winter break and the first half of a semester, but one drink and he’d gone crazy, kissing the guy on the cheek… Yes, it was alcohol-induced lunacy.
It was alcohol-induced—a great explanation. His low tolerance didn’t allow him to down a huge cup of erguotou in such a short time, so he got drunk.
He got drunk, so he ran wild.
A perfect explanation.
Jiang Cheng got out of bed and put on his clothes. After calming himself down with this reasonable explanation, he washed up and gave Lao-Xu a call back before rushing off to school.
He arrived between periods. Holding his backpack, Jiang Cheng entered the classroom through the back door. Although he had been calm and composed the whole way here, he felt unsettled again the moment he stepped into the classroom and realized that Gu Fei had actually not skipped class, but was instead sitting at his desk with his head buried in his stupid Aixiaochu.
He swore to the almighty lord of overachievers that he had no thoughts of that kind toward Gu Fei before that kiss. Apart from normal, superficial admiration for his good looks and nice hands and whatever—feelings anyone would have—he didn’t have any ulterior motives at all.
But he didn’t know whether Gu Fei minded it or not.
As reluctant as he was to admit it, in all this time he’d spent in this city, Gu Fei was the only person he wanted to hang around. He was the only person he thought of as a friend.
A fear began to creep up in him: If the connection between him and Gu Fei were to be severed, who else could he talk to? Zhou Jing? Wang Jiuri? The sudden onslaught of the unknown made his heart pound in trepidation. If he’d never met Gu Fei and had remained an outsider this whole time, he wouldn’t have felt it so keenly.
Jiang Cheng kicked lightly against the leg of Gu Fei’s chair. “Let me get by.”
“Oho.” Gu Fei looked up, just as surprised to see him. “I didn’t think you’d make it today.”
“I overslept.” Jiang Cheng squeezed past from behind. Everything seemed normal with Gu Fei, which made him feel a lot better.
“You left this behind yesterday.” Gu Fei took the tin whistle out from his desk drawer.
The mention of yesterday had Jiang Cheng’s hand almost shaking as he took the flute. “Oh.”
“Do you still want the key to the room?” Gu Fei asked, swiping away on his phone.
“…Yes.” Jiang Cheng thought about it for a moment. “Would Fresh Out of Jail mind?”
“Why would they?” Gu Fei pulled out his own keys and took one off its ring to hand to him. “They’re fresh out of jail, anyway. It doesn’t matter, even if they do mind.”
Jiang Cheng looked at him in silence.
“They won’t mind. It’s not like they don’t know you,” Gu Fei said.
“Thanks.” Jiang Cheng took the key.
“Treat me to a meal when you get the chance.” Gu Fei returned to his game. “The meat pies at Jiuri’s place will be fine.”
“…Why?” Jiang Cheng blinked.
“I gave you the key,” Gu Fei said. “Besides, I have leverage on you.”
“What?” Jiang Cheng turned his whole body to face him.
“If you don’t treat me to a meal, I’ll tell Jiuri you took advantage of me.”
“I…what…the fuck?” Jiang Cheng was so shocked that he couldn’t even stop to feel embarrassed. “I was just drunk, okay?”
“Ask around, see if anyone around here gets drunk off of less than five ounces of erguotou,” Gu Fei laughed.
“Well I get drunk off of a few ounces.” Jiang Cheng was incredulous.
“What, you discriminate against lightweights here? Is your intolerance against outsiders here based on their tolerance for alcohol?”
“Makes sense. You’re a southerner, after all,” Gu Fei said.
“…I’m not a southerner.”
“Anything south of here,” Gu Fei said as he set his phone down and drew a line in the air in front of them, “is the south.”
“Bullshit.”
“So what if it’s bullshit? I’ve already accepted the lightness of your weight, but you won’t accept the shit from my bull?”
“I…” Jiang Cheng trailed off, looking at him.
“Don’t laugh.” Gu Fei pointed at him. “I’m serious. If you start laughing again, I’ll really have to meet you by the back gates after school.”
It would’ve been better if he hadn’t said anything. Hearing this, Jiang Cheng felt the urge to laugh again.
Fortunately, Zhou Jing chose that moment to turn around. “Jiang Cheng— Jiang Cheng? Jiang… Hey, I wanted to ask you something.”
“What is it?” Jiang Cheng sighed.
“It’s almost midterms,” Zhou Jing said. “Can I look at your answers during the exam?”
“What’s the seating arrangement like during your exams?” Jiang Cheng asked.
He’d heard his share of requests like this in the past, but his old school split the class up for every test, no matter how minor; half of them would be sent to take the test in the lab or somewhere else. They would also be seated in random order instead of by their student numbers. Destiny was the only thing that guaranteed anyone a seat close enough for copying answers.
Come to think of it, the reason he and Pan Zhi had become so close was probably because they sat for exams in the same classroom every time, and with the same papers.
“We pull the desks apart. How else?” Zhou Jing answered.
“Oh. Does the class get two different versions of the same exam?”
“Nope,” Zhou Jing said.
“…Oh.”
Pan Zhi would’ve loved to take his tests in Fourth High, Jiang Cheng thought. It was practically free answers for all.
“Just leave your paper on your desk,” Zhou Jing added. “I can look at it myself.”
“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said again.
Satisfied, Zhou Jing flopped back onto his own desk.
Jiang Cheng turned to Gu Fei. He knew they’d been talking before Zhou Jing interrupted, but now he couldn’t remember what they were talking about.
“I don’t need to copy you.” Gu Fei met his gaze.
“Okay.” Jiang Cheng turned away, but after a moment, glanced back at him. “Do you write all your test answers yourself?”
“Mm.” Gu Fei nodded.
“And you know how to answer them?”
It seemed to Jiang Cheng that the books on Gu Fei’s side of the desk had never been opened. He spent class time rotating between sleeping, watching videos, listening to music, and playing his stupid Aixiaochu.
“Sure I do. All I have to do is pick a good-looking answer and fill it in.
What’s there to it?” Gu Fei held out a handful of candy. “Want some?”
Jiang Cheng spotted the tiny round candy from yesterday. “No!”
Gu Fei picked out a milk candy and popped it in his mouth, laughing.
For the next few days after that, Gu Fei made no mention of the day they drank together. Every day passed exactly like the last: He would be late to school, play with his phone during class, and go to basketball practice with the others.
Occasionally, when he skipped class, it was still without any notice. When that happened, Jiang Cheng could sense a deep sadness emanating from Lao-Xu.
He had hung the key to the steelworks room on his own keychain, which was heavy with keys. They unlocked the main door to his old home, the old garage, his old room, and a bunch of his drawers. He’d kept all of them even once he moved here.
After adding the key to the room in the abandoned factory, he hesitated for a moment, then removed all of the old ones. Looking at the lone key on the now spacious ring, he sighed.
There was only one key to Li Baoguo’s apartment. Jiang Cheng’s bedroom also had a lock, but the key was nowhere to be found. None of the cabinets or drawers in the place had locks, either.
Jiang Cheng squeezed the keychain in his hand now, feeling a little melancholy. But the sense of loneliness and wandering helplessness he used to feel had faded a little. Time moved forward as always, and people changed. He didn’t know if he owed it to forgetting or adapting.
Gu Miao had been out of school the whole week since the incident. Jiang Cheng knew this well because she would sneak into Fourth High every day during third period, standing on the walkway outside their classroom.
She showed up even earlier today. Jiang Cheng noticed the head of the skateboard-clutching little girl poking through the doorway a few minutes before the end of second period. Gu Fei gestured with his hand, signaling for her to wait outside. She turned and draped herself over the balcony, stepping up onto the bottom railing. The fight the other day and her subsequent suspension from school didn’t seem to have had any impact on her mood; she was the same as usual.
Folded over his desk, Jiang Cheng looked out the window, but his gaze was caught midway by Gu Fei’s side profile.
Gu Fei was also looking out the window. The bright sunlight streamed in, tracing a faint halo around his features.
Jiang Cheng was suddenly reminded of the other night. With this one glance, what had already become blurred memories and forgotten sensations all rushed back to him at once.
Fuck!
The way he’d rolled awkwardly away to the other end of the sofa; the way Gu Fei calmly lit a cigarette, and even handed one to him; the way they’d finished their cigarettes together, and somehow the pot of chicken soup, too… All these memories that were clearly recorded in his memory but that he convinced himself to forget now raced through his mind in his moment of weakness.
Was his brain so disobedient now?!
Gu Fei turned back. “Meat pies.”
“Ah,” Jiang Cheng answered, reining in his thoughts. “Huh?”
“When are you buying me meat pies? The tournament is tomorrow,” Gu Fei reminded him.
“Let’s go today,” Jiang Cheng said. “Gu Miao can come with?”
Gu Fei nodded. “Okay.”
Was the tournament really tomorrow? Jiang Cheng pulled out his phone and checked the date. It was true. Time had seemed to pass pretty quickly recently, but at the same time, it went by without much attention on his part—the large red banners promoting the school tournament had been hung up for days.
Gu Miao seemed to be in a good mood today. She made circles around them on her skateboard.
“Let me make a call first.” Wang Xu pulled out his phone as they walked.
“My dad will have to make the donkey meat in advance and set our portion aside… Oh yeah, why don’t you guys come over again after school with the others on the team? We can hand out the jerseys Lao-Xu got us and discuss some strategy.”
“Sure.”
Jiang Cheng’s eyes were on Gu Miao. The little munchkin’s hair grew pretty fast; he could already see it poking out of the edge of her hat. The only problem now was it had no shape. He thought about Gu Fei’s own fancy shave with its ornate motifs, and compared it to his sister’s bald head or the messy mop of hair she had now… “Is your wound all healed up?” Gu Fei asked quietly beside him.
“Yeah.” Jiang Cheng touched his own rib. “It’s pretty much fine now.”
Without warning, Gu Fei suddenly reached out a hand and patted Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.
“What?” Jiang Cheng looked at him.
“Are your reflexes in hibernation?” Gu Fei patted him again.
It was only then that it dawned on Jiang Cheng that Gu Fei had touched him.
He lapsed into contemplative silence.