Xing Ye said nothing. He lowered his head and smoked. When he finished, he pressed the cigarette butt against the brick wall beside them, leaving a black streak that blended into all the other marks already there until it was impossible to distinguish. Then he took out another cigarette. Sheng Renxing stood beside him and watched.
He had no idea how much time passed. Eventually Xing Ye finished the entire pack. He looked down at it, crushed the empty cigarette box in his hand, and tossed it to the ground, adding his own contribution to the litter already scattered everywhere.
Sheng Renxing offered over the cigarette he had kept between his lips without smoking and sincerely suggested, “Can we go pollute the air somewhere else?”
Xing Ye nodded but did not move.
Sheng Renxing tilted his head. “Let’s go.”
There were no cars on the street. Sheng Renxing opened the map on his phone, and the two walked all the way back to Qinyuan Residential Complex. There was no elevator in the building, and the lights were not sound-activated either. They simply felt their way upstairs in the dark.
Before entering, Sheng Renxing switched on the light outside his apartment and turned to Xing Ye. “No smoking inside. Finish it before you come in.”
Xing Ye silently stubbed the cigarette out. Sheng Renxing unlocked the door. Nothing inside looked much different from the last time Xing Ye had been there. Even the paintings on the walls were still hanging in the same places.
“Sit.” Sheng Renxing tossed his keys onto the shoe cabinet, kicked off his shoes, and ran toward the kitchen. “I nearly froze into a popsicle. It was hot as hell at noon.”
“You’re not wearing enough.” Xing Ye glanced at the holes in his jeans.
Sheng Renxing’s voice came from the kitchen. “I can freeze to death, but I cannot sacrifice style.”
Xing Ye laughed. “Got water?”
“You want water?” Sheng Renxing came out holding a can of beer, popped the tab, and took a drink.
“Beer’s fine too.” Xing Ye looked at his hand and changed his answer.
“There’s only one can left.” Sheng Renxing walked over to the sofa and held it out. “Here. One sip.”
Xing Ye took it, drank once, and handed it back. His uncle had chosen a dark-red sofa to match the living room, probably to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Late at night, though, it looked more ominous than enthusiastic. Xing Ye sat on the right side. Sheng Renxing sat on the left, collapsed backward, put a throw pillow behind his head, and turned to look at Xing Ye.
“A whole pack of cigarettes has passed.”
Maybe because this environment was much more comfortable than the place they had just left, the tension was not as sharp. But because their surroundings were safe, familiar, and unchanging, all of their attention inevitably settled on each other.
“What?” Xing Ye leaned partly against the sofa and turned his head toward him.
“Stop pretending.” Sheng Renxing kicked him lightly. “When did you figure it out?”
Xing Ye thought for a moment. “When we exchanged secrets.”
“That early?!”
Sheng Renxing sat bolt upright. The pillow slipped from behind his head.
Xing Ye reached over, took Sheng Renxing’s pillow, and put it behind his own back.
Sheng Renxing stared straight at him without moving. He thought back over everything that had happened between them after that.
“And you acted like nothing was wrong afterward! Are you an actor?”
Xing Ye seemed to have spent the entire walk home sorting through his thoughts.
He looked at Sheng Renxing and slowly shook his head. “It wasn’t important.”
“Like hell it wasn’t!”
Sheng Renxing fell heavily backward and covered his eyes with one arm. A long while later, he suddenly turned toward Xing Ye again like a corpse jolting back to life, sparks burning in his eyes.
“Then why did you still put your arm around me? Why did you still touch me?”
What kind of person acted like that with someone of the same sex who liked them? Xing Ye understood what he meant.
He still shook his head. “I didn’t mind.”
Sheng Renxing narrowed his eyes at him. Xing Ye paused.
“I’m not attracted to you that way.”
“Fuck!”
Sheng Renxing kicked him, shut his eyes, and tilted his head back. After a moment, he groaned, “What the fuck goes on in your head?”
“To me, none of that matters.” Xing Ye looked at the half of Sheng Renxing’s face that was not hidden by his arm and pressed his lips together. “You’re my friend.”
“My best friend.”
He said the words softly, but with unmistakable weight.
But Sheng Renxing was in no state to examine what they meant. His mind was a complete mess. He did not even know whether this counted as being rejected. His first confession in his life had been rejected? No, this was more like getting rejected before he had even confessed properly! Why the fuck should that happen?!
He suddenly dropped the arm covering his eyes and turned to glare viciously at Xing Ye.
“How do you know?”
Xing Ye met his eyes, froze, and frowned slightly. Sheng Renxing took a drink of beer and set the can down on the coffee table with a hard clunk. His eyes were faintly red.
He ground his teeth. “How would you know without trying?”
Then he abruptly leaned forward, moving closer to Xing Ye. Xing Ye seemed not to understand what he meant at first. He remained seated, looking at Sheng Renxing without moving. Sheng Renxing stared into his eyes.
He had always liked Xing Ye’s eyes.
Then his gaze slid downward and landed on Xing Ye’s lips.
Xing Ye’s lips were thin and pale. He also had a habit of pressing them faintly together, making them look like a straight line and giving him an unapproachable air.
Even when he smiled, the curve was never very obvious. Sheng Renxing did not know where Xing Ye was looking. His own head felt dizzy and heavy. That single mouthful of beer might as well have been an entire bottle of hard liquor. Xing Ye smelled strongly of smoke.
Maybe because he had spent so long in the card parlor. Maybe because he had just smoked an entire pack. And Sheng Renxing had smoked too. The same cigarette. Nicotine was like poison.
The smell seeped into his pores and nerves and wound around the two of them. He knew they smelled the same. He felt Xing Ye lift a hand and place it on the back of his neck. The fingers were cold enough to make him shiver. There was no force behind the touch.
He could not tell whether Xing Ye meant to push him away or pull him closer. Their breaths began to mingle. Sheng Renxing deliberately paused. He lifted his eyes to Xing Ye.
He saw Xing Ye’s lips move, as if he were about to say something.
Sheng Renxing did not wait. He closed his eyes, lifted his chin, and kissed him. He felt a breath of warmth brush across his lips. Then his mouth touched cool skin. Their lips had passed by each other.
Xing Ye had turned his head aside.
Like the stroke of midnight ringing in Cinderella’s ears, every trace of magic vanished.
Sheng Renxing sobered instantly. Xing Ye did not move.
The hand at the back of Sheng Renxing’s neck tightened, but neither pushed him away nor drew him forward.
The next second—
“Sheng…” Xing Ye began to call his name.
Sheng Renxing did not listen. He suddenly opened his mouth and bit him hard.
Then he shoved a hand against Xing Ye’s shoulder, stood up, and meant to throw out some vicious parting line.
But his tear ducts refused to obey him. Sheng Renxing glared down at Xing Ye. Before the tears could fall, he spun around, ran back to his room, slammed the door with a bang, and locked it. For the next several weeks, the relationship between Sheng Renxing and Xing Ye dropped back to freezing point.
When Xing Ye messaged him on QQ, Sheng Renxing pretended not to see it. Sometimes he would wait a full day before replying. When Xing Ye came looking for him at school, Sheng Renxing would talk for only a couple of sentences before finding an excuse to escape. He stopped attending every gathering Jiang Jing and the others invited him to, using the monthly exam and competitions as excuses.
As it happened, Sheng Renxing had also been saddled with a piano performance for the school evening show, and the date was drawing near. That gave him even more reason to avoid Xing Ye. Neither of them mentioned what had happened that night. Sometimes Xing Ye seemed about to say something, but Sheng Renxing would steer the conversation elsewhere. Silence fermented between them.
Xing Ye looked at his phone.
Sheng Renxing had just sent: [Busy today.]
The message above it was Xing Ye’s, asking if he wanted to have dinner together that evening.
“Sheng Renxing isn’t coming again today?” Yellow Hair asked without a care in the world.
Xing Ye glanced at him, put his phone back in his pocket, and said nothing.
“You two still haven’t made up?” Dong Zhuo bit a chopstick while prying open a beer bottle, his voice muffled. “It’s been ages. Call him out for a drink. There’s nothing a meal and some booze can’t solve!”
Xing Ye sat there with his jacket zipped all the way to the top, covering the lower half of his face.
His voice was low and cold. “We didn’t fight.”
The others exchanged glances.
Yellow Hair failed to understand. “Then did you beat each other up? No wonder. That mark on your chin—was that from him hitting you?”
The bruise had already faded now. When Xing Ye had first come to school, there had still been a small scrape on his chin. They had asked about it. Xing Ye had said nothing.
“Huh?” Dong Zhuo looked around in shock. “Seriously?”
“No way. How could those two get into a fight?” Lu Zhaohua watched Xing Ye’s expression and shoved a cup of beer at Yellow Hair to stop him from continuing his nonsense.
Whether Xing Ye and Sheng Renxing had fought was uncertain. But Yellow Hair was definitely going to get hit if he kept talking.
Jiang Jing changed the subject and asked Xing Ye, “Did he say what he’s doing tonight?”
“Practicing piano, probably?” Not even alcohol could stop Yellow Hair’s mouth.
Jiang Jing turned to him. “How do you know?”
“He told me himself.”
Xing Ye finally raised his head and looked at him. “He told you?”
Yellow Hair glanced around and only then realized the atmosphere was wrong.
“Uh…” he said cautiously. “We happened to chat last night.”
“Why?”
Xing Ye lowered his gaze back to his phone and fell silent again. Through the entire meal, the only time Xing Ye opened his mouth was to eat. But he had never liked them prying into his affairs. So, as one, everyone kept refilling his drink while tacitly agreeing not to ask.
Only after they finished, while Jiang Jing was walking with him, did Jiang Jing venture, “Sheng Renxing’s been pretty busy lately. He posted yesterday saying he was exhausted. Once this stretch is over, things should probably be fine.”
Xing Ye pressed his lips together without speaking and nodded. Jiang Jing held back for a while, but eventually his curiosity won.
“What exactly happened between you two? Did you really fight?”
Xing Ye shook his head slightly, his gaze sweeping evenly across their surroundings. Then it stopped.
Jiang Jing was still beside him, laughing under his breath. “Is that you saying you didn’t fight, or saying you don’t want to tell me?”
Then he noticed Xing Ye had stopped walking. Jiang Jing froze and followed his gaze. Across the long street were two figures walking away from them. One was very familiar. Sheng Renxing.
Jiang Jing did not know the other boy.
“Hey?” Jiang Jing lifted a hand, about to call out.
Xing Ye abruptly yanked him backward, making him stumble.
“Hey, my arm!” Jiang Jing hissed. “What kind of freak strength is that? You nearly dislocated my shoulder.”
That brief delay was enough. Sheng Renxing and the person beside him had already gone into a shop. A bookstore.
“Damn, and you said you two didn’t fi—”
Jiang Jing rubbed his arm and turned. The instant he saw Xing Ye clearly, he stopped. He had only ever seen Xing Ye look like that once before, when he had accidentally witnessed him in the ring. Fierce. Suppressed.
Jiang Jing unconsciously fell silent. The next second, Xing Ye had returned to normal. He did not answer the question.
“Let’s go.”
In a cramped, dim room, Xing Ye sat on a bed without turning on the light and stared blankly out the window. Snoring came from the other bed. This kind of hostel was cheaper than ordinary hotels. It offered two-person rooms, four-person rooms, eight-person rooms, and even large shared sleeping halls. Xing Ye had taken a two-person room.
A middle-aged man slept on the other bed, snoring loudly enough to shake the room. The noise joined all the other sounds drifting in through walls that might as well not have existed. Xing Ye lowered his eyes to his phone. Sheng Renxing had just made a post. The signal here was terrible. Xing Ye waited several minutes before the image finally loaded. It was a photograph of a piano.
Sheng Renxing sat in front of it, soft bright light falling over him from above. His red hair seemed even brighter than the light itself. His lowered profile held no expression. Yet he had that same habitual arrogance and expensive elegance, wordlessly separating him from the world outside the photograph.
Someone commented: [Piano prince.]
Someone else asked what brand the suit was, and whether he had bought another piano. The comments came from the friends Sheng Renxing had known before. He replied to several. It was obvious almost all of them were flattering him. Xing Ye looked at the photo for a while, saved it, exited QQ, and opened his text messages.
The most recent was from an unsaved number:
[Saturday. Ten thousand guaranteed. Match starts. Coming?]
It was from the fight-ring side, asking whether he wanted to take a match on Saturday. The guaranteed pay was ten thousand, and if he won, he would get a cut of the betting pool. The message had come two days ago. He still had not replied. Xing Ye looked out the window again.
The clouds were thick tonight. There was no moon.
