Proofreaders: happyBuddha, Kai, Lee, m@o, Marcia
No, I am not a child anymore; I have grown and matured through the adversity. But why do I yearn for the loving hands of my mom or any one of my family, or even of someone I know. Please come close to me in this lonely hour, please hold my hand tight and give to me love and power so I may overcome this arduous journey.
–Đặng Thùy Trâm, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace
Xu Ping’s hands would not stop trembling.
Only the top two buttons remained intact on his shirt,
but he couldn’t even get those small, white plastic pieces in place.
The door to the bedroom opened and closed. Huang Fan
walked over while slipping into a T-shirt.
“It’s okay. My roommate is in his own room now. You
had your face in the couch. He shouldn’t have seen it.”
Xu Ping merely continued his attempt at the buttons
with shaking hands as though he had not heard.
Huang Fan lit a cigarette and took a few puffs before
rummaging through his closet and tossing a sweater to Xu Ping. “That shirt of
yours is no good. Use mine for now.”
The white sweater fell on the younger man’s lap but
soon slipped onto the floor.
Watching this, Huang Fan stubbed out the smoke and
approached Xu Ping. “I’ll help you.”
Before he even got close enough to touch Xu Ping, the
latter hissed loudly, “Don’t touch me!”
Huang Fan’s hand stayed frozen in midair for some time
before dropping to his side and forming a tight fist, but his face showed none
of it. He chuckled, “Why are you so scared? I’m not in the mood anymore even if
you want to do it now.”
Xu Ping had finally conquered the first button and
moved his shivering hands to the second one.
Huang Fan picked up the sweater from the ground,
dusted it off and held it up before Xu Ping. “Wear this. The buttons on your
shirt all broke off, and the fabric is thin. You’re going to catch a cold in
the rain.”
Xu Ping kept his head down in silence.
Huang Fan slid his hands into the sweater from the
bottom and stretched it out for Xu Ping. “Come on. Head first.”
Xu Ping slapped the garment to the floor.
He glared at the other man with something akin to
hatred before slowly moving his gaze away. “I was wrong. I should’ve never come
here.”
Huang Fan paused and then let his head fall back as he
guffawed.
Then suddenly he grabbed Xu Ping by the collar and
threw him against the wall. “Say that again, you motherfucker!”
Xu Ping looked up at him and enunciated clearly, “I
should’ve never –”
But he didn’t get to finish because Huang Fan grabbed
his neck.
Xu Ping’s neck was the most beautiful, most delicate
part of his body. Sometimes Huang Fan could get lost just looking at a small
tilt of Xu Ping’s head.
When he was on the student council, he did all he
could to keep Xu Ping close to him. He organized numerous events every single
term, not to promote extracurricular activities for all the students, but to
spend as much time as he could with this boy. Their classrooms were on
different floors, but he would take the long route for no reason and would look
in, searching for his figure seemingly unintentionally. Sometimes the boy would
be reading, or chatting with classmates, or lying on his desk snoozing, showing
off a section of his fair neck. A trivial scene like that could keep him
reminiscing all day long.
He quickly let go.
Xu Ping slumped to the floor, coughing violently.
After a very long time, he finally caught his breath.
He spoke, hand on his neck. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Huang Fan clenched his teeth.
Xu Ping picked up his pants and put them on.
The other buttons on his shirt had completely come
loose from the earlier episode, and he couldn’t cover himself fully even if he
used both his hands to hold the shirt close.
“I’m sorry,” Huang Fan said in an undertone.
Xu Ping announced softly, “I have to go home. It’s
late. My brother must be worried sick.”
Huang Fan grabbed him. “Forget your brother. You and
him have no future. What can he do for you? All he will do is drag you down! He
doesn’t even have the ability to survive in this world; he’s just an idiot! It’s
the same as you loving a dog! Be with me, Xu Ping! We share the same interests
and passions. I love you, and I am capable of taking care of you. Being gay is
still taboo, but you will be ten times less stressed than now!”
Xu Ping peeled his hand off and replied calmly, “Thank
you, Huang Fan. But if it weren’t for Xu Zheng, I wouldn’t even be gay.”
That night, the rain didn’t stop until the wee hours of the morning.
Huang Fan parted the curtains and watched the downpour
hit the street lit by dim yellow lights. Other than the rings of light,
everything else was black. This gave him the illusion that the water was falling
not from the sky but from the streetlights themselves.
Xu Ping had left.
He had seen Xu Ping off to the lobby. The rain was
going strong, and the raindrops bounced so high off the ground that his pant
legs were wet.
He passed his umbrella to Xu Ping, but the younger man
did not take it.
“Take it! Look at this rain! Do you want a cold?”
With his hands holding his shirt together, Xu Ping
replied flatly, “You don’t understand. I don’t want to borrow anything from
you. Borrowing it means I’d have to return it, and then we would have to meet
again. What’s the point?”
Huang Fan paused, his hand nearly cracking the shaft
of the umbrella. He smiled, “Are you worried my roommate will blab about what
happened today? Rest assured, I have my ways of shutting him up. You won’t be
involved.”
He grabbed Xu Ping’s hand, flattened the palm, placed
the umbrella in it, and manually wrapped his fingers around it.
“Hold onto it.”
The moment he let go, the black folding umbrella hit
the ground with a clunk.
Huang Fan bent over, picked it up and placed it in Xu
Ping’s hand again.
And it fell to the ground again.
Huang Fan looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds
before smiling again. “All right, you selfish boy. I don’t want this back.
It’ll be a gift, okay?”
Solemnly, he placed the umbrella back in Xu Ping’s
hand and wrapped his hand around the younger man’s hand, holding it in place.
He stayed like that for a long time, but when he
slowly let go, the umbrella fell yet again.
He bent over to pick it up, but when he straightened
his back, he threw it down in an explosion of fury.
“What the fuck do you want, Xu Ping?!”
Speechlessly, Xu Ping picked up the umbrella and
placed it in the basket of a bicycle parked in the corridor.
“So you want to draw the lines after using me, and go
separate ways from here on out?” He scoffed. “You wish!”
Xu Ping stuck a hand out into the rain, testing.
“Whatever you want to think, I’m leaving.”
Huang Fan lunged and grabbed his arm, chest heaving
roughly as he managed his frustration. “Don’t do this, Xu Ping. I had no idea
he would come back all of a sudden. He told me he would spend the weekend at
home. If he hadn’t interrupted, you’d be mine now! Think about it from my side.
This isn’t my fault!”
Xu Ping faced away and didn’t speak.
A sliver of hope blossomed in Huang Fan. He wrapped
his arms tightly around Xu Ping. “If there’s anything I can do, just tell me.
My place is no good now, but if you want, there’s a motel nearby. We can go
there –”
Xu Ping shoved him away.
“You still don’t understand, Huang Fan. I’m not angry
with you. I’m not angry at all. I’m just disappointed – disappointed with myself.
I did something very wrong. I shouldn’t have come here. The one I love is not
you, and I don’t want anything to happen between us. The one I love is Xu
Zheng. I was only able to get it up by pretending you were him.”
Huang Fan stayed quiet for a second before responding,
“Yeah, I know. So what? Pretend I’m your brother, then.”
Xu Ping looked down and was momentarily quiet in
contemplation. “No.”
Flinging the older man’s hand away, he walked into the
rain. Instantly, his clothes became soaked.
As Huang Fan watched the figure under the
streetlights, a shout escaped his lips. “XU PING!”
Holding his shirt together, Xu Ping turned his head.
His wet hair hung in lumpy strands down his forehead.
It was raining so hard that his eyes could barely stay
open.
In that moment, there were so many things Huang Fan
wished to tell Xu Ping. That he was likely on the blacklist already. That he
was going to be imprisoned as a political criminal – five years, ten years, or
twenty years – and he would have merely a fraction of his life left after the
sentence. That he hoped to have a taste of joy for just one night with Xu Ping
even if that meant he would be treated as a substitute.
But the words that came close to a plea were not
uttered.
Xu Ping gave him a slight nod before quickly
disappearing around a rainy street corner.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ayszhang: Early surprise for Chinese Moon Festival and Korean Thanksgiving :)
Twenty-six
Brother - English Translation by ayszhang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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