Chapter 27

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Warning: NSFW

“…This snake…. What the fuck is this? Tell me right now!”

“…Get lost.”

“Hmph. What was that about liking me? You just like sleeping around with men!”

“…I…I have AIDS…. Don’t touch me.”

“AIDS? How many people have you slept with?”

“That’s none…of your business.”

“AIDS? So what if you have AIDS?”

Ever since Li Weisen was forced to take a leave of absence from his job, he started wasting time and fooling around with his old friends again—which included Xiao Chuan and me. Saozi was busy with her own job, so she didn’t have time to take care of him. Perhaps out of fear that he would feel down by himself, she told us to hang out with him as much as we could. As a result, Li Weisen’s house turned into a hangout for our old classmates, with people coming in and out all day long. I didn’t go over that often. Most of the time, I only went when Xiao Chuan dragged me along with him. I would play a few games of cards and leave after I’d had my fill. I never stayed for too long.

I didn’t have much to say to Li Weisen. The most we did was ask about each other’s day and make other small talk. Not any different from how I interacted with my other friends. Whenever Xiao Chuan joined us, the atmosphere was lighter. We would crack an occasional joke and slap each other on the back like we did in high school; a time when we did nothing but laugh together. But we weren’t as open with each other now as we were back then. Nowadays, Xiao Chuan and I doted on each other, excessively so. With Li Weisen, we were excessively polite to each other. In other people’s eyes, we were probably as close as we were before. In any case, our relationship did count as a close one; however, it was a relationship where we both made sure that we never overstepped our boundaries.

Not long after, Li Weisen tired of the idle days he was living. He said that he was never one to sit around and do nothing. Fortunately, the business deal he had made with the public funds he’d misused did turn a profit. He then borrowed some more money and opened a small bar.

Needless to say, his bar turned into a hub for our classmates and friends. Like an unspoken promise, we brought other people with us whenever we visited, introducing new patrons to his bar. Slowly but surely, his bar went on track, and he was pulling in a steady number of customers daily. Whenever I had time, I would go over there and sit for a while. Most of the time, I went alone or with Xiao Chuan. I would order a drink or a cup of coffee. While sipping on my drink, I would watch his busy figure as he greeted customers and dealt with their requests. It was during these observations that I noticed that he had changed quite a bit. He wasn’t the same wild, bad boy from his younger days. He was a man who’d experienced various setbacks and rose from them to become a successful businessman. He was surely going to have an easy life from here on out. Of course, every time I saw him, he grew further away from the person I’d once loved. This was a good thing—for one couldn’t revive the deceased. Only yellowing memories of the past remained inside my heart, like sepia photographs. I would occasionally flip through them, but I didn’t feel broken-hearted or sad, only a small disappointment. Because…the person I had loved and the me who had fallen in love with him didn’t exist anymore. My self-hatred had gradually settled down as well. It buried itself deep within the confines of my heart, untouchable by anyone. It existed quietly, never making a ripple on the smooth surface of my lonely and solitary life.

Many things happened in 1999. The fireworks on the night of the 50th National Day made me long for my friends in the northern city, especially Xiao Bi and Lin Dong. Even to Xiao Chuan, I had only mentioned them once or twice, but they would always be my friends. They were different from Xiao Chuan. They were the same as me on a certain level. Whenever I thought of them, I would be reminded of my experiences during that year. Even though it was for a short time, I was finally able to expose my true self, the other half of me. To each other, our time had stopped after that one year. We were still a bunch of dejected, yet boisterous youth living stubbornly under our own skies. Compared to my ordinary future, they would probably experience setbacks and misery. So only that one year was worth freezing in time and putting aside as a memory. Because of that, we didn’t even save each other’s phone numbers; all contact between us had stopped. It was tacit understanding between us—goodbye meant never seeing each other again. Even until the end of our lives, we would shine with the fragility of youth, never experiencing the pains of growing old and sickly.

The days passed one by one, but my situation didn’t change much compared to before. I had my job, and my family members were still healthy and living. Li Weisen and Xiao Chuan both welcomed children into their lives one after another in October that year. Li Weisen had a son while Xiao Chuan had a daughter. We joked and said they could save themselves some trouble in the future by arranging a marriage between their kids right now.

Li Weisen’s son was chubby and sturdy looking, and quite amusing to watch. Xiao Chuan’s daughter was like a princess, rosy-cheeked and adorable. They and their wives all clamored to make me their child’s godfather. I happily accepted their requests and was waiting patiently for the day when the two little rascals could call me by their own voices.

My dad and stepmom were still the same, still worrying about when I would marry. The most I heard them say was, “Xiao Yu, look at Li Weisen and Xiao Chuan, they’re already parents. You should think about yourself now!”

Often, I responded with, “My brother’s still young. He just started learning how to speak, so why don’t you focus on him? I know what I’m doing with my life. I’m not going to consider marriage until after I’m thirty.”

“You know what you’re doing? I want to be a grandpa already. It’s good to marry young. If you marry when you’re older, then your stepmom and I will be too old to help you take care of our grandson.”

My dad’s incessant nagging created a weight on my chest. I was still young, so I wasn’t too worried. But what about when I turned thirty? Come out? I couldn’t do that. I was seriously afraid that upon hearing that news, a blood vessel would rupture inside my dad’s body. Over the past two years, his blood pressure had gotten higher and higher. No matter how much I thought, I couldn’t come up with a good solution. But I would never change my mind about marriage. As for the future…I would think about it in the future.

Right before the year 2000 came around, we had a big celebration. On Christmas, we reserved Li Weisen’s entire bar and went crazy with the festivities. Though crazy, we didn’t do too much other than live in the moment, sing a few songs, and drink some good liquor.

There were only a few topics that made us talk with fervor: soccer, movies, and women. Despite being married, Xiao Chuan and Li Weisen weren’t exceptions to that rule. As long as their wives weren’t present, the dirty jokes they cracked had no limits. Soon though, they started whispering to each other instead and their conversation drifted away from the rest of us. The two main words that jumped out of their conversation was “baby formula” and “diapers.” The rest of us made eyes at them and joked, “Not baby formula. You mean house dads!” [1]

Xiao Chuan blushed at the comment, but Li Weisen didn’t seem to mind.

“You laugh now, but this is something you all have to learn in the future. If you ask me for help then, I’m going to charge you tuition!”

This kind of Li Weisen appeared like a good husband, a good father. I thought he’d settled into his life and wouldn’t be experiencing any major changes anymore, but he did something unexpected not a few days later.

It was five days after the new year. I remember it very clearly. January 5th, 2000. A cold, cloudy, and depressing day. Xiao Chuan and I had plans to meet in Li Weisen’s bar that night, but something suddenly came up and Xiao Chuan couldn’t make it. By that time, it was already late in the night.

After finishing my cup of coffee, I stood up to leave. He ran over from another table and put an arm around my shoulders.

“Why do you leave so early every time you come over? Why don’t you sit for a bit longer?”

I smiled and replied, “I still have something to do.”

“Do you have a date with your girlfriend?”

He wasn’t exactly wrong. My dad had introduced another girl to me that day. I was still wary due to the difficult situation we were in before, so I only smiled awkwardly. He had hit me right in my sore spot.

He glanced over my face a few times and made an expression as if he’d understood something. “So it’s true? Are you getting married soon then?”

I had no way to respond to that, so I kept up my awkward smile. He smiled along with me, albeit a strange smile. He then leaned next to my ear, and said quietly, “Don’t leave so quick, I’m going to need your help in a bit. That table over there, they dragged me into their drinking games, but I’m about to collapse from how much they’ve poured down my throat!”

I hesitated, but then he said “please” next to my ear. It appeared he had no other way out. The lineup at the other table must have been too strong, because I knew he was never one to admit defeat when it came to drinking.

I went to the other table with him and put all my “power” into use, downing a glass of brandy and then a mixture of other liquor one after another. In the end, I was completely defeated as well. I wasn’t even able to see clearly in front of me. Even the dim light seemed to be swinging back and forth above me.

I threw up at least three times that night, returning everything I’d eaten that day to mother nature, with some stomach acid thrown in on the house. He kept on saying sorry as he supported me from the side, but his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere far away.

After I was done throwing up, he supported me over to a private room and told me to rest on the couch inside.

I mumbled, “I have to…go home….”

“How are you going to go home like this? We’re getting ready to close anyways. Why don’t you just sleep here for the night.” He was speaking right next to my ear. I didn’t even think of anything at that moment, but I was feeling ticklish, so I instinctively moved away from him.

“Gao Yu, are you still awake?”

I was still in a daze, so it took me a long while to grunt a response back. He seemed to be taking off my shoes.

Despite lying down, I was feeling slightly ill again. Just when I was about to open my eyes, he leaned his entire body down onto me. His hands dug their way into my pants and down deeper. Shock overtook my head, but I didn’t have any energy to resist, so I opened my mouth in a verbal protest, albeit a useless one.

“You…what are you doing? Don’t….”

He quickly took off my pants, and said, “You don’t miss me? But I miss you.”

“You…bastard…you’re already…a father….”

“So what if I’m already a father? Don’t you like me? Then prove it to me!”

His words sent a hard chill through my body. Drawing up strength from nowhere, I slapped him in the face. His unaffected laughter was sharp and grating to my ears.

“Haha, that didn’t hurt at all. You can’t bear to slap me with force? Then don’t blame me for what happens next!”

When he turned me over on my stomach, he exclaimed in shock and interrogated me relentlessly. He must have seen the snake on my back. I didn’t want him to touch me, so I used AIDS as an excuse to scare him off, but that didn’t elicit the proper response from him. The violence I expected didn’t come, rather he resorted to teasing my body.

Perhaps marriage had deepened his experience on the matter of sex, but his movements weren’t rough and hasty like before. He made me sit on top of him and touched every sensitive spot on my body with his mouth and fingers, from the back of my ears to the tips of my nipples, from my waist to down below. Having indulged in too much sex before, my body couldn’t resist itself and started reacting to his touch. I never hated myself more than I did in that moment. He had simply used one of his old tricks, yet I had fallen for it again. He was married with a son, yet he was doing such a thing with a friend, who was also a man. Yet what was more laughable was that I felt desire even in this situation.

I truly wanted to die that night. Before he entered me, he said, “Don’t you want it as well? What aren’t you satisfied about? Aren’t you just a homosexual? Is there any difference doing it with me than doing it with other people?”

He was right. There was no difference. From that day on, he wasn’t any different from the short-lasting lovers I had in the past.

Translation Notes:

[1] This is a pun that doesn’t translate well. “Baby formula” (奶粉) and “house dad” (奶爸) both has the character “milk” (奶) in it. Basically, Gao Yu and the others are making fun of Xiao Chuan and Li Weisen for having turned so domestic.

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