Chapter 8

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“Love, exactly what is love?”

“…It’s to be serious.”

“Ha… Then I won’t be serious anymore. Never again!”

The last few months of our high school life was a test for all of us. The pressure to do well and advance into college made us study harder. Anything distracting and fun were cast to the back of our minds.

Li Weisen saw his girlfriend less and less, which meant my opportunities to see her were almost nonexistent. However, during the few times I did talk with her I noticed the worries that were dividing them.

With her grades, she could attend any college she wanted. However, for his entire life, Li Weisen had nothing to do with the word “hardworking.” I could tell she had many complaints about this, so I tried to reconcile the two of them. She listened to my case but didn’t express anything in return. Her lack of reaction made me even more worried about them.

I immediately rallied Xiao Chuan to talk with Li Weisen. I told him to spend more effort on his studies. Even if he didn’t make it into college, for her, he should at least do his best.

He scoffed at my worries in front of us, but behind our backs, he finally picked up the textbooks he hadn’t flipped through even once. With his nonexistent basics, it was impossible for him to become a genius overnight. After battling with the “alien texts” by himself for several days, he finally asked us to help him study.

He was able to go to that extent for a girl he liked. We knew how much pride he had, so we didn’t make any jokes on his behalf. Instead, we made a schedule for him. Xiao Chuan took Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; while I had Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. His entire week was packed.

When it came to studying however, Li Weisen’s basic concepts were simply terrible. He was acquainted with the fact that math, physics, and chemistry existed in our curriculum, but nothing deeper than that. No matter how much time and effort he spent now, it wasn’t going to make up for the years of classes he’d wasted. What we could do as his tutors were limited. He’d been tempted to give up multiple times after suffering through our study sessions, but whenever we brought his girlfriend up, he would grit his teeth and continue going over the problems he didn’t understand. He said that he knew what type of person he was; with his grades, he was never going to make it into college. When the entrance exams came around, he was going to throw all caution to the wind and cheat on the exam. He would even ask his family to bribe… He was willing to do anything if it meant he could study in the same city as her. He didn’t have that many thoughts running through his head before, as he simply liked the feeling of being in a relationship, but now he was thinking about the future. He said that in a few years, he planned to marry her.

Marriage? It was a foreign word to me, but he seemed natural while saying it.

“I’m her first boyfriend, but I also want to be her last. I have to take responsibility for her.”

After hearing those words from him, I understood that it wasn’t simply feelings between the two of them anymore. I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t resist.

He replied without holding anything back, “yes, she became mine last semester. You’re the only one I’m telling. Don’t let Xiao Chuan or the others know. Otherwise, they’ll spread rumors around.”

No wonder he was willing to compromise. He was much more mature than before. After reaching that step between lovers, it was only natural to make promises to each other. I should be happy that the person I liked was a boy who had a strong sense of responsibility. I suppressed my inner self that was weeping with ugly emotions and smiled as I said, “do your best.”

During a rainy night in early summer, I wrote down a poem:

Light rain falls quietly outside the window

Pitter-patter it goes

Suddenly, I’m reminded of one summer’s day from long ago

When I first met you

And now

After leaping through the lows and highs

Sizzling heat and frigid cold, clamor and silence

All the times I have struggled

The four seasons repeat themselves

After writing those words, I felt as if I had transcended my worries. I didn’t feel an ache in my heart, nor did I feel any rash emotions. I had reached a state of calm in which I no longer needed cigarettes or alcohol to numb my senses. I thought they would be happy in the future. They would get married and become old together. It was a perfect and simple fairytale. The prince and the princess lived happily ever after.

My future was to watch them live a blissful life, to always be their friend. Perhaps I would chat with them about their domestic life, or sit down and have a game of mahjong with them, or make an excuse for myself and leave when the atmosphere got a little too passionate, and occasionally tease them about their excessive intimacy. It was all very good. I was already rehearsing the words I would say to them when they left for college together. I didn’t expect that they would break up in the end.

There was an old idiom: man can conquer nature. To Li Weisen, who had just finished the college entrance exams, the idiom became the biggest mockery. Even adding all his scores together, he didn’t make it over four hundred. No matter how much effort his family made, he was never going to make up that big gap. His girlfriend on the other hand, had an astoundingly high score and made it into a top college in another province. Her total combined score made her one of the top three students at that school. My score was similar to Xiao Chuan’s. The only difference was that I chose to go to college at home, while Xiao Chuan was going out of the province. It was a school his parents had selected for him, so that he could gain more experiences outside of home.

Li Weisen was disappointed in his score, but he wasn’t dejected. He was willing to repeat a year and take the entrance exams for the same school as his girlfriend if she were willing to wait for him. We didn’t think there would be any problems; we all thought she would be happy and moved by his gesture. However, after Li Weisen had a long talk with her, he never went to look for her again. All he did was drag us all over the place and fool around.

After holding it in for a few days, I made up my mind to ask her what had happened, but Li Weisen took up all our time. Whenever I said I had something else to do, he would say that I was being a terrible friend. Looking at him play the fool made my heart hurt. I finally demanded, “tell me what’s going on right now! Otherwise, I’ll go and ask her myself!”

Li Weisen glared at me for a long while, his expression especially fierce. After taking a few deep breaths, he turned away and said, “we broke up.”

I knew it. I could feel a buzz go off in my head, all my suspicions had come true.

Xiao Chuan also looked shocked at the news. Just by looking at him, I knew he was going to begin his own unique way of comforting others. “Weisen—”

“Xiao Chuan, don’t say anything. Let’s just go drink with him.” I immediately cut Xiao Chuan off. He was more likely to reach the opposite effect of what he’d intended with his words. I dragged the two of them to the small bar that we all liked. It might be good for him to drink until he was drunk and then vent off all his feelings. Asking him anything right now was equal to pouring salt on his wounds. If he’d wanted to talk about it, he would have told us long ago. Why would he wait until I forced it out of him? After breaking up with her, his ridiculous pride came back in full swing.

Xiao Chuan and I pretended we hadn’t heard anything. We simply ate and drank with him. Thankfully, he played along and didn’t get angry. When a person was in a bad mood, they got drunk especially fast. After a few bottles of beer, he started rambling to himself incessantly, “why… why…”

We each lent him an arm and carried him to my house. The entire way, he drifted between sobriety and a drunken stupor. He didn’t do anything odd other than mumble to himself, most of which we couldn’t understand.

After reaching home, I told Xiao Chuan that he could leave. Xiao Chuan looked at me instead, and then at him. He then said seriously, “do try to console him a bit. Don’t let him do anything he would regret!”

Helplessly, I said, “don’t jinx him. He would never do that!”

After Xiao Chuan left, I turned around to take care of Li Weisen. He asked quietly, “did Xiao Chuan leave?”

I looked at him closely as he said those words. I asked, “are you drunk or not?”

“Ha, just a bit. I’m not completely drunk. I wanted to talk with you. I should’ve told you earlier, but I’ve been feeling so terrible that I just couldn’t… Haha, isn’t it just a breakup? What’s so terrible about that? I’m useless.”

“Don’t say that. If you want to talk, then talk properly. How did she bring it up to you?”

“How? ‘We aren’t suited to each other.’ ‘I have many years of school left; I don’t want to date you anymore.’ ‘I’ll probably go study abroad in the future, so don’t wait for me.’ Ha, what lofty ideas she has. If she didn’t think we were suited for each other, she should’ve said so earlier. Why did she wait so long? I…”

He turned his head into the couch, muffling his voice. “I’d wanted to marry her.”

My heart was aching on the inside, but I asked in a calm voice, “there’s no hope of getting back together?”

“No, none at all. She said she’s been thinking about it for months and has already made her decision. She didn’t even care about what I thought.”

“Did you tell her that you wanted to marry her?”

“I told her last semester. You should’ve seen how happy she was when I told her. But she also said that we were too young and that we didn’t have the right to think that far into the future. I really don’t understand… I don’t understand at all… Gao Yu, do you? Why? Why?”

“I don’t really understand either.” My mind was a complete mess. What had she thought about? Daily necessities? If their monthly salaries were enough to support them? Losing their jobs? Falling into poverty? And…divorce?

The Li Weisen in front of me was too innocent. He was incapable of thinking about those things. He could only ask me again and again, “why?”

After listening to the same question over and over, I didn’t want to, and I wasn’t willing to give him the answer. He then changed his question and asked me what exactly was love? I thought for a moment and said that it was to be serious. He gave me a scornful smile and said he would never be serious again. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t bring myself to console him with lofty and fake dreams. I could only pray that he had said that in a fit of anger.

He rambled on for two more hours before finally succumbing to the exhaustion in his heart and drifting off into a deep sleep. I took a warm towel and wiped his face and hands, then supported him over to the small bed inside my room.

He had his brows furrowed in his sleep and he tossed and turned restlessly. It took him a long while before he finally settled down. Underneath the moonlight that bled through the window, he looked as if he were still a child. However, the sharp corners of his mouth, his thick brows, straight nose, and long body all indicated that he was already a man.

My heart still ached for him, but I couldn’t suppress the tinge of shameful happiness I felt at his breakup. He had displayed all his weakness and exhaustion in front of me. It was like we had our own secret.

I stared at his sleeping face lost in thought. Slowly, I leaned down… If I stole just a small kiss, he probably wouldn’t wake up. When I was just a fingertip away from his lips, I stopped. I didn’t kiss him in the end.

I hesitated for a long, long while. With a finger in the air, I traced the outlines of his face again and again, but never dared to touch him.

A small wind blew through the window, and he appeared comfortable in his sleep. I smiled and put on my headphones; the voice that flowed out was gentle and warm.

I turn around to look at your half-drunk self deep asleep

What’s left behind is my half-finished song

My feelings and thoughts are in upheaval late into the night

I hope that before daybreak lights up the world

I can spend the night here with you

I can’t say how much I love you, how much you mean to me

A busy world, half a lifetime

If I have you, I’m not lacking anything

You’re the one I cherish the most

Every second and minute of the day

My Other Half – Leon Lai [1]

Translation Notes:

[1] Song released in 1993 by Leon Lai. 黎明《我的另一半》

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