Chapter 9

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“Bro, don’t forget me while I’m gone.”

“…I know.”

“Can you at least show some emotion? Say that you don’t want me to go or that you’ll miss me?”

“I… I’ll miss you. Also… take care of yourself.”

“Haha, that’s more like it.”

When Xiao Chuan left for college, Li Weisen and I saw him off. After saying goodbye to his family, he stayed on the platform and chatted with us for a long time. There weren’t any sad feelings between us, so we talked away like it was any other day. When the train finally started moving, he yelled, “I’ll call you guys when I get there! Wait for my call!”

Laughing, we left the train station and went to my house. After a few hours, we received his phone call as expected. Through the earpiece, we could hear his excited voice saying, “I’ve arrived! I’m at the phone booth in front of the station right now. A classmate is supposed to come pick me up!”

He then went on to talk about everything and anything that came to mind. Finally, with a “I’ll contact you guys often,” he ended the phone call and went along to school with his classmate. We breathed a sigh of relief on our end. Simultaneously, we laughed and said, “he talks too much!”

A few days later, I also started my new life at college. I ended up majoring in journalism and the classes I had for the semester were rather easy. Compared to the last few months of high school when we were under constant pressure to study and review materials for the entrance exam, it was much more relaxing. I had many more hours to spend with Li Weisen, who complained of being bored all day long.

My dad also quit his menial and low-paying job at the state-owned company he worked at and switched to a new company backed by an investor from Hong Kong. The new company was in the outskirts and he was rather busy with his assignments. After discussing with me, he decided to move into the company housing closer to his work. My school wasn’t too far away from where we lived now, so there was no reason for me to live in the dorms. As a result, I ended up having the whole house to myself. My convenient living conditions meant that Li Weisen ended up staying all day at my house whenever he could.

I liked my life as it was right now. After attending all my classes and sorting out the materials I needed, I would go straight home. There wasn’t anything special about it, but seeing him there at my house made me very happy, even if it meant I had to resist the urge to touch him whenever he stayed the night.

I never slept in the same bed with him. I also never showered with him. My reasons were “my sleeping posture is terrible,” or that “the bathroom is too small.” Occasionally, he would toss back a “why do you have so many problems,” but he never thought much about it.

Unfortunately, our time together soon ended. After fooling around and wasting time for an entire month, he had the idea of joining the military. His family was in complete support of his decision. They didn’t want him to be wasting time doing nothing at his age.

They were right, the military was the best place for him with the way he was currently living. As his best friend, I encouraged him to follow his heart. Xiao Chuan also called to voice his support. As for me, I felt rather magnanimous about the whole thing. I knew that I would never fight or seek anything from anybody my entire life. What was there that I couldn’t put down and let go? I was a bit reluctant to part with him and I was a bit sad, but it was natural enough that I didn’t need to hide anything.

The day he left, I stayed until the very end to see him off. Standing there in his new uniform, he looked very handsome. But I smiled and said, “you look like an idiot.”

He didn’t make a retort at my remark. Instead, he looked down at himself with disdain. “This is so ugly. I’ve never worn anything so lame my entire life!”

Of course, he didn’t stay dejected for too long. After looking at all the other new recruits standing around, he broke into a wide smile. “But I’m the best-looking idiot out of all the idiots here!”

The train started moving slowly. Before leaving, he told me to not forget him. He said it jokingly, but for some reason I felt too embarrassed to make an answer. He smirked and teased me about it. I finally pulled all my courage together and said in my sincerest tone that I would miss him.

Under the guise of friendship, I voiced out the secret that I was holding deep within my heart; but he would never hear the turbulent waves crashing underneath the surface of my words. He smiled as he left, and I smiled as I saw him off. From the moment he was gone, I already missed him. I was swallowed by the endless feelings of longing and mulled over every second and minute of my memories of him.

After that day, I was truly alone at home. The friends I made in college stopped at the stage of close acquaintances, but I didn’t feel lonely. Xiao Chuan and Li Weisen called frequently; there were also occasional letters to look forward to. We talked about this and that, anything we could think of; we had even more to talk about than when we went to school together. However, Xiao Chuan had gotten into the habit of ending his phone calls with corny lines such as “I miss you guys so much,” or “give me a kiss before you hang up.” The longer he was away, the sappier and cornier he became. Li Weisen was the same at first, but he became less so as time went by. Instead, he gained the habit of directing every conversation toward the topic of “women.” There wasn’t anything that resembled a girl in the military; he was probably so pent up that he was burning alive with desire.

I laughed at his poor endurance, but he complained, “you’ll know how I feel after spending some time here! It was fine before when I had never done it. I didn’t think too much about it then. Also, after the breakup, I didn’t have the energy or the desire for it. But now, every day feels like a year! You and Xiao Chuan on the other hand, there are loads of beautiful girls at your school. I’m the only one who has to suffer in this cold and bitter place.”

“Is it really that bad? Can’t you like, you know?”

“Tch! There’s no point in doing it myself. I want a woman! A woman!” He was frustrated to the point that his words came out in a beastly growl.

“You’re way too direct.” I resisted a laugh and comforted him, “just endure it, it’s only two years.”

“My god! I was fine before you brought it up, but now I-I want to kill you for reminding me! Now tell me straight, have you done it or not?”

“…No, I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

“Hmm, are you telling the truth? Stupid, you’re in such a good environment and you’re letting go of that kind of opportunity? Are you out of your mind?”

Hearing those words, I felt a chill in my heart. What if he knew that I was truly “out of my mind?” Would he still treat me like a friend? I had the confidence that I could hide my feelings. I had done very well so far, but as I grew older, would there be areas that would expose my abnormality? Never having a girlfriend, not interested in sex, those weren’t behaviors a “normal” man was supposed to have. Did that mean I needed to do something else? Use my gentle outward appearance and lie to some girl? Make love to her while thinking of someone of my own sex?

I wasn’t capable of doing such a thing, and there was no way I would allow myself to do it even if I could. It wasn’t for any noble reason like preserving societal morals, it was more about staying true and loyal to myself. I had already betrayed the world; I didn’t want to betray myself as well. My heart wasn’t strong enough to withstand that type of pressure.

All I could do was serve as an ear in his rants about “sex” and try to relief some of his pent-up frustration and loneliness. After contemplating in silence for a while, I said, “how about this, I’ll mail you some good stuff. What would you like?”

“Haha, that’s more like it! I want photos of naked women. You can send me some erotic novels as well. They’re not the best, but they’ll have to do. I want the long ones, ones set in modern times, ones with rape, threesomes, foursomes. Wow, the more I talk about it the more I can’t stand it.”

“Okay, enough! You sound so perverted. I bet you’re drooling!’

“The well-fed doesn’t know how the starving suffer.”

“I’m hanging up. Wait for the mail!”

I slammed down the phone and sat in silence for a long time. There was an empty space in my heart, as if it were a dilapidated ruin. I couldn’t find my train of thought and I had no desire to do anything.

The next morning however, I woke up bright and early. With great enthusiasm, I scoured the streets looking for the “good stuff” and finally found them in a few hidden bookstores and street-side shops. I collected them into a big box and mailed it to him. To make sure it was foolproof, I wrapped several layers of normal magazine covers and newspapers around the actual contents, making it look like a box of ordinary books.

After receiving my gift, he was joyful beyond belief and praised me to the heavens over the phone. He said his fellow recruits were also greatly thankful for my gift.

I asked, “why are you sharing it with other people? Aren’t you afraid of your superior catching wind of it?”

He said there wasn’t any problem. Everyone was under tacit understanding to keep it to themselves. It was a small and insignificant issue.

I mailed out boxes like those to him a few more times afterwards, but his enthusiasm for them gradually waned. He might have read and seen too many of the same thing that there wasn’t anything for him to get excited at anymore. In the end, the photos and the books were merely replacements for the actual thing, only a visual stimulus and nothing else. He’d certainly reached a level where was he was tired of the stuff.

My first year of college passed by peacefully. Li Weisen was stuck at the military base waiting his turn for a vacation. Even when the new year came around, all he did was make a phone call. Unlike when he first joined, he seemed quieter on the phone. He said that he’d made a few new friends and would go out with them when they had time off and was too tired to come looking for Xiao Chuan and me after that. That was understandable. It’d taken him a long time to find a way to distract himself from his loneliness. It was much better than spending all his time reading erotic novels.

When winter break came around, Xiao Chuan was the only one who came back. We got together with our old friends from high school and had some fun together. During summer break, he went on a trip with his new girlfriend instead. She was from the same place as Xiao Chuan and me. When he met her at school, he was immediately hit with a sense of familiarity. After talking with each other a few times, they started dating. Xiao Chuan said that she was much more mature than all his previous girlfriends and could take care of his needs during their daily lives.

After hearing his words, I sighed on my end of the phone and said, “she’s probably the one who suits you the best. Try to be serious. There won’t be another shop like this after this village. [1]”

Rather than acting flippant like usual, Xiao Chuan answered sincerely, “I think so as well. She really is great.” But his next sentence made me speechless. He said, “if I can’t find anyone else that I like better, she’ll be the one.”

After summer break came the new semester, and I also turned a year older. Out of the blue one day, I decided to measure my height. I was surprised to see that I had grown a lot taller. When Li Weisen had left, I was still a bit shorter than him, but now I was around the same height. After the second year of high school, Li Weisen’s appearance hadn’t changed much. Xiao Chuan hadn’t changed either, but the last time I’d seen him was half a year ago. Was he still the same? I missed the two of them. Even though we talked on the phone often, it wasn’t the same as seeing each other in person. Voices simply couldn’t replace the actual person. No matter how often we contacted each other, the actual physical distance between us was large and tangible.

In November of that year, I saw my mom again, whom I hadn’t heard from in ages. During the four years she’d been gone, I’d only received birthday cards from her. I’d imagined what she would look like if I saw her again, but when she actually stood in front of me, I almost couldn’t recognize her.

She seemed to be living well. She appeared younger than she did before. When she saw me, she said, “Xiao Yu, you’ve grown so tall.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I stared at her silently. She reached out wanting to pat me on the head, but I avoided her hand. She paused, her hand hanging in midair. The skin on her hand was smooth and milky white, the opposite of when she was doing chores all day long. She had taken care of herself well.

After standing and hesitating for a few minutes, I called my dad. I figured that was why she was here. There was only one reason why she would come back, and I was sure my dad was ready to end the entire thing as well.

While I was on the phone, she stared at me, looking as if she were about to cry. I lowered my head and pretended to not see anything. I hated situations in which I had no control. It was a decision she had made herself, so why was she showing me such an expression? If I looked at her in the eyes, I was sure I would say something I would regret. I might have asked her to stay and not leave us again.

She stayed for a total of three days. While she was here, she signed the divorce papers peacefully with my dad and left me some money as well. From a legal perspective, the money was “child support.” However, most people paid it month to month, but she had paid it off all at once. When she left, my dad dragged me along to see her off, but I didn’t say a single word. I watched in silence as she left with tears rolling down her cheeks.

My dad said, “don’t be immature. She’s still your mom. In the future…you probably won’t see her again. Don’t be like this.”

I didn’t comment. I merely turned around and followed my dad out of the station. Would anything change if I had said something? I doubted that she would rip her train ticket apart. If that were the case, what was the point of me putting on a show? Touching scenes like that only changed the ending in movies and books.

Translation Notes:

[1] An idiom often used to describe a lost opportunity. In this situation, it means “if you pass her up, you might not find another girl like her.”

[2] In case you’re still wondering, this story does take place in the 90s and then into the early 2000s as the ten years go on. That’s why Gao Yu and his friends use phones and letters to contact each other rather than say, a text message. That’s also the reason why some of the views may be different from what we are used to now in this day and age. Hope that clears up some confusion.

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