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Lu Guang can’t sleep.
He hasn’t been able to, for the past few days now. Curled up on the top bunk bed, lying on his side facing the wall with his arms wrapped around his knees, he listens as Cheng Xiaoshi’s snores fill the room, while he was left wide-awake and alert.
He knows the reason why, of course. It’s because of Cheng Xiaoshi the unavoidable thoughts in his head, endless what-ifs and different assorted possibilities circulating through his brain without end, leaving him stuck in a constant state of anxiety and paranoia. A confusing conglomeration of images (none of them pleasant in the least), new, twisted ideas flitting by every few seconds, some of which he was able to piece together, and some which were just too horribly graphic to imagine (but he did, anyway). But they went through his head all the same.
What if he gets burned?
What if he drowns somehow?
What if he gets buried alive?
What if he gets poisoned?
What if he gets stabbed or beaten to death?
What if he hangs himself?
Imagining all these instances of Cheng Xiaoshi’s death in his mind (which really wasn’t helping his sanity stay stable), he couldn’t help but be filled with terror, especially at the image of Cheng Xiaoshi hanging himself. Subconsciously, he felt himself overthinking yet again, and his eyes drifted over to his hands. He caught himself just in time, and he balled them into fists to avoid doing something that he would eventually regret.
The sudden squeak of the bedsprings from the bunk below him made him sit up. Peering over the top of the railing, he noticed Cheng Xiaoshi getting up from bed, standing up with a hunch of his shoulders that he didn’t bother correcting. He was just about to walk away, before getting ambushed by Lu Guang, who came sliding down the ladder at an unimaginable speed and crashing into him.
“Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaimed in surprise, staggering back a little. He squinted in the darkness as he studied him, noting the dark circles under his eyes that hid behind his limp white hair. “Did you never fall asleep?” He asked, puzzled.
But that wasn't important to Lu Guang right now. He grabbed his friend by the shoulders, which only earned an even more bewildered look from Cheng Xiaoshi.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Why are you up right now? Are you sick? Do you need to throw up? Do you have chills? Or is it a fever? What’s wrong?” Lu Guang asked, his voice shrill. Not waiting for a response, he leaned over, pushing back Cheng Xiaoshi’s damp bangs to put a hand to his forehead.
For a second, it seemed to Lu Guang that Cheng Xiaoshi had inadvertently leaned into the touch. But that must’ve been his imagination, because a few seconds later, Cheng Xiaoshi does the exact opposite.
Instinctively, Cheng Xiaoshi flinches at the touch. “What are you doing? Calm down, I’m not sick!” He protests, his voice an octave higher than before.
Shit. His forehead’s hot. I knew it! No, no, no, just calm down. It’ll be fine. Just… stay calm, Lu Guang thinks to himself.
“But you must be sick. You’re burning up,” he comments, picking up on his friend squirming and lowering his hand, “your forehead is hot.”
“Because I was sleeping with a heated blanket!” Cheng Xiaoshi protested, rolling his eyes. He stared at him with eyes that read I’m-so-done-with-you, an expression that Lu Guang would usually shoot at him, not the other way around. “You’re overthinking everything, stupid. Calm down. I’m fine.”
“Then what are you doing up?”
“I would’ve explained that before if you’d given me a chance to,” he grumbled. “Just going downstairs to get something to eat.” He walked over to the stairs.
Lu Guang stared after him. Suppose he falls down the stairs? His sleep-deprived brain wondered, as he began spiraling yet again. Or suppose someone comes in through the entrance of the studio? Wait, did I even lock the door last night? I did, right? Or maybe… I didn’t? He felt his stomach knotting up. What if someone breaks in through a window? And then stabs him? Or what if Cheng Xiaoshi starts a fire in the kitchen? No, he’s not that naïve, the rational part of his brain argued.
He frowned. Or… isn’t he? After all, that was the reasoning I had for Qiao Ling-jie’s question all those years ago, where she had asked why I liked him.
He can take care of himself, his rationality insisted, he’s not that dumb. Lu Guang chewed his lip. Even so…
“I’ll accompany you,” he says, rushing down the stairs two at a time to catch up to his friend, who was already walking to the back of the studio.
Towards the back of the shop was a kitchen they had never gotten rid of when renovating the store. For some reason, Cheng Xiaoshi had been adamant on leaving the kitchen alone, claiming that customers would hardly notice the door to the side anyways. “And besides,” he had said the day they were contemplating on knocking the kitchen down to make more space in the studio, “we need a place to cook, don’t we? ” Lu Guang hadn’t bothered arguing with him by saying that neither of them even knew how to cook— they lived on instant noodles and were fueled by carbonated drinks, it was a miracle how they weren’t dead yet.
Lu Guang had suspected that the reason he’d kept the kitchen had something to do with his parents. He’d never asked, not wanting to pry, but once, without him even bringing up the topic, Qiao Ling had told him a bit about Cheng Xiaoshi, only to eventually end up spilling his whole life story to him, and Lu Guang found his theory to be correct.
“Cheng Xiaoshi,” she had said, “was very close to his parents. Our families were close as well, so we’d always come over to his house for dinner on many occasions. And Cheng Xiaoshi, despite being only a small child at the time, would always try his best to help his parents with the cooking. At first, they’d always chide him, saying things like” — She put on a gruff tone, perhaps imitating Cheng Xiaoshi’s father— “‘You’re adding too much flour, Xiaoshi! You spilled milk all over the counter, and now it’s dripping onto the floor, Xiaoshi!’”
Qiao Ling switches to a higher-pitched voice, seemingly impersonating his mother now. “‘Xiaoshi, grab a mop, quick! That’s salt, not sugar, Xiaoshi!’”
She grinned to herself a little, appearing proud of her imitations, before continuing. “But before I knew it, they’d give up on reprimanding him, and I would find both mother and son sprawled in a laughing heap on the flour-covered kitchen floor, giggling as they tossed flour at each other. His father, tired from work, would stand quietly to the side, cutting chicken, when Cheng Xiaoshi would leap up into the air and exclaim, ‘I’m gonna get you, Bàba!’ as he wriggled his flour-covered fingers. Xiaoshi would squeal with delight as he raced after his father, who was not so tired that he could not run as his son chased after him. His father would always run fast even though he knew his son could not keep up, but Cheng Xiaoshi would always end up catching him and throwing his arms around him. His father would laugh, never minding the flour that ended up on his clothes.”
“They were inseparable, those three,” Qiao Ling had told him, smiling rather melancholically. “And then… poof. Gone. They left him, just like that.”
“How did it happen?” Lu Guang had asked.
Qiao Ling shrugged. “Dunno. One day, he’d gone to sleep for the night in his parents’ bed because he’d been scared of the darkness in his own bedroom — ‘the shadows were frightening,’ he had claimed, but I think he just didn’t want to be alone — so he went to his parents room and slept with them for the night. Then, he woke up a few hours later when morning had only just begun, and found himself in an empty bed. He searched the whole studio for them, then ran outside, and overheard the neighbors talking about an earthquake that they’d heard occurred on the news last midnight. After hearing that there’d been an earthquake, and after realizing they’d vanished without a trace, he put two and two together, assuming they’d been in the earthquake. So he went to his last resort, my house, and in tears he confided in me what he had heard, terrified that his parents might’ve been in it and would never come back. I assured him that he was just overthinking, and that they were fine and had probably gone farther than the area the earthquake had hit, promising him that they’d return safely.”
“I had suggested he stay at my house for the night, but he insisted on staying at the Hero Photo Studio— odd to call it that now, isn’t it? I’m so used to the new name,Time Photo Studio, which Cheng Xiaoshi had agreed on changing to after we met you and renovated the place.”
“You’re getting off-topic, Qiao Ling-jie,” Lu Guang reminded her.
She laughed. “I am, aren’t I? Sorry. So, Cheng Xiaoshi had returned to his home — ‘What if they return and I’m not there? I don’t want to worry them!’ He had said — and the next morning, I found him fast asleep in his kitchen, clutching a sack of flour like a stuffed animal. Just by looking at him, I could tell that he’d been up all night.”
“After the incident,” she continued, “he changed. He changed drastically. The playful, bright-eyed kid from before was gone. He was, I suppose, rebellious, for lack of a better word. He stopped trusting people completely. He pushed away people who tried to help him. As for friends, he didn’t try or seem to want to make any, and no one even bothered to try, anyway. People talked about him behind his back. He hated that. ‘I don’t want their pity,’ he used to say. So they didn’t anymore. They didn’t bother pitying him. They just said scornful things, calling him a defect. They would say things… things like…” Her lip quivered.
“...They’d say that his parents left because of him. Cheng Xiaoshi would hear their words, but he always had such a defiant demeanor, it was hard to tell whether their words affected him or not. Did he, deep down inside, get severely wounded by their words? I always wanted to ask him, but I was always too afraid to upset him.”
Lu Guang frowned. Just how many wounds did he carry beneath all those layers of sunshine and feigned happiness? And how much of that personality was real? Did he fake his personality, acting like that for so long that it gradually became a part of him? Just how many lies did he live under?
“But anyways,” she continued, “kids bullied him, and he’d try to fight back the bullies no matter what I said about staying silent. Even so, he’d return home from school bloody and bruised, refusing help from me or my parents, who only wanted to bandage his wounds. He would just race into the studio, slamming the door and curling up on his parents’ empty bed, only leaving the room when he heard a knock at the front door. That would always be my parents leaving dinner for him, which he never refused.”
“This continued for years. I wondered how much longer he’d be like this. I longed for the old Cheng Xiaoshi, who’d greet others with a smile instead of a scowl. I was scared he’d never trust anyone ever again. I was worried the only friend he’d ever have in his life was me.” Qiao Ling raised her eyes to look at Lu Guang. Suddenly, her pensive, downcast expression changed as she beamed at him, and Lu Guang was just about to ask what could cause her to look so happy all of a sudden when she says, “Until he met you!”
“Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi calls, bringing him back to reality, “what’re you doing just standing there?”
Lu Guang blinked, barely registering that he’d been standing at the foot of the stairs staring blankly at a potted plant for several minutes. “Sorry,” he says, opening the door to the kitchen.
The kitchen was rather small but not too small, with walls that had the white paint chipping off in some areas. The granite counters to the back of the kitchen were coated in a layer of dust, usually left unused as they normally used the counters that were nearest to the door. These counters had empty noodle cups littered all over it, as well as a few empty water bottles and candy wrappers strewn across it. The refrigerator was stocked with the most unhealthiest things that stores had to offer: cans of Coke, remnants of chocolate cake as well as another identical, unopened chocolate cake that Cheng Xiaoshi had bought two days ago even though there had been no special occasion, alongside a giant tub of boba that had been sitting there for god knows how long was left there for no apparent reason other that to taunt Lu Guang, who was undergoing a strict routine of abstaining from it, only intaking it in moderate amounts. The cupboards overhead were stocked with instant noodles, more bottles of soda and sparkling water, as well as other assorted junk food that would make one wonder how on earth these two were not dead yet.
Lu Guang remembered helping Cheng Xiaoshi rearrange this kitchen when they had been renovating. Before, there had hardly been any room to stand, as Cheng Xiaoshi had used this place as more of a storage closet than an actual kitchen. He hardly used to cook much after his parents left him, instead he always ended up eating at Qiao Ling’s place or visiting street vendors. When Lu Guang had questioned him once about his lack of cooking skills — and the fact that his kitchen was collecting more dust than the inside of his often empty airheaded brain— Cheng Xiaoshi had replied cheerfully that there wasn’t much space inside the kitchen to cook.
Thus began the process of clearing up the kitchen. The two of them had worked hard at it, Lu Guang offering snide remarks every now and then on how messy this place was and that it was a wonder how Cheng Xiaoshi even knew where anything was in here, to which Cheng Xiaoshi replied that it was simply an ‘organized chaos,’ and that in this hurricane of a kitchen, Cheng Xiaoshi could correctly identify the location of every object in this room, knowing it like the back of his hand after living like this for years.
Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, Lu Guang walked into the kitchen, finding Cheng Xiaoshi smashing cloves of garlic with the flat side of a knife.
He stiffened, his eyes fixated on the silver glint of the knife as Cheng Xiaoshi pushed it up, then down, the garlic pieces growing smaller and smaller. Shoving down memories of past encounters involving knives, Lu Guang snatches it from him and says, “Here, I’ll do it,” all the while forcing a friendlier tone so that his friend wouldn’t suspect something was wrong.
Because Lu Guang remembered what happened the last time a knife was in the hands of a person he cared about. He didn’t want that happening again. It would be better if he did the cooking for now—
He froze.
His own words came back to him at full force.
Follow my lead and change nothing.
He… wasn’t supposed to have done that, right? Lu Guang had moved instinctively, grabbing the knife from his friend’s hand. That… wasn’t supposed to have happened. If he remembered correctly, in the original timeline, he had watched as Cheng Xiaoshi cooked, without moving in to help.
This wasn’t part of the plan. He changed something.
Lu Guang’s hands twitched. He pinned them to his sides.
He changed something. Would that screw up the timeline? Would his small, stupid mishap cause an even greater number of differences, changing everything one by one, causing the butterfly effect to occur? Did he mess up this timeline to bits? What if he makes another misstep without realizing? Would he mess things up before he even got the chance to find the right node that could prevent Cheng Xiaoshi’s death from occurring in the future, thus making him unable to save him, and—
Feeling himself falling into yet another spiral, he swallows to try and settle the ball of anxiety in his gut— which only knots up more as he looks over at Cheng Xiaoshi, whose eyebrows are drawn up in concern. “Hey, where’d you go?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks cautiously, in an effort to calm him down. He seemed to realize that Lu Guang was getting lost in his head. “You okay?”
Lu Guang can’t even fathom how his face must look right now. “Fine,” he grunts, rearranging his facial expression so he doesn’t look like he’s about to puke (which is how he feels). He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to calm his hammering heart, but as a result of the overhead light in the kitchen, all he can see is dark red through his closed eyelids, and red is not a color he wants to see right now, as red only brings back memories of bloodstained hands — blood on his hands— and death, and his friend bleeding out in his arms, and, and, and—
Stop. Rationality once again comes to the rescue. Calm down. Now is not the right time to be having a panic attack. Cheng Xiaoshi is right there. He’s right in front of you. Nothing is going to happen.
Lu Guang lowered his hands from his eyes. Cheng Xiaoshi stared up at him, eyebrows raised but smiling good-naturedly.
Of course.
Cheng Xiaoshi was right there.
A week ago, Lu Guang would have never believed this to be possible.
*
The night he had died, the sky had been clear. There was not a single drop of rain. No gusts of wind whistled through the trees. Hell, there hadn’t even been any stars in the sky.
Cheng Xiaoshi had left the world, and yet the world wasn’t even the slightest bit affected by his passing. Lu Guang hated that. The sky should have been mourning. The rain should’ve come crashing down. He wished he could have been able to rip out his pain and project it onto the weather to avoid feeling anything entirely.
Because Lu Guang was not used to suffering.
He had never had any reason to, not when Cheng Xiaoshi was always beside him, paving a road of positivities to block out the darkness. Yes, whenever he would turn his head to the right, there he would be, hovering over his shoulder. There he would be, always laughing or joking around, pulling his face into the most nonsensical expressions whenever he picked up on Lu Guang feeling down, just so he could lift his mood.
Lu Guang had forgotten how things had been before he met Cheng Xiaoshi. For him, it felt like they’d spent lifetimes together; he just couldn’t remember his life without him by his side. Cheng Xiaoshi, as reckless and impulsive of an idiot as he could be, was a part of his life now. Every moment they shared, all those tiny, inconsequential times they’ve spent together, the only place they remained now was in Lu Guang’s memories.
Because Cheng Xiaoshi was dead.
And Lu Guang would have to live alone for the first time in years.
Lu Guang had forgotten how it felt to be alone. It had been so long since he had been completely devoid of people around him. Even when the photo studio was empty save for him when Cheng Xiaoshi was on a dive, Lu Guang would still have Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice, jabbering on and on inside his head.
Humans… they always need somebody. They always need someone around them. People need another person with them, someone they can count on, someone they can trust completely, someone who they can confide their troubles and fears to with complete faith that they’ll never let said secrets slip past their own lips and into the ears of another person. Someone who will be with them and help them during hard times, choosing to endure it together rather than going through hardships alone. Someone who takes their pain and lets it become their own.
They need a person with them, otherwise they get lonely so much that it hurts, so much that they turn to the thoughts in their head for comfort, thoughts which can sometimes… be malicious, sending said person onto a path they originally weren’t supposed to turn to. They need someone, another person beside them, someone who can offer alternate opinions on something, making them see things in a different light, looking at things in a way they hadn’t prior because they’d only had their own opinion to go by. Seeing the world through a different light, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Cheng Xiaoshi had been that person for Lu Guang.
But Cheng Xiaoshi wasn’t here anymore.
Cheng Xiaoshi had looked at the world and showered it with love and compassion; Lu Guang had looked at the world through lenses of rationality and logic.
They had been polar opposites. Cheng Xiaoshi had been Lu Guang’s other half.
And now, he was gone. And his death was all his fault, as he had died in an effort to protect Lu Guang.
It's all his fault.
No longer would Lu Guang scold him for acting recklessly during a dive. No longer would he have to get after him, the blockhead, for overboiling the noodles that they would eat for dinner. No longer would he have to reprimand him for positioning cameras in places that were too dark to fully capture a certain area.
No longer.
Lu Guang would never be with him again. He would never see him smile again, or hear him laugh at him for something Lu Guang would get annoyed at him for.
But now, Lu Guang would be anything but annoyed. Now, he wouldn’t have minded it. Now, he wanted to hear him laugh and laugh and laugh, to fill the empty dreadful silence that was intoxicating Lu Guang’s lungs like a quickly-spreading poison. Lu Guang had foolishly believed that the world would be merciful and spare the life of a boy who had the purest heart imaginable, who never wished ill will towards others, who was always so genuinely — and never stopped being — kind.
But the world doesn’t discriminate. Life never works that way. People die every single day for various reasons, no matter if they were good or bad. So what’s one difference in taking another life? Why should the universe spare him, just because Lu Guang was suffering? Many people suffer from grief of the death of someone close to them every day, so what difference did it make to add Lu Guang onto that list of people? Why give him special treatment just because he’s in pain?
Secretly, Lu Guang had hoped, had prayed to the gods he barely believed in, that the world would give him special treatment. It had been a stupid request. A selfish one, at that.
And, even if there was a possibility of there truly being a higher power, well, they didn’t have the time to listen to the pleas of a grieving man. They were probably scoffing at him, or perhaps even calling him foolish. It was the truth, anyway. Hope was foolish.
There was so much he wished to tell him. So many things had been left unsaid.
I wished we could’ve had more time together.
I wanted so desperately for us to always be together, until the end of time.
I had more fun with you than anyone else in my entire life. Playing basketball… did you know I only continued at the hobby, only practiced to get better and better, just because I knew you liked it? Just because I wanted to play together with you? Just because I wanted to spend more time with you? I wish we could have gotten the chance to play one last game together. Just one last one. That's all I'm asking. That's all I want; to spend time with you by doing an activity as trivial as basketball. Even if I know it isn’t possible, I wish we could’ve played together for all eternity. Just the two of us. That… would’ve been fun, huh?
Lu Guang was in more pain than he had ever imagined possible. He closed his eyes and thought. Remembered.
Cheng Xiaoshi.
His warmth. His expressions which changed as quickly as the movement of the wind. His voice, the only voice which always held a special ring to it whenever he uttered Lu Guang’s name. His tears, his anger, his laughs, his smiles, his smell, all of it.
He wanted it back. He wanted it back. He so desperately wanted all of it back.
But now, as Lu Guang breathes in, the only thing he can smell is the blood that came from his dead friend’s cadaver, pooling out from his side as Lu Guang held him, his head resting on his lap. He stares down at his friend, at his eyes which are dangerously closed, at the blood which just wouldn’t stop flowing, painting the ground red. Why wouldn’t the blood stop flowing? WHY WOULDN'T IT STOP?!
He remembered every aspect of Cheng Xiaoshi as if he were still here, breathing and among the living. Except that he’s not. He’s not here. And he never will be.
His last words had been his name. They repeated over and over in Lu Guang’s head.
“Lu Guang…”
“Lu Guang…”
“Lu Guang…”
Lu Guang.
Lu Guang knelt there, cradling his dead friend’s body in his arms, his voice gradually growing hoarse from the agonizing screams that had ripped itself from his throat, screams that were so unlike him, sounding more like a wounded animal than anything human. But he knew that no matter how loud he shouted, his voice wouldn’t reach him anymore.
Strobes of red and blue lights flickered at the edges of his vision. Whether it was from an ambulance or a police car, he didn't know. There were voices speaking behind him, low and fast as if not wanting him to hear, but he paid them no attention either way.
Lu Guang, quietly muttering his friend's name over and over, realizes that there was no way for him to respond. He raises a hand and presses it to his eyes, only to find that his hands are slick with blood. His clothes, too, originally pristine, are splattered in crimson.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s blood.
Seeing that, he breaks down into tears. His heart hammered in his ribcage, a loud, thunderous beat that reverberated throughout his entire body, matching the rhythm of his escalating panic.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
There’s blood on my hands.
Thump. THUMP. THUMP.
Flecks of it have splattered in my hair.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
It’s on my clothes.
Now it’s on my face.
Lu Guang was wheezing for air, forcing his lungs to take in air though they did not want to. His heartbeat grew louder with every passing second, his pulse throbbing in his ears like a relentless drum that pounded against his eardrums, drowning out all other sound.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s blood.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
He’s bleeding out and it’s all my fault.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
The blood is cold. It’s not supposed to be cold.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
He’s cold. He’s not supposed to be cold.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
Why is he cold? He’s supposed to be warm.
He’s not supposed to be cold.
The thoughts repeated in his head.
There’s blood on my hands.
Cheng’s Xiaoshi’s blood.
It’s. On. Me.
Cheng’s Xiaoshi’s blood.
The EMTs had to practically pry Lu Guang from Cheng Xiaoshi, who would not let go and was nearly on the verge of having a panic attack.
A medic approached him and laid a hand on his shoulder, whispering words of solace that were meant to bring him comfort, but did nothing to shake him out the terror that hummed through his head. Lu Guang watched in horror as they carried out his friend's body on a stretcher, Qiao Ling following close behind (Where had she come from? Lu Guang wondered, not having known she was even present at the scene before; but then again, he must be too out of it to have even noticed the fact), and was about to run towards them when the medic took ahold of him, holding him back.
"Cheng Xiaoshi!" He screamed, his throat raw. He writhed in the medic's grasp. They were telling him something, their voice low and urgent, but he was in no mood to focus. His vision blurred. Dimly, he realizes that the hands holding him released their grip. Before he had a chance to do anything, however, someone else took his arm. Without even registering it, he had been led to a car, pushed into the passenger seat, and driven to the hospital.
Now seated in a plastic chair inside the hospital’s waiting room — though he had no recollection of when he was shoved into one, or even who did the shoving — Lu Guang waited.
And waited.
And then, he hears voices. He assumes they’re talking to him, because all he can hear is—
— You’re Mr. Lu, correct?
— The patient, Cheng Xiaoshi…
— We’re sorry…
— We tried everything we could…
— We’re so sorry…
— He failed to respond...
— He had already lost a lot of blood…
— No one’s at fault here…
— Wasn’t much we could do to save him…
— Despite all our best efforts to resuscitate him…
— Unfortunately, the circumstances were too…
— We’re sorry…
“We’re sorry, we’re sorry. We’re sorry.” That was all he heard before feeling his mind shut down.
We’re sorry. That was all they could say in this situation. They didn’t feel the pain that was suffocating Lu Guang right now. They most likely felt empty, maybe. But not in pain. They didn’t know Cheng Xiaoshi. Didn’t know him like he did. For them, Cheng Xiaoshi was just another patient who had failed at their hands.
We’re sorry. Those words were anything but comforting. They were empty words that spilled from their lips, devoid of any emotion. A handful of words they knew they were supposed to say. Pre-programmed into their minds.
Before he could start spiraling again, Lu Guang felt himself being whisked away again, this time, shoved into another car. He didn’t stay to see Cheng Xiaoshi’s corpse before he left. He couldn't bear it.
Needing to question him, the police officers drove him back to the station. Trying to be as patient as possible, they tried carefully asking him questions, only to learn that they could hardly get a single word out of him.
“Did you see anyone there?”
Cheng Xiaoshi. That’s who I saw. I saw him there. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. DEAD. DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!
He’s dead.
He’s dead and it’s all my fault.
He’s dead and there’s nothing I can do.
He died. After everything he’s done, after all the good and kind things he’s done in his life for others, after all he’s lost and suffered, after everyone he’s saved and attempted to save, he had died in fear and in immense pain.
And it’s all my fault.
Everything’s my fault.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault—
“Mr. Lu, I’m asking again. Was there anyone there?”
His mouth clamped shut, Lu Guang shook his head slowly, not registering what question he was even answering. He gazed past the officers with a thousand-yard stare. After a long stretch of silence, Lu Guang stared down at his trembling hands, feeling his chest constrict. He could barely breathe. This isn’t real. None of this is real. He pinched his arm. So why aren’t I waking up?
“Mr. Lu…”
The rest of the words are incoherent. Lu Guang can only hear a faint ringing sound. Dimly, he’s aware yet again of his heart beating wildly in his chest. His head feels fuzzy. This is all just a dream… right?
The bright fluorescent lights of the station grew dull and dark. Lu Guang didn’t understand what was happening. His vision blurred. The shadows on the wall shifted and moved, warping and distorting, growing bigger and smaller as they slithered around Lu Guang, though Lu Guang is certain that not a single person in the room had moved. So why were the shadows moving?
He heard voices talking. He wasn’t sure if he recognized them. Was he supposed to have recognized them? He tries to ignore them, feeling his head go fuzzy again. He bit his tongue, attempting one last time to try and wake up. But it’s weird. No matter what he does, there’s no use in trying. Oddly, he’s still here, though he’s certain he should have woken up by now.
Then his eyes brightened. The police officers stared at him in disbelief, but his warped mind had turned on a new idea.
“If this is all just a dream, then maybe Cheng Xiaoshi’s actually alive! I just dreamed this all up, didn’t I?” He stood quickly. “I have to go —”
Before he could finish, he felt a cold hand latch onto his. Instinctively, he tried jerking away, but the hand clutched his, unwilling to let him go. Lu Guang looked up, noticing Qiao Ling for the first time, her tired eyes locked on him, her face tear-streaked. “Lu Guang,” she begged, “Lu Guang… he’s dead. Cheng Xiaoshi is dead.”
The silence was deafening.
With her having temporarily broken him out of his dissociative state, his mind began to clear a little. Just by her expression, he felt his heart sink into his stomach as it dawned on him.
None of this was a dream.
All of this was real.
After realizing that they could not get any helpful statements out of him, they had a police officer drive him back to the photo studio, leaving Qiao Ling at the station because her state of mind had not crashed down as badly as Lu Guang’s, allowing her to provide any specific details that she could.
Lu Guang stood outside the studio, a hand on the handle.
The night was so… still.
It awed Lu Guang, that at that very moment, neighbors and strangers around him were going about their day as usual, and that the world continued to spin on its axis even after his partner was dead. Even after he just lost him, forever.
He was suddenly roused from his musings when a small, tabby kitten with orange fur walked onto the street, sniffing the air. Noticing Lu Guang, it let out a soft mewing sound and brushed against Lu Guang’s legs, purring. As he stroked the cat, Lu Guang suddenly remembered how he and Cheng Xiaoshi had taken care of a cat together, an orange one just like this one. Lu Guang had wanted to name it Elizabeth. But unfortunately, the cat had an owner, so they had to return it. As Lu Guang had sulked the rest of the day, lying down on the sofa and refusing to talk to anybody, Cheng Xiaoshi had cheerfully reassured him by telling him, “We can still visit the cat, the family who it belongs to doesn't live far away! And we can still call her Elizabeth!” He further added, “Don’t worry! Me and you, we’ll adopt another cat in the future, just like that one! And we’re gonna name her Elizabeth, just like you wanted!”
And Lu Guang had believed him, filled with a sudden hope.
…
Lu Guang should have known that hope was for fools.
He entered the studio, moving with lumbering feet as he dragged himself up the stairs, only to stop walking midway as his mind whirred on a new idea.
Perhaps… all was not lost.
He hurried up to their room. Averting his eyes from the empty bunk bed that stood off to the side — and trying not to think about how the bottom bunk would never be used again — he sat down at his desk. Rummaging through a drawer, he pulled out a photo at random, holding it up. It was a picture he had taken approximately one year ago. He gazed down at it.
“Sorry, Cheng Xiaoshi, I’m always telling you not to change the past, but I couldn't follow my own words.” Feeling his eyes sting, he blinked rapidly, before making up his mind. There was no time to think about it. He would sacrifice anything to save him, even if it cost him his life. Honestly? Screw the timeline. In fact, I will ruin timelines, go against my own rules, and break the time and space continuum just to try and save you. I know it's futile but I will do anything just to get you back. I'm a hypocrite, and I know that. But right now, at this very moment, I don't care. No matter how many times I have to jump back, no matter how long it takes, I'll do it to save you.
Because living in a world where Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t exist was just too painful to bear, even for just one night. How would Lu Guang be able to face going to the funeral?
Suddenly, a horrifying thought flitted through his mind.
But… would he even go? Could he even bring himself to properly say goodbye to him?
He was incapable of seeing into the future, but he knew without even needing to have future-reading abilities how it would play out.
Lu Guang, paralyzed by grief, would be unable to move on from his death even after years have passed. He saw everyone else move on while he would be stuck on the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi had been taken from him forever.
Lu Guang would watch as Qiao Ling and Xu Shanshan moved on, spending their weekends shopping or eating out together with smiles plastered on their faces, while Lu Guang would sit gazing at them at a distance, wondering how on earth they could smile when Cheng Xiaoshi was dead.
Lu Guang, ten years from now, paralyzed with terror during the long nights alone in his room, where he would gain Cheng Xiaoshi’s fear of the dark. And he would miss him. He would miss him, and sob for him, and grieve for all the days they would never share.
And Lu Guang didn’t want that.
Because Lu Guang was a coward. And he knew it. He knew it, and he was disgusted at himself for it, but there was no denying it.
He couldn’t face his best friend dying. He couldn’t face saying goodbye to him. He couldn’t bear losing him.
He couldn’t bear being left alone.
He couldn’t live with that. He couldn’t live without him. After all the years of having Cheng Xiaoshi with him, he’d forgotten how to.
He couldn’t lose him. And if this was the only way he could have another chance at getting him back, well… he had to try.
Without Cheng Xiaoshi by his side, Lu Guang felt, against his will, like a child, alone and feeling small in a world that seemed far more bigger than he ever imagined possible, needing someone he could turn to, someone like a trustable-parental figure who could tell him that everything was okay.
But he didn’t have that. Because Cheng Xiaoshi, despite all his immaturities and impulsiveness, had been that person for him— minus the parental bit. He taught Lu Guang more about the world than anyone else in his life ever did. He filled his life with happiness and love. Unused to that, as his whole life prior to meeting him had been entirely devoid of it, Lu Guang found it hard to get accustomed to it. He always found himself being taken aback and confused whenever Cheng Xiaoshi sent warm words his way.
Found it surprising whenever Cheng Xiaoshi asked him about his day, or if he was eating well, or how he was feeling. Found it shocking that there was a person out there who actually cared enough about him to actually ask him these things, a person who actually cared about his well-being.
Found it hard to understand that people could genuinely be kind, treating others with kindness with no strings attached, with no ulterior motives up their sleeve. People who were just so willing to be kind to others. That there were people out there who were kind just for the sake of being kind. And Cheng Xiaoshi was just that person. He was kind and caring and always remained so, actively choosing to be despite his trauma of being abandoned by his parents, despite the pain he had received from that event and from others who said cruel things to him regarding his abandonment. Despite the way kids treated him, despite the bullying he had gone through in his childhood, despite the adults and neighbors speaking ill of him when they thought he couldn't hear them, despite everything. He was still nice to them even after all that, sometimes even stopping by to visit them, amends already made many years previously. Because he could forgive people just like that. He saw that everyone deserves love, despite what they had done to him. Cheng Xiaoshi wasn't a person who held grudges.
He was kind to everyone.
Helping strangers he met on the road.
Helping Lu Guang clean the studio even after Lu Guang had repeatedly told him he didn’t need to, while he was claiming all the while that he enjoyed “cleaning together with friends!”
Helping Emma send “Mom, Dad, I miss you,” to her parents even though he wasn’t supposed to have changed anything. But he had done so partially because his feelings about his own parents had resurfaced, and partially because he wanted to reconnect the broken relationship of a client he didn’t even know personally.
Helping Emma without being the slightest bit aware that that singular message brought her to her demise.
Because that’s who Cheng Xiaoshi was. Lu Guang didn’t see him as a person he could trust because he was some kind of perfect god, but because he was just so humanly, painfully, flawed.
And that was exactly why, when Lu Guang closed his eyes, the memory he recalled of Cheng Xiaoshi was not of the many times he had failed on a dive. No, because it was the memory of the Cheng Xiaoshi who would secretly slip children some candy while their parents were not looking, who had come to the studio to process their photos.
This was the reason why Lu Guang just couldn’t let go.
And Lu Guang thought to himself, I’ll have to remember you for much, much longer than the length of time I knew you, and I don’t think I want that.
So, why live in a world where Cheng Xiaoshi didn’t exist? And if he didn’t at least try to bring him back, then who will? He knew his actions were irrational, but for the first time in his life, he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the risks. He was willing to risk anything, even if it cost him his life, just to ensure that Cheng Xiaoshi still had one.
If Cheng Xiaoshi was fated to die, then Lu Guang would try all he can to break that fate. Sure, he knew it was selfish, and sure, he knew that the timeline was probably questioning where his authority lies in flitting back and forth through timelines and changing an event that was already set in stone, but for now, he was just going to look the opposite way and hope that he wouldn’t have to face any consequences for his actions just yet.
Lu Guang raised his hands. Overhead, the clock ticked.
“Even if I know that death is an unchangeable point, I still want to use the last chance to return to the beginning…” If Death were to try and approach his friend a second time, Lu Guang would do all that he could to barricade the door and gather ammunition. If he needed to do more, then he would. But for now, he hoped that would be enough.
His watch read September 13th, 00:05 AM.
“... and save you.” A clap rang out through the quiet stillness of the room.
Dive.
Lu Guang blinked. The bedroom he had been in just a second ago was gone, replaced by their sunroom downstairs. It was evening now, the last remaining rays of sunlight replacing the bleak moonlight from before, streaming in through the large windows as rain softly pattered against it. A “Happy Birthday!” sign was draped on the windows behind the couch, along with streamers and balloons of different assorted colors taped to the glass windows.
Lu Guang was holding his phone in his hands, having taken a photo of a birthday cake that was on top of the coffee table in front of him.
“Surprise!” A familiar voice sang out, making Lu Guang flinch. Slowly, he looked up, not daring to believe it.
But there, unmistakably, sitting in front of him was none other than Cheng Xiaoshi himself. Breathing and alive, grinning happily at him as he gestured a hand to the cake, with its candles brightly lit.
‘Surprise,’ he had said. Haha. It really was a surprise.
“We should wait for Qiao Ling to come, and then we can cut the cake, don’t you think—”
Lu Guang cut him off, speaking before he could properly get a chance to think fully about what he was saying, “Cheng Xiaoshi, I have a request.”
He needed to feel him, alive, in his arms. Because a part of Lu Guang, deep down inside, was frightened by the possibility of this all being a dream. That the Cheng Xiaoshi he was seeing was truly not real, just a figment of his twisted imagination as a result of his anguish.
Cheng Xiaoshi quirked an eyebrow at him. “Uh, sure?” He said, baffled at the odd interruption that just came out of the blue. “Anything!”
“Can I…” his voice shook, “hug you?”
He hated himself for doubting the reality of this situation, but he just had to make sure.
“Huh???” Cheng Xiaoshi only looked even more perplexed, but then put on a smile. “I mean, sure you can, but your face, why do you look so…what is—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence, for Lu Guang had thrown himself at him. He crashed into Cheng Xiaoshi and threw his arms around his shoulders, pulling him into the tightest hug he could and nearly knocking him backwards onto the couch.
“Eh?? Lu Guang??” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaimed, startled by Lu Guang’s unexpected attack of affection, especially since he wasn’t a person who often did hugs. His bewilderment only grew as he heard Lu Guang give a dry sob.
“Lu Guang… are you…? What’s wrong?” He asked uncertainly.
Lu Guang didn’t respond. He just held tight onto his friend, as if when he let go, Cheng Xiaoshi would disappear, slipping through his fingers like water. He… he had just been dead. No more than an hour or two ago. He’d seen it. He’d been there. He’d seen his face, weak and pale and contorted with pain, unable to muster the strength to let any words out. He’d heard him suck his breath sharply through his teeth that night, in pain, his breathing shaky and unstable, so to hear him breathing normally now…
He’d seen how the blood pooled out from the bullet wound on his chest and stained his varsity jacket, so to see it now, unstained by blood…
He’d felt his body grow limp and cold, his eyes becoming blank and dull as he died in his arms, so to feel him now, both warm and alive…
Lu Guang almost wanted to laugh. It had worked. It had really been that easy! He had successfully dove back in time, and now he would figure out a way to save him.
“Lu…Guang…I can’t breathe…” Cheng Xiaoshi said with a small laugh, feigning a wheeze in his voice. But Lu Guang’s heart nearly stopped at that sentence.
“Lu… Guang… I can't breathe… It hurts…” He had said that during his last moments. Lu Guang recalled that moment, the memory fresh in his mind, where Cheng Xiaoshi had grabbed a fistful of his shirt collar in a fit of desperation (the blood on his hands staining his shirt red in the area where he had grabbed him), pulling him close so that they were almost nose-to-nose. Their eyes had locked, Lu Guang's terrified ones staring into Cheng Xiaoshi's watery ones. He'd wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He had been frozen in a fit of petrification.
“Lu Guang…make it stop, it's hurting me. It hurts so badly. Help me. I can't take this. I'm in pain," he had whimpered tearfully, while Lu Guang tried his best to soothe him. That was all he could do in that moment, all he could do was try his best to hush him and offer comforting words as much as he could. Even though he had known there would be no effect, there was nothing left, nothing else he could do. The words of comfort he uttered were more of a reassurance for himself than for Cheng Xiaoshi.
Lu Guang's hand had rested on his friend's cheek as he wiped his eyes with his thumb in a silent, comforting gesture.
"The paramedics will be here any minute now. You'll be fine. You'll be just fine. Just hang in there,” he had promised, all the while inwardly begging himself to hang in there, to maintain his composure, to not crack under the sheer terror of his best friend’s dying moments.
Shaken, Lu Guang wrestles down his panic. Stop thinking about things you're not supposed to be thinking about, he chided himself. Cheng Xiaoshi is fine now. I won't let him die. Calm down. He's joking, after all. It's nothing to get all worked up over. It's just a random, stupid comment he made because I'm hugging him too tightly.
A voice broke him from his thoughts. “What’s wrong, Lu Guang?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked again, and Lu Guang stiffened. The second rule of diving flashed through his mind.
Follow my lead and change nothing.
Lu Guang stepped away suddenly, drawing his arms back as if he’d been burnt, trying his best to recover. His emotions, once always so controlled and repressed, didn’t seem to want to do that anymore.
He felt his knees go a bit wobbly, but that was probably just an iron deficiency or something. Not because of his anxiety about changing something he wasn’t supposed to, not at all.
Placing a hand on the arm of the sofa to steady himself, he picks his brain for an excuse, seating himself on the sofa next to Cheng Xiaoshi. “I’m just really happy,” he says awkwardly, which is somewhat the truth.
Cheng Xiaoshi flashes him his sunny smile, and the sight of the expression just makes Lu Guang want to cry. At that moment, all he wanted to do was bury Cheng Xiaoshi in another hug. He wished he could just hold him close and never let go, as if that were a way to keep his friend safe from the future that awaited him. He now realizes why it was so hard for Cheng Xiaoshi to follow his directions when he was on a dive; Lu Guang himself was having difficulties in restraining himself from changing things.
“Really? That’s probably ‘cause I’m here, right?” Cheng Xiaoshi says brightly.
“Not a chance.”
“Aw, well if you’re happy, then I’m happy, too!” He links an arm through Lu Guang’s, who’d really rather not push him away but does so anyway, anxious about keeping the timeline secure. That’s what I did last time, he thought, trying to reason with himself.
Cheng Xiaoshi frowns, which only makes Lu Guang more uneasy. “Aah, why’re you always so cold?” He says, his lip jutted out in a little moue.
Because that’s what the Lu Guang from a year ago would’ve done, he thinks, but does not voice these thoughts aloud. Pushing down his guilt that he feels surfacing, he tries his best to come up with an aloof response that the Lu Guang from before would have said. So instead he gestures to his friend's pouty face and says, “Fool. You look like a child.”
“Hah! I’d rather be a child than a boring old adult,” Cheng Xiaoshi remarks cheerfully with a shrug.
Cheng Xiaoshi suddenly reached over, pulling out a birthday hat from a box next to the couch, holding it up for Lu Guang to see. “Lu Guang, since today’s your birthday, you have to wear this!” It was a cone shaped birthday hat colored bright-pink, with matching pink heart sequins scattered all over it. Definitely meant for a little girls’ birthday party than anywhere near him.
Lu Guang rolled his eyes. “No way!”
“Come onnn, you think you’re so old now that you’ve turned —”
“Not wearing it.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that —”
Before he could complete his sentence, Cheng Xiaoshi reached over, putting the hat on his head, the annoying string connected to the hat fastened underneath his chin before Lu Guang could even register what he just did.
“There!” Cheng Xiaoshi said with a smirk, finally satisfied.
"Cheng Xiaoshi!” Lu Guang reached up to pull it off when his friend grabbed his arm. “No, just keep it on!” He whined. “It looks good on you, really,” he says, trying — and failing — to stifle his laughter. Seeing his face, Lu Guang relented and lowered his hand from the hat, the sight of his friend laughing causing him to give in.
Then, as if just remembering something, Cheng Xiaoshi sprang up suddenly, almost upsetting the bottles of Cola on the table but too jubilant to care. “Oh! I almost forgot! I’ve got a gift for yoooooou!” He sang, sauntering over to the stairs, which he bounded up to grab something from their room.
“What is it?” Lu Guang asks, though he already knows.
Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t reply. Sounds of him hastily shuffling things around come from their shared room. Cheng Xiaoshi suddenly scurries down a few steps on the stairs and calls out, “Lu Guaaang, do you have a bag I can borrow?”
Keeping a poker face, he replied, “The only bags I have are the ones under my eyes, and they’re specifically designed to carry the burden of my existence.”
Cheng Xiaoshi stares at him. “Literally all you had to do was say no.” He goes back upstairs, and Lu Guang can hear his muffled laughter as clear as day. Right now, his laughter sounded like the sweetest thing Lu Guang’s ever heard in his life.
“Never in my life would I have suspected Lu Guang to be able to crack jokes! He’s this much closer to seeming like a normal human!” Cheng Xiaoshi muttered to himself, not bothering to keep his voice down. Lu Guang can only imagine the shocked look on his face. He imagined the image of the expression in his head, and it made the corners of his mouth twitch.
Cheng Xiaoshi, returning downstairs, presents a small box with a flourish. “Here, I found a box so I don’t need a bag anymore. Ta-da! It’s for you!”
“You didn’t have to,” he says, following along with his “script.” The box was white and was about the size of his palm, with a blue ribbon clumsily tied into a bow on the lid.
“I wasn’t sure what to get you,” Cheng Xiaoshi explained hurriedly, “so I found this.”
Lu Guang opened the box. Inside was a keychain of a small white cat. Its eyes were angled downwards, making it look either perpetually tired or annoyed.
“It reminded me of you,” said Cheng Xiaoshi, biting down a laugh.
‘Reminded’ was an understatement. The thing was the embodiment of him. In fact, if the owner of the keychain were to look up from the box now, Cheng Xiaoshi would find matching expressions on both man and cat.
Lu Guang stared down at the cat. The cat stared back up at him.
“Look, I have one too! So we’ll be matching!” Cheng Xiaoshi held up his phone, showing off the keychain of the black dog that was dangling along the side of it, its red tongue hanging outside its mouth, and its golden eyes fixated on Lu Guang.
Lu Guang couldn’t help but feel both unsettled and absurd at the same time. How did he manage to find things that replicated us almost perfectly?
“You moron,” he says, though what he really thought he should’ve said was "Thank you.” He waved the keychain in his hand. “It’s ridiculous.” Was he still going to clip it onto his phone case for everyone to see? Yes.
Cheng Xiaoshi laughed. “Aww, come on, I know you like it!” He threw an arm over his shoulder.
Lu Guang couldn’t remember what he said to this before. It had been a year since this day, after all. So he decided to play it safe, going with a response that neither confirmed nor denied anything. “If you say so.”
He was just about to push him off when Cheng Xiaoshi's phone started ringing, a ringtone that was just an accumulation of ten cats meowing at the top of their lungs. Answering it like the ringtone was no big deal, Cheng Xiaoshi said cheerfully, “Wei~? ”
Even without having it on speaker, Lu Guang could hear Qiao Ling’s screams as if she were sitting right beside them. “Cheng Xiaoshi!” The voice on the other end boomed, making Cheng Xiaoshi hold the phone away from his ear.
Beside him, Cheng Xiaoshi mouthed to him, “It’s Qiao Ling,” making Lu Guang suppress the urge to roll his eyes. If that wasn’t obvious already??
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite landlady! To what do I owe the pleasure of this fine eveni—”
“Your only landlady, you mean!" corrected Qiao Ling. "Just shush and give the phone to Lu Guang!”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes widened. “She wants to talk to you,” he mouthed, stunned into silence that the object of her anger was not him for once. Lu Guang thwacked him across the head with a balloon. “I’m not deaf, you imbecile!” He hissed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” Cheng Xiaoshi turned back to the phone. “Lu Guang isn’t here right now,” he started, before getting cut off by Qiao Ling.
“Then who did I hear talking just now?”
“That was all in your head!”
“Don’t lie to me, Cheng Xiaoshi, I have veeery sharp hearing, I know for a fact that it was him—”
Unable to sit through their banter for much longer, Lu Guang snatched the phone from Cheng Xiaoshi, saying, “What happened, Qiao Ling-jie?”
“Hah! I knew you were here! I’m just gonna tell you because he hardly listens to me anymore, but can you hammer it into his pea-sized brain that, oh, I don’t know, if Cheng Xiaoshi maybe stopped ordering snacks and takeout 24/7 and maybe stopped wasting his money on useless gacha games, then maybe he’d be closer to paying off his debt??” Her voice directed at Cheng Xiaoshi this time, she added, “And maybe, if you started doing that, you just might be able to afford your monthly rent! Ever thought of that?”
“Control yourself, Cheng Xiaoshi, I know character skins are tempting for you but you must resist,” Lu Guang deadpanned, making Cheng Xiaoshi howl with laughter.
“Ugh! You both are useless! And why do you speak as if you know what you’re saying, Lu Guang? You can’t even beat me in a game!”
“Don’t get mad, Qiao Ling,” Cheng Xiaoshi whined.
“‘Mad’?? How can I not be mad??”
“Just don’t take it out on poor Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi stood, mouthing to Lu Guang, “I’m gonna step outside so you don’t have to hear her yelling for another hour.” He walked briskly to the entrance of the photo studio, all the while hissing, “All right, Qiao Ling, I heard you the first time, you don’t have to keep—” before getting cut off by her again as she screeched into his ears.
“Welcome, boss!” Lu Guang heard the automatic voice at the front door chirping cheerfully as Cheng Xiaoshi opened the door.
“I’m not the boss!” Cheng Xiaoshi snapped, fuming at the noise of the tinkling bell that sounded as he swung the door open.
“Who are you talking to?” Qiao Ling insisted on the other end.
“That dumb voice-monitor thing you installed last year! Everytime I open the door, the thing starts going off! I swear, it’s going to drive me insane!”
“You meant it’s helpful, right?”
“No, it’s an abomination, a hindrance to my leisurely life!”
“How could you say that! One day, it’s gonna be the reason an intruder gets caught, and you’re gonna be thanking me on your knees for saving your ass!”
“You wish!” Lu Guang heard Cheng Xiaoshi retort as the door slammed shut. Nearly ten minutes passed by in silence; Lu Guang could no longer overhear their conversation.
Sitting in the now-quiet sunroom, he gazed out the window as his thoughts wandered. His mind turned to the unreality of the situation. How he’d gone back in time so easily. And how he’d only lasted 2 and a half hours before caving and pulling off this once-seemingly impossible feat.
He couldn’t even last 2 hours without him. And why? Was there something wrong with him? Is that the reason behind his actions? Had he irrationally acted out of impulse at the moment due to his unstable mental state at the time?
Or was it that, in a selfish part of his mind, he was unwilling to let go of the one person who treated him like a human being for perhaps the first time in his life?
A person who genuinely cared for him.
That was why. There was the answer. That was the reason he was so afraid to let go and move on. Because his life was empty without Cheng Xiaoshi in it. And he would go back to being uncared for, and he didn’t want that. It scared him, in a way.
Lu Guang’s gaze drifted down to his phone. Lifting it up, he takes the cat keychain in his other hand, clipping it to the phone case. Satisfied, he goes to unlock his phone, before pausing.
His current phone password was rather basic, just a simple six-digit code that read 123456. Practically everyone knew it, as it was extremely easy to guess, so he decided to change it. Something… that only he would know.
His fingers hovering over the setting for Password Change, he typed out a different set of six numbers.
091305.
The date of Cheng Xiaoshi’s death. And the day that he dived back to save him.
Suddenly, the door swung open, with a red-faced Cheng Xiaoshi pulling in Qiao Ling by the arm, who was giggling profusely. Lu Guang swiftly shoved his phone back into his pocket before they could notice, eyes cast warily on the scene that was unfolded before him.
Cheng Xiaoshi marched into their sunroom, dragging Qiao Ling with him.
“What happened?” Lu Guang asked, preparing himself for a long rant.
“Well, allow me to explain! There she was, yelling at me on the phone as I stood outside, when my eyes landed on the coffee shop across the street, and THERE I SAW HER!” Cheng Xiaoshi exploded, which only made Qiao Ling laugh harder. “There she was, sitting at a table with Xu Shanshan, yelling her head off at me on the phone while sipping her drink calmly! And she thought I wouldn’t even notice her there!”
“And… what exactly is the problem…?” Lu Guang couldn’t quite follow. Had this conversation happened before? He couldn’t remember.
“Yes, what is the problem in that, Cheng Xiaoshi?” asks Qiao Ling with a grin.
“The problem is that she’s over there bossing me off while she’s sitting, all relaxed as she monitors and keeps an eye on the studio! Almost as if she had anticipated I would storm out of it! She just kept on badgering me just so she could see and make fun of my reaction as I stepped outside!”
Lu Guang closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking in a deep, slow breath and letting it out. Then he reopened them and said, “Enough of your childishness. An infant is more mature than you, for goodness' sake.” He shook his head. “I’m surrounded by morons.”
Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi glanced at each other, with a look that seemed to say, What did he say? Morons? Us?
Qiao Ling plopped next to him on the couch, clutching his sleeve. “Don’t be mad at us, Guang Guang!” She said.
“Yeah!” says Cheng Xiaoshi, sitting on the opposite side of Lu Guang and grabbing onto his other sleeve. He nudged him with the side of his head. “Forgive us, Guang Guaaang~”
Lu Guang ignores the way his face warms, ignores the way how stupidly fast and hard his heart beats at the contact, and pushes Cheng Xiaoshi’s face away — though he’d really rather not to. “You’re insufferable,” he says. His thoughts, however, contradicted the words coming out of his mouth. No, you’re not. You never are.
“And I’m not your ‘Guang Guang.’” He made air quotes.
I don’t mean it. I really don’t, Lu Guang pleaded inwardly, wishing he could telepathically tell him everything to lessen the burden of carrying so many lies within him. But if the Lu Guang from before didn’t do that, well, then he wasn’t supposed to either. He’d really rather not be so cold to him, but he has to act according to how he did a year prior. He wished he could tell him everything, he wished he could promise to protect him in this timeline. He wished he could tell him just how much he wanted to keep him safe in this timeline, and to promise that he would always care for him. But he couldn’t. Because Cheng Xiaoshi wasn't supposed to know that he was from the future.
You can call me Guang Guang, it doesn’t matter to me what you call me. You can call me whatever you want. In fact, I want to hear your voice calling out to me for the rest of our lives. So don’t you dare die on me, you idiot!
“Does that mean you forgive us, Guang Guang?” asked Cheng Xiaoshi with a lopsided grin, breaking him from his thoughts.
Back to putting on an act. Lu Guang’s eye twitched. His patience was running thin. “Well, if you—”
“Wait, I know what’ll make him forgive us!” exclaimed Qiao Ling. She shot up suddenly, rushing into the kitchen and bringing back what must be the largest tub of boba milk tea Lu Guang’s ever seen. “Ta-da! Since it's your birthday today, I bought this for you! I know how much you like boba milk tea~” says Qiao Ling. She always knew that food was the best way to resolve disagreements, and sure enough, the incident was forgotten, as Lu Guang was suddenly thrown into great turmoil, though now for an entirely different reason.
“Qiao Ling-jie, why did you get this for me, I only drink it in moderate amounts! I was planning not to drink it this month!” says Lu Guang, ever so reluctant to let something ruin his health. He often kept tabs on what he ate, and a giant bottle of boba was going to ruin the balance… no matter how much he craved it.
“Aww, c’mon, today’s an exception! It won’t count since it’s your birthday!” coaxed Qiao Ling.
“What difference does that make?” says Lu Guang, distressed. This was one of the rare times where one saw him so stressed, and naturally, it was over something as trivial as a sweet drink.
“Lu Guang, it’s not like you’re going to drop dead just from taking a sip of boba tea,” Cheng Xiaoshi pointed out.
“And what if I do?” He demanded, feigning concern that sounded so sincere that it set Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi off laughing.
Eventually, they persuaded him to take the boba, and for a few minutes, they sat there as Lu Guang sipped his drink, muttering sulkily, “My poor health… it’s all ruined now…”
“Yet you’re still drinking it,” says Cheng Xiaoshi, earning him a thwack across the head with a balloon from Lu Guang, who replied, “Shut up.”
After they had cut the cake and Qiao Ling had returned to her house for the night, Cheng Xiaoshi insisted on watching something together. Lu Guang was just about to refuse when Cheng Xiaoshi turned his hopeful eyes on him, making Lu Guang give in — as he always did. He found it getting harder and harder to refuse him.
They had booted up Lu Guang’s old laptop — “This thing is ancient! Well, probably nowhere near as old as you, you’ve officially turned into a grandpa today,” remarked Cheng Xiaoshi, who got a shove as a response — and were scrolling through movies for about 30 minutes now, unable to decide on one.
“We’re gonna be sitting here all night!” Cheng Xiaoshi complained. “Can you just pick one already?” He pointed to an option displayed on the screen. “How about this one?”
“Not a horror movie, I’m afrai— I don’t like ghosts,” admitted Lu Guang.
“Then what?” He pointed to another one. “Look, here’s a show called Lightime Tearjerker! Season 2 came out, we should watch it! We watched Season 1, remember?”
“Ah,” says Lu Guang, “it’s been a while though. What happened again, at the end of Season 1?”
“Lu An got stabbed!”
“Oh, right.” Lu Guang nodded, pressing “play” on the laptop. “Let’s watch it, then.”
And so they sat, Cheng Xiaoshi curled up next to him, a plate of cake in one hand. He had just gotten through half of the cake when his head sprang up, turning to Lu Guang as if he’d just thought of something. He lowered the fork from his mouth, swallowed the cake that he had been chewing on, then opened his mouth. “You want some?” He asked, for Lu Guang had hardly touched his cake slice when they had cut it earlier.
“No thanks,” replied Lu Guang, “the boba tea is enough sugar intake for one day.”
“Are you sure?” asks Cheng Xiaoshi, waving a forkful of cake in front of his face. “You know it’s tempting~”
That wasn’t a lie. Lu Guang found himself staring down at the cake piece that was hovering in front of his mouth, a gooey mass of chocolaty-fudgy goodness, the sweet smell almost making him give in —
No. He must resist.
Lu Guang blinked, barely realizing that Cheng Xiaoshi had leaned in closer to him, a look of unrelenting hopefulness written across his face, smiling like the action was casual. Which it was, most likely. Lu Guang didn’t know. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just a normal thing to do between friends, feeding each other food. Maybe he was just making a big deal out of it. But Lu Guang couldn’t help it when he blinked at him, feeling the blood rushing to his face.
“Come onnn,” Cheng Xiaoshi sang, slowly waving the fork around in a circle. Whether the action was an attempt to hypnotize him into taking it, Lu Guang didn't know. “Won’t you just try it? It’s your birthday, and yet you won’t even have a taste of the cake that I painstakingly bought for you with the small amount of money I have?”
This wasn’t fair. He was guilt-tripping him now.
“I…” He struggled to find an excuse. “I’m not hungry.”
“Oh c’mon, we all know that when it comes to dessert, the stomach always makes a separate compartment to make room for it, no matter how full you are! Sooo… that’s not an excuse.” He pouted, feigning distress as he sighed dramatically. “You’re not gonna make me sit here until my hand falls off, will you? It’s starting to ache.”
Lu Guang cleared his throat. “No. And don’t act like a child. It’s fine, really, I don’t want it —” But as soon as he opened his mouth, Cheng Xiaoshi shoved the piece of cake into his mouth. Lu Guang blinked at him, who grinned mischievously.
“Cheng Xiaoshi!” He spluttered, the name half-muffled through his mouth now full of cake. His mind, however, was reeling. There isn’t any harm done… he’s just sharing some food. Right? All I did was taste it, like he said. Who knows, maybe that piece of cake had been poisoned, and I had saved him from a potential poisoning!
“Just chew it, or you’ll choke,” Cheng Xiaoshi advised. After a minute he asks, “How is it?”
“Great.” Lu Guang honestly couldn't pay attention to the taste. All he could think about was how Cheng Xiaoshi continued eating as if nothing had happened, lifting another forkful of cake to his mouth. Hang on… wasn’t that… didn’t they just have like… an indirect kiss?
Suddenly flustered at the idea, Lu Guang forced the food down his throat to avoid further thoughts, then reached over, pulling yet another balloon from the window and thwacking his friend with it.
“Hey!”
“It’s your fault, you just gave me an endless supply of arsenal by taping them all up on the windows!” Crap. He didn’t even know what he was rambling on about. All he could think about was that indirect kiss. Hadn’t that just been one? Technically? Or am I just overthinking things and being a child?
“Hmph!” Cheng Xiaoshi pouted again, before giving in to laughter. “You’re a lot less shy than you used to be, Lu Guang! Since when did that happen?” He asks.
Shaking his head to rid all stray thoughts from his mind (which were still revolving around an incident that Cheng Xiaoshi has most likely forgotten by now), Lu Guang pauses, unsure of how to answer this, but Cheng Xiaoshi’s attention is already fixated on the screen in front of them, so he keeps silent. An hour or two pass — “I can’t go to sleep now! The episode just left us off on a cliffhanger, so we have to watch the next one!” Cheng Xiaoshi had insisted, and Lu Guang, although he often prioritized a good night’s sleep, allowed just one more episode — with one more episode turning into two, then three, then a fourth. Lu Guang found himself hooked, and it was only when he felt a head drop onto his shoulder did he look up. And there was Cheng Xiaoshi, fast asleep, his head resting heavily on his right shoulder.
Lu Guang presses ‘pause’ on the computer screen, closing the laptop. When did he fall asleep? He wondered, bemused. He glanced down at his sleeping form, with his left cheek squished against his shoulder. I should wake him up now, right? I should just nudge his head off my shoulder now. That's what I did before, so I should follow suit…
He opened his mouth. No sound emitted from it.
Talk, you idiot! He chided himself. Wake him up! You don’t want to screw up the timeline already, do you?
Yet he could not bring himself to wake him up. He sat still for a few minutes, the only sounds in the room being that of Cheng Xiaoshi snoring softly. His shoulder was beginning to feel numb, but he didn’t care. Just this once… he prayed that the timeline will favor him in this one moment. The old Lu Guang would have shoved him off and left him to a slumped position on the couch. But now…
Lu Guang shook his head.
“Just don’t drool on me, you dumbass,” he advised him, knowing that he couldn’t hear him regardless. He rested his head on top of Cheng Xiaoshi’s and closed his eyes, savoring the small moment.
No matter if his shoulder dislocated, he would sit here. Screw the timeline.
*
“Lu Guaaang, don’t just stand there, come help me!”
“It’s 2 A.M. The last thing I’d be doing at 2 A.M. is cooking a five-course meal, for goodness’ sake.”
“It’s just noodles, nothing special! I didn’t eat dinner last night, so I’m hungry! C’mon, aren’t you willing to try another bowl of my famous ‘Bowl of the Male Dormitory’— part 2?” Cheng Xiaoshi gestured to the pot that was simmering on the stove.
Lu Guang didn’t even spare a glance at it. “You boiled the noodles for too long,” he commented. “Keep letting it boil for any longer and it’s gonna be ‘Lump of the Male Dormitory.’”
Cheng Xiaoshi looked down at the pot and jumped. “Aaah! You’re right!” He cried, turning off the heat. He quickly grabbed a strainer, holding it over the sink to drain out the extra water that was in the pot, before grabbing a bowl and dumping the noodles into it. He examined the contents of the bowl, noodles with bok choy and spinach tossed into the mix. He pursed his lips. “It’s not that overboiled,” he pointed out. He turned his attention back to the stove, where the noodle broth was still simmering. Cheng Xiaoshi pointed to the pot on the stove, and from where he was standing at the doorway, Lu Guang could see the shiitake mushrooms boiling in the pot of noodle broth.
“See these?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked, referring to the mushrooms. “I had them soaking in water overnight so I could use them for the noodles!”
“So you had this whole thing planned?” Lu Guang asked.
“You could say that!” Along with the mushrooms, chicken thighs were also being boiled in the pot, along with a few garlic cloves, the white parts of scallions, and ginger. Cheng Xiaoshi glanced at the clock overhead. “Ah! It’s been 30 minutes, that means the broth is done cooking!” He says.
“How do you know this?” Lu Guang asked in disbelief, watching as he used a chopstick to pierce through the thickest parts of the chicken thighs in the pot. Since when did he know how to cook?
It was only until after he removed the chopstick from the chicken did Cheng Xiaoshi respond. “My parents taught me. They’d always give this noodle soup to me when I was sick. After a while of me wondering what ‘magic’ they would put in the noodles to make it taste so good, they taught me how to cook it. We’d make it so often that over time, I gradually memorized the recipe.” He took out the chicken, placed them on a dry plate to cool, and then removed the vegetables from the pot, leaving only the broth.
Lu Guang, inwardly, was flabbergasted. He supposed some of it showed on the outside as well, as he found himself responding, “If you know how to cook, then why on earth have we been living on instant noodles for all these years??”
“This is the only dish I know!” protested Cheng Xiaoshi, holding up his hands placatingly. “You ask me to cook anything else, and I’d be lost. I mean, I suppose I’m good at assembling simple sandwiches, and unfreezing frozen dinners, and microwaving the microwavable stuff, like cup noodles…” His gaze turned thoughtful as he looked down at the pot on the stove. He began to season the broth with sesame oil and soy sauce. After taste-testing it, deciding that it needed more salt, he added a pinch of it into the pot.
Lu Guang refrains from commenting that those examples were things that anyone could do, deciding to keep his mouth shut for the time being. Instead, he inwardly notes the thoughtful look on his face. The expression was endearing intriguing.
“If our cupboards weren’t so bare all the time I’d be making this more often,” Cheng Xiaoshi continued. “This is like, the one time we have actual ingredients in this kitchen instead of the cabinets being stocked with cheap microwavable food.” In an undertone he added, “Guess we just gotta make do when we’re dirt-poor, huh?”
Lu Guang shrugged; he had no argument against that. He watches as Cheng Xiaoshi begins pulling off the skin of the chicken, discarding it before removing the meat of the chicken from the bones. He started cutting the chicken pieces into bite-sized shreds, before setting it aside.
“Aaaaaand, all we have left is to assemble the dish together!” He says cheerfully. He takes two bowls and divides an equal amount of noodles into each. From there, he poured in the mushroom-filled broth over the noodles, topping it with the vegetables and the thin pieces of chicken. Sprinkling some freshly-chopped scallion greens on top of the noodles, Lu Guang expected the dish to be complete, when Cheng Xiaoshi pulled out a bottle of chili oil and added it to the bowls. “Just to add some spiciness to it,” he explained.
Lu Guang stared down at the bowls. It… actually looked good. Guilt settled in his stomach; he had just stood there and watched as Cheng Xiaoshi cooked this, making some for him as well as for himself. And Lu Guang hadn’t even helped…
It’s fine. You hadn't helped him before, in the original timeline, right? So it’s fine. You've already made multiple, minuscule changes. Who knows if they affected the timeline? Don’t do anything unnecessary. One wrong move, and it will change the course of the timeline, and you’ll find yourself facing another empty, lifeless husk of your friend. Another corpse.
Lu Guang slapped himself, with such force that he staggered backwards a few steps, causing Cheng Xiaoshi to look up in alarm. “Lu Guang?! What was that for?” He cried out in disbelief. Seemingly worried that he might do it again, Cheng Xiaoshi seized his wrist. Inwardly Lu Guang hoped there wasn't a red handprint on his face.
His hands itched. He wished Cheng Xiaoshi would just let go.
You don’t want that, do you? You don’t want to see him die again, do you? So follow the rules, and don’t change anything. Every time you told Cheng Xiaoshi those set of rules before he went on a dive, it was just an admonishment for yourself, isn’t that correct? A warning for yourself to stick to the rules?
His hands itched so badly.
Lu Guang shook his head, offering his friend what he hoped was a smile, though maybe it was more of a grimace. “Ah, nothing, I’m fine. Must be the lack of sleep getting to me.”
Cheng Xiaoshi, seeming to understand that Lu Guang was probably exhausted and therefore was acting odd because of that, decided not to question him further. Instead he says, “Here, help me carry these to the sunroom.” He takes one bowl, motioning to Lu Guang to take the other. Lu Guang obeyed, following his friend as they made their way over to the brown, lumpy sofa.
Once they were seated, Cheng Xiaoshi grins as he looks down at their bowls, which were still steaming. He hastily picked up his chopsticks and sang, “Doesn’t it look delicious, Lu Guang?”
“Mhm.”
“What are you waiting for, then? The food’s not gonna eat itself, now is it?”
He didn’t bother responding. Always the wiser one, Lu Guang sits and waits for the food to cool down before attempting to eat it, not bothering to pick up an utensil.
His friend, however, does not have the patience that he has. Digging his chopsticks into the bowl, Cheng Xiaoshi brings the noodles to his mouth, still-grinning, before letting out a yelp in surprise, half the noodles dangling from his mouth as he uselessly flaps his hands at his face in an effort to cool it down. “Aah!” He exclaims through a mouthful of food, his eyes stinging. “I burned my tongue!”
“You pig,” Lu Guang chided, “what did you expect? It was just on the stove a few minutes ago!”
Cheng Xiaoshi slurps up the rest of the noodles that had been hanging from his mouth, wincing slightly at the heat, then protests, “I didn't want to wait too long, or the food would’ve gotten cold!”
Hopeless, Lu Guang thinks to himself. Utterly hopeless. “Waiting five minutes would not make it suddenly turn into the contents of a freezer, you idiot!”
“You never know!” He retorts cheekily.
A few minutes pass by in silence. Lu Guang looks down at his bowl. “You put too much in mine,” he comments, “take some.”
“OK.” As Cheng Xiaoshi lifts his chopsticks to scoop some noodles out of his bowl, Lu Guang’s mind drifts off.
Sometimes, he wished he could just wrap Cheng Xiaoshi in bubble wrap to finally feel at ease that death cannot take him in that way. Or maybe, he wished that he could shove his friend inside a gigantic, indestructible bubble, impenetrable to any outside forces that wished to cause him harm. On some days, he dreamed of a safe haven for them, and wondered if there ever was such a place. A place that they could just run away to and live in, a place where they could both be safe, and happy, and together, and alive.
If only it was that easy.
“Hellooo? Anybody in there?”
Lu Guang blinks. Cheng Xiaoshi was waving a hand in front of his face. “Oh, yeah, sorry.”
“I was calling your name for the past five minutes now! Were you not paying attention?”
“Sorry,” Lu Guang repeated, “I must’ve blanked out.” He looked down at his bowl. “Oh, thanks. There’s a lot less than before.” He goes to eat some of the noodles, only to feel Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes still on him.
“What?” asks Lu Guang, looking up from his bowl. He didn’t know how to feel about someone staring at him while he ate. Was there something on his face?
“Are you being serious?” asks his friend.
Now Lu Guang is confused. “About what?”
“About there being ‘a lot less than before’ in your bowl.”
“Um, yeah?”
Cheng Xiaoshi looks like he wants to facepalm. “I was testing you. Just to see if you really had been zoned out before. I literally only took one noodle strand from your bowl.”
Lu Guang is even more perplexed. “Huh? Are you sure?” He looked down at his bowl again. “I’m sure that it was a lot less emptier than before…” He shrugs, then glances at his friend, who was back to happily slurping up his noodles, seemingly deeming Lu Guang’s genuine confusion as not a big deal.
“Don’t eat too fast, you could choke,” says Lu Guang.
Cheng Xiaoshi swallowed another bite before responding. “I know, I know,” he grumbled. “Always on my case.”
This was the truth. Ever since last week, when Lu Guang had first dived back in time, he had been trailing after his friend everywhere he went like a lost puppy, making Cheng Xiaoshi snap at him every once in a while, getting increasingly annoyed.
“I’m just looking out for you,” Lu Guang replied, which was his roundabout way of saying, "I'm only trying to prevent any instance of you dying.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. But still.”
In a matter of minutes, Cheng Xiaoshi has finished his bowl of noodles. Now, he sits off to the side, quietly observing Lu Guang as he eats.
Noticing this, Lu Guang says, “Cheng Xiao—”
“When was the last time you slept?”
“Huh?” Lu Guang says dumbly, his mouth still slightly hung open for the words that would have emanated prior to his interruption. Where did that question come from?
“When was the last time you slept?” Cheng Xiaoshi repeated. “And I mean sleeping through the entire night kind of sleep, not just lying in bed.” He frowned. “Because the chopsticks keep missing your mouth. I’ve noticed that it happened twice in the span of a minute. Four times in two. You’re not eating the noodles because of that. Oh, and you also look extremely exhausted, you know. You keep zoning out whenever I’m talking to you. I can tell because your eyes keep unfocusing. Plus, they start to drift away in two different directions, too. It’s kinda creepy…” He finally lets himself take a breath, then asks again, as if to make sure Lu Guang heard the question, “When was the last time you slept?”
Lu Guang takes an excruciatingly long blink to make sure that he’s done. Once he’s certain, he takes a moment to think before answering. “Um… maybe a few… a couple of days ago?” It ended up sounding more like a question. Lu Guang honestly couldn’t remember. He hadn’t really had a good night’s sleep since he first dived back in time.
“... Oh my god.” Cheng Xiaoshi looked at him, aghast. Pushing aside his empty bowl, he raised his chopsticks, hovering them over Lu Guang’s bowl of noodles. “Here, let me eat some so I can help you finish this. It’s not like you’re gonna finish anytime soon.”
“Hey!”
“What? I can’t let precious food go to waste, you know! Especially since it’s my cooking, after all!” He shook his head. “Plus, you must be exhausted. Once you finish this, you’re going to go rest.”
“But I don’t—”
“No but’s.” Cheng Xiaoshi cut him off with a click of his tongue, gathering noodles with his chopsticks and bringing them to his mouth. He glances at Lu Guang and says through a mouth full of food, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you not eating this at all! C’mon, do you really not like my cooking? It seems that way, considering you haven’t eaten any of it!” He grinned mischievously; almost as if he knew that he was guilt-tripping Lu Guang and was enjoying every second of it.
“Cheng Xiaoshi!”
Cheng Xiaoshi looks up at him, his face the picture of innocence. “What? If you don’t want it, then I’ll just eat it.” Seeing Lu Guang struggle between a glare and a frown just made him all the more gleeful.
Feeling his eye twitching rapidly, Lu Guang shovels what must be the biggest bite of noodles imaginable into his mouth, chewing them quickly and swallowing. If he finished it fast, then maybe Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t…
In his peripheral vision, he noticed Cheng Xiaoshi taking noodles from the opposite side of the bowl as well.
Dang it.
“What are you doing?”
“Eating?” Cheng Xiaoshi raised a brow, genuinely confused.
“I’ll finish it by myself.”
“But I can help you!"
“Don’t be a pig,” Lu Guang scoffed. He envisioned it now… it would be a repeat of what happened with one of their earlier clients, who had run a noodle shop together. Him and Cheng Xiaoshi would start eating the noodles together, and before they knew it, they would find themselves having stumbled into a predicament of eating on opposite ends of a single noodle strand…
Lu Guang’s getting distracted. To stop himself from continuing that thought, he scarfed down the rest of the noodles, while Cheng Xiaoshi sat and watched him, pouting.
He seemed to go silent for a while, sulking and not saying a word to him. Lu Guang was annoyed at first, but unease quickly settled within the pit of his stomach. Cheng Xiaoshi was always so bubbly and talkative, it wasn’t like him to suddenly shut down and start acting so morose. While Lu Guang wanted to believe he was behaving this way just for show, now he wasn’t entirely sure. Was he really that upset? Had he really cared that much about sharing with Lu Guang? Was Lu Guang being too hostile with him?
He had never considered that before. Was his performance of maintaining the cold, aloof disposition of how he had behaved a year prior coming on too strong?
A frightful emotion stirs within his chest, one which he immediately tried to suppress. Stop. Now is not the time to overthink.
He looked down at the bowl, and relented. There was just enough noodles left for one bite. He gathered it in his chopsticks and looked over at his friend (who was gloomily picking up his glass of Cola and drawing his finger through the ring that had been left on the table, drawing what looked like a misshapen, frowny cat in the film of water).
“Do you…” Lu Guang rarely fumbles, but right now, it’s hard not to act amiable towards him, “...want the last bite?
Cheng Xiaoshi immediately perks up, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree. Lu Guang felt his heart skip a beat. Wherever did that smile come from? Lu Guang saves that expression and tucks it into a folder of his brain for safekeeping. He much rather preferred a happy, talkative Cheng Xiaoshi over a depressed, silent one.
“Really??? I can???” He asks joyfully.
“Yeah,” says Lu Guang, relieved at the relight of excitement in his voice.
Cheng Xiaoshi grinned from ear-to-ear. “Food always tastes better when you steal some from someone else's plate!” He chattered. “So…” He opened his mouth the slightest bit, like a child who was about to be fed via airplane-style, “give me some!”
Just as he had finished speaking, Lu Guang’s hand moved on his own, not bothering to give his actions any thought. He took the chopsticks that held the leftover noodles and brought them to Cheng Xiaoshi’s open mouth.
I’m just returning the favor from the time you fed me on my birthday, Lu Guang thought, trying to reason with his actions. It’s not a big deal.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s expression, however, was frozen in surprise, contradicting Lu Guang’s last thought. With the dim moonlight illuminating through the large windows, Lu Guang wasn’t quite sure if his tanned face was truly reddening from Lu Guang’s actions, or if it was just a trick of the light. He was inclined to believe the latter option.
Cheng Xiaoshi chewed slowly, before seemingly realizing that he was making an odd face. Before long, his expression melted into a bashful grin, as he began to laugh. “Hahahaha! Now that was a surprise!” He said, speaking faster than he normally would. “Didn’t think you’d actually do it!”
“Idiot. You told me to.”
“Yet you still did it!”
“I only followed what you said. Don’t act like it’s a big deal.” Was it getting hot in here? Lu Guang’s face felt warm. Maybe he should check on the air-conditioning when he gets a chance. It must have broken somehow.
He stood suddenly. “It’s late. I’m going to go back and lie down now.” Anything to escape this stuffy room. Anything to stop his face from heating up more than it has.
Cheng Xiaoshi stood as well. “Okay!” He says, “I’ll go wash the dishes and then I’ll come up to sleep, too.” He takes the bowls and his cup and retreats to the kitchen, and Lu Guang watches him go, before heading up the stairs to their shared loft.
He could’ve just asked me to do the dishes, especially since he’s the one who cooked the food, thought Lu Guang, guilt leaking into his mind once again. At the top of the stairs he swaps his sneakers to instead wear the fuzzy cat slippers that Cheng Xiaoshi had bought for him a while back. Surprisingly, it was also a white, scowling cat, similar to the keychain that currently hung from Lu Guang’s phone.
He walked into the room, glancing almost instinctively at Cheng Xiaoshi’s bed. The emptiness was a stark reminder of a week ago, when Lu Guang had walked into their room just like this, with an empty bunk facing him exactly like this—
Relax. Cheng Xiaoshi is fine. He’s downstairs cleaning dishes, nothing is wrong. Nobody’s dead right now—
He forces the thought down, instead noticing Cheng Xiaoshi’s messed up blankets from when he had woken up earlier.
Woken up. See? You can’t be dead if you can wake up. Lu Guang stuck to a logical — yet slightly delirious — mindset. He nodded to himself.
A plushie peeked over from beneath the blanket of the lower bunk— hang on… didn’t I buy him that? thought Lu Guang, as he stared down at the small stuffed toy of a black dog. Lu Guang recalled having bought it for his birthday, as a joke of how Cheng Xiaoshi was equally as energetic as a puppy. He supposed the reasoning behind Cheng Xiaoshi giving him a cat keychain on his birthday was payback for that time.
Still, he found it intriguing how they both kept each other’s gifts after all this time.
He reached the ladder to the top bunk, slipping off his slippers once he reached it and pushing them to the side with his foot so no one trips on them. He climbed up the wooden ladder and sat down on his bed, the thin mattress sinking beneath him as a result of the newly added weight.
He crawled under the covers, tucking it underneath his chin, before turning to lay on his side. Just as he did so, Cheng Xiaoshi bounded into the room.
“Psst!” says Cheng Xiaoshi, in a voice low enough that it wouldn’t disturb Lu Guang if he had been asleep, yet loud enough for him to have heard if he wasn’t. “Lu Guang, are you asleep?” He goes to stand directly in front of the bunk bed, peering up at the top bunk.
“Was just about to,” he replied, “but you startled me before I could.”
“Liar,” Cheng Xiaoshi responded cheerfully.
“What’s there not to believe?”
“As if I could believe the insomniac was suddenly able to fall asleep all of a sudden.” He moves to the desk and unties his hair, placing the hair tie inside one of the desk’s many drawers. Shrugging off his varsity jacket, he draped it over the desk chair and nodded absently to himself. Running a hand through his now unkempt, loose hair (but not seeming to mind its dishevelment), he then goes to his bed and buries himself beneath his comforter.
“Well” —Cheng Xiaoshi yawns mid-sentence— “goodnight.”
“…” The silence was loud in Lu Guang’s ears as he registered that Cheng Xiaoshi had stopped speaking. Lu Guang was suddenly struck with a sudden fear. Unbeknownst to where it came from, it startled him. He leaned over the railing to peer down at Cheng Xiaoshi, whose eyes were closed and whose arms were wrapped around the stuffed dog.
His eyes were closed…
Stop. He chided himself. He’s just asleep. Closed eyes doesn’t mean he’s dead—
Cheng Xiaoshi, seeming to have felt Lu Guang gazing at him, opened his eyes. “Something the matter?” He asked.
His mouth was dry. “No,” he croaked.
“Lying again,” Cheng Xiaoshi sang, wide-awake as ever. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” No. I’m worrying about you every step you take, anxious you might die again and I won’t be able to stop it, and I think I’m going crazy, and-
“No, you aren’t.”
And Lu Guang hated him because he was right. Changing the subject (while hoping Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t notice), he asks, “Aren’t you tired?”
And Cheng Xiaoshi apparently didn’t seem to realize because he responded, “Me? Nah. I think I’m starting to catch your insomnia.” He scooted a little bit away from the railing Lu Guang was leaned over, as if worried it was contagious.
“Don’t be a fool. Insomnia isn’t anywhere close to being a sickness.”
“I know that. Just playing.”
“And plus, idiots can’t catch colds.”
Cheng Xiaoshi gasped dramatically, wiping away a nonexistent tear from his eye. “Ouch! Aah, you wound me, Guang Guang!”
“… I really don’t think an apology is necessary.”
Cheng Xiaoshi sat up, the comforter falling from where it rested on top of his chest, as he grabbed the stuffed animal that sat beside him. He turned to it, holding up the dog plushy to his face and crying out indignantly, “Are you hearing this right now?! He says an apology isn’t necessary! This guy!” He shook his head and tsked.
“Childish. Talking to inanimate objects now…”
“At least the dog isn’t bullying me like you do!” He stuck out his tongue at him, further contributing to the comment of being childish.
Cheng Xiaoshi flopped back onto the bed, pulling the comforter back over him as he continued, “Really, Lu Guang. You’re looking off right now. Oh, and also… did you hit your head somewhere or something?”
“… No. Why?” He’d really rather not know why.
“You’ve been acting weird ever since the little birthday party I hosted for you last week. You’ve been following me everywhere I go. And you’ve been acting extra paranoid whenever you see me with potentially sharp objects, or even when I'm just doing something as simple as eating noodles like we were doing a few minutes ago! What was it that you said? ‘Don’t eat too fast, you could choke.’? Or something like that? And to add onto it, when I woke up earlier tonight, you rammed right into me as if on alert as to when or if I’d wake up! You were even asking if I was sick or nauseous and stuff! I just don’t understand that… why… what’s with you nowadays?” He turned to lie on his back, placing his hands behind his head, and locked eyes with Lu Guang, seemingly expecting a reasonable explanation.
… But Lu Guang couldn’t provide him one. How could he? He couldn’t tell him he wasn’t from this timeline. Wasn’t actually this Lu Guang.
“What don’t you understand?” He finds himself asking instead.
“Why you’re being so overprotective of me.”
“Because I’m just worried about you.” Worried to a much larger extent, he meant to say. But since Cheng Xiaoshi was already calling him overprotective, he assumed he got the unspoken words.
“Well, you don’t have to be! I can function perfectly fine on my own, thank you.”
“I know that. But—”
“But, you know I can manage,” he interrupts to assume his sentence. “On my own, I mean. With regular, everyday tasks like getting up randomly in the middle of the night for no reason other than not being tired at the moment, or using a knife for cooking, or eating noodles. Right?”
Lu Guang exhales slowly. “Mhm.” He accepts defeat. Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t understand, anyway.
Silence settles between the pair yet again. Lu Guang pushes himself back upwards and turns to lay on his left side facing the wall, no longer leaning over the railing. Absentmindedly, he rubs his thumb over the chipping white paint on the wall. “Hey, Cheng Xiaoshi…”
“Yeah?”
“Can you… talk?”
“Huh?”
“Talk.” I know that this is a selfish request, but for once… I’m willing to be selfish. “Just… talk for me. Just this once.” Talk. I want your voice to drown out the endless horrifying thoughts of your death in my head. Please. Just this once.
“Okay?” He sounded extremely confused.
Lu Guang is glad his friend can’t see his face right now. He fixed his eyes firmly to the ceiling, imagining Cheng Xiaoshi’s perplexed expression. The image helped settle the twisted knot in his stomach, but not entirely. The perturbed feeling he had just wouldn’t go away. The truth is, he was beginning to gain a fear of silence. Silence is what usually followed death, so it frightened him, whether he was willing to admit it or not.
The prospect of lying awake in a silent bedroom with no idea of whether his partner was asleep or dead in the bunk below his petrified him. Therefore, that was the reasoning behind his odd request.
“But why, though?” Cheng Xiaoshi pressed on, snapping Lu Guang from his thoughts.
He tried to come up with a plausible excuse. “I like your voice,” was the idiotic thing that left his mouth instead.
“Huh?!”
“It puts me to sleep,” he explained quickly.
“Oh.”
He could practically hear the cogs in Cheng Xiaoshi’s bewildered brain turning. “Okay, so does it matter what I say? Can I just ramble on about anything?”
“Yeah… if you’re fine with that.”
“I am! Think I caught your insomnia, because I’m wide awake. Do I stop talking when I hear you fall asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Okay…” He took a breath, then began his long rant. “Today Qiao Ling came over while you were at the front counter balancing checkbooks. Me and her played a few rounds of video games together… which she beat me at, as always…”
With him speaking, Lu Guang's imagination was now completely unable to construct new horrific ideas of possible ways Cheng Xiaoshi could die. With him droning on and on, and with the soft hum of the air conditioning reverberating through the room, there was no room for any thoughts in general. Drowsiness overtook Lu Guang before he could fully realize it.
Cheng Xiaoshi jumped from topic to topic, speaking of various random things that seemed to suddenly spring into his mind. He rambled aimlessly about anything that popped in his head. Just when Lu Guang was about to think that Cheng Xiaoshi would run out of things to say, he jumped to another topic, seemingly never running out of ideas.
“I saw an oddly shaped vegetable at the market the other day…”
His voice filled up the silence that haunted Lu Guang, and he laid there, listening and listening, secretly hoping that it would never stop.
“Once, a client requested to process the strangest photo…”
He felt oddly comforted with the realization that Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice would be the last thing he heard before he fell asleep.
“On the news, I heard that someone was kidnapped in the next province over. It’s scary, isn’t it, how could someone do such a thing…”
A part of Lu Guang felt enormously guilty for making him talk so much at such a great length of time. But another part of him selfishly blocked off that guilt.
“Now that I think about it, I might've added too much salt to tonight's ramyeon…”
Lu Guang slept with ease that night.
*
Lu Guang awoke to the sound of yelling.
“GET UP, GET UP, GET UP, THE SUNRISE IS SO PRETTY, THE BIRDS ARE CHIRPING, AND THE CLOUDS ARE PINK, AND —”
The voice was cut off by another, sounding half-awake, yet disgruntled. “Cheng Xiaoshi, let him sleep. Didn’t you say he was dealing with insomnia or something?”
Lu Guang, blinking through bleary eyes, registers Cheng Xiaoshi perched precariously on the top rung of the ladder. Qiao Ling is standing with her arms crossed at the doorway of their room, stifling a yawn as a toothbrush hangs loosely from her mouth.
Cheng Xiaoshi, looking at Qiao Ling with an expression reminiscent of a kicked puppy, pouted at her. “But… the sunrise… it’s so pretty…”
Lu Guang calmly replies before Qiao Ling gets a chance to, “You know what else is pretty? Sleep.” He promptly shuts his eyes close, the corners of his mouth twitching just the slightest bit at Cheng Xiaoshi’s surprised face.
Qiao Ling shrugs, waving her hand. “Well, when you do decide to get up, come downstairs. A client requested to process some photos,” she says.
Cheng Xiaoshi groaned. “Ugh, can’t that wait? Lu Guang needs to see the sunrise! And why did they come so early anyways?? The shop isn't even open yet, so can't it wait?”
“No-it-can-NOT!” Qiao Ling says, poking him in the ribs with each word. “That poor woman's been waiting at the door for hours, so hurry up!" She poked him some more for good measure.
“Oww! Lu Guang, help me, I’m being bullied! As if I don’t get enough of that from you anyways— but why must my sister follow your example!?”
Lu Guang reopened his eyes, sighing. He doesn’t move, however, and instead watches them bicker with faint interest.
“She’s not following my example if it’s physical abuse. Verbal abuse is what I do,” Lu Guang corrected.
“Lu Guaaaang!” He wailed. “Although you do have a point there, now is not the time!”
Qiao Ling, unable to help herself, snorted. “Anyways, Lu Guang, come downstairs whenever you’re ready.” She then eyed him, biting her lower lip worriedly. “Though, if I were you, I would sleep for a bit longer. You don’t look really good…” She frowned. “You can come down at noon. No, in the evening!”
When Lu Guang started to protest, she waved him off dismissively. “Uh-uh! Nope. I do not want to hear it! You’re going to rest. Those eyebags are starting to look like bruises and it’s worrying me!”
Qiao Ling handed her little brother an orange envelope that bulged with what Lu Guang guessed was film. “The customer said they wished to develop some photos of their kid. Said they had a wide variety of photos to choose from, and ended up settling on…aah… five photos to print, if I remember correctly?”
Cheng Xiaoshi nodded. “OK!” His eyes widened, and he turned to Lu Guang. “Hey! I just thought of something, what if you tried to do it?”
“Huh?!”
“Yeah! Y’know, what if you tried processing the photos? You hardly do it, you know! You’re always at the front counter filling out forms for customers and stuff, so what if we swapped for today?”
“But… the handling of film in the darkroom’s your area of expertise! I hardly do it!”
“Well, that’s the point! Allow this to be a learning experience!” Cheng Xiaoshi glanced to the side. “Right, Qiao Ling?”
She shifted uncomfortably, presumably surprised about her opinion being needed in this. “Uh, yeah! Learning experience!” She echoed, nodding. “Well, Lu Guang, whenever you’re ready…” She motioned to the envelope in Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand, then turned and went back downstairs.
With Qiao Ling gone, silence settled between the two. But it wasn't an awkward silence, not at all; if anything, it was more of a comfortable silence.
Cheng Xiaoshi peered down at Lu Guang. “You still look just as tired as yesterday,” he commented. “That bit of sleep did nothing. And considering you slept at 3 A.M., well… Oh, and you have bed-head, by the way.” He reached out a hand as if wanting to fix his hair, but then evidently decided against it at the last minute, retracting it.
“Yeah…” Lu Guang didn’t have the heart to tell him that his hair had been like that for the past week, as he had tossed and turned countlessly during the long nights when sleep never came to him.
Cheng Xiaoshi pursed his lips. “You should take care of yourself more, y’know.”
“Mhm.” Lu Guang’s mind wasn’t even on the conversation. He was more worried about how Cheng Xiaoshi was perched on the ladder. He could lose balance any minute now… maybe falling off the wrong way… thus hitting his head on the ground and —
Never mind.
Lu Guang sat up, making Cheng Xiaoshi protest, “No! Qiao Ling said you should sleep!”
“But I’m not tired,” he replied, a small white lie. Well, he was tired, but not in the physical sense. “How can I sleep if I’m not tired?” He held out a hand. “Here, let me develop those photos.”
Seeming to realize that this was a fight he could not win, Cheng Xiaoshi relented, handing him the envelope. “Fine.” Much to Lu Guang’s relief, he climbed down the ladder and back onto safe ground, and Lu Guang followed suit.
Fixing him with a gaze a teacher would give their trained pupil, Cheng Xiaoshi states, “I’ll be in the front with Qiao Ling if you need anything.” Then, he too, left.
*
What better place to be having a panic attack than inside a darkroom.
Everything had been going perfectly fine at first. Lu Guang had been busily developing the customer’s photographs in the darkroom, opening the film cassette and unrolling the film. After cutting through the film in the required areas, he loaded it onto the reel.
He heard laughing coming from the entrance of the studio, unmistakably belonging to Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi. He wondered what it was they were laughing about.
He shook his head, placing the reel into the film tank. It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about anyone else right now. They’re fine. Just focus on the task at hand.
So he did. And for a while, everything was fine. He worked hard at the photo development, tipping photos back and forth in the developer solution. Soon enough, he watched in quiet awe as an image of a small boy appeared in the developer.
Ah. So this is the reason why Cheng Xiaoshi enjoys the darkroom more than working at the front. Seeing an image like that appear almost out of nowhere, was truly magical.
Lu Guang was glad things like these required complete concentration; being concentrated allowed no intrusive thoughts to slip into his mind.
Until it did.
As he pinned the photos on the line to dry, a stray thought came to his mind.
Here I am, stuck inside a room, while Cheng Xiaoshi is out of my line of sight.
His heartbeat tripled at the thought. He listened closely, and found that the muffled chatter he swore he’d heard before as he was working, was now gone. Only now did he begin to find the silence unnerving. While he tried to tell himself that Cheng Xiaoshi was fine—just fine! — and that everything was completely, perfectly normal and nothing was wrong, well, now he was beginning to have second thoughts.
Where is he?
Why is it quiet outside?
What if he… could he have somehow…
Anxiously, he glances at his watch. It’s been more than an hour since he first entered the darkroom. Surely, surely something wrong must've happened—?
His heart leaped into his throat. His gaze drifted from his watch to his hands, which he only just realized were shaking.
This action, he realized, of looking down at his hands, was a mistake that he immediately regretted. The red light inside the darkroom that was being cast upon his hands at that very moment made his thoughts go haywire. Anxiety overwhelmed him, and before he could stop it, he had began spiraling without fully realizing it.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s silence can only mean one thing.
Absentmindedly, he scratched at his itchy skin, the red lighting of the darkroom not helping his already-dwindling mental state by any means, trying his best to get rid of the imaginary blood he felt clinging underneath his fingernails, blood that only he could see.
There’s blood on my hands.
It’s just like last time.
Just.
Like.
Last time.
Images flashed through his mind before he could stop them, random images and memories that he had tried so hard throughout this past week to suppress without success.
a gunshot that reverberated through the silent night, a constant echo that rang through his ears endlessly
a bullet hole
blood gurgling from his wound
cheng xiaoshi
dead
no
blood that shone as red as apple skins
no no no no no
heartbeat
bloodstained hands
this isn't happening
eyes growing dim and blank
what did he do to deserve this
why wasn’t his heart beating
breathing
why is this happening
gasping for his last breath
he did nothing to deserve this
no longer breathing
why wasn’t he breathing
dying dying dying dying
I’ve caused his death to occur again. Essentially, I’ve killed him.
Lu Guang’s palms, which originally felt dry and cool, now felt slick with the sensation of his friend’s hot blood. From that day.
He scratched and scratched. If he scratched hard enough, maybe the phantom blood would go away. He glanced down at his hands, and a fleck of blood was visible on his marred knuckles— which have now turned an unfortunate shade of red, though this time not only visible to his eyes. His hands, already containing red calluses on his knuckles and ugly scabs as a result of this gruesome habit, were now gaining more red marks to add to the collection.
I killed him.
Lu Guang continued to scratch at the unbearable itching. Itchy. Itchy. My hands, why won’t they stop being itchy!
He's alone right now. So it's fine. He can lose his composure for a bit. Nobody would know, nobody would see. In a few minutes he would straighten himself out, and act like nothing was wrong, like he always did. It would be fine.
His ears began to ring. Everything started to sound muffled and weird. Ha-ha. It’s almost a funny feeling. Everything sounded so far away. It sounded like static, static that only continued to turn up and up, rising in volume inside his head and ears.
He paced back and forth in the darkroom, and found that his eyes couldn’t focus.
Nothing’s working as they’re supposed to today, aren’t they? Stupid ears, stupid eyes, stupid brain, stupid itchy, itchy hands—
He scratched and scratched, seemingly subconsciously, his mind beginning to get more and more muddled and disoriented and terrified. Memories of Cheng Xiaoshi’s death clashed with reality, starting to mix into his recollections.
He’s dead. He’s dead. I did it again. I couldn’t save him. I killed him again.
He glanced down, and his eyes widened in surprise. His skin was scratched raw.
Shit. I didn’t realize. Now everyone will question me about this! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry —
His hands stung, but the stinging and the itchiness distracted him from his thoughts, so that was okay. He tried his best to scratch the blood off.
Why isn’t it coming off…
He scratched harder. The itching just wouldn’t go away. Neither did the blood.
The blood. Cheng Xiaoshi's blood. Cheng Xiaoshi's blood.
On.
His.
Hands.
He had to stop this. He knew this was bad. This wasn’t a good thing to do. He won’t scratch it again, no, he won’t, he won’t, he won’t —
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I just can’t stop—” Words flew out of his mouth in a string of incoherent apologies, an unintelligible flurry of begging to people who weren’t even there. As to whom he was apologizing to, well, he didn't know.
Stop this, he urged himself. Stop. You know that it's bad. You're only going to end up hurting yourself.
He paused, almost considering it, before his nails dug into his skin yet again, sinking into the raw flesh as he scratched at it.
Hurting himself... well, that wasn't anything new, was it? For all that he's done, didn't he deserve it?
So Lu Guang didn't stop.
I killed him. He’s dead.
His hands were contaminated with Cheng Xiaoshi’s blood. But he just couldn't get it off. Along with the pungent, sulfurous odor of the chemicals in the darkroom, the metallic scent of his friend’s blood still lingered in the air when Lu Guang breathed in.
Cheng Xiaoshi is dea—
“Lu Guang’s still developing your photos.”
Lu Guang froze. The static and muffled feeling in his ears disappeared, leaving his hearing to correctly identify ordinary sounds. Could that be…?
“Yes, they’ll turn out just wonderful! I have full faith in his abilities!”
That cheerful voice…
… belongs to Cheng Xiaoshi.
That means…that means that he’s okay.
Crap. This was bad. This was really, really bad. If Cheng Xiaoshi found him here, in this state—
He had to get out of here.
Edging towards the door, he twisted the knob as slowly and carefully as possible, not wanting the door to creak. After successfully opening it without alerting anyone outside, he headed for the stairs in front of the darkroom.
Bathroom. He had to get to the bathroom. The med kits were usually located there. If he patched himself up before anyone saw, then… then he’ll be fine. Just fine.
He had reached the foot of the stairs, when his eyes landed on the front counter near the studio’s entrance. A woman, presumably the customer, was talking animatedly to Cheng Xiaoshi. Lu Guang couldn't tell what they were talking about, but he saw the woman lean over the counter, batting her eyelashes and— yep, she was blushing as red as a tomato. Lu Guang heard her let out a soft, flirtatious sound of laughter that rang out like a tinkling bell. He suspected that the woman was halfway through her marriage proposal to Cheng Xiaoshi.
“Get away from him. He doesn't like it when people get too close to him,” Lu Guang muttered to himself, too far away for any of them to hear. And just at that moment, he saw Cheng Xiaoshi back away a few steps from the woman, all the while smiling obliviously.
“Ma’am, step away from the man, you look double his age,” he mumbled. Plus, doesn't she have a kid? He wondered, thinking back to the photos he had been developing. He wasn't jealous, not at all. He was just…looking out for his friend. Yeah.
At that moment, Cheng Xiaoshi looked up from the woman, his eyes landing on the stairs, and— oh, shit, they made eye contact.
This was bad. This was really bad. Lu Guang couldn't let him find out his disgusting habits. He scurried up the stairs three at a time, reaching his destination and swinging the door open, scrambling into the bathroom. He needed to disinfect the wounds. Quickly. Med kit… Med kit… Where is it…
He found it in the cabinet above the toilet, and once he grabbed ahold of it, he nearly dropped it on his foot. His hands shook too badly to be able to grip onto it.
Somehow managing to grab onto it again without dropping it this time, he placed it down on the counter next to the sink. Glancing at his reflection in the mirror and turning back down to the med kit— he did a double take. Looking back up at the mirror, he stared at his reflection.
It was…ugly. So damn ugly. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his hair was messed up, and his hands…
He turned his eyes away from his hand's hideous state of affairs and sighed. He needed to wash his hands, that was the first step. Boy this was going to hurt. Then again, he did this to himself, so he deserved it anyway—
He switched on the faucet and braced himself. Calm down, this'll only hurt a bit—
“What are you doing?"
He froze. Panic clogged his throat. Oh no oh no this is bad this is bad this is really really bad I screwed up I screwed up…
He turned his head. And there stood Cheng Xiaoshi, his arms crossed as he stood at the doorway, when he caught sight of Lu Guang's hands and gaped, aghast.
“Lu Guang! ” He cried out, rushing over to him and grabbing his wrists, immediately noticing the discoloration of his hands. Lu Guang tried pulling away, but Cheng Xiaoshi did not let go. Oh, well. All hope in hiding his hands before his friend noticed was gone now.
Cheng Xiaoshi raised his voice, now growing increasingly agitated as he eyed the angry red scratch marks on his friend's hands. “Lu Guang, who did this?! Who did this to you? Tell me!” He demanded. “Was someone being mean to you?”
“No one!" Dammit, you complete idiot! The one time that you're supposed to lie! You've been pretty good at that this entire time by hiding the fact that you're from the future, so what the hell happened now, you dumbass?!
Cheng Xiaoshi stared in stunned disbelief, dumbfounded. “Then… Does that mean…did you do this? Were you mean to yourself?”
Lu Guang stayed silent, neither confirming nor denying it.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes widened as large as saucers. “No… No, you wouldn't do that. You really wouldn't do that. Why would you do that?" He laughed a little nervous laugh that went up and down.
Still keeping a hold of his wrists as if to make sure Lu Guang didn't damage his scratched-raw hands more than they already were, he brought his hands underneath the sink and rinsed them. When he added soap to his hands, Lu Guang winced and suppressed a small noise of pain at the unbearable burning sensation, biting his tongue. Just bear with it. You did this to yourself.
“It must hurt so much..." Cheng Xiaoshi's voice shook, "you must be in so much pain."
It's nothing compared to the pain of losing you.
"Just answer me truthfully. Why? Why would you do that?!" He repeated indignantly. Cheng Xiaoshi sounded like he was trying to be mad, but he just sounded too heartbroken for the anger to be working.
Not waiting for a response, he rummaged through the kit, grabbed a roll of bandages and some antibiotic cream, and applied the ointment to Lu Guang's hands. Wrapping the bandages around his palms, leaving the fingers free, Cheng Xiaoshi stared down at them, before placing a quick peck on the bandaged hands.
Lu Guang's ears burned, before noticing Cheng Xiaoshi's expression.
His eyes were pooled with tears.
“Kissing it better,” Cheng Xiaoshi explained, sniffling. “Because you’re in pain, right?”
“R-right…”
He frowned, his lip trembling, and he pursed them to stop it from showing. “I don’t think it worked, though…”
“It did, don’t worry.”
… Lu Guang wasn't sure if he should be allowed to enjoy that action now. Not with him crying as he had kissed his hand.
“Why did you do that?” Cheng Xiaoshi repeated. “Why? I can tell that it's self-inflicted.”
Because I was just...stressed. Yes, that's it. He was stressed. “That doesn't matter right now. I'm just glad you're okay."
Cheng Xiaoshi narrowed his eyes. “I… I can't believe what you're saying! I'M not the one you should be worrying about, it's you who needs worrying! I mean, look at you!” He looked like he wanted to either sob, rip his hair out in frustration, or both. “Why do you act like you're okay when you're not?" His voice cracked.
“... What else am I supposed to do?"
“Talk to me.” He pleaded. “Please. Whatever happens, you can always tell me about anything that's bothering you. I don't care if it's just a small, minuscule, or insignificant petty thing that's bothering you. I don't care if it's something big. I'm always going to listen.”
“I can't.”
“Why?"
“You're not supposed to know."
“And why not? Why can't you just tell me?”
“Because I just can't.” You won’t trust me anymore if I told you I’m actually from the future and I dived back in time to save you from your death. In fact, you might even get angry once you find out that I did, that I broke the rules to save someone from the dead even after telling you to never do that exact thing. You'd call me a hypocrite, and rightfully so, too. You might get mad at me, thinking my actions were unjust and not right—which they are— and you might think it’s unfair. “How could you save me while I can never save clients on a dive?” That’s what you would say. And I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to hate me. That’s the last thing I want. The person I literally live for resenting me might just break me. So I can’t. I can’t tell you. I’m too much of a coward to do so.
“But if it'll lessen the pain—”
“Nothing will lessen the pain, “ he snapped. Cheng Xiaoshi stared at him, looking at him as if Lu Guang had just slapped him." What?”
Damn it. Spoke without thinking. “Nothing can…" he muttered. It hurts too much. But I'm not supposed to tell him. He can't find out.
“Lu Guang, I need you to know that you shouldn't feel afraid to tell me anything! I want to lessen the burden you've been carrying. Who knows how long you've been doing so…how long you’ve kept that burden inside of you…" Warily, he glanced at Lu Guang's bandaged hands.
“Did you… realize you were doing that?" He asked cautiously. Even though he didn’t know why his hands were like that, he knew what had to have happened for them to get to that scratched-up point. Intrusive thoughts.
Lu Guang shifted uncomfortably. The scarred, mutilated knuckles were a result of this ugly habit of his. “Whenever my thoughts get too out of hand, I end up scratching at my hands. Though…this is the first time it's ever gotten this bad.” He swallowed.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes widened. “I’ve never realized… that the scabs and scars on your hands were a result of that,” he muttered to himself. Looking back up at Lu Guang he asks, “And… I assume that the reason you were unable to sleep is a result of this… thing, that's bothering you?"
“Your assumptions are correct," he admitted.
“...Wanna talk about it?"
“No."
Cheng Xiaoshi bit his lip, then nodded. “Did you do this because… your feelings began to build up and build up?”
He nodded.
“... Since when?"
Now Lu Guang is confused. “Huh?"
“Since when have you, one: been scratching your hands and two: been having these intrusive thoughts?”
Lu Guang doesn't even have to think. The date of Cheng Xiaoshi's death is forever burned into his mind. “Since exactly one week ago.”
“Holy shit…” Cheng Xiaoshi's eyebrows shot up. Then he rearranged his face into a reassuring expression, akin to the face a person makes when not wanting to startle a frightened child. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” He asked again.
Lu Guang shook his head. “I don’t…I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry, I couldn’t– I wasn’t thinking straight—”
“It’s okay. You’re okay now. We don't have to talk about it right now, okay? So you don’t have to apologize.” Cheng Xiaoshi raised his arm, and instinctively, Lu Guang recoiled. Cheng Xiaoshi frowned at that, before tentatively moving to gently brush the hair out of Lu Guang’s eyes and dropping his hand back to his side.
A simple action that had come so naturally.
“Don't do this anymore, okay?" When he got no response, he repeated. “Don't do it anymore. Please."
“I can't help it—”
Cheng Xiaoshi interrupts him, “Whenever you feel like your head is being mean to you, come to me.” He raised a hand, bringing it to rest atop Lu Guang’s damaged ones in a gentle hold. Neither of them mention it, and Lu Guang is certain that his friend noticed from the way his grip tightened, but Lu Guang’s hands were spasming beneath his. But the small gesture brought him comfort, so he wasn’t about to push him away.
Wow, his hands hurt. Then again, it was his own fault, so…
“We can get through this together, okay? I want your burdens to become mine."
Kind, compassionate Cheng Xiaoshi. The empath who always took other people's pain and made it his own. How could such a pure person exist? Lu Guang still didn't know.
“... Okay."
Cheng Xiaoshi paused, before saying, “You always bottle up your emotions, Lu Guang. It isn’t healthy. I can never tell what you’re thinking or feeling. I can never tell when you’re suffering.” He glanced up at him. “And one day, just as you have now, you’ll end up breaking. Breaking, like a glass bottle. Shattering. And everything…everything will just come pouring out, like water spilling out of a broken dam, rushing too fast for you to be able to stop it.”
Lu Guang wants to protest, but there isn’t a proper rebuttal against this. Did he bottle things up too much? Did Cheng Xiaoshi feel as though he hardly knew anything about him? After all, he did just claim that he felt as though Lu Guang always hid his thoughts and opinions from him. Should he be more open about his feelings sometimes?
Were his walls too high?
Cheng Xiaoshi flicked his forehead. “Hey! Zoning out again. Just by looking at you I can tell you’re overthinking.” He raised an eyebrow. “Man, you’re so mysterious. I do wonder what goes on in there. In your head, I mean. You’re always thinking, you know. Sometimes you end up overthinking your decisions, even if it’s something as simple as deciding on what to wear for the day…”
While Cheng Xiaoshi was looking at him, Lu Guang could tell that his mind was elsewhere, far beyond the confines of this bathroom. Or this studio, for that matter. “You must be so fragile inside despite the calm and collected outward appearance you maintain for others to see,” he continued. He smiled bitterly. “Y’know what I’m the most scared about? That one day you’ll end up breaking in a worse manner than what’s happened now. Far worse, and I won’t be able to stop it.”
Lu Guang didn’t like the sound of that. From his wording, it seemed to Lu Guang that Cheng Xiaoshi was worried he might accidentally end up killing himself. “Idiot… what are you talking about?”
His friend blinked, as if being roused out of his thoughts. “I don’t know,” he said blankly. “Just rambling my thoughts. But what I do know is that you don’t need to pretend to be okay in front of me.” He squeezed Lu Guang’s hand in a reassuring gesture. “Don’t hide your pain. Don’t lock it all up inside. It’ll end up killing you in the long run. What I’m trying to say is, it’s okay to be vulnerable in front of me. It’s okay to be selfish sometimes.”
Even if my selfishness is by breaking the space and time continuum just to keep you alive?
“I want you to share all your pain with me.”
Even if my pain involves your death?
“I want you to share all your anxieties with me.”
Even if my anxieties revolve around your well-being?
“I want you to be happy.”
Even if my happiness is you?
“So…can you do that for me?”
Slowly, Lu Guang nods. “Yeah.” But not everything. I can’t tell you everything. I’m sorry, but it’s for your own good.
Cheng Xiaoshi offers him a smile. “Good. That’s good.” He shrugged off his jacket. “Here, take this.”
“...What? Why?”
“I'm not sure…if you'd feel comfortable with everyone seeing your bandages…so use my jacket.” He eyed the sleeve cuffs of Lu Guang’s white button-up. “Because the sleeves of your shirt aren’t nearly long enough to hide them. Plus, the jacket sleeves are pretty long, so they’d hide your hands perfectly fine.” He handed him the jacket. “So the only logical solution is to just take it.”
Lu Guang reluctantly accepted it, and found that Cheng Xiaoshi was right; his hands disappeared within the long sleeves of the coat, his fingertips barely reaching the end of the sleeve.
He gazed at himself in the mirror. If the situation weren’t so serious he would have laughed. He really did look bizarre. The jacket was relatively large on him, as Cheng Xiaoshi had broader shoulders and longer arms than he did.
Lu Guang surrounded himself with his friend’s smell that still lingered on the coat—which is surprisingly sweet? He glances at Cheng Xiaoshi with a raised eyebrow, who seems to read his mind as he turns pink, slightly bashful as he explains, answering the unspoken question, “Mooncakes. I accidentally got crumbs on my jacket earlier, but it's gone now.”
“... Ah.”
Cheng Xiaoshi turns to leave, before glancing back at Lu Guang in surprise. “You’re not coming?” He asks. Lu Guang hated how his gaze landed on practically every sharp object the bathroom had to offer, a razor, a pair of scissors, even a nail-cutter. Almost as if he was afraid to leave him alone anymore.
Kind of like… how I’m afraid to leave him alone.
Nodding, Lu Guang follows and exits the bathroom with his partner, leaving before his brain could get the chance to become imaginative again, making him smell the blood that had soaked through Cheng Xiaoshi’s coat on that day.
*
The rest of the day passed mostly without incident. Lu Guang tried his best to follow the script like he was supposed to— though if he was being honest with himself, he’d changed far too many things at this point.
Customers came and went, and Cheng Xiaoshi seemed to realize that his injuries had to do with the darkroom, because he made Lu Guang stand at the front instead of going back in there, taking back the duty of photo-processing for himself.
Lu Guang didn’t mind. If anything, he felt much clearer-headed than earlier.
Before he knew it, evening had arrived, and they closed the shop. Lu Guang had been in the kitchen, making some tea, as he listened to the conversation that was occurring in the sunroom.
Qiao Ling, having nothing else better to do, had decided to stay, seating herself on the couch next to her little brother and telling him about her day, which mostly consisted of her complaining how Xu Shanshan kept trying to set her up on blind dates when she wasn’t the least bit interested.
“She has her own love life, why must she worry about mine so much?” She grumbled. Cheng Xiaoshi let her rant, intrigued as ever. They switched over from various topics, until Lu Guang caught his name being uttered.
Qiao Ling called these discussions ‘sibling-bonding talks,’ whereas Cheng Xiaoshi called them ‘sibling-gossip-sessions.’ Lu Guang was inclined to agree with Cheng Xiaoshi, because from what he could tell, they were most definitely talking about him.
They had lowered their voices, presumably not wanting him to eavesdrop, but curiosity got the better of him, and he strained to hear what they were saying.
“Hey,” Cheng Xiaoshi murmured to Qiao Ling, “doesn’t Lu Guang… remind you of a cat?”
Lu Guang nearly choked on his tea. What on earth was this discussion? Having expected them to be talking about something serious, this caught him completely off-guard.
“He does, doesn’t he??” Qiao Ling agreed, smothering a laugh. “Always napping!”
“Always grumpy!” Cheng Xiaoshi added.
… Lu Guang really didn’t know how to feel about this. He wasn’t sure if he should feel annoyed, or amused, or absurd. Instead he settled on embarrassed, the conversation making him flustered for some reason. Of all the things to be talking about. They could choose anything else to talk about, so why this? This is so stupid. Stop talking about this.
They didn't.
“And he always likes to spend time alone! Whenever I ask him to come along with me to go out for dinner together with Xu Shanshan and Dong Yi, he always finds some reason to decline!” mutters Qiao Ling.
It’s not my fault I’m not a people person, he thinks to himself, sure his face is burning red by now.
“See?? All valid points, my dear landlady!” Cheng Xiaoshi cried out, not bothering to lower his voice anymore.
“Exactly! And lower your voice, he might hear you!” She hissed, shushing him.
“Oh, right! Sorry,” he replied, bringing his voice down to a whisper.
Lu Guang wasn’t about to barge into the room and ask them why they were having their odd conversation, though. He wasn’t that kind of person. Instead, he listened as their hushed whispering turned back to their usual squabbles, arguing over who would win in one of their video games.
“The loser has to buy the winner snacks!” Qiao Ling declared.
“Then make sure you have enough money on hand!” her brother replied cheerfully. And sure enough, Lu Guang could hear the music of one of their mobile fighting games. Inwardly, he betted on who would win. Qiao Ling, most likely, he thought, standing at the doorway of the kitchen and sipping his still-steaming mug of tea. They didn’t notice him, however, engrossed as they were in their games. A few minutes passed by, with the pair furiously tapping at their phones.
And sure enough, he heard the “K.O! ” coming from Cheng Xiaoshi’s phone, along with a “Nooo!” of despair as Cheng Xiaoshi dropped his head in defeat.
Lu Guang allowed himself a small smirk. Idiot, what did you expect? No one can beat Qiao Ling. He shook his head. I knew you’d lose.
Qiao Ling’s phone, however, rang out with a “Perfect! ” and she let out a whoop of victory, pumping her fist into the air. “Hahaha, I won! As always!” She patted Cheng Xiaoshi on the shoulder sympathetically. “There, there. You still have so much to learn before you will ever be able to successfully beat me, young one.”
“Qiao Liiiinnnng,” he whined, flailing his arms and legs like a child throwing a tantrum, “don’t you patronize me!”
“I’m not!”
He ruffles his hair somewhat aggressively with both hands, not willing to back down. “Whatever, I demand another round!"
“Quit being a sore loser! Just admit defeat!”
“Never!”
She sighs. “You know what, fine. Just one more try. But I’m not gonna go easy on you!”
“Yesss!” He let out a cheer. Then, he slumped. “I don’t wanna die again,” he grumbled.
Lu Guang felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. His limbs moving on his own, he rushed over to Cheng Xiaoshi and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You are not going to die!” He exclaimed, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop it.
Cheng Xiaoshi looks up at him. “Lu Guang!” He squeaks. “What are you doing?”
He processes what he just did, releasing his shoulders. “Um. I can explain,” he said. Crap. He can’t explain. Stupid head with your stupid imagination. Why does every small sentence have to trigger you? “I don’t have an explanation,” he admits lamely.
Lu Guang thinks fast before Cheng Xiaoshi can get a chance to say anything. “What are you doing?” He asks instead, masking his embarrassment with an abrupt subject change. “Being all pessimistic like that, claiming you can’t win a game.”
His friend brightened, and slung his arm around Lu Guang's shoulders. Lu Guang did not tell him to remove it.
“See, Lu Guang has confidence in me!” Cheng Xiaoshi says to Qiao Ling, beaming.
.
.
.
...Only for that beam to dissipate approximately five minutes later.
Lu Guang watched as Qiao Ling laughed at her brother, who was dejectedly pretending to sob as he pulled out his wallet. “Fine, Qiao Ling,” he says, getting to his feet, “I’ll buy us some snacks.”
As Qiao Ling celebrates, Lu Guang looks up at the glass windows above him. He watched as the wind whipped some stray leaves over the windows that had multiple dirt smudges scattered all over it, several tree branches smacking across the glass. One of these days, they’re going to make a crack in the glass.
Frowning, he gestures to the windows. “It’s horribly windy outside.” He notices that the siblings have already reached the front door, swinging it open as the voice monitor chimed as it always did,
“Boss, someone’s at the door!”
Surprisingly, Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t snap at it this time. Instead he says cheerfully as he walks out the door, “Yes, we know that!” He turns to Lu Guang, who has barely caught up to them, and says in response to his statement, “So what if there’s a little wind?”
“A little?” Lu Guang asked incredulously, watching as Cheng Xiaoshi’s hair whipped around his face, his bangs getting into his eyes as a result.
“No wind can stop us from getting some tasty snacks!” He grabs Lu Guang’s hand, and does not pull away when his hand closes around the bandaged ones. Not repulsed by it in the least, Cheng Xiaoshi grins at him, though his eyes hold a different message, one that seems to say, 'can’t we talk about it?'
Although their telepathic communication only works during a dive, Lu Guang answers him in his mind, hoping his message reaches him. We will, he promised. We will. Just not right now. Not right now. I want to enjoy the present, this old past that has now become new. And honestly? He found that he rather liked this version of the past much better than the previous one, where he was cold and unfriendly to his friend, where he kept everything locked up deep within himself, keeping his feelings buried and out-of-reach from everyone, including himself. Where he kept himself so mentally guarded, never once allowing the mask to slip.
But now, he was fine with lowering the mask from his face. Now, he felt like it was possible to remove it. He felt as if there was no more reason to be afraid, not when he once again had Cheng Xiaoshi by his side. His friend had told him that he shouldn't be afraid anymore of confiding his troubles to him, so starting from today, he will.
Every inconsequential thing. He would be more than willing to share it now, because it was with Cheng Xiaoshi.
He would try to stop the hand-scratching habits. He would try to stop the spiraling. Because he had Cheng Xiaoshi with him now. And no matter how many times it took, no matter how many timelines he had to go through, Lu Guang knew he wouldn't stop trying until his friend was finally safe. Yes, Cheng Xiaoshi's death still loomed over him, but now, maybe things would be different. Because they had to be.
“I'll even stop by the boba place for you on our way back home," said Cheng Xiaoshi.
“But we still have that giant tub of leftover tea from my birthday," Lu Guang pointed out.
“Ehh, it's probably stale by now!"
“You fool. Tea doesn't go stale.”
“Whatever!" He stuck out his tongue.
"I notice you always say that whenever you have no arguments left to back yourself up."
"Lu Guaang!"
The few rays of sunlight reflected in his eyes at that moment. Cheng Xiaoshi had these brown eyes that, of course, mostly everyone had. Hardly anyone wouldn't notice them at first, since they were so plain. But when sunlight hits them as it was doing right now, Lu Guang found that he just couldn’t describe them as plain. They aren’t just boring brown eyes anymore. They melt into golden rays, like a sun. Almost like pools of honey, similar to the color his eyes turned into whenever he was on a dive. But when Cheng Xiaoshi was happy, as he was right now, Lu Guang noticed just how much they twinkle. Like stars.
He had kept himself under control so much in the past, monitoring his every moment, overthinking on how to act during certain situations and pre-planning what to do and what to say for every situation that came his way, so much that he didn't feel genuine happiness anymore. But now, he found that he was happy, just by doing simple things with Cheng Xiaoshi, just by being with Cheng Xiaoshi. Yes, he was genuinely happy, and allowed himself to be, for perhaps the first time in his life.
His friend's jacket was warm, as well as his hand that still clutched his tightly. There was no reason for him not to be happy.
“Cheng Xiaoshiiiii! Lu Guaaaang! Hurry up, you slowpokes, or I'm gonna pick the most expensive desserts for you to buy!" Qiao Ling called out, already several feet ahead of them.
“Coming!" Cheng Xiaoshi hollers back. He turns to flash a smile at Lu Guang, and he's startled by just how genuine it felt compared to his friend’s other sunny smiles. “We have to catch up to her or she'll call me a slowpoke forever! And I'll probably never hear the end of it! Come on!" Cheng Xiaoshi says, breaking into a run as Lu Guang follows suit, allowing himself a small smile as they race after Qiao Ling with their hands still interlocked. “Let's go, together!"
.
.
.
It was a beautiful day.