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Part 7
Page 2
Wenlong's family was an old one. As such, they were
still the legal proprietors of the Raw Jade Siheyuan, all four houses and
the courtyard therein. Their ancestors being shrewd lower-middle-class
businessmen, the present generation had also harnessed the art, in the
form of renting three of these four houses out to other families to supplement
income.
The Cao family itself lived in the east house, a
neatly traditional family unit of a mother, father, and two children. All
of whom were gone, save the younger son.
Wensley nudged the door of the fridge open with
his foot. He crouched, and inspected the rather dismal contents.
A family of cunning businessmen also meant one very
thrift and frugal. Food was something of an abstract concept here.
He settled on a pair of beer bottles, hidden quite
ineffectively near the back by his father. They clinked and the cold glass
was good on roughened hands, and more than that, he could almost hear Jianmin
in the next room perking up at the sound. Pavlov would be proud.
"This all right for now?" he asked, emerging into
his sister's and his shared bedroom with beers in hand. He tossed one to
his boyfriend. "I can cook up some ramen later if you're hungry. Probably."
"Hnn," was Jianmin's initial response. The view
out the window was drawing his attention for some reason. "Better you'n
me. I don' wanna get us sick."
Mild laugh. "Sorry, but Sis's gone at a friend's
this week. Else we could make her do it."
"Where're yer folks?"
It wasn't a mild statement. Wenlong's parents didn't
like Jianmin. As far as they were concerned, he was the primary reason
their son had suicided his academic career. It was generally seen as a
good thing to stay well out of their way.
"Dad's an all-nighter at the factory," Wensley informed
him. More assured. "And Mom's at a second-aunt's funeral in Xi'an."
"Ah..."
Silence fell in. Awkward silence. They didn't
usually get those. They hadn't had a great stinging one like this in years.
It seemed a mistake to let Shujuan go off on her
own again. It seemed another to tell Guonan to go hide out for a while.
And an even worse one to come back to his familial home with Jianmin. Sure,
they did this all the time when the rest of the family was out, because
it was something of a kink for Jian to molest his boyfriend into the sheets
they'd once shared for innocent sleepovers at age seven, but right now...
...Right now, cuddling and making out just wasn't
very high on the agenda. Actually, it was very low on the agenda. Actually,
it was completely gone from the list.
Have sex? With this boy? Here? The thought was somehow
unsettling. And Wenlong had no idea why that should be.
Or why his brain kept reverting back to a blonde
figure with scared violet eyes.
Darkness and close spaces
and adrenaline and heat--
It was Shujuan. Shujuan. Nevermind that she
was a girl --mostly, kinda, in all the strictly medical ways anyway--
she was someone he'd grown up with practically from infancy. They'd never
not
known each other.
...Well, so, granted, he'd known Jianmin longer
and that hadn't prevented things from developing, but that had been easy.
Intuitive. It'd just made sense. Especially at the time.
At the time.
Nothing was making sense now. He was getting these
thoughts in his head. Little whispers and nudgings, mutterings about a
kind of fealty he never remembered swearing, some aching and guilt and
desperation and it always, always turned back to the little blond
with the purple eyes.
The beer had downgraded itself from chilly to mildly
cold when Wenlong finally unzoned and got around to opening it. Jianmin
was already halfway through his and leaning on the edge of the window with
a cigarette.
Wenlong's brain passed briefly over the angry thought
of how aloof the boy was being, before reminding himself that he wasn't
much better. Thus guilted, he stepped up efforts for conversation again.
And failed. Because the words that blundered out
of his mouth went something like:
"Hey, Jian? ...Do you think, if we ever stopped
being, you know, us... we'd still be friends?"
He cringed. One of the benefits, and also detriments,
of knowing a person your whole life was noticing every tiny little shift
in their mood. The smallest slide of a shoulder into a new angle expressed
subconscious volumes of information. And Wenlong was a good reader.
But he clearly sucked at his communication
skills, if his boyfriend's posture was any judge.
Jianmin half-looked over his shoulder. "What?"
And Wensley knew digging out of the hole now was
impossible.
"I mean. If, you know, someday... we went back to
being how we were before. Before everything. If we were just. You know.
....Friends."
He got a slow, disbelieving blink.
"...Are you saying you wanna break up?"
"What?" Wenlong cried, witnessing the can of worms
he'd opened start to spread. "No! I didn't say that! I just--"
"No, I get it, okay?" Jianmin flicked the ash from
his cigarette sharply and turned back toward the window. Anger was starting
to seep up in his voice. "Y'don't hafta defend anythin'-- You wanna break
up, that's cool. I guessed it'd happen eventually."
Something went cold inside.
"Jian," Wenlong said desperately. "I don't wanna
break up! Listen!"
"Well, whatever," his boyfriend sniffed. "'Cos I
do."
Cold, and then something broke.
"K-- Jian, what?"
"I wanna break up," Jianmin repeated. "We can go
back to whatever, jus' like you said."
"But why?"
It wasn't a sting in his eyes. It wasn't. It was
seated deeper than that, in the throat, in the lungs. Numbing the tips
of fingers and sounding the heart extra loud. It was burning frostbite
that got down into the bones.
"Because."
"No just because! Why this all of a sudden?"
"Yer th'one that brought it up!"
"It was just a question! There wasn't anything
behind it at a--"
"Oh, bullshit. I know you," Jianmin growled.
He downed the last of his beer. Tossed the butt of the cigarette to die
out on the brick. "You think. You never stop thinkin'. When you talk it's
only mebbe a tenth o' what's goin' on in your head. You've got the whole
game set an' matched by the time you open yer mouth. Talkin' it with summun
is just-- pleasantries!"
"'Pleasantries.' Where the hell are you pulling
these archaic old words from?"
"Where do you, all the time? Your oh so precious
books? Your oh so wonderful brain y'keep hidden outta some fake-ass modesty
so's we see even more--"
"You're not making any sense!" Wenlong protested.
"Izzat what it is, izzat why you wanna leave?" his
boyfriend pressed, snapping head back at him. Accusing. "I'm too dense
for you, izzat it? You want summun you don' always hafta hold half yer
vocabulary back with? I see it. I see the way you're always goin' on with
Shu-rin, 'cos she half-understands whatcher sayin' most times--"
"I'm not going on with Shu-rin!" Wenlong
argued desperately. Knowing he was turning red again. The beer was long
forgotten. "I don't wanna go on with anyone! I'm perfectly satisfied
with how things are now. Aren't you?"
"Oh, 'satisfied,' huh?"
"Oh, for God's sake! Do I always have to cater my
language around you?"
"HA! See? That's exactly my point!" Jian said, standing
up straight. "You're sick to shit of me, aren't you?"
"No!"
"You got your eye on someone else! You've been this
way for weeks!"
Wenlong was very nearly snarling now. "You've got
no
right to get jealous on me. You're the one who hates being around me. You're
the one that wants to break up. I should have known
better than ever expect someone
like
you could be faithful. You slut
and manwhore, diseased little streetrat--"
"Hey! I fucking saved your
life; you happen to remember that?"
"Oh, what, you saved it so
you could take me and use me and move on the second you grew bored? I'm
just one of a series to you? Do you knew what I gave up, whom I disgraced,
everything I betrayed, because I believed your sick little lies?!"
"I never led you on one
goddamn second, and you know it."
"Then what
was it?!"Wenlong
demanded. His arms shot forward and hands grabbed bunches of Jianmin's
shirt. "What was it, from the very beginning, that very first night? What
the hell was it?!"
Black eyes. Red
eyes. Black eyes, wide and unyielding. And
the silence around them rang so sharp it was painful.
"What kinna answer," said
Jianmin, "would make you happy?"
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