Chapter 36

Yan Yang could be a little dumb sometimes. His fingers touched the tattoo on my chest as he asked, “Ge, what is this?”

It was his name, and a name that had once been mine too.

But because it was in pinyin, he had to stare at it for a while before his eyes suddenly widened, “Ge…”

“Guess what it is,” I plunged deeper inside him, causing tears to well up at the corners of his eyes.

He tightened his arms around me as he held back a moan. I laughed, “It’s okay, you can be loud.”

He was afraid that the other people who stayed here would hear him. But actually, it didn’t matter. When I brought him here, I had already made up my mind how I would introduce him to them.

My boyfriend.

My little boyfriend.

Although saying it like this seemed a bit extra, I really felt like a person who had died once before. At first, I thought the most agonising experience in my life would be my mother’s passing. Afterwards, I realised that wasn’t it; it was when I suddenly did badly for the university entrance exams. Later, I realised, that wasn’t right either.

The most agonising time, when I felt like I had been shackled and imprisoned in Hell, was the one month I lost contact with Yan Yang.

I died, tossing and turning, shedding my skin, clawing madly at the coffin lid like a person who had been buried alive.

Inside the coffin, the scene of my mother committing suicide played over and over again before my eyes. I clearly had not been present when it happened, yet it still felt like I had really witnessed it. That was not the only scene being played on repeat either. Scenes of me being abused, of me being insulted, were also played. Some fragments I had already forgotten reappeared. During those years, more than once had I been startled awake in the middle of the night, my neck squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe. She strangled my neck like a bloodthirsty monster, asking me why I didn’t help her.

What help could I give her? I couldn’t even help myself.

The coffin was covered in streaks of blood from my clawing, just like how I had scratched open the skin on the back of her hand out of survival instinct when I was almost strangled to death as a child.

Just when I thought I had died, Yan Yang opened the coffin, letting the fresh air in.

Before he came to London, I had already decided to give up. After dying once, a person will gain clarity about many things. The things he once cared about, he could now let go of.

I didn’t need his dad to die anymore. In fact, I didn’t need anything at all anymore. Moving forward, the only thing that could turn that family upside down in chaos was not me taking anything away from them. Rather, it was the discovery of the relationship between Yan Yang and me.

Perhaps that wasn’t totally correct either. I had still taken something away from them.

I had taken away their most precious little son.

He was mine now.

“Baby, you’re so tight,” I kissed him, thrusting in and out of him while running a hand over his body.

Yan Yang had slimmed down a lot. I even worried that I would injure him if I used too much force.

He moaned under me, just like how he had in the past, his arms wrapped around me. Our heavy gasps for air made our bodies gradually heat up.

Even without considering this month, it had still been a long time since we last made love.

Ever since he left for the US, we had not seen each other in person. Most of the time, we could only hear the other's voice and look at their image as we masturbated.

When I held Yan Yang's warm body once again, entering his tight yet soft hole while his arms were firmly wound around me, I was practically unable to control myself, madly seeking out as much of it as I could.

I turned sex into another way to vent my emotions and express myself. The more I loved him, the harder I fucked him.

There were a few moments when I practically lost all sense of reasoning, pinning him to the bed as I fucked him without restraint.

Yan Yang never asked to stop or pleaded to be let off. After we finished, he just lay there motionless. He had been tormented by me until he was practically almost knocked out, yet he still caressed the tattoo on my chest as he said, “Ge, you love me so much.”

I loved him so much.

So much that I wished I could simply die together with him.

But when I calmed down, as he lay on my chest planting kisses on my tattoo, I suddenly didn’t want to die anymore.

Living was not bad; I could touch him like this.

During the few days that Yan Yang was here, we spent the time very happily.

I introduced him to my housemates and my classmates. Not as my brother, but as my lover.

I said, This is my boyfriend; he’s studying at a school of music in the States.

Yan Yang was cute and good-looking, and a smooth-talker too. Everyone liked him a lot.

At night, we all came together for dinner. Yan Yang, whose hands had never needed to labour at home, surprisingly prepared two dishes as well – and they tasted good too.

He said, “I learnt these dishes especially for Yan Xuan. I wanted to cook them for him.”

In front of others, he did not call me Ge anymore and instead directly used my name.

During those few days, when I had to go for class, he would find a spot on campus to wait for me. After class, holding each other’s hand, we would walk around the campus before going to shop for groceries together. Back at the apartment, we would then cook and eat with my housemates. After the meal, we sometimes took a stroll outside. If not that, then I would be studying in the apartment while he sat by my side, keeping me company.

At night, we would make love. We did it every night; sometimes once, sometimes twice, like we had no fear at all.

Yan Yang was very enthusiastic. He took the initiative to ride me, bouncing his ass up and down while he told me over and over again that he loved me and missed me, right by my ear.

Because of Yan Yang, I became a normal person again.

My emotions were stable, and I was filled with optimism.

He stayed here with me for a week. The day I had to send him off, we kissed in the airport. Yan Yang started to cry again, saying he didn’t know when we could meet next.

I told him to hang in there; I would go to America once I graduated. When the time came, we would be together every day.

This time, I kept my word. After completing my postgraduate studies in London, I went to Boston.

Everything seemed to have returned to the way they should be. Yan Yang’s parents had no qualms about me not returning home; after all, work here was not bad. It was just that when I said I had gone to Boston, Yan Yang’s father’s brows furrowed.

So be it.

I didn’t need his permission or approval.

He didn’t know that when he video called his precious son, his son had just gotten off my body, my cum still inside him.