Chapter 38

Yan Yang and I had both been looking forward to his graduation showcase. It was extremely important to him, a once in a lifetime event.

I knew what Yan Yang was hoping for. He hoped that his closest family and I would all be sitting in the audience watching him complete a magnificent performance. He hoped that we would be there to witness the most important moment of his life.

I could even see it already. How stunning Yan Yang would be on stage that day, so bright that I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off him.

But I was still a coward. I still couldn’t face Yan Yang’s parents calmly.

Yan Yang looked at me in disbelief, “A work trip? So sudden?”

His arms were still around my waist, his brows tightly knitted together.

I knew he was unhappy, but this was the only thing I could think of.

I would stay far away from them. As the saying goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

Yan Yang got angry, kicking up a fuss with me, but it only lasted a few hours. By the time night fell, when I had finished cooking and called for him to come eat, he had already come to terms with it.

He was lying on the bed in the bedroom, his face buried in a pillow.

I went over and gently stroked his hair, apologising to him.

I was truly sorry, because I knew how much this performance meant to him.

At the end of the day, I was still a selfish person. For my own sake, I was once again overlooking his feelings and sacrificing what had been supposed to be a blissful moment for him.

Yan Yang asked me, “Ge, you really can’t change it?”

“I have to be there in person,” I answered, “This project is very important to me.”

Yan Yang remained silent for a long time. In the end, he still took my hand and got up from the bed, walking towards the dinner table, “Let’s go eat.”

I watched his back, feeling a sense of discomfort in my chest. I could only hug him from behind and kiss him.

But my kiss was meaningless. It couldn’t cheer him up in the slightest.

I was weak and cowardly, cold and selfish.

I let Yan Yang drive my car to go pick up his parents while I took leave from work and holed myself up in a hotel, drinking and smoking, preparing to hide away from the coming week.

Yan Yang’s performance was to be held at 5pm on Wednesday afternoon at his school’s auditorium.

I had gone there many times before. I was very familiar with it.

After his parents arrived, I did not appear anywhere at all. When I was on the phone with Yan Yang, he said his mother wanted to talk to me. I agreed to it.

Yan Yang’s mother told me to take care of my health and not work too hard. No matter how busy and tiring work got, I had to rest well.

All these years, she had cared for me far more than that man ever had. Many times, I had even had the illusion that she was treating me as her own biological son.

She asked me when I was returning. They rarely got to visit, so she hoped we could at least meet briefly.

If she had come alone, I would most likely have agreed, but there was no such ‘if’.

I finally accepted that no matter how hard I worked, and no matter how old I was, because of something so trivial I would still be reduced into a pathetic, subhuman form. I was simply a pile of trash.

The knot in my heart remained, gnawing at me. I had never been able to rid myself of it.

I threw out a bunch of excuses, setting the end of my so-called ‘business trip’ as the day after they were to return to China. 

She felt it was a pity, and even added, “Your Dad misses you a lot.”

Those words made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I hurriedly hung up the phone.

The few days I spent in the hotel were exceedingly torturous. My nicotine addiction was stronger than usual; I smoked cigarettes from morning till night.

I didn’t want to take care of myself either. After getting up in the morning, I would take a simple shower, then sit in front of my laptop to handle work-related matters. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even feel like eating a single meal the entire day.

When Wednesday came, I was so anxious that I couldn’t do a thing. I smoked and drank incessantly, looking at the sunlight outside as I stood by the window, my head pounding.

Every few minutes, I checked my phone, but Yan Yang hadn’t sent me any messages. Nothing had been uploaded on his socials either.

I still couldn’t let go of it.

It was a pity to both him and me that I couldn’t attend his graduation showcase. It was like a flawless puzzle missing a piece at its centre.

In the end, I still went out.

At four-thirty in the afternoon, I took a taxi to Yan Yang’s school. Once I arrived, I sprinted like mad to the auditorium.

When I reached the auditorium, I deliberately hid myself in the crowd and didn’t inform Yan Yang of my attendance either. I wasn’t someone who liked to create surprises. I was selfish like that, purely wanting to make it less regretful for myself.

Yan Yang’s parents were seated in front, and behind them were a few students. I, on the other hand, was sitting in the corner of the last row, quietly waiting for my Yan Yang to come on stage.

He didn’t know I was here, hidden within the crowd. He didn’t know that my eyes were watching him, that my heart was beating for him.

I intentionally avoided looking at the seating area for family members. I was just afraid that I would suddenly see someone I didn’t want to.

I trained my eyes on the stage alone, watching Yan Yang confidently walk up and sit in front of a black grand piano.

It felt as though we had gone back in time, to ten years ago. The first time I saw him, he had been dressed up like a pretty little prince, while I had been covered in dirt and grime, dressed in an old school uniform.

Even now, he was still a shining and beautiful prince. I hid in the darkness, my beard unshaven as I gazed at him from afar.

I took a picture of him as he played the piano and quietly left when he took his final bow.

I was supposed to be going on stage, presenting him with flowers. Not just any boring, standard bouquet of flowers, but a bouquet of red roses that symbolised passionate love.

But I hadn’t managed to do that.

After leaving, I ordered roses to be sent to our home. The name of the recipient was Yan Yang, while the name of the person who ordered them was – yanyang[1].

He would definitely know I had sent them, but would definitely not know why I had signed off as ‘yanyang’.

That wasn’t important. What was important was that he knew I had remembered.

That night, Yan Yang accompanied his parents and brought them around Boston, showing them the city he had been living in the past few years.

At the same time, alone in the hotel, I was drinking and smoking next to the window, missing him.

I glanced at the ring on my left hand and suddenly felt like it was such a joke. When I heard they were coming to Boston, I had deliberately bought this ring to cover my tattoo. In the end, we didn’t even meet.

All of the concealment had become redundant.

But I also realised that without me, their family of three got along much more easily. At the end of the day, I was still an outsider in that family.

I finished a whole bottle of red wine. In the middle of the night, intoxicated, I took a taxi back home. I fished out my keys, opened the door, and walked into the bedroom Yan Yang and I shared.

I knew Yan Yang would definitely be sleeping in this room, while his parents slept in the other.

When I pushed the bedroom door open, it felt like I had returned to my university years, back when I had suddenly returned home. It had also been in the middle of the night when I had paid a visit, pulling down Yan Yang’s pants and spreading his legs.

It was like the story was always repeating.

I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing.

I entered, then closed the door, locking it behind me.

I missed him. I wanted to hug him right now.

Footnotes:

[1] ‘yanyang’: Written in English.