Chapter 65 – Let’s Elope
July is a child’s face. One second it blazes, the next it sinks into gloom.
Yu Fan kept his head down, staring motionless at a name he had not seen in a long time.
The old apartment seemed swallowed by cloud, the rooms gone dim and heavy. A muffled thunderclap rolled outside. Yu Fan blinked once, finally moving.
He picked up Yu Kaiming’s phone, lifted the hand that hung off the couch, and pressed a finger to the screen. A soft click, and it unlocked.
A drunk man does not wake easily. Yu Kaiming frowned, smacked his lips twice, and sank back into sleep.
Yu Fan opened Alipay and scrolled up through the transfers. All of them were money sent out. “Fanfan July living expenses,” “Fanfan June living expenses,” “Fanfan May living expenses”…
The sender’s avatar was a sunflower oil painting.
Yu Fan stared at it, licked his dry lips, then fished out his own phone.
[-: I’m not going to the library today]
[s: Why?]
Summer rain in Nancheng does not bring relief. Breathing in the damp, heavy air, Yu Fan replied:
[-: It’s raining.]
He shoved the phone back in his pocket and sat on the low wooden stool by the coffee table, gripping Yu Kaiming’s phone so tightly his fingertips went white. He stared at nothing, swallowing and taking deep breaths in silence.
He did not know how long it was before he got up, went to the bedroom, dug out the cigarette box he had not touched in ages, and lit one.
It had been so long the smoke actually caught in his throat. He took another drag, then went back to scrolling the records.
He scrolled for a very long time until the very beginning. The first entry was September 2014. Yun Shan had sent Yu Kaiming three hundred yuan.
[Yu Kaiming: Three hundred? Who are you trying to fool? Three hundred feeds your son how many meals?]
[Yun Shan: That’s all I can give you right now.]
[Yu Kaiming: F*** your mother. Next month make it five hundred or I’ll let him starve.]
The five hundred lasted four months. Then Yu Kaiming sent a photo.
Yu Fan tapped it open. It was of him.
A day in his second year of middle school, after Yu Kaiming had hit him. One ear was bleeding.
[Yu Kaiming: Told you. If you dare sneak over to see him again, I’ll beat him every time you come.]
[Yu Kaiming: You w****. You ran off with some other dog of a man and still have the face to come see your kid?]
[Yun Shan: I understand. I won’t. Please don’t hit him.]
[Yun Shan: I’m begging you.]
[Yun Shan: I’ll send two hundred. Take him to the hospital, please?]
[Yu Kaiming: Send it.]
[Yu Kaiming: And don’t call the cops. Last time you did I only sat inside for a dozen days. Try it again and when I get out I’ll beat him to death first, then burn your house down, and your husband’s family too. I’m barefoot. I don’t fear you people with shoes. You hear me?]
…
Mid 2015, Yu Kaiming wrote: [Heard your folks got relocation compensation? From now on wire me 2000 every month.]
End of 2016: [They say you had an exhibition? Congrats. From now on make it 3000 a month.]
[Yun Shan: How is Fanfan doing?]
[Yu Kaiming: (photo) Great.]
Maybe he was satisfied with the punctual wires, or maybe he had realized he could not control Yu Fan anymore. In the last two years his tone toward Yun Shan had softened a little. At least in the chat, there were no more slurs.
At the start of this year: [Your family emigrated??? F*** me, so you’re flying high now? Starting today wire 5000 a month. Your son started high school and he eats like a F***ing horse.]
…
By the time he finished, half the pack of cigarettes was gone.
Yu Fan took a drag and felt his blood go cold. It was as if his skull had been peppered with invisible arrows. He ached so much it was hard to breathe.
A dark, vicious thought crawled through his head like bacteria. It had been there for years, but he had always shoved it down. He looked at the man on the couch the way he might look at a corpse about to be buried.
The rain came hard and fast. Yu Fan sat blank-faced, running through one plan again and again in his mind.
With the drumming on the window, his phone buzzed softly.
[s: Video call?]
It jolted him. Jaw tight, fingers stiff, he typed.
[-: Later]
He crushed out the cigarette, bowed his head, rubbed his face hard several times, then picked up Yu Kaiming’s phone and sent a message to the sunflower avatar: [Stop sending him money.]
He opened the transfer page, entered every last yuan in the account, grabbed Yu Kaiming’s hand again, and pressed the fingerprint.
Yu Kaiming jerked awake.
The room was half dark, making it hard to tell what time it was. He turned his head and flinched again.
Yu Fan stood beside him without a word. Maybe it was the light, but the scene looked like a horror film.
“What are you doing standing there? Trying to scare me to death…” He rubbed his neck and sat up. His gaze dropped to Yu Fan’s hand and froze.
He reached out to snatch the phone on reflex, but Yu Fan slipped it away easily. Staring, Yu Kaiming blurted, “What are you doing with my phone?”
Only when the transfer went through did Yu Fan lift his head. “Yu Kaiming, you’ve been taking money from her.”
His tone was neither loud nor soft, but it hit like thunder by Yu Kaiming’s ear.
If he were still drunk, or if this had been years ago, he might not have been afraid. Now was different. He could not win a fight. His old injuries had not healed. Most importantly, there was something wrong in Yu Fan’s eyes.
He had never run so fast in his life. He sprang from the sofa and bolted to his room, locked the door.
In the dark, terror pounded in his chest. A second later, the door shuddered under a kick. The bottom half bowed inward, then sprang back.
“You told me you weren’t in contact with her, didn’t you, Yu Kaiming.” Another kick. Outside, a calm voice said, “F*** your mother.”
With wood between them, he relaxed a hair. Back braced to the door, he shouted, “It’s what we agreed. Divorce was fine, but you had to get your living expenses every month.”
“Say that again. Whose living expenses?”
“Didn’t that w**** leave you money when she ran? And your grandpa too. You short on cash? Who the F*** do you think pays the water and power here?”
The wood took another hit.
“Call her that again,” Yu Fan said coldly. “Try it.”
“What? Am I wrong?” Rage rose in him as he talked. “She got with that supermarket owner first. That w**** cheated. She was the one at fault. Why else did the court give you to me? If she wasn’t a w**** then what? Everyone on the block knows your mom was a—”
Bang. The door boomed behind his back.
“Only an idiot would want to spend a lifetime with trash like you, getting beaten every day,” Yu Fan said.
Yu Kaiming’s heart jumped. For a second he thought Yu Fan could really break the door.
“If you two are so close, if you’re so protective of her, then why didn’t she take you?” he shouted. “When she ran away and forced me to divorce? Why didn’t she take you then?”
“Because that lover of hers didn’t want you. Because that man wouldn’t let her bring a son into his marriage.”
Silence fell outside the door.
Thunder growled. Rain crashed. The sky sounded ready to fall.
He let out a breath and, after a while, said, “Now you get it. You and me, we are on the same—”
“You think I don’t know?”
No one knew better than he did.
Yu Fan stood in front of the door, head bowed, fists clenched so tight the bones ached. His thoughts were hauled back four years by force.
Yun Shan had been abused for seven years. Did she only run away once?
She had packed her bags more times than he could count. She had slipped out into the night more times than he could count. But her son tripped her. He cried her name. He tugged her shirt. He stood at the window and watched.
And she would cover her face and come back, pull him into her arms, cry as she put him to sleep, then call a man he had never met and explain.
The last time was like this, under rain. He watched her get out of bed, pack her bag, open the door. All the way through, she came back into the room to look at him again and again.
He pretended to sleep and did not get up.
He watched her walk out of the compound. Every time she lifted her head, he crouched fast and hid, biting his knuckles, snot and tears running.
He knew he must not make a sound.
Otherwise Yu Kaiming would wake. Otherwise his mother would come back.
“How would you know?” Yu Kaiming blurted.
Yu Fan had no interest in more talk. He gave the door one last kick and stated, cool as ice:
“Yu Kaiming, if I find out you go to her again, I’ll break both your legs.”
He turned to leave.
He could not stay in the same room with Yu Kaiming right now. He could not promise he would not do something worse.
“…Fine. Got it. But I have something else to tell you.” After a long silence came his voice again. “I asked around about that b— your mother this year.”
Yu Fan sucked in a deep breath and grabbed a stick, ready to smash the door.
“She has a kid. Had him last year. Another son.”
“Oh, so that’s why she emigrated. Overseas schools are a better environment anyway, better than your garbage high school.”
“Face it, Yu Fan. Your mom doesn’t want you anymore.”
“Hate me all you want. I’m still your old man. You are stuck with me for life.”
Outside, the rain hammered down. Between that and the kicks, the neighbors had already locked up tight.
The first floor of this crumbling building had a plastic rainboard over the entry. Big drops hit it like beans, rattling the air.
Yu Fan stepped out, shut the door, and stopped.
He had held himself back. He had not laid hands on Yu Kaiming. Somehow it felt even more exhausting than usual.
He stood a long time before he finally turned and headed down. His brain was a slurry, thoughts and words crowding and replaying. He reached the bottom step before he noticed someone in front of him.
Chen Jing Shen stood there, a folded umbrella leaned against the wall at his side.
Yu Fan stared for a long while. He wanted to ask why he was here and when he had come, but when he moved his lips he found his throat too dry for easy sound.
“I saw you climb the wall in a typhoon back in freshman year. Figured you wouldn’t mind the rain, so I came,” Chen Jing Shen said, as if he could read it in Yu Fan’s eyes. “I’ve been here for a while.”
Yu Fan hummed.
Chen came up and reached to hold him. Yu Fan flinched by instinct. It didn’t matter. He was pulled in anyway.
“When someone shows up, you can let go,” Chen said.
So Yu Fan went still and sagged into his shoulder, bone-tired.
It was a pure embrace. Chen’s shoulder was wide and warm. It made a person feel safe.
Yu Fan closed his eyes and tucked his face there.
The world went dark. All that remained was rain and Chen Jing Shen.
“Yu Fan.”
He did not move. His answer came muffled. “Mm.”
“Let’s elope.”
“…”
“Work hard senior year,” Chen said. “We will test into the same place.”
“…”
“Then we will get married.”
“…Get lost.”
It took a long time for the person on him to squeeze out a line.
Feeling the damp on his shoulder, Chen Jing Shen lifted a hand and rubbed his hair very lightly.
Ahh, I'm inconsistent in using [ ] or 【 】.Tried to stay faithful to the original but idk lol. Forgive me orz.
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