Chapter 75: Stop shaking
A beach barbecue for four ended up with two on each side.
Wang Yue and her childhood friend sat properly and ate, occasionally sneaking curious looks at the other pair.
“You’re a disloyal son of a b****!”
“Mm.”
“You heartless jerk!”
“Mm.” Yu Fan pinched a napkin free and handed it to her. “Wipe.”
Zhang Xianjing was angry, yet as she talked her eyes suddenly started to sting. She grabbed the tissue and dabbed carefully upward. “Do you know when you were gone, every time we passed the dump, Wang Lu’an and Zuo Kuan insisted on going in to look. Every time I came out I stank.”
“…”
After that they went quiet. The two looked at each other and silently agreed that Wang Lu’an and Zuo Kuan were idiots.
Once she had vented, Zhang Xianjing felt steadier. Whenever they used to talk about Yu Fan, everyone got sentimental. At first they said if they ever ran into him again after so long, they would probably feel awkward and distant. Later, as more time passed, they simply assumed they would never see him again.
She had thought so too. She never expected that the instant she saw Yu Fan, two full years of high school would surge her brain like a wave, and she rushed over without thinking.
She had changed, and Yu Fan had too. Strangely though, even after years, she still felt like they were friends.
“They said if they saw you, they would beat you up and leave without saying a word.”
“They can try if they can win.” Yu Fan lounged back in his chair, lazy as ever.
Zhang Xianjing wanted to laugh and cry. “So you did senior year and college in Ning City? Sister Wang said you just graduated this year.”
“I took a year off before doing senior year.”
“You back then…”
“Family stuff,” Yu Fan said lightly.
“Fine, drop out if you had to, but why delete us? You even left the group. What, you drop out and we are not worthy anymore?”
Yu Fan suddenly remembered the night before they moved. A few men came to the door looking for Yu Kaiming, demanding to know why the money had not arrived when today was the deadline. They asked if packing meant he was running.
That was when Yu Fan learned that Yu Kaiming had borrowed a few thousand that ballooned into twenty thousand. He could not pay. They scrolled through his phone and called every contact they could find. Not one friend would lend him a cent. Then they tried to grab Yu Fan’s phone.
He had fought them off and, wiping a bloody nose, deleted the contacts one by one, even deactivated WeChat.
He lowered his eyes and stayed silent for a while, then could only say, “It wasn’t on purpose.”
Sensing he did not want to stay on this topic, Zhang Xianjing paused, then murmured, “Forget it.”
Yu Fan asked what he had wanted to ask since they met: “How are they doing these years? And you?”
“Pretty good.” Zhang Xianjing lit a slim cigarette. “Bet you did not expect it, but I made it into a second-tier university. Didn’t end up taking a job in my major though. What can I do, too pretty. I posted a few videos, got popular, so I became an influencer. Wang Lu’an went straight into his dad’s company after graduating, a little boss. Zuo Kuan is doing auto repair at a decent shop. Ting-bao is amazing now, a lawyer. Fresh out of school and already at a big firm. Chen Jingshen…”
The name hit Yu Fan square in the chest. He stopped breathing without meaning to.
Zhang Xianjing had been on a roll. She bit down on the cigarette, suddenly unsure whether to stop or go on.
Only when the person across from her spoke, light as air, “What about him?” did she continue.
“I don’t really know the specifics. He never talked much in the group, and after he transferred classes he spoke even less. I haven’t chatted with him in years… Later we heard things from Wu Si. He got an early admission to Jiangcheng University, I think computer science? Wu Si said it was the hardest program to get into, full of geniuses. After that… I don’t know.”
Yu Fan stared at nothing, listening to every word as if taking notes. When she finished, he answered coolly, naturally, “Oh. Nice.”
“You two broke up and never contacted each other again?”
When that landed without any response, Zhang Xianjing turned her head to blow smoke, then looked back and caught Yu Fan’s face gone stiff, staring at her in shocked confusion.
“What are you… what breakup?” After a long moment, Yu Fan squeezed the words out, feigning ignorance. “Don’t use the wrong word.”
“Drop the act. Chen Jingshen told me himself you two were together.” She added quickly, “Relax, I have kept my mouth shut for years. Never told a soul.”
“…”
Chen Jingshen said it himself…
How did he say it? What did he say?
Yu Fan clenched his teeth and let go, then did it again. Finally he said, “No.”
No what, who knew. No, they were not together, or no, they had not contacted each other.
Forget it. Zhang Xianjing pulled out her phone, typing as she asked, “By the way, you freaked me out. Why is your hair so long? It looks too f***ing good.”
“Didn’t feel like cutting it.” Yu Fan glanced at her flying fingers. “What are you doing?”
“Telling them we found—”
Her phone vanished from her hand mid-sentence.
“What are you doing?” she blinked. “I can’t tell them? You trying to cut us all off for good?”
“No.” Yu Fan acted faster than he thought. He skimmed the line she had typed, Old lady finally f***ing caught Yu Fan. “Give it a bit. I’m busy lately. No time to fight with them.”
“…”
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t help it. Unless you tie me up, or throw my phone and smash it, I will go to an internet café, log into the QQ account I haven’t touched in five years, and announce this to my 429 QQ friends.”
Yu Fan lifted his eyes at her. Those cold eyes fairly itched to stir up trouble.
“Listen,” she coughed, “the crackdown on gangs is pretty serious these days, you know?”
Yu Fan checked the headcount in the group. Everyone was still there but him. He erased the text in her chat box. “Fine, have it your way. Just don’t say it in the group.”
“And don’t tell Chen Jingshen either, right? Got it, I understand. After all, you broke up.”
“…”
“How’s the chat going?” On the other side, Wang Yue, who had not heard a thing, came over. “The meat we grilled for you is getting cold.”
“We’re done.” Yu Fan handed the phone back, scraped back his chair and stood. “You all eat. I’ll edit.”
A get-together of three women, two of whom needed to post photos for work, meant the beach barbecue was basically one long photoshoot. In the afternoon Yu Fan hauled a crate of ingredients out of the car, and by sundown he was hauling a crate back in. The weight seemed hardly any lighter.
After a little wine, Zhang Xianjing grabbed Yu Fan by the collar and added herself back on his WeChat.
In the end, Wang Yue drove everyone home. Their topics were not ones Yu Fan could add to, so he turned his head to the window and watched the streetlights flicker past, until the conversation in the car slowly shifted to him.
It started with Wang Yue’s friend asking what he had been like in school, and Zhang Xianjing answered one by one.
“In high school he never looked people in the eye, arrogant as hell… fought all the time, and every Monday you could see him on the platform reciting a self-criticism.”
“Why didn’t the teachers stop him? They did. They couldn’t. He was a dead pig not fearing boiling water.”
“Wow, none of the three neighboring schools dared mess with him…”
“But didn’t his grades get okay when he repeated senior year? He got into college, right?” Wang Yue could not help chiming in.
“Oh, because there was a terrifying top student in second year…” Feeling the murderous look beside her, Zhang Xianjing slowly shut her mouth.
When Yu Fan got home he was wrung out.
He unlocked the door, closed it, and then did not move again.
He stood in the pitch-black entryway, staring into space.
He had gone a long, long time without hearing Chen Jingshen’s name.
Right after leaving Nancheng, he had heard it every day. Every time Yu Kaiming came home drunk he would yell, “I’m going back to find Chen Jingshen’s mom,” “What’s Chen Jingshen’s number,” “Are you stupid? Even without you, Chen Jingshen is still gay. If you are both men, why can’t it be you.”
Then they would fight. Yu Kaiming would behave for a while, then bellow about returning to Nancheng again. The cycle repeated for months before it finally went quiet.
Later Yu Fan realized that even without Yu Kaiming muttering in his ear, merely thinking of Chen Jingshen would trigger a chain of physical reactions: chest tightness, headaches, stomach pain, shortness of breath.
He stood in the dark for half an hour before finally switching on the light and climbing the stairs, one hand over his stomach.
Zhang Xianjing was a painfully honest person. If she said she could not hold back, she could not. That same night, Yu Fan received a friend request.
[Wang Lu’an requests to add you on WeChat. Message: None]
He happened to have a stomachache and could not be bothered to read the resentment packed into that “None.” Eyes closed, he accepted.
It seemed she had only told Wang Lu’an. No other requests came. After adding him, Wang Lu’an also did not speak.
Yu Fan was not one to start chats anyway. Otherwise, after six years in Ning City, his most frequent contacts would not be just Wang Yue and his landlord, with clients after that.
And after so long, he really did not know what to say.
So a week after becoming friends again, their chat still sat at We are friends now, start talking.
Until today. Yu Fan pulled an all-nighter to clear out work, and when he woke he had over thirty voice messages.
Each one a minute long.
He was off today. He dozed for a bit longer, then lazily tapped the first.
“Yu Fan you f***ing—” He skipped it. Next.
“I was unlucky to ever know you—” Next.
“I would rather be friends with a dog than with you—” Next.
…
Around the twenty-fifth message, Wang Lu’an’s passionate cursing finally ended. Yu Fan blinked and started listening word for word.
“How are you doing? I heard you’re in Ning City. Why the hell did you go so far?”
“Got a conscience? You ghosted us and now you add me back and don’t even apologize. Is that how you treat your brothers?”
“I have been looking for you all these years. I even tried to Baidu you and found nothing. I thought you were dead. I decided if I could not find you in a couple more years, I would put up a grave for you, do at least that much as a brother.”
Yu Fan stared at the ceiling and answered in his head.
So-so.
No conscience.
Makes sense. For a while I thought I was dead too.
When he finished them all, Yu Fan picked up his phone and pressed hold to speak. “Did you get the luxury car your dad promised you?”
Silence for a beat.
“I did. I passed the Class A driver’s test. How could he not buy it? I even drove over to Zuo Kuan’s shop several times to support the business…” Wang Lu’an’s voice went thick, and by the end he could not help swearing. “F*** you. I missed you.”
They did not call, just traded voice notes. It had been too long. Voice gave them time to think about what to say. It was good.
Yu Fan disliked being idle. He got up, made coffee, and chatted in fits and starts while confirming details with his next client.
This client was holding a wedding in Ning City. Since all their friends were finally gathering, they wanted an energetic set of pre-wedding photos the day before, in formal wear with bridesmaids and groomsmen.
Shooting wedding photos took a certain amount of communication skill. Yu Fan had not taken such jobs before, and this one involved attendants too, so he turned it down without thinking.
A few days later, the client reached out again and doubled the price.
Yu Fan agreed on the style, fixed a time, then tapped open the newest voice message from Wang Lu’an. “To make you realize your mistake, I shared ‘Best Ex-Friend’ seven times on my Moments. Even study god liked it. You still didn’t fart a word.”
Yu Fan stared at the message.
That one “study god” dragged him back to the classroom. He was yanking at his hair over a problem while the person beside him lowered his eyes and wrote neatly, reaching over to jot a few steps on his scratch paper.
Sometimes, once he saw it clearly, he would catch the other’s wrist to keep him from writing more.
Yu Fan lifted his phone and pressed to speak. “Chen Jingshen—”
Slide up to cancel.
“He…”
Slide up to cancel.
“After you guys graduated…”
Slide up to cancel.
He got so tangled he felt irritated, even weirdly tempted to slap himself. He raked his hair, and the anxiety he had shaken off for two years crept back. He ended up sending a one-second blank voice note by mistake.
Sh***.
Yu Fan had just reached to retract it when the doorbell rang.
He took a palm-sized parcel from the courier, frowned, certain he had not ordered anything lately, and turned it over to read the sender: Zhang Xianjing.
“…”
He took out a knife, sliced it open, and found a note and a small black box.
Everyone else reads the note first, then the box. Yu Fan did not. He thumbed the box open. Inside lay a wrinkled clear zip bag.
With a white button in it.
Yu Fan froze. He recognized it at a glance as a school uniform button. All school buttons look alike, and yet he knew this one.
More than once, when he could not bring himself to face the button’s owner, he would rest his forehead against the boy’s broad shoulder and stare at it for a long time.
“At graduation, Chen Jingshen put this in your desk. I figured if it stayed there it would get tossed eventually, so I took it. Anyway it is your button now. Keep it or throw it, up to you.”
He had torn the parcel open carelessly. Now his hand hovered in midair, hesitating to touch it at all.
He stood there, eyes lowered and locked with the button. His mind could not help picturing that school jacket he had touched so many times, and how Chen Jingshen must have looked slipping the button inside.
Until his phone buzzed again.
“Why aren’t you answering? Busy?” Wang Lu’an asked.
Yu Fan’s fingers finally dropped, pressing lightly through the thin plastic until they touched the button.
“How is Chen Jingshen these days?” he heard himself ask.
“Do you still keep in touch?”
“… Is he doing well?”
Ningcheng finally cooled at the tail end of November. A coastal place, the moment the weather turned it went windy and rainy. By the time Wang Yue got to the studio, the hair she had pinned that morning had blown loose again.
She salvaged her bangs as best she could, then looked at the person already inside touching up photos and blinked. “You came in that today?”
It was barely in the teens Celsius, and Yu Fan wore a thin black long-sleeve T-shirt. He stared at his monitor and grunted, “Yeah.”
The temperature drop had been ridiculous, halved overnight. He only realized after leaving his apartment, then could not be bothered to go back for a jacket.
“But you are shooting outdoor wedding photos today,” Wang Yue said. “The clients are not here yet. Hurry back and grab a coat.”
“No need. They want studio shots this morning. I checked the forecast. It will warm up at noon.”
“…”
“Live it up while you are young. Otherwise you will regret it when you are old.” Wang Yue noticed a fine silver chain at his neck. She said offhand, “Pull the pendant out. Hiding it looks bad.”
“Don’t meddle with young people,” Yu Fan said.
“…”
The clients arrived on time. They had planned for six in the shoot, three women and three men, but only five had come.
“One groomsman is still on the way. Sorry to make you wait. He is rushing in from out of town. Says he will be here soon,” the groom said.
Yu Fan nodded, not bothered.
They handled their own suits and makeup. The bride had brought several gowns, all of which looked expensive. She and her girlfriends got ready together, the studio full of their bright laughter.
“Don’t pout,” the bride said, hugging the bridesmaid next to her. “I will throw you the bouquet tomorrow so you meet your true love.”
“Forget it. After getting burned once, every guy looks like a jerk to me.”
“Come on, how old are you to be swearing off love. Want my husband to introduce some guys?”
“No thanks. Where are there handsome men in IT? All plaid shirts and receding hairlines…” The bridesmaid caught herself and hurried to add, “Except your husband, of course!”
“Hey! That is occupational discrimination.” The groom laughed. “Just wait. You are about to meet an IT guy who is handsome enough to be illegal.”
“For real?”
“For real. He was the god of our department, same dorm as us. Not just department heartthrob, at least school heartthrob level.” He elbowed another groomsman. “Total beast. Back then, every time my buddy and I had an exam, we would leave snacks on his desk. We called it paying respects to the god.”
The bridesmaid gasped. “If even you two had to pray to him, he must be incredible… Is he working at a big company now? Or did he go abroad?”
“Nope. Before he even graduated, the big firms were fighting over him. It was a bloodbath… In the end he turned them all down and joined a new internet company in Nancheng, took equity for tech. It has been just over a year and it is like they strapped on rockets.”
Yu Fan checked his gear and quietly replied to Wang Lu’an’s messages.
The last man still did not show. The bride suggested they start with her solo shots. After half an hour she was done, and he still had not arrived.
The groom finished a call and said, “I checked. He will be a bit longer. Why don’t you take one of me and my buddy first. He is too handsome, we will play without him.”
The groomsman grinned. “No problem. I will make you look good.”
Yu Fan knelt on one knee, tilted the lens up, found the angle and was about to press the shutter when the studio door swung open. The wind chime Wang Yue had hung chimed twice, delicate and thin.
The groom glanced over and smiled. “There he is!”
“Sorry, traffic in the rain.”
The low, cool voice hit Yu Fan like a hammer, smashing his skull.
“No problem.” The groom looked at Yu Fan. “One sec, brother. He will change, then we start.”
Yu Fan opened his mouth to answer. Nothing came out.
He held his position, only lowering his head a little. His hair and the camera together almost covered his face.
It felt like a punch to the gut. His mind went blank. His breath stuttered. He stayed frozen on one knee for a long time. When he tried to stand, his legs had no strength, like they no longer belonged to him. The groom called his name twice before he managed to lift the camera again.
He stared hard through the viewfinder at the man who had appeared, his fingers gone white where they gripped the body.
That familiar face looked over, cool as ever, locking eyes with him through the glass.
Yu Fan tried several times and still could not press the shutter. He was cold to the bone, yet the scene in front of him wavered.
Stop shaking.
Stop shaking…
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