Chapter 77 — He is right here
In another van, the person in the single middle seat was also staring out the window in silence.
It was Chen Jingshen’s first time in this city. Small, quiet, it felt like that old street he had walked a thousand times.
As his eyes skimmed past every road and every storefront, he silently filled them with the person in his head, wondering whether, in these six years, the one he kept thinking about had walked here, what had happened, who he had met.
Did he get used to living here. Is he happy. Does he still fight and smoke. Has he thought of me.
On a rainy day, the van got caught at a long red light. Chen Jingshen stared at a newsstand for so long that, in the window, he seemed to see again the silhouette of someone half kneeling with a camera.
He was thinner now, six years of growing up and he was still thinner than in high school, even his face had sharpened to a point. He still wore that cold, fierce look, did not sound particularly polite when he spoke with clients, talked even less than before, and his hair had grown long and soft.
When the van started moving again, Chen Jingshen curled his fingers and drew his gaze back inside.
The back seats were lively with chatter.
“I just looked through the raw shots. This photographer is really good. The long wait was worth it. I even wanted to book him to follow us at the wedding tomorrow, but he said he doesn’t take that kind of job, *sigh*.”
“I told you my pick would not be wrong, right? The studio is kind of internet famous. The moment you said you were doing the wedding in Ningcheng I thought of them,” the bridesmaid said. “And the photographer is easy on the eyes too, right?”
The bride nodded at once. “Shame he has a girlfriend.”
“What? How do you even know that?” The groom, seated beside Chen Jingshen in the middle row, frowned and turned his head.
“The reviews under their shop listing. I shared the link in the group chat, you didn’t open it? People said he and the shop owner are a couple.”
The groom sat back with a long “oh,” stepping out of the ladies’ conversation.
He straightened his jacket and turned to the person beside him. “Brother Shen, work not busy lately?”
“It’s fine,” Chen Jingshen said.
The groom nodded, thinking he really was a legend. He had a friend in the same company as Chen Jingshen. When they met last week, the friend’s dark circles looked like he could be shipped straight to a zoo exhibit. That was a job paid in blood and sweat. The friend had kept marveling that every time he and Chen Jingshen ate out, people thought he was Chen Jingshen’s uncle.
Chen Jingshen sat with his legs slightly apart. The groom glanced over, thought it looked cool, and copied the angle.
“Good thing you came. Otherwise I would never have found anyone by year’s end.” The groom asked, “But how did you end up free after all?”
He had invited Chen Jingshen once before and been turned down. Then a few days later, Chen Jingshen suddenly called him back and said he would take the groomsman role.
“The project in hand is almost wrapped. I took the days off that had piled up and tacked them onto my annual leave,” Chen Jingshen said lightly.
“…”
The groom gaped, then after a long while stammered, “It, it doesn’t need that many days. My wedding is just one day…”
“I know,” Chen Jingshen said. “It works out. I also have something to do here.”
“I see…” The groom let out a breath, then casually asked, “Hey, since you finally took a vacation, why not bring your partner for a little trip too?”
The bridesmaid behind him immediately pricked up her ears.
Chen Jingshen paused for a moment. “He is right here.”
The groom blinked, then laughed, enlightened, and told him to bring “him” along tomorrow. Chen Jingshen brushed it off with an excuse, and the topic fell away easily.
The van soon shifted back to wedding talk. Chen Jingshen listened absentmindedly, swiped his phone a few times, then opened a Moments post he had seen a while ago.
It was from Wang Lu’an: [Ahhhh why is year-end so busy. I want to go to Ningcheng. I want to hit someone.]
Zhang Xianjing: [Eat more meat for now. If you go and get punched it will hurt less.]
Zuo Kuan: [Hang on, I get off in half a month.]
It compares emotional or psychological tension to a tightly wound string.
Just as a tense string vibrates easily with a light touch,
a person under pressure may react strongly to even small triggers. When a string is wound tight, even the smallest touch can make it sing.
Chen Jingshen had never been a sensitive person. But when he saw that riddle of a Moments post, he had the hunch it might have to do with Yu Fan.
He opened his chat with Wang Lu’an and hesitated for a long time. Then he remembered a wedding invitation from a friend a few days ago that seemed to be in Ningcheng, so he tapped into the planning group the friend had added him to. Right away he saw the bride’s share of the studio’s shop link, with the line, “Photographer is so handsome, long hair, two moles on his face.”
Chen Jingshen tapped through and found, in the photo reviews, the person he had been searching for.. for six years. In those short comments, that person was already someone else’s boyfriend.
The rain had stopped, but low clouds still pressed over Ningcheng, heavy enough to burst into a second downpour any time.
So when they reached the location, everyone rushed to start. Outdoors, the limits were fewer than in the studio, the process was faster, and they finished the group shots in no time. Only the final bride and groom portraits were left.
Chen Jingshen sat under a sun umbrella to wait. Wang Yue handed him a bottle of water.
He set down his phone to take it and thanked her.
“You’re welcome.” Wang Yue glanced at his phone by accident, then froze. “You watched that awful movie too?”
“What?”
“‘Summer, Full Moon and You,’ that super bad 2017 knockoff that rode on a blockbuster’s name. Your phone wallpaper is a scene from it, right?” Wang Yue laughed. “Yu Fan has the same wallpaper. You two are the only ones I know who fell for that trash.”
Chen Jingshen curled his fingers around the bottle. His Adam’s apple moved several times. At last he only managed a blurred “Mm.”
—
They beat the rain by a minute. As it started coming down again, everyone hugged their gear and sprinted for the cars.
Yu Fan held the umbrella while Wang Yue got into the driver’s seat. Rain hammered the canopy. As he opened the passenger door he could not help glancing back. The gray suit had already stepped into the van.
“What are you doing? You are letting rain into my baby!” Wang Yue yelled.
Yu Fan snapped back, folded the umbrella fast and climbed in.
Back at the studio, he wiped the drops from the black coat, sat down at his desk, and started retouching the day’s shots. Yet every few edits he would tilt his head and glance at the door.
He waited a long time and no one came in. When Wang Yue passed behind him, he casually asked, “Where did they go?”
“Dinner,” she said offhand.
Yu Fan nodded and buried himself in the work again.
An hour later, Wang Yue was getting ready to leave. She saw that Yu Fan was still downstairs. “Why aren’t you going home?”
Yu Fan rubbed his neck. “Waiting for them to come back to view the photos.”
“They aren’t coming back. It’s rainy, and their wedding is tomorrow. No way they would make a special trip to check photos, right? Just email or WeChat the files.”
Yu Fan froze in place for a long beat, then repeated blankly, “They aren’t coming back?”
“The bride said she will come pick them up after the wedding.”
“…”
In his head, Yu Fan had rehearsed a hundred opening lines for meeting Chen Jingshen again, cold ones, apologetic ones, warm ones, sad ones. He never imagined that when they actually met, they would not say a single word.
It was a long time before he rasped, “The clothes…”
“Oh, I forgot. You guys were classmates, right? Just agree on how to return it.”
“I… don’t have his WeChat.”
Wang Yue made a call, then came back. “I asked. They said the bride will grab it when she picks up the photos in a few days. Just leave it at the shop.”
“I will take it home,” Yu Fan said. “The rain got it wet. I’ll wash it and bring it back.”
Wang Yue nodded. “That works too.”
The storm had passed, but now the city was all fickle wind and fine rain.
The drops were light. Normally Yu Fan would not bother with an umbrella. Today he borrowed one from the studio, hunched his coat with one hand, and headed for his apartment.
It was late night when he realized he had skipped dinner.
He crammed a few biscuits, took something for his stomach, stripped and showered.
Ningcheng's cold was damp. Winters were short, but once the temperature dropped it cut to the bone. Yu Fan pulled on a T-shirt and felt it was no good, opened the wardrobe and sifted through his coats, then slowly turned his head and glanced at the black coat he had just hung up.
… He had to take it to the cleaners tomorrow anyway.
The coat had been in the sea wind all afternoon, the hint of mint on it already faint. Yu Fan folded his legs on the couch, pressed his nose into the fabric, and kept editing.
Once he had finished the others, his mouse drifted to Chen Jingshen’s face and stayed there for a long time without moving.
He should have said something today.
Anything would have done. Long time no see. How have you been. Do you have a new boyfriend. When did you come out to be with him.
Every thought made his stomach seize. He licked his lips, felt a strong urge to go downstairs for cigarettes.
Funny how Chen Jingshen wanted him to quit, yet every time he saw him he wanted to smoke. Lying on the couch thinking it over, Yu Fan realized it probably was not nicotine withdrawal. It was Chen Jingshen withdrawal.
How did Chen Jingshen come out. Did Ji Lianyi know. Did she approve. If it was an excellent guy, maybe she would not react so strongly.
What did the guy look like. Did Chen Jingshen like him a lot.
He must like him a lot. Otherwise why come out, why go see him every holiday.
Yu Fan’s stomach hurt until it numbed. He zoomed Chen Jingshen’s face wider, then back, over and over, until finally he scrubbed his face, shut the laptop, grabbed a pillow for his neck, curled up and closed his eyes on the couch.
He did not know when he fell asleep. The knocking woke him into a fog.
He stared at the back cushion for a while, lifted his head, and found he had no strength.
A man who is one eighty curled on a narrow sofa all night is overdoing it. He shut his eyes and waited out the pins and needles, pushed himself upright, legs and arms numb.
His eyelids and head felt heavy, and a bit dizzy. Yu Fan rapped the top of his skull with his knuckles, yanked at his bedhead on the way to the door, and asked irritably, “Who—”
When he saw who it was, he froze. The hand buried in his hair did not move again.
“I came for the coat,” Chen Jingshen said.
The wedding had ended before noon. He had changed into a deep blue hoodie and black track pants, clean and fresh, as if he had stepped out of adult mode again, still that aloof, well-bred, number one in the grade.
Yu Fan held the doorknob and stared for a long time before lifting his lids back into place and answering, “Oh.”
“Wait, I’ll get it…” He got that far, then stopped dead.
Chen Jingshen glanced down at his clothes. Yu Fan also looked down. His gaze stuck on the black overcoat that Chen Jingshen had come for.
“…”
So embarrassing. He wanted to die. Why was he wearing Chen Jingshen’s coat to sleep.
Yu Fan’s scalp tingled for a long beat. He squeezed out, “I don’t have other coats. They are all in the wash.”
He reached to take it off. As he moved, his arm bumped the door. It swung toward Chen Jingshen and was about to close.
Yu Fan reached instinctively for the handle, and a big hand stopped the door.
“Then keep it on,” Chen Jingshen said, eyes lowered. His voice was soft. “It has been a while. Aren’t you going to invite me in to sit?”
Yu Fan still had his hands on the coat. Between the numbness and the stomach pain his reactions were slow. He paused and, by reflex, ran through the state of his place. He had not eaten last night so there was no smell. He had taken out the trash before leaving yesterday…
Chen Jingshen waited quietly for a long time. His jaw tensed for a second, then eased. At last he said, “Forget it.”
He turned to go. He had just taken a step when his clothes were yanked hard from behind.
Yu Fan grabbed in a panic and caught a whole handful of fabric. The back of the hoodie stretched a long way.
When Chen Jingshen looked back, Yu Fan pushed the door wider with his other hand and said woodenly, stiff as a board, “Come in.”
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