Chapter 78: Can I have a goodbye kiss
The moment Chen Jingshen stepped inside he saw a gray sofa, a whole mess thrown on it: a lumbar pillow, a blanket, a laptop. There was a shallow dip in the cushion, as if someone had been curled up there not long ago.
A round glass coffee table stood in front of it, cluttered with developed photos, phone earbuds, cups, and pill boxes.
It was not usually this chaotic. Yu Fan’s head had been muzzy last night, so he left things wherever his hands dropped them.
Yu Fan shifted the pillow and blanket aside, swept everything on the table into a little white basket, and said without looking up, his voice low, “Sit. I’ll go wash my face.”
“Okay.”
Water ran in the bathroom, the muffled sounds of washing up. For a second it felt like being back in that tiny room in Nancheng, the same sounds, the fan creaking as it turned, Chen Jingshen sitting in a chair waiting for Yu Fan, two sets of papers spread on the desk.
Chen Jingshen pressed his palm into the sofa cushion. The spot the blanket had covered still held a bit of Yu Fan’s body heat. He let out a slow, heavy breath. The nerves he had held taut for hours finally loosened. He sprawled back on the sofa, legs open, and let his gaze travel without apology around the apartment.
It was a tiny split-level, the kind of space you could take in at a glance. The furniture leaned cool and minimal, but the place felt lived in. A few dark T-shirts and pants hung by the window. It was obvious only one person lived here.
He glanced up toward the loft. From this angle he could see only a white wall, a desk, and the edge of a black board of some kind.
He drew his eyes back, leaned forward, hooked the white basket from the shelf under the table, and picked out a few boxes of medicine to read the labels.
In the bathroom, Yu Fan scrubbed his face with his head down. His mind was full of why Chen Jingshen was here, that Chen Jingshen was right outside, and what he was supposed to say to him in a minute.
He yanked down a towel and rubbed his face a little too hard, raked a hand through his hair, and pulled his skewed collar straight.
Last, he lifted his hand in front of his face and breathed against his palm, catching a faint taste of minty toothpaste.
Yu Fan froze. Belatedly, he realized it was that dumb habit from six years ago, when Chen Jingshen used to come to his place.
He was ridiculous.
He dropped his hand and stared at his reflection, deadpan, and cursed himself under his breath.
When he came out, Chen Jingshen was looking down at his phone. The space in front of the sofa was too tight, his long legs were bent awkwardly, and he looked a bit cramped.
Yu Fan moved automatically to pour water, then remembered he had lived here three or four years without letting anyone in. He dug out an unopened cup he had bought ages ago, filled it, set it on the table, and discovered something worse.
There was nowhere for him to be. One step past the coffee table was the stair. No stool. Only the one sofa, and the pillow, blanket, and Chen Jingshen were already taking up most of it.
Yu Fan stood there like he was back in high school being made to stand by Teacher Zhuang. He was weighing whether to go upstairs for a chair when Chen Jingshen looked up, lifted the pillow behind him, then shifted over. A patch of cushion opened up.
Yu Fan’s fingers tightened. He looped around and sat, the two of them pressed together shoulder to shoulder with layers of fabric between them.
Sitting like this felt like a lifetime ago.
Yu Fan laced his fingers together and stared at nothing, looking spaced out while his peripheral vision kept sliding sideways.
Chen Jingshen pushed his sleeves up a little. Six years on, his forearms were more fluid and strong, the veins on the backs of his hands lightly raised as his fingers trailed the phone screen.
Yu Fan watched, dazed, until that long finger tapped the lock button and the screen went dark with a soft click.
“Did you come straight to Ningcheng back then?” Chen Jingshen asked, calm and cool.
“Yeah.” Yu Fan pulled his gaze away at once.
“You have always lived here?”
“No. Lived somewhere else the first two years.”
After a pause, Chen Jingshen asked, “Have you been well?”
Yu Fan had heard that question a lot lately. Zhang Xianjing, Wang Lu’an, and Zuo Kuan had all asked the same. Every time he just mouthed a flat, light “pretty good.”
Why did the same words feel different from Chen Jingshen’s mouth?
The curtains were open. The fine, sullen rain outside felt like it was falling inside his chest. Yu Fan picked at a finger and said, “So-so.”
He hesitated, then, “What about you?”
“Not good,” Chen Jingshen said.
Yu Fan’s hand stilled. “Why? Didn’t you get into Jiang University, and your job is decent too?”
“How do you know?”
“Wang Lu’an said so.” He lied without blinking.
“Busy.” Chen Jingshen’s lashes dropped. “Cutthroat at school, too much at work.”
Do not people get days off?
The line reached his lips and he swallowed it. He remembered what people had said, that Chen Jingshen spent his days off visiting… His lids tightened. The room felt colder than the splash of coffee that had hit his face earlier. “Oh.”
His laptop chimed three times. Only then did Yu Fan remember he had closed the lid last night without shutting it down.
Chen Jingshen lifted the computer from the corner of the sofa and passed it over. Yu Fan figured the frequency of the pings meant something for work, flipped it open on his knees, and raised the screen.
The screen held a huge close-up of Chen Jingshen’s face, one cheek dragged so round it was about to bulge out of frame.
Yu Fan slammed the editing program shut at rocket speed.
“You do not actually have to retouch my face,” Chen Jingshen said.
“Without it you look ugly.” Yu Fan’s explanation was stiff.
The messages were from Wang Yue, a string of them, one even from the morning that he had slept through.
[Wang Yue: Fan-bao, you free tomorrow?]
[-: Say it straight. Do not call me that.]
[Wang Yue: Tsk. What else would I want. Overtime tomorrow.]
[Wang Yue: My online friend is coming to Ningcheng, we thought we would do a beach barbecue. She is a net celeb like my other girl, they need content for Weibo. Come shoot. I will pay you, treat it like a side gig.]
[Wang Yue: But you have been pulling late nights. If you are wiped, just say—]
[-: Keep the money. Time and place.]
And earlier:
[Wang Yue: Your high school classmate came by for the coat. I said you were off today and told him to pick it up from you at home.]
[Wang Yue: The client has notes on this set. Slim the legs, lengthen the body, round the toes. They need to post today, hurry and send it to me.]
[Wang Yue: Where are you? Awake?]
[-: Awake. On it.]
[Wang Yue: Good. Send when done.]
[Wang Yue: Also the wedding pics from yesterday. They paid to rush. There is another banquet back home and they want these in the video. You have been short on cash, so I said yes for you. Do this one too. Bride is coming in a couple of days to pick up prints.]
[Wang Yue: I am out eating with your future brother-in-law. Otherwise I would fix it myself. Sorry to work you late. Milk tea on me Monday.]
Yu Fan sent back a “No need,” hesitated at the file.
“Work. Do not mind me,” said the man beside him, voice lazy.
So Yu Fan opened it, pulled out his tablet, and bent to the retouching. The client only asked for body tweaks, but once a set was back in his hands he could not resist fine-tuning the light and curves. Every time he fixed a detail he would zoom in and out several times to check.
He sent that set to Wang Yue, cast a look sideways to make sure Chen Jingshen was still absorbed in his phone, then quickly opened the shot from yesterday and yanked Chen Jingshen’s cheek back down from the moon.
“How many years in this line now?” Chen Jingshen asked.
“Who keeps count,” Yu Fan muttered. “If you include those part-time years, four.”
Chen Jingshen’s gaze fell to the screen. “Could not tell.”
Yu Fan had thought there were only two more images left in that set, that he might as well finish. He regretted it pretty quickly.
“Why are you not fixing me?” Chen Jingshen asked when he was about to click to the next.
“You said you do not need it.”
“You said I am ugly.”
Yu Fan’s grip tightened on the stylus. He drew a breath and worked on the man in the left corner.
Chen Jingshen tilted his head and began, cool as ever, to dictate. “Shorten me a little. Too tall next to the groom looks wrong.”
“Give me a bit of a smile.”
“My hair is flying a little.”
“My shoes…”
Yu Fan could not take it. He turned and yanked Chen Jingshen by the collar. “Chen Jingshen, why the hell are you…”
Their eyes met. Both went quiet.
Chen Jingshen looked down at him, pupils deep and dark, none of the nitpicking from a second ago, only a silent sharp hook.
The cool little apartment seemed to dissolve. They were back on that step of the Nancheng bleachers, Chen Jingshen hounding him all day with “What are we talking about,” and Yu Fan grabbing his collar just like this, hauling him close to answer. After that, whenever they got this near, a kiss usually followed within minutes.
This was the first time since they met again that Chen Jingshen had really looked at him.
Aside from being thinner, Yu Fan had not changed much. The late nights had printed faint shadows under his eyes, and his lips were dry and pale.
Something flickered and dragged Chen Jingshen’s gaze down. Yu Fan snapped back and followed it.
His coat front was open from washing up, and a white button on a thin silver chain had slipped out of his T-shirt collar.
Yu Fan’s nerves jolted. He wanted to rip the button off and pitch it out the window.
He let go of Chen Jingshen’s collar and fumbled with both hands to stuff it back. He had been outside too long. The button was chilled and cool against his skin.
He kept his head down, but he knew Chen Jingshen was still looking.
He had barely thought kill the witness when there was a knock, two light raps. A door that went half a year without a sound made its second noise of the day.
“I will get it.” The sofa lightened as Chen Jingshen stood.
Yu Fan stayed frozen in that awkward bend for a moment, then turned stiffly to face his laptop again. Only when a voice outside said “Your delivery” did his soul return.
“I did not order anything,” he said.
The door shut. Chen Jingshen came back with a bag. “I did.”
“Too busy with the wedding to eat properly.” He took scissors from the table, cut the bag open, then walked to the little sink by the door to rinse the disposable bowls and chopsticks. He did not act like a first-time guest in this place at all.
He set the largest bowl in front of Yu Fan. “Yours. Eat before you work.”
Millet porridge and meat buns, steaming hot.
Yu Fan had not felt particularly hungry, but the smell undid him. He hesitated, pushed the laptop aside, and mumbled, “Okay.”
The hot porridge hit his stomach and it eased at once.
“When did it start?” Chen Jingshen asked.
Yu Fan was tilting his head to check his collar and stopped. “What?”
“The stomach.”
Back when he first came to Ningcheng, he had thrown up almost every day and wrecked his gut. He had ignored it until one day the pain folded him double.
“Comes with all-nighters,” Yu Fan said.
Chen Jingshen nodded and did not press, shifting instead. “You did university at Ning University?”
Yu Fan hummed agreement.
“How many points over the cutoff?”
“Barely scraped in.”
“What did you major in?”
“Business and management.”
“Pass CET-4 and CET-6?”
“Passed four.”
“GPA?”
Yu Fan set down the spoon and gave him a frosty look. “What are you, household registry police?”
Chen Jingshen loved hearing his full name from Yu Fan’s mouth. Had loved it six years ago too.
“No,” he said. “I just want to know a little more.”
Yu Fan stabbed the spoon back into the porridge, took a rough mouthful, and muttered, “Three point two.”
It had been question after question from Chen Jingshen. Yu Fan felt the balance tilt. His head spun with things he wanted to ask, but the one at the front was still that same one.
He finished the porridge and stared a while into the empty bowl. His throat worked. When he finally spoke, it was low. “I heard you—”
His phone cut him off, the ringtone sharp on the table. The sound made his voice die in his throat. He glanced over and saw his lock screen, a green tunnel of trees.
He frowned. Who the hell called on a weekend. He was going to hang up when his hand stopped in midair.
The caller ID said “Mom.”
He did not have a mother.
It took him a slow beat to process. Chen Jingshen wiped his hands, reached over, and hit decline.
The small room went silent again. Yu Fan’s fingers rested on the keyboard. The phone call felt like another cup of coffee thrown in his face. Everything in him sank.
All at once he understood the thing between him and Chen Jingshen was not any new person at all.
“What did you hear,” Chen Jingshen said.
Yu Fan opened his mouth. Before he could say it, the phone rang again.
“Nothing,” he said, gaze blanking. “Answer it. It is loud.”
Chen Jingshen hesitated, then picked up. He stayed right there, so Yu Fan had no way not to hear.
Maybe Ji Lianyi was speaking too softly, or maybe Chen Jingshen’s phone was too good, but even sitting so close Yu Fan could not make out a word from the other end. He only heard Chen Jingshen’s low, even answers.
“I am not at the company.”
…
“Not at home either.”
…
“I said I will not come back until we are on the same page… Grandma.” It sounded like the caller switched. Chen Jingshen’s tone dropped, a touch helpless.
This time he was quiet a long time, so long Yu Fan wondered if the call had ended. Then he heard, “Got it. I will come back. I will be there tonight.”
When he hung up and turned to speak, Yu Fan had already slid the laptop off his knees. “I will walk you out.”
Chen Jingshen thought a moment. “Okay.”
Yu Fan moved like a wound-up toy, leading him to the door. He was just turning the knob when Chen Jingshen said, “It is raining. Do not see me down.”
Yu Fan made a sound, looked down at himself, then lunged to grab Chen Jingshen’s sleeve. “Wait. The coat.”
“You said you did not have one. Keep it,” Chen Jingshen said. “It is yours.”
Yu Fan had meant to say I do not need your coat. What came out was a soft oh. He watched Chen Jingshen turn for the elevator. Yu Fan’s hand closed on the door and did not pull. He left a gap and stood there. He had lived here alone for years. Chen Jingshen had been inside for what, an hour. Yet the little room behind him felt suddenly hollow and cold.
Also,
if Chen Jingshen did not have a second friend throwing a banquet in Ningcheng, did that mean this was their last time seeing each other?
It hit him late that they had never really said a proper goodbye. Six years ago there had been no way. Why had he not said it just now. Even something as small as see you.
The elevator chimed, a bright ding that jabbed his nerves.
He snapped back, yanked the door to go after him, and the panel pressed back from the outside first. Chen Jingshen had come back, pushing the door in. Yu Fan was still dazed when Chen Jingshen reached back and locked it.
“What are you—”
“Can I have a goodbye kiss?” Chen Jingshen asked, even and quiet.
Yu Fan went still, the words goodbye sparking a sharp ache in his chest. He remembered the last time he watched Chen Jingshen leave, fingers digging crescents in his palms, saying nothing while the name hammered against his teeth until he bit his lip not to shout.
The entryway was narrow. Two men filled it. Yu Fan looked up at Chen Jingshen, mind a mash, body honest.
He tipped his chin and leaned in a fraction, then froze. He had plucked from the slurry the memory that Chen Jingshen had come out and had a boyfriend. He went rigid.
Yu Fan’s eyes went cold, and he started to turn away. Chen Jingshen lifted a hand, took his jaw, turned him back, and kissed him.
Yu Fan was slow to react. By the time he did, he was pinned against the wall by the door. He frowned and bit Chen Jingshen’s lip. Chen Jingshen did not move. He let go of Yu Fan’s nape, slid his fingers into his hair, and forced his head back. The tip of his tongue pressed in with a faint salt taste. Yu Fan did not dare bite, mouthed to push him away, and paid for it by letting him catch and rub against his tongue until every edge had been mapped.
Chen Jingshen caged him in this corner and kissed him hard and silent. Yu Fan went from resisting, to yielding, to throwing up his hands and answering back. Eyes shut, chin up, his world shrank to Chen Jingshen’s breath and taste. Every so often Chen Jingshen would press a thumb to his Adam’s apple and Yu Fan would jolt, swallow on reflex, then burn hotter everywhere.
Rain hammered the glass with a patter like drumbeats. The small apartment, still unlit, held only the sound of quick, urgent kisses.
It had been too long. Yu Fan was overstimulated. His scalp and back prickled. For a second his knees went weak and he almost slid down the wall. Chen Jingshen’s palm caught him and held him up.
Five fingers sank into his long hair, veins standing under the skin of his forearm. He soothed that sharp canine with a slow rub.
…
There was only one person left in the apartment. Yu Fan stood before the bathroom mirror, staring at his face, flushed red all over, unable to make sense of it.
Who kissed goodbye for ten minutes.
Who kissed goodbye until someone’s lips split.
More to the point, Chen Jingshen had a boyfriend. Did he kiss goodbye like this with other people too?
So did that make Yu Fan a homewrecker for ten minutes?
His breath still would not settle. His pulse thudded against every patch of skin. Shame, sourness, excitement, a rush of heat, a dozen feelings mixed into a dizzying fog.
He scrubbed his face hard and dropped his hands, expression settling back into that old cool flush he used to wear.
What had Chen Jingshen said before he left?
“Wait for me to come back.”
He dared to come back?
Yu Fan moved the cactus from the bathroom window to the shoe cabinet, ears red, face blank. In his head he was already counting. If Chen Jingshen dared show up again, he would turn this place into a haunted house.
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