Chapter 88 — Picking You Up After Work
In Nancheng, winter and summer both come fast. It was not even mid-December yet. Chen Jingshen stood to pour a glass of water, and by the time he came back the window already had a dusting of fine snow.
He picked up his phone and texted:
【What are you up to?】
Right after he sent it, someone knocked. A guy poked his head in, froze when he saw the scene, and stared with wide eyes.
Chen Jingshen watched his screen for a few seconds, saw no “typing” bubble, then looked up. “What is it?”
The guy snapped back. “Nothing! brother Shen, everyone wants to ask what you want for dinner. We’re about to order takeout.”
“No need.”
“Huh?”
“I am not staying late tonight,” Chen Jingshen said. “No need to order for me.”
It took the guy a few more seconds to process that. Then he said “Oh,” and eased the door shut.
“What’s with that face?” someone outside asked while DMing a restaurant owner. “So, what did brother Shen want?”
“He doesn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Brother Shen actually said he is not working overtime tonight!” the guy exclaimed. “And when I walked in, I saw brother Shen on his phone goofing off. First time in my life seeing him slack at work!”
“…”
Everyone around him paused. Since the great one had joined, there had not been many weekdays he did not work late. He even slept at the office sometimes. The new company did have a ton to do, but when each person joined, they still secretly wondered if the boss had saved this guy’s life or something.
Soon they discovered there was nothing mysterious. Their resident ace simply liked writing code and building algorithms. He cared about little else. The boss had offered him the Technical Director role, but he declined, saying he was too lazy to manage people.
The guy fell silent, then finally stood. “I should go double-check…”
“Hey! Don’t bother. Spend that time sweet-talking the restaurant to slip you an extra chicken leg,” said Luo Liyang, the actual technical director, patting his shoulder as he passed. “Barring surprises, none of you will need to order for him for a while.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Why do you think?” Luo grinned. “Someone’s waiting at home for brother Shen.”
Another murmur rippled through the room. “Wait, brother Shen has a partner?!”
Someone got smacked on the back. A woman said flatly, “Are you dumb? When I first joined, brother Shen already said he had a boyfriend.”
“I thought he was saying that was just a gentle way to reject you—ow, hey, stop hitting me!”
“Quiet, you two! Keep your voices down or brother Shen will hear. But boss, so brother Shen partner is really a gu—”
New company, younger dev team. The vibe was loose and casual. People even called Director Luo “boss” to his face.
Luo put a finger to his lips. “Enough gossip. And for the record, our company is ahead of the curve. No discrimination. Any kind.”
“Got it!”
“Yeah, come on, what year is it.”
Luo nodded, satisfied. “Good. Time’s about up. If you are not on night duty, do not work late today. It’s snowing. Pack up and head out.”
“Absolutely. If brother Shen isn’t working late, what excuse do we have? We’ll take it home!”
Chen Jingshen had no idea one sentence from him had triggered the department’s first ever mass on-time departure.
He only knew his boyfriend had not replied for quite a while, and calling went straight to voicemail.
At six o’clock, Chen Jingshen slung on his bag and left his office. As he opened the door, the neighboring desks all stood up in unison.
Chen Jingshen: “?”
A hand landed on his shoulder. Luo Liyang said, “Let’s go. To honor your historic on-time departure, everyone’s leaving on time with you.”
Chen Jingshen: “…”
Yu Fan stood near the lobby doors with his hands in his pockets, bored enough to check the big wall clock for the seventh time. He also, for the seventh time, made eye contact with the security guard who had been sneaking looks at him.
Yu Fan calmly blew a perfectly round bubble of gum.
Guard: “…”
The bubble hissed flat and collapsed. The elevator chimed. The doors slid open to reveal a car packed with people.
Their outfits looked copy-pasted: black shell jackets, heavy dark sweaters, a parade of plaid collars flipped over the top, backpacks and jeans, most of them in glasses.
Even the lone woman was in clean, minimalist gray.
They were chatting about something, all smiles. Only Chen Jingshen had his head down texting. Wrapped in a black overcoat, he stood tall and impossible to miss.
Luo Liyang was texting a date when someone poked his arm. “Drive today? Give me a lift.”
Luo blinked. “It’s a ten-minute walk. Back when we first met I offered to give you rides. You always refused.”
“Are you giving me a lift or not?” Chen Jingshen frowned.
“I am. I will chauffeur you to your front door.”
Behind them, the others were still chirping. The woman stretched. “Wow, getting off early for once. I do not even know what I’ll do at home.”
“I can give you some of my tasks.”
“In your dreams. Do your own work. Also, the guy by the door is really handsome.”
“Please. Handsomer than me and the great one—whoa. Long-haired hottie.”
Before the sentence finished, a gust of wind seemed to pass their shoulders.
They had not even processed it when the great one was already standing beside the handsome guy by the door, hand up to brush snowflakes from his hair.
“Why is your phone off?” Chen Jingshen asked.
“Battery died.” Yu Fan exhaled a puff of white.
“Where did you go?”
“Swung by my old place,” Yu Fan said, then remembered something and took a step back. “Chen Jingshen, I am covered in dust. Keep your distance.”
Chen had wanted to ask why he did not wait so they could go together, but Yu Fan had been gone a long time, and maybe he wanted to revisit alone. Chen let it go. “What brought you over here all of a sudden?”
Yu Fan pressed his lips together, kept a straight face, and said, “I came to pick you up from work.”
The late-arriving gossip squad saw it: a rare smile on the team ace’s face.
Light as it was, it was still a miracle.
They wanted to stare and did not dare. Their eyes circled Yu Fan’s face over and over until Luo herded them away.
“Hi,” Luo offered his hand. “We met on video, remember?”
“Yeah.” Yu Fan shook it, a little stiff. “You look younger than on camera.”
“Really? Hahaha, I knew it. You scared me the other night with what you said.”
“Mhm,” Yu Fan said. “You definitely do not look over twenty-seven.”
“…”
Chen Jingshen had a hard time holding it in on the way out.
“What is so funny?” Yu Fan jabbed his arm.
“Nothing. I just wanted to ask,” Chen said, redirecting him, “didn’t you say you came to pick me up?”
“Yeah.” Yu Fan asked, “Problem?”
“No problem.”
They walked through wind and flurries. Chen cupped his palm over Yu Fan’s hair and bargained, “But next time you pick me up, could you bring an umbrella?”
“…”
He did not have much food at home lately, and he had rushed back today, so there was no time to shop. They ate at a place Chen frequented.
By the time they came out, the rain had turned to sleet. Back home, their clothes and hair were damp.
Yu Fan stepped into the room. He had not even taken off his coat when a towel landed on his head.
“Go shower,” Chen said.
“What about you?”
“Replying to messages.” His phone had been buzzing nonstop on the way back, and he had ignored it.
Yu Fan went into the bathroom. Chen stood at the window and checked his phone. Nothing urgent. A few clowning texts from Luo. A few work things.
He fired off quick replies and tossed the phone aside. He was about to crack open a long-ignored box in the living room when the bathroom door slid open.
“Chen Jingshen,” Yu Fan called lazily, “hand me my clothes. They are on the table.”
Chen picked them up and reached in.
Yu Fan did not take them. He leaned on the doorframe, wet hair stuck to his pale, rounded shoulders, eyes lifting through the half-open door, looking straight at him. “Done replying?”
“Mhm.”
Yu Fan cocked a brow and stopped talking.
They were always like this. If they happened to catch each other’s eyes in the middle of a conversation, they would somehow lean in and touch lips. And now, with steam fogging the air while they held each other’s gaze, even more so.
In seconds, Chen set the clothes back on the table, pushed the door wider, and dipped in to kiss him.
When Chen stepped into the shower, Yu Fan’s face wore a very puzzled look.
Chen adjusted the water. “It is not hot enough. You will catch a cold.”
“I am twenty-four, not seventy-four. My immune system is fine,” Yu Fan said.
Chen gave a small, blurred laugh. The water was loud. He turned back, one brow raised. “What is that face?”
“Chen Jingshen.” Yu Fan frowned. “How are you nothing like the people at your company? Do you secretly hit the gym while everyone is working? That is pretty sinister of you—”
Chen had heard enough and shut him up with a kiss.
The water warmed. Yu Fan felt both scalded and chilled by the tiles on his back.
Suddenly he was released. He half-squinted, frowning. “What?”
“A few more days,” Chen said.
Yu Fan got it instantly. He stepped on Chen’s foot, without much force. “Chen Jingshen, how many times do I have to say it. You are extremely ordinary. I do not hurt anymore.”
“…”
Chen pushed his hair back to bare his whole face. “We do not have anything at home.”
“It is in my pocket.” Yu Fan jerked his chin at the vanity.
“…”
Noting Chen’s expression, Yu Fan lifted his brow, very cool. “Chen Jingshen, did you think I would come pick you up without being prepared—”
He did not finish. Chen caught his chin and kissed him again.
Yu Fan braced his back on the wall, vision blurring.
Hot water slid over everything. He swallowed, lifted a hand to cup Chen’s face.
Water threaded through Chen’s hair, then traced his nose and mouth. Some got into his eyes. His eyes were dark, and the heat teased out a rim of red that the water carried down along his lashes.
It looked like tears.
For a moment, Yu Fan felt like he was not pressed to a bathroom wall, but to that old wooden door from long ago.
Was Chen Jingshen like this when he cried then? This many tears? He hid his emotions like a locked box, yet a little girl still caught him crying. Embarrassing.
Cried as a kid, still cries now.
Yu Fan’s chest went soft and sore. He bit down lightly and reached up to wipe Chen’s face. He rubbed under his eyes, mussed the hair stuck to his forehead. His motions were rough and earnest, as if he could not wipe it all away.
“Chen Jingshen, do not cry anymore. You look ugly like this.” He threw out the order.
Chen blinked, then lowered his lashes and kissed him again, voice even. “Didn’t you once tell me to cry one for you to see?”
Once?
It took Yu Fan a while to recall. He had said that. “Not anymore. I already got sick of the show as a kid.”
Chen stilled, looking at him in silence. After a beat, he asked, “When did you remember?”
“A long time ago. Your eyes are so small.” Yu Fan touched his eyelids, ears flushing red as he said, deadpan, “Chen Jingshen, do not stop.”
Chen Jingshen thought his boyfriend was a very interesting person.
He was open about some things and did not fuss at all. But the second Chen caught the button on his necklace, his whole face would go murderous, and he would talk like they were fighting.
Snow and sleet still fell outside. Their place was high up. Chen had not drawn the curtains, so beyond the glass was a blank white world.
“Chen Jingshen.” Yu Fan lay on his stomach listening to him type, tone flat. “Do you think you will go bald in a few years, so you want to drag someone down with you?”
“No. I told you I will not go bald,” Chen said.
Yu Fan did not answer. His shoulder pressed to Chen’s thigh. His breathing was slow and warm.
Chen could not help it. He paused the keys, reached down to ruffle his hair. Just as he touched him, Yu Fan rasped again.
“Chen Jingshen.”
Chen hummed.
“Why did you suddenly want to be a programmer?”
The question surprised him. He lowered his eyes and stopped with his other hand too, answering coolly and seriously. “Because it is hard.”
“Huh?” Yu Fan poked his leg.
“The deeper you go, the harder it gets. The pace is fast. I feel like I am racing the whole world all the time,” Chen said. “So coding eats time. I do not get distracted. I do not have to socialize.”
A strange reason, but on Chen it somehow made perfect sense.
“Where is your dog?” Yu Fan paused, then struggled up on an elbow, fingers catching Chen’s jaw. “No, wait. Chen Jingshen, you named the dog you got in sixth grade ‘Fan-fan’? What is that supposed to mean?”
“… At home. Places I rented wouldn’t allow big dogs,” Chen said. He had not expected that old tab to get pulled now. He thought for a beat and then embellished, “I am timid, remember? You were gone. I had to get him to keep me brave.”
“… I am buying a turtle tomorrow and naming it Shen-shen.”
“That works.” Chen raised his hand. “You can call me Shen-shen too.”
“…”
A sudden, catastrophic dirty joke.
Under the soft bedside lamp, Yu Fan’s face flushed like fire. He looked like he was about to start swearing. Chen even braced for a chokehold, but his boyfriend never cursed. He just looked at him in the light.
After a long time, Chen leaned in to kiss him, but the hand on his jaw tightened.
“Chen Jingshen,” Yu Fan said again.
“Mhm.”
“There are a lot of mosquitoes outside my door.”
“…”
Now Chen realized something was off about Yu Fan tonight. He had noticed in the bathroom too, how Yu Fan kept rubbing his eyes. There was probably a paler patch under them now.
“Still fewer than the ones under my building,” he joked.
Yu Fan did not laugh. “Did the guard shoo you away again? He pulled strings to get in. Scrawny like a monkey. His thigh is not as thick as your arm. You could not beat him?”
“I did not hit him. He is working. Not easy,” Chen said. “Besides, I had no ground to stand on.”
“…”
In a blink, that tight, needling ache flooded back through Yu Fan’s chest. He let go and rolled onto his back, turning his face to the other side. He said nothing.
That afternoon, he had stood in the stairwell for a long time, staring at that door. He pictured Chen knocking in silence. He pictured Chen doing problems under that busted motion light, then ducking to wipe his eyes when it clicked off.
He could not bear to picture Chen like that. Thinking about it made his whole body hurt.
Chen shut the laptop and reached to turn his face. He did not turn. Chen’s palm came away wet.
They had just mocked someone for crying in the bathroom, and now he was like this. Embarrassing. Yu Fan kept his forearm over his face like a clown and said coolly, “I just washed my face and forgot to dry it.”
Chen turned off the lamp. The room fell into pitch black. You could see nothing. Propped on one elbow, he brushed Yu Fan’s jaw and kissed him.
Without the light, Yu Fan’s shame retreated a little. His speech returned after a while.
“Chen Jingshen,” he said quietly. “Where did you go looking for me on holidays?”
“…”
Chen was silent for a long time in the dark, so long that Yu Fan nudged him with his forehead. “Those schools I marked for you,” Chen finally said.
“How were they?”
Chen kissed him. “So-so. You do not need to go.”
“… Where else?”
“Fen River.”
That was near Nancheng, but Yu Fan had never been. He swallowed against the ache. “Where else.”
Chen hesitated, rattled off two more places, then really did not want to go on. He bent to kiss him again. “That’s it.”
“How did you look?”
“I asked around the universities in those places.”
And every high school. And hospitals. A blind, carpet-style needle hunt.
Yu Fan fell quiet. He lay flat beside Chen with his forearm over his eyes, like he had fallen asleep. His breath was heavy and he sniffed now and then.
He had rarely felt real regret in his life. As a kid he pushed back at Yu Kaiming and got beaten, and he did not regret it. When his mom left and he stayed, he did not regret it. At school he showed off and fought groups, took a hit that left a scar on his scalp, and he did not regret it. But now…
“Chen Jingshen.” His arm went numb pressing his eyes. After a long time, he said, muffled, “I bought a ticket back to Nancheng.”
His heart twisted in pain. “But I did not get on the train. I was a f***ing idiot…”
Chen’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He bent and soothed him in that unfamiliar, steady tone. “Do not cry.”
“I am not. Water,” Yu Fan said.
“Mhm.”
Chen wiped the tears away again and again, careful and light. Yu Fan hid under his forearm a long time before coming out.
His eyes shone in the dark. “Chen Jingshen.”
“Mhm.”
“If you ever leave me one day, I will look for you too,” Yu Fan vowed. “I will look longer than you looked for me, in more places. I will look for you my whole life.”
“…”
“You could say it more simply,” Chen said.
“How?”
“Say you like me.”
“…”
Yu Fan froze on his back. Chen waited. Nothing came.
He did not mind. He touched around Yu Fan’s face with the back of his hand, made sure he was not crying anymore, and was just about to feel for the eye drops when—
“I mm-mm,” came a muffled sound.
“…”
Chen paused. “What?”
“I mm you,” Yu Fan said.
“Did not hear.”
“… I love you.”
“Still did not hear.”
“I love you.”
Chen leaned closer. “You what?”
“…”
Fingers tugged his ear and soft lips bumped his. “I said I love you! Chen Jingshen, if you keep pretending you are hard of hearing—”
“I love you too,” Chen said, laughing.
“…”
The room was quiet a long time. Yu Fan’s ear was released. He rolled over with a snap and lay with his back to Chen, as stiff as a mummy.
Chen covered his eyes and laughed without a sound, then asked gently, “Should I turn on the light?”
The mummy said nothing. When the light came on, he moved only to flip the blanket up over his head.
The next morning, Yu Fan lay in bed pretending to sleep, savaged by the memory of last night.
Chen checked the time. It felt about right. His hand itched and reached for the button at Yu Fan’s throat.
As expected, the faker opened his eyes and slapped his hand away. “Touch it again and I will cut your fingers off.”
“It just looked familiar.”
“Familiar my a**. Buttons all look the same. You do not actually think it is yours—”
“No. I looked wrong. Not mine.”
“?”
Yu Fan popped up from the pillow. “Not yours?”
Chen lowered his eyes and met his stare for a few seconds. Then he lost it and turned away.
His shoulder only twitched once before Yu Fan was already plotting where to bury the body.
He looked around for a weapon and found nothing. Just then his phone rang on the table.
An unknown number from Nancheng. Yu Fan frowned. Not many people had his number, and those who did would not call outright.
He hesitated before answering.
“Hello, are you a relative of Yu Kaiming?” a gentle woman asked.
Yu Fan went still and said nothing.
He was about to hang up when she said “Hello?” again, then continued, “This is Nancheng Third Hospital. The patient was brought in for a sudden cerebral infarction. He also has late-stage lung cancer. His vital signs have stabilized for the moment, but his condition is still not optimistic. You are his son, right? Please come as soon as you can.”
Yu Kaiming was out? When did that happen?
Yu Fan’s thumb hovered over the hangup icon and then lifted. “Will he live until noon?”
The other end paused a few seconds. “Hard to say. But he is relatively stable right now. If there are no sudden complications…”
So there was time.
“Got it,” Yu Fan said. “Thank you.”
He hung up. Chen said, “When are you going? I will go with you.”
“No.”
“Then I will go secretly,” Chen repeated. “Nancheng Third Hospital?”
“…”
“Really, no,” Yu Fan frowned. “Chen Jingshen, do not cling.”
“It is not about clinging. I am worried that if I do not go this time…”
When a few seconds passed with no answer, Yu Fan turned his head. “What?”
“In a few days I will be going to the station to bail you out,” Chen said.
0 Comments