Inside the internet cafe, Zhou Qi had booted up a machine and was playing while he waited, also planning that after Tong Xilin’s training, they’d go grab some hotpot.
But then he came back in after his phone call, pulled the headphones straight off his head, and just said: “Let’s go.”
“All done?” Zhou Qi stood up, putting on his coat.
“My uncle called,” he rubbed his phone pensively. “Guess I got caught.”
“What the hell,” Zhou Qi, beyond shocked, found it vaguely hilarious. “Your uncle’s a cop or something, able to catch you just like that?”
He had no mind for his jokes. He went to tell Brother Chen, then quickened his pace out of the internet cafe.
He wasn’t clear on Kong Ji’s exact profession either. He just knew he owned a photography studio, working with the sort of people who were professional models, or even celebrities.
His work schedule wasn’t fixed. During slow periods, he could go half a month without a job. When busy, he often came home after midnight, even had stretches where he wouldn’t come home for days.
Why was it so uncanny? He’d only skipped two classes today, and yet he got caught.
They’d walked to the internet cafe at a leisurely pace. Heading back, there was no mood for that. Tong Xilin called a cab. Zhou Qi, in no rush anyway, went to buy another pack of gum while they waited.
“You this scared of your uncle,” he asked him in the car, chewing his gum, using his phone’s front camera to fix his hair.
Seeing that he ignored him, just staring at the time on his phone, he figured it was just the usual nerves of a good student getting caught skipping class for the first time. He chuckled, and offered him a piece of gum.
“It’s not necessarily that he caught you. Maybe he just came by the school to see you on the way. You’re getting all worked up over nothing.”
Tong Xilin couldn’t be bothered to respond, just turned his face to stare out the window. Spotting that familiar black car outside the school gate, his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.
Kong Ji wasn’t sitting in the car. He was wearing a black leather jacket today, a long black-and-white striped scarf draped around his neck, leaning lazily against the hood. His whole figure was tall and leisurely.
It wasn’t yet the dismissal time for evening self-study. The school gate area was empty. He hadn’t turned off his headlights. The two dazzling beams swept the small square completely, leaving nowhere for Tong Xilin and Zhou Qi, getting out of the cab, to hide.
“Damn, he’s so cool,” Zhou Qi squinted, blinded a bit by the headlights, clicking his tongue. He threw an arm around Tong Xilin’s neck and gave him a shake.
He’d never seen a parent catch a truant with this kind of imposing presence. His usual procedure was: screw up, get told on by the Head Teacher, wait for his dad to come home and beat him up.
Tong Xilin didn’t typically like close physical contact. Usually, when Zhou Qi fooled around like this, he’d block him directly.
But now, walking toward Kong Ji’s gaze, he paused. He didn’t move, letting Zhou Qi hang off him. He walked straight over.
“Uncle,” he called out, stopping in front of him.
“Uncle,” Zhou Qi also called out in greeting, still chewing that damn gum of his, lifting five waggling fingers in a casual nod.
Kong Ji’s face held no discernible emotion, the same as always. His gaze swept from his face to Zhou Qi’s hand on his shoulder, then back to Zhou Qi. The corner of one side of his mouth curved up slightly.
“Where’d you go,” he asked him.
“Out to play,” Tong Xilin lied without changing expression.
Zhou Qi found this a bit amusing, lowering his head to rub his nose.
“How’d you know I wasn’t at school?” He couldn’t help but counter. “Did you go to the classroom to look for me?”
“The Head Teacher called me,” Kong Ji gave the phone pinched between his fingers a little spin.
“Oh,” It clicked instantly. Tong Xilin turned his head to look at Zhou Qi.
—Zhou Qi was always a key target of the Head Teacher’s attention. If he himself was missing from class, the Head Teacher probably wouldn’t even think to associate it with him skipping. But the two of them disappearing together? That definitely smelled fishy.
“Why you looking at me,” Zhou Qi, feeling innocent, turned his head back. “You were the one who told me to bring you there.”
Tong Xilin fell silent, head lowered before Kong Ji.
Kong Ji didn’t say much to him right there at the gate. He pulled the passenger door open and lifted his chin. “Home.”
“Going straight back?” Zhou Qi didn’t catch on right away, thinking he would, like his own father, catch him and give him a severe scolding, then chase him back to continue class.
“There are still two periods of class left,” Tong Xilin also thought of this point, standing rooted to the spot.
Now Kong Ji actually laughed out loud.
“Now you remember you still have class?” He stripped off his scarf and tossed it casually into the car, walking over to the driver’s side to get in. “Since you wanted to have fun today, consider it a day off to rest.”
Kong Ji’s words at the gate had been light and easy, but once Tong Xilin actually got in the car and they were driving home, the entire car interior fell into dead silence. He didn’t even spare him a glance.
Tong Xilin couldn’t gauge Kong Ji’s mood now. He rolled his eyes around, sneaking peeks at him. Thinking it over, he fished out the gum Zhou Qi had given him and offered it toward him.
Kong Ji swept his eyes over it but didn’t take it.
He sheepishly pulled his hand back.
The car parked in the underground garage. They went upstairs and entered the apartment one after the other. Just as Tong Xilin unlocked the door and stepped into the entryway, Kong Ji, from behind him, grabbed the back of his collar with a controlled force. He shut the door and yanked him, pinning him against the wall.
Tong Xilin hadn’t even had a chance to hit the lights. In the pitch darkness, startled, he plastered himself against the wall, eyes wide, staring at Kong Ji’s silhouette before him.
The next second, a cool nose tip pressed against his temple. Kong Ji had him restrained like this, leaning in close, and from his temple to his cheek, he took a slow, light inhale.
“Where did you go to play,” he asked, his voice low, an interrogation.
This was the closest he’d ever been to him.
So close that as Kong Ji scented him, his slightly long hair strands swept past his face. Carrying his unique scent, the cold air not yet dissipated from just coming inside, and a completely overwhelming sense of oppression.
Set against this distinctly different blend of smells, he then caught the faint, lingering cigarette smoke from the internet cafe still clinging to his own clothes.
His heartbeat, at that moment, was a little too quick, wildly out of place.
Tong Xilin opened his mouth, unsure what to say. He didn’t want him to know he’d been looking for a part-time job, so he mixed truth with lies: “Went to an internet cafe. Played for a bit.”
He searched for his eyes in the darkness. Suddenly, before his eyes, it was bright. Kong Ji had hit the light switch. He pulled back slightly, but the distance between their bodies still wasn’t wide. He nudged his chin up, making his face fully exposed from the scarf.
“The one who asked you out to breakfast this morning, was that also that person just now?” Kong Ji asked, looking at him.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “He’s the school heartthrob.”
Watching him for another moment, Kong Ji suddenly smiled, returning to his usual demeanor.
“Certainly lives up to the title,” he said.
After saying that, he released his face, changed his shoes, and headed for the study.
Regarding the truancy matter, he didn’t ask another single word.
Tong Xilin stood alone in the entryway for a moment, looking at his own reflection through the full-length mirror there.
Meeting those eyes that resembled his father’s too much, for a long, long time, he re-wrapped the scarf back up around his face. He lowered his eyelids and took a deep, heavy inhale.
Zhou Qi was extremely concerned about what happened after Tong Xilin got caught and taken home. Messages popped up one after another, asking him how it went, if he was found out, if he got hit or not.
Tong Xilin lay listlessly on his bed, stabbing keys one by one to type back: Nothing happened.
Zhou Qi: It was definitely the Head Teacher who tattled.
Zhou Qi: She called my dad too.
Tong Xilin rolled over on the bed, continuing his sluggish reply: You’re gonna get it again, huh?
Zhou Qi: Let your uncle adopt me as his son, make him my dad.
Dream on.
Tong Xilin tossed his phone aside and ignored him.
Stuffing himself in his room for two hours, diligently doing two mock test papers, and consolidating the day’s schoolwork, he felt a hollow discomfort in his stomach and only then remembered he hadn’t eaten dinner yet.
He rummaged through the fridge and unearthed a jar of canned yellow peaches. Sitting at the dining table, he ate two pieces, glancing at the tightly shut door of his room from time to time. It all tasted like cardboard.
After thinking it over, he took the jar and went to knock on his door.
Gently, only two knocks.
“Come in,” Kong Ji called from inside.
He nudged the door open and poked his head in first. He caught sight of the complex office software on the computer screen. While working, Kong Ji had a pair of thin-framed dark glasses perched on his nose bridge, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He propped his chin on his hand and turned his face to look at him.
“Hungry?” Noticing the jar in his hand, he reached for his phone beside him. “What do you want to eat? I’ll order it.”
“Not hungry,” he walked over, placing the jar beside his hand. “It’s pretty sweet, brought you some to try.”
Kong Ji didn’t refuse, just casually skewered a piece and ate it.
Tong Xilin watched that fork he had just used, secretly curling his thumb into his palm.
“I didn’t skip class to go have fun,” his Adam’s apple moved. He decided to come clean with him. “I went to look for a part-time job.”
Kong Ji dropped the fork back into the jar, turned his swivel chair sideways to look him in the eye, and gestured for him to pull over the little footstool in the corner to sit and talk.
The stool was square, a little ottoman. Sitting on it, Tong Xilin was a good deal shorter again. To talk to him while looking at his face, he had to tilt his face up slightly, like a preschooler.
This time, he didn’t wait for his questions. He took the initiative to explain everything about the part-time job he’d found—the work schedule, the pay.
“Why did you think to find a part-time job?” Kong Ji took his glasses off and tossed them on the desk. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, getting closer to him to ask.
Tong Xilin lowered his eyes for a moment before him, then quickly lifted them again, staring at him unblinkingly.
“We don’t share a blood relation,” a flash of loss and helplessness flickered across his face, the duration of the expression flawlessly timed. “If you ever start your own family, it really wouldn’t be right for me to keep living here forever.”
“I don’t want to always be spending your money.”
“It doesn’t feel secure.”
He had prepared this speech while eating the canned peaches in the living room.
He spoke rather slowly, and when he finished, as if slightly embarrassed, he held the jar and stabbed another piece to chew slowly, his lips pressing subtly and imperceptibly against the fork tines.
“Tong Xilin,” Kong Ji said.
He let out a questioning “Hm?” and looked up.
“What year are you in now?” he asked.
“First semester of senior year,” he said.
“Then deal with the concerns of your age,” he flicked his face with a crooked finger. “This isn’t something you should be worrying about right now.”
His fingers were very long, beautifully shaped.
The touch was a little cool against his face, instantly reminding him of the sensation of him scenting his temple earlier.
“What about you,” following the planned sequence of the conversation, he asked him in turn.
“I’m not short on money,” the lines at the corners of Kong Ji’s eyes and brows were so pleasant, carrying the teasing, carefree ease of an adult dealing with a child. “Raising one of you is no problem.”
“So you don’t need to think about money. You just need to be a good boy.”
Be a good boy.
He chewed on these words along with the yellow peach in his mouth and pressed on: “Is it because of my dad?”
This question silenced Kong Ji for a beat. When he spoke again, he didn’t elaborate, just admitted it openly: “Mm.”
“So,” he pressed his lips together for a moment, “I can treat you as the inheritance my dad left me, right?”
