Chapter 21: This kid was drunk.

They were both speaking close to the ear, both with the warm breath brushing past the earlobe. But Little Fan and Tong Xilin brought Kong Ji two completely different sensations.

Tong Xilin pulled back after saying his piece, resting his head against the car seat’s leather headrest.

He lightly narrowed his eyes, imitating Kong Ji, looking a little lazy and carrying a faint hint of smug satisfaction, as if he’d truly uncovered some incredible secret.

The rain-splattered car window reflected behind his head. The lights and shadows along the street flashed past in clusters, casting a faint glow on the lines of his face—like a deep, kaleidoscopic backdrop.

For an instant, Kong Ji felt dazed, as if he could smell the scent of grass after a summer rain coming from Tong Xilin.

Scent was a carrier of memory. The smell of Tong Xilin before him intertwined with a scent he’d breathed in many years ago.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the curve of Tong Xilin’s lifted lips, then traveled from the lips down to the slender neck. He remembered the sensation here—when they pressed close, he’d receive Tong Xilin’s abruptly tensed tremble.

Following the neck further in, he looked at the two lines of the collarbone extending into the hidden confines of the shirt. Finally, his gaze retraced its path, roaming up along Tong Xilin’s throat, chin, lips, and nose, until it settled back on those eyes.

This kid was drunk.

A drunk Tong Xilin was far too different from the usual one. The base of his eyes held a provocative tipsiness.

There was a certain… spark.

Kong Ji frequently looked at him like this. From the very first meeting—with observation, scrutiny, and silent contemplation.

Over their year together, Tong Xilin’s gaze in response to his had transformed from curiosity and immersion into clear-headed resistance.

Today was different.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the relentless, gloomy rain that made a person restless. Various emotions tangled and rose, and Tong Xilin suddenly felt a little angry.

“Why aren’t you saying anything, Uncle?”

He kicked Kong Ji’s calf under the seat.

Kong Ji lowered his hand and caught his ankle. Tong Xilin tried to pull back, but he was pinned and couldn’t break free.

“Does it still hurt?” Kong Ji folded up his pant leg, encircling Tong Xilin’s calf—the one that ached whenever the weather changed—with the curve of his hand.

Tong Xilin stopped struggling immediately.

He stared blankly at Kong Ji’s lowered brows and eyes. The rare surge of temper was crushed into pieces in Kong Ji’s palm, and as the alcohol fermented, it abruptly turned into a sour, aching grievance.

Tong Yuzhi’s legs never hurt.

How ironic. The primal pain caused by the car accident had become the only evidence that distinguished whether Kong Ji was thinking of him, or thinking of Tong Yuzhi.

“…It hurts.” Taking advantage of the alcohol, he pursed his lips.

Tong Xilin was carried home on Kong Ji’s back.

The designated driver parked the car in the underground garage and left. Kong Ji motioned for Tong Xilin to climb onto his back. Tong Xilin didn’t want to.

“No carrying, then I’ll carry you in my arms.” Kong Ji propped himself against the car door frame, bending down to look at him. “Choose.”

Kong Ji’s back was broad and warm. His two hands firmly supported Tong Xilin’s legs. Tong Xilin had never been carried like this before. He found it incredibly intimate. His entire chest was pressed flush against Kong Ji. The summer clothes were thin—it was almost as if there was no barrier at all. The warmth of their bodies conducted intimately to the other.

He looked at Kong Ji’s hair, at the striking contours of his features, at Kong Ji’s ears. Without thinking, he reached out and touched one.

Kong Ji turned his face to sweep a glance at him. He freed one hand to press the elevator button, while the other hand hoisted Tong Xilin tighter, saying, “Stop wriggling.”

“My dad never carried me like this.” Resting on his shoulder, Tong Xilin mumbled softly, asking whatever came to mind. “Did you ever carry him?”

“What do you want to hear?” Kong Ji didn’t answer directly.

“I want to hear the truth,” Tong Xilin said.

The elevator reached the seventeenth floor in silence. Only after entering the house and settling Tong Xilin securely on the sofa did Kong Ji finally speak and answer: “No.”

Tong Xilin’s reactions were very slow. The gentle jostle of being carried upstairs had stirred the alcohol in his mind into an even more muddled stupor.

He looked at Kong Ji, kneeling in front of him. After a long while, he let out an “Oh,” and revealed a small smile.

“Feel like throwing up?” Kong Ji touched the corner of his mouth.

Tong Xilin shook his head.

“Go take a shower.” Kong Ji got up to make him some honey water.

The honey water was ready, but Tong Xilin was still slumped on the sofa, unmoving.

He had tried to get up, but the aftereffects of those four glasses of draft beer were only surging up now, making his vision blur in waves—like the old, bulky TV from his childhood back at home, the one with the thick back. When it couldn’t get a signal, the screen was just full of static snowflakes.

He felt like if he moved any more, he really might throw up. So he had to sit back down. But sitting was too tiring, so he kicked off his shoes and curled up, lying in the sofa.

“Uncle.” He looked at Kong Ji approaching him and started asking again. “How did you and my dad meet?”

Kong Ji placed the honey water on the coffee table. The spoon clinked against the inside of the cup. Tong Xilin was drawn by the sound, staring at the cup in a daze.

Just as he was spacing out, his head felt lighter. Kong Ji lifted his neck, sat down, and rested Tong Xilin’s head on his own knee.

“You’ve been bringing up your dad a lot lately.” Kong Ji propped his other leg on the edge of the sofa, lit a cigarette with one hand, and used his free hand to toy with Tong Xilin’s bangs, revealing his features completely.

“You don’t like it?” Tong Xilin looked up from below. From this angle, he could see Kong Ji’s lowered eyelashes, but couldn’t make out his eyes.

Kong Ji’s fingers slid down from Tong Xilin’s forehead, tracing the outline of his nose, hovering just above his lips—barely touching, barely not—then dropped down to tilt his chin upward.

The sensation of this tracing was even more intimate than those forehead-pressing and head-rubbing touches. It tingled right into the crevices of the heart.

Tong Xilin had felt it for half a year, avoided it for half a year. He knew he should resolutely keep dodging. But maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was Kong Ji asking if his legs hurt. Maybe it was that broad, warm back and those steady, powerful arms from a moment ago. His willpower slackened, and he began to feel attached to these small gestures from Kong Ji again.

“How many boyfriends have you had?” He couldn’t help asking, also reaching out to trace Kong Ji’s face.

“Forgotten.” Kong Ji tilted his neck, letting Tong Xilin’s hand press solidly against his face, lightly biting the tip of his finger.

As he made these movements, his eyes never left Tong Xilin. He kept looking into his eyes.

“Only fickle people can’t remember.” Tong Xilin mumbled, withdrawing his hand, clutching the tingling fingertip in his palm.

Kong Ji raised the corner of his mouth indifferently, continuing to trace the contours of Tong Xilin’s features with his finger.

“I’m an adult, Tong Xilin.” He explained using his own understanding. “It’s not necessary to have feelings to develop a relationship. A lot of the time, for a lot of people, it’s just a means of amusement.”

These words were spoken very coldly. Tong Xilin couldn’t understand, nor could he imagine how one could be with a person for whom they had no feelings.

“Like that Little Fan?”

He thought of that cake-stealing guy with the eyebrow stud, who had come looking for Kong Ji in that heavy snow. Kong Ji’s reaction had indeed been indifferent and casual.

“What about my dad, then?” He couldn’t suppress the curiosity in his heart. He rolled over on the sofa, lying straight and flat on his back, his head pillowed on Kong Ji’s knee.

Kong Ji made a questioning “Hm?” sound.

“What number boyfriend was my dad?” Tong Xilin had many questions. Before, he’d buried them all deep, deep down for the sake of the final sprint for the College Entrance Exam. Every time they surfaced, they felt strange, and he’d quickly shatter them himself.

From his perspective, it was truly hard to imagine the image of Tong Yuzhi and Kong Ji together, to imagine their love, their touch, and perhaps even more intimate actions.

It was too discordant with the stern, unsmiling Tong Yuzhi he remembered.

“You know about my past relationship with your dad?” Kong Ji still wouldn’t answer directly, turning the question back on Tong Xilin. His voice was deep.

“You liked him.” Tong Xilin grasped Kong Ji’s hand, covering it over his own eyes.

“And you?” Kong Ji laughed again, maintaining the eye-covering motion.

The hand covering his eyes didn’t block out the light completely. Threads of light passed through the gaps between Kong Ji’s fingers. Tong Xilin blinked, his lashes brushing against Kong Ji’s palm.

“He didn’t like me.”

His voice shifted back to that secret-confessing tone, hushed and soft. Feelings from over a decade could only be spoken aloud after drinking. It made his heart ache.

“Seemed like he hated me. Not like other people’s dads.”

“But he probably loved me too. Cooked for me, took care of me, raised me.”

Tong Xilin raised his hand and gestured a tiny amount. “Loved me just a little bit.”

Like the noodle soup he’d personally cook when Tong Xilin was sick, and the boiled egg he’d peeled for him during the High School Entrance Exam.

The hand reaching into the air was held. The light pouring down from overhead made Tong Xilin squint again.

Kong Ji looked at him without expression, his gaze coming from above. Tong Xilin couldn’t read what he was thinking.

“Why did you two break up?” Like a chatterbox feigning stupidity under the influence, he continued his questioning.

Kong Ji answered this question.

“Because he had you,” he said to Tong Xilin.

The hand that was being held was still suspended in midair. Tong Xilin froze on Kong Ji’s knee, distinctly feeling the temperature drop from his fingertips all the way to his heart.

“When I first met your dad, I was about the same age as when I first saw you. Seventeen.”

Kong Ji kneaded his palm—a methodical, toy-like technique, the same as when he’d led him across the short, steep section of that alley.

“Your dad was older than me. At the time, he was twenty-one. A junior in college.”

He inhaled a drag from his cigarette, looking at Tong Xilin’s face. His eyes softened with reminiscence.

“You liked him.” Tong Xilin met his gaze, murmuring like someone talking in a dream. “What about him?”

“It was the same for him.” Kong Ji replied in the same tone.

Tong Xilin couldn’t tell if it was Kong Ji’s eyes or the light spilling down, but a wave of dizziness washed through his eye sockets. His vision was replaced again by specks of light. A current of electricity shot across his temple, leaving a sharp ringing in his ear canal.

“But then, right as he graduated his senior year, he had you.” Kong Ji’s voice continued within this ringing, unhurried and calm—chillingly so. “I asked him to give me an explanation. He was incredibly stubborn. Said nothing at all.”

“Actually, for a very long time, I thought maybe that was just his excuse to break up.”

“Until I met you.”

“You do look a lot like your dad. Exactly alike.”

Kong Ji bent down, exhaling a plume of smoke toward Tong Xilin’s face, watching his reddened eye rims and the tears spilling uncontrollably.

“After your birthday, you’re nineteen.” He looked down into Tong Xilin’s eyes, his voice hoarse and low. “Tong Xilin, you need to understand one thing.”

“I have no resistance to a Tong Yuzhi around twenty years old.”