Tong Xilin had been easily irritable lately.
Not the kind of anger that flares up. His personality wasn’t really the type to explode anyway.
It felt more like stuffiness.
Like the weather before a summer thunderstorm—dry, oppressive, appearing sunny and bright without a single dark cloud, yet that airtight restlessness always lingered in his chest.
However, he himself knew this irritation was always tied to Kong Ji.
For instance, Kong Ji suddenly showing up as an “uncle” to celebrate his birthday. Or this inexplicable “just calling you.”
According to the habits Tong Xilin had formed over this past year, he wouldn’t reply to this kind of WeChat message.
And indeed, he didn’t.
But half an hour later, he still couldn’t help dragging his phone over, his fingers putting force into the keyboard as he typed, asking Kong Ji: Why?
Tong Xilin’s message was half an hour late, but Kong Ji’s reply was quick.
However, his reply had changed topics again.
He asked Tong Xilin: Why haven’t you been posting on WeChat Moments lately?
Tong Xilin’s last WeChat Moments update was from that trip to Beijing. After that, he was busy reviewing and moving luggage for the break. Nothing particularly special had happened recently. No holidays or festivals to prompt a post.
He asked Kong Ji again: Why do you want me to post on WeChat Moments?
Kong Ji replied with a voice message: “As a parent wanting to see a child’s living situation, if not relying on WeChat Moments, then what?”
Hearing his tone, Tong Xilin could imagine Kong Ji’s expression saying this—a faint smile, a bit lazy, as if it were perfectly reasonable.
As if he had truly become that indulgent single guardian from TV, taking care of an uncommunicative adolescent child.
“Zhou Qi,” Tong Xilin turned his head, holding his phone up to call out.
“Yo,” Zhou Qi looked up from the bed, his chest still propped on Tong Xilin’s pillow. Seeing Tong Xilin’s posture indicating he was about to take a photo, Zhou Qi crooked the corner of his mouth and raised a middle finger.
Tong Xilin pressed the shutter. Looking at the photo, he felt both helpless and amused.
“Handsome, right?” Zhou Qi asked with a shameless face. “Permission to set it as your wallpaper.”
“I’m sending it to my uncle,” Tong Xilin said.
“Oh shit,” Zhou Qi immediately sat up cross-legged properly and even raked a hand through his hair. “You should’ve said so earlier.”
He snatched Tong Xilin’s phone. Holding it up with one hand, he wrapped the other around Tong Xilin’s neck. The two buddies leaned their heads together for a snapshot—one expressionless, the other grinning broadly. The empty space in the photo showed a halo from the desk lamp.
The photo was taken directly within the WeChat chat window. After snapping it, he directly hit send. Then, holding down the microphone button, he sent Kong Ji a voice message: “Uncle, it’s me, Zhou Qi. I’m taking care of Tong Xilin, don’t you worry.”
“Pretty handsome,” after the voice message was sent, he tapped open the photo for some self-appreciation and tossed the phone back into Tong Xilin’s arms. “Send that to me.”
Tong Xilin forwarded the photo to Zhou Qi, then went to post a WeChat Moments update. Mulling over the caption for ages, he honestly couldn’t think of what to write. In the end, he simply tagged Zhou Qi’s name directly.
When he finished this round and switched back to the chat window, Kong Ji had only leisurely sent back a single word: Mm.
The photo was genuinely well-taken. Both young men were good-looking, without fancy filters. The slightly blurry quality instead made it appear natural and spontaneous.
Within ten minutes of posting, the likes and comments from others had accumulated into several little red notification dots.
The first to like it was Qin Ji. He should have been on his way back from his shift at the coffee shop by now.
He left a casual joke in the comments: Taking photos without me?
The second comment was Qi Yuan, who posted: Brother Qi, stop flirting, log into the game.
Several classmates from their department and former high school also liked it. Zhao Linlin’s comment stood out among these classmates: Shipping this so hard!
Tong Xilin replied to her: Go study.
Red dots popped up one after another. Kong Ji had asked to see his WeChat Moments, but when Tong Xilin actually posted, there was no like from him.
At the beginning of August, during the hottest days, Zhou Qi really did go off to meet his online girlfriend—heading to Sichuan.
Tong Xilin helped him pack his things. Over that month, their clothes had been mixed together. Zhou Qi’s stuff was thrown all over the place.
“Is she reliable?” Tong Xilin, feeling that offline meetups from online dating were always too uncertain, warned him, “Don’t get scammed.”
“If anyone should be scared, it’s the girl. What’s there for a guy like me to be scammed about? It’s not like she can traffick me to Myanmar.”
Rummaging through his suitcase, Zhou Qi pulled out a T-shirt and tossed it to Tong Xilin.
“Keep this one. It looks better on you than me.”
Being trafficked to Myanmar—Tong Xilin had thought of the same thing when he followed Kong Ji to the North.
He couldn’t help but smile faintly, but the smile hadn’t even reached the corner of his mouth before he silently suppressed it.
None of his three part-time jobs had a shift today. After sending Zhou Qi off at the airport, the old building felt very quiet.
The first-floor room had been rented to a guy from Tianjin University this year. They’d barely met a few times. He had disappeared somewhere after staying only a few days. The entire first floor was empty.
Tong Xilin tidied up a bit, took a few books due back, and spent half the day at the library. In the evening, he bought some fruit and returned. As soon as he entered, he heard the sound of water rushing from the bathroom.
Qin Ji was bent over the washbasin washing his face. He had a full shift at the coffee shop today and normally shouldn’t be off until ten.
“Off so early today?” Tong Xilin greeted him, put the fruit in the fridge, cut a watermelon in half, and stuck a spoon into each half.
Carrying the watermelon halves out, he saw Qin Ji sitting on the sofa and paused, freezing. “What happened to your head?”
Qin Ji had a gash on the right side of his forehead. It wasn’t large, but it was still oozing blood. Mixed with the un-wiped water on his face, it looked quite serious.
“A couple started arguing in the shop,” Qin Ji pulled a pack of antiseptic and cotton swabs from his bag, offering a wry smile. “I tried to mediate and got bumped. The Shop Manager let me off early to get it checked, so I came straight back.”
Tong Xilin put down the watermelon to examine his head, his brow wanting to furrow just looking at it. “Then did you go to the hospital to have it looked at?”
“It’s nothing, just a small cut,” Qin Ji used a cotton swab dipped in medicine to dab at the wound.
As he applied the medicine, he spoke softly, as if comforting Tong Xilin or comforting himself: “The customer compensated two hundred. A trip to the hospital could turn a small wound into a big issue. It’ll be fine overnight.”
Tong Xilin didn’t know what to say. He understood the psychology of dreading going to the hospital when one was in straitened circumstances.
Watching Qin Ji jab a cotton swab into the wound, wincing in pain, he reached out and took a new swab. “Let me do it.”
The furniture in the old building was all old pieces left by the landlord. The sofa was very low. With Qin Ji sitting there, Tong Xilin had to bend over slightly to apply the medicine.
His touch was gentle. Holding the swab in one hand, he gently steadied Qin Ji’s temple with the fingertips of the other. Being so close, his voice subconsciously lowered: “If it gets inflamed tomorrow, you still need to go to the hospital. Even just a small clinic would be fine.”
Qin Ji didn’t respond. He looked up at Tong Xilin and pushed up his glasses.
After finishing the medicine and helping Qin Ji put a gauze patch on, Tong Xilin was about to turn and wash his hands when Qin Ji suddenly called out from behind him: “Tong Xilin.”
Tong Xilin answered and turned back at the bathroom doorway.
“Your orientation,” Qin Ji spoke very slowly, in his usual genteel tone, “should be the same as mine.”
The summer evening sky was a sheet of orange-red, shining in through the window. No lights were on in the building. Between the two of them, two distorted shadows stretched out.
Are you gay?
Isn’t it obvious?
The dialogue he’d had with Kong Ji suddenly popped into Tong Xilin’s mind. But he couldn’t be as nonchalant and casual as Kong Ji. The instant his privacy was pierced, the first sensation was a tingling scalp.
He froze for a moment, deliberately pretending he hadn’t heard, and asked Qin Ji, “What?”
If Qin Ji had played along at this moment and responded with something else—any topic, no matter how forced—both of them could have still pretended this conversation hadn’t happened.
But he didn’t cooperate. He merely looked at Tong Xilin with a knowing gaze.
“At first, I wasn’t sure either. It was just intuition,” Qin Ji touched the gauze on his forehead. “Starting from when we looked for part-time jobs, I realized you seemed to be… towards me…”
He paused, as if thinking about how to phrase it, and also like observing Tong Xilin’s reaction.
“…seemed to really like being with me. The tutoring center, the coffee shop, renting a place together, staying here with me for the New Year…”
“There were also many details. You always took care of me, including holding the umbrella, including the cake I bought you, even though you clearly don’t like sweets, you still ate the whole thing.”
“You didn’t even touch the one your uncle bought.”
Tong Xilin stood rooted to the spot, completely stunned.
“Given your family’s circumstances, you never needed to always stick with me,” Qin Ji smiled. “Most crucially, your lack of interest in girls is very obvious. Every time Qi Yuan and the others bring up those topics, you never chime in.”
“I understand this mindset very well.”
Tong Xilin didn’t know what exactly Qin Ji “understood.” His initial scalp-tingling was due to a guilty conscience, thinking his feelings for Kong Ji had been detected.
Hearing Qin Ji’s apparently logical analysis go further and further off-track, while he breathed a sigh of relief, he simultaneously felt a strong sense of absurdity and an urge to laugh.
“It’s not…” Tong Xilin never imagined that his empathy for Qin Ji—or, to put it more arrogantly, his pity and compassion—would be mistaken for something like this.
“I really don’t have any interest in dating girls.”
He decided to just be frank.
“But I don’t have those kinds of feelings for you either.”
Qin Ji’s gaze, which had been fixed on his face, stalled. He pushed up his glasses again.
“I consider you a very good friend. The fact that you could tell me your orientation shows you also see me as a friend. Thank you.” Tong Xilin offered him a way out, trying his best to preserve some dignity. “I’ll keep it confidential.”
After speaking, without waiting for any further reaction from Qin Ji, he went straight into the bathroom to wash his hands.
Qin Ji’s emotional intelligence was sufficient after all. By the time Tong Xilin came out, he didn’t broach this topic again. As if nothing had happened, the two sat together, chatting idly as they ate the watermelon.
But the awkwardness was inevitably left behind.
Qin Ji seemed to want very much to make amends somehow. From his peripheral vision, Tong Xilin could even sense him opening his mouth several times, but ultimately, he couldn’t manage to say anything.
Tong Xilin was all too glad he didn’t bring up those matters again. When cleaning up the dining table and preparing to return to his room, he had wanted to remind Qin Ji again to go to the hospital, but he pressed his lips together and remained silent. Qin Ji also said nothing further to him.
The old building, already quiet after Zhou Qi’s departure, was even more eerily silent this night.
Back in his room, Tong Xilin sat in front of his desk, staring into space for a long time. Listening to the sounds of Qin Ji moving around outside, he inexplicably opened WeChat and typed to Kong Ji: Uncle.
Kong Ji replied a few minutes later: Feeling homesick?
Tong Xilin: Qin Ji also likes guys.
The chat box was quiet for a moment, and then Kong Ji called him.
