Tong Xilin found himself completely trapped by the black dog theory he had concocted. He was listless all day; his cold was already making his brain slower than usual, and today he was exceptionally prone to spacing out.
After afternoon classes, Zhou Qi called him to go eat. Tidying up the math problems left by the teacher, he checked his work three times and got three different answers. He sighed, tossed his pen onto the desk, and had no appetite whatsoever.
After enduring the first period of evening self-study, Tong Xilin felt he couldn’t sit still any longer.
The hot, mixed smells in the classroom steamed together, making his head swim, a dull, throbbing pain pulling at his temples.
He also felt a little nauseous.
His fever was probably spiking.
Testing his forehead against Zhou Qi’s, he went to ask the Head Teacher for leave to go home and rest.
Top students really did have certain privileges. The Head Teacher didn’t ask many questions; one glance at Tong Xilin’s pale lips, and she waved him off. “Get home and have your uncle send me a message.”
“That easy?” Zhou Qi was envious and also tried to ask for leave; the Head Teacher told him to get lost and go back to the classroom.
Tong Xilin didn’t take a taxi directly. Leaving the teaching building, the wind hit him, stinging his face. He put on his face mask, and his head actually felt much clearer.
Kong Ji’s place wasn’t far from school either, just a few intersections away. So, he simply put his hands in his pockets and walked back at a leisurely pace.
Passing the cake shop at the entrance of the residential compound, he stopped and glanced inside.
The image of Kong Ji placing chocolates in front of Tong Yuzhi’s grave surfaced in his mind again.
He had never thought about it before, but now, carefully considering it, Kong Ji didn’t really eat sweets.
He had seen that box of Lindt chocolates in the fridge the very day he moved in. Kong Ji usually hardly ever cooked; if he occasionally prepared breakfast, it was the simplest toast sandwich. There was no meat or vegetables in his fridge. Besides fruit, eggs, canned goods, and sparkling water, the most incongruous item was the chocolate.
Because Tong Xilin didn’t eat it, Kong Ji rarely took any either. A whole box remained practically untouched over half a year.
Growing up influenced by Tong Yuzhi, Tong Xilin had learned that you only specifically bought things in bulk to stock at home if they were essential or something you frequently liked to eat. Their family wasn’t well-off, after all; the mindset of saving money was deeply ingrained.
But Kong Ji wasn’t short on money.
He wouldn’t be so stingy as to specially bring chocolate from home to offer at Tong Yuzhi’s grave.
Chocolate didn’t sound like a proper grave-sweeping offering anyway.
So… did Tong Yuzhi love it?
Tong Xilin found it somewhat hard to reconcile this assumption with the image of Tong Yuzhi in his memory.
This feeling was too strange—his own biological father, whom he’d lived with day and night for sixteen years, his understanding of him might actually be false.
So how did Kong Ji and Tong Yuzhi meet?
What had happened between them, what had they experienced together, and how did they end up separating? After the separation, Kong Ji was even willing to take in this ex-boyfriend’s son…
Questions, one after another, bubbled up chaotically. Tong Xilin sniffled, a sour ache tightening in his chest.
That was the unfamiliar side of Tong Yuzhi and Kong Ji.
It was their youth, their story. The eighteen-year-old Tong Xilin couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of shared past you’d need to have to still think of the other person’s name before dying, to still be unable to forget them even now.
This empathy he couldn’t access made him agitated. He zipped his down jacket all the way up, strode past the dessert shop, and walked into the residential compound.
On a northern city night at this hour, the compound was very quiet. Aside from parents picking up children and students returning from school, practically no one else would be wandering aimlessly in sub-zero temperatures, trudging through the snow.
Just one corner away from entering his building’s unit door, Tong Xilin spotted a familiar figure.
Kong Ji and a somewhat familiar-looking person stood in front of the building. Kong Ji’s expression was indifferent, a cigarette pinched between his fingers, gently blowing away the smoke rising in front of his face.
The other person, compared to him, seemed somewhat agitated, as if explaining something, and even reached out to grab Kong Ji’s wrist.
Kong Ji didn’t pull away, watching him with a faint, ambiguous smile.
The man’s brow bone reflected a fine glint under the streetlight. Tong Xilin recognized him—it was the Eyebrow Piercing Guy who had taken his cake, the one Jiang Lin called Little Fan.
A whole day of dizziness and confusion, combined with the pent-up frustration he couldn’t relieve earlier in front of the cake shop, caused a sudden tightness in Tong Xilin’s chest.
The corners of his mouth, hidden by the mask, tightened into a straight line. Staring at Little Fan’s hand gripping Kong Ji’s wrist, he lifted his leg and walked straight over.
“Uncle.” Unceremoniously inserting himself between the two, Tong Xilin called out, almost pressing against Kong Ji.
Little Fan frowned, recognizing Kong Ji’s nephew, and awkwardly let go of his hand.
“You’re back so early today.” Kong Ji was a little surprised he was coming home at this hour but didn’t ask any questions. Glancing at Tong Xilin’s ears, flushed red from the wind, he lifted his hood and pulled it over his head.
“Not feeling well, seems like I have a bit of a fever,” Tong Xilin said.
Kong Ji flicked his cigarette butt into a nearby snow pile, took off his glove to test Tong Xilin’s forehead, then took Tong Xilin’s hand and led him directly into the unit door.
“Brother!” Little Fan grew anxious, shouting from behind.
“Go back,” Kong Ji said without turning his head, his tone filled with complete indifference. “It’s cold, we’ll talk about it later.”
The unit door closed behind them with a heavy locking sound.
Tong Xilin twisted his wrist slightly, not following Kong Ji into the elevator, but turning and walking into the adjacent stairwell.
“What’s wrong?” Kong Ji followed him in.
Tong Xilin ignored him, his feverish mind buzzing, trudging up the stairs sullenly. His footsteps were heavy and muffled, triggering the motion-sensor lights on several consecutive floors.
Reaching the second-floor landing, Kong Ji grabbed his hood from behind. With a skillful, deft move, he pushed Tong Xilin against the wall.
“What are you throwing a tantrum about?” Kong Ji wasn’t angry, nor was his tone interrogative. He asked with a light laugh, “Like a little bull calf.”
“Nothing.” Tong Xilin turned his face away, refusing to meet his eyes, and struggled to go further upstairs.
His strength was completely mismatched against Kong Ji’s. Once his wrist was pinned, he couldn’t move an inch. His down jacket scraped uselessly against the wall with a “shhh” sound.
Tong Xilin stopped struggling, lowered his head to look at his pinned wrist, and thought of what Little Fan had just done.
“Seventeen floors, you wanna walk up?” Kong Ji turned his face back, his thumb brushing across his cheekbone, like stroking a pet’s face.
Tong Xilin didn’t look at him, just gave a stiff “Mn.”
“Idiot.” Kong Ji laughed aloud. They were very close. He spoke, making a demand. “Look up. Look at me.”
The sensor light went out after Tong Xilin fell silent. The stairwell was pitch black, only the faint green glow of the safety exit sign remaining.
Despite the darkness, Tong Xilin blinked, yet he could see the contours of Kong Ji’s features with perfect clarity.
Especially his eyes.
“Unhappy about seeing Little Fan?” Kong Ji held his face, explaining in a low voice. “He had something to discuss with me, just showed up right downstairs. Such a cold day, leaving him standing out there wouldn’t be right either.”
Tong Xilin didn’t want to speak, grumbling secretly in his heart: If you hadn’t brought him home last time, he wouldn’t be able to find this place.
Clamming up when upset was a consistent flaw of Tong Xilin’s.
Usually, he would bottle it up. Like last time he came home and saw Little Fan, he didn’t greet him or ask questions, just shut himself in his room and waited for Kong Ji to come ask him. And when Kong Ji actually did ask, he would only suppress his emotions and say “Nothing,” eventually digesting it all himself and letting it go.
This personality trait was molded by Tong Yuzhi’s influence—Tong Yuzhi was someone exceptionally poor at communication. When Tong Xilin was little, he would cry and fuss, make demands, wanting Tong Yuzhi to pick him up, carry him high like other fathers, take him out to play, do many things with him. The response Tong Yuzhi gave, most of the time, was silence. Silently watching him cry, watching him fuss, watching him cry until he was too exhausted and drowsy, then coming over to wipe his tears and carry him to bed to sleep.
Waking up the next day, Tong Xilin would have forgotten his previous unhappiness.
Over time, when faced with problems, Tong Xilin learned not to express his emotions verbally anymore. It was as if a voice deep inside was telling him: It’s no use. Communication is futile, expression won’t get a response, all problems can eventually be diluted and resolved by silence.
Tong Yuzhi’s indifference and avoidance affected him in every aspect of daily life, making Tong Xilin once believe that everyone was like this. That people were just supposed to be like this.
But Kong Ji wasn’t like this.
People’s personalities differed vastly. Kong Ji, as a stranger who rushed over from a thousand miles away to take him in, had been solving every problem for him ever since. Every time Tong Xilin tried to digest something on his own, he would pull him out, unresistably, and ask him what was wrong. When he tentatively walked into the dark stairwell, he followed, caught him, and explained the situation to him.
At least at this moment, the person Kong Ji sees in his eyes… it should be me, Tong Xilin, right?
Tong Xilin thought secretly.
“Speak.” Kong Ji patted his face through the mask. “Just like your dad.”
The warmth that had just risen in his heart instantly dissipated with this sentence.
Identical to your father, pursing your lips when upset.
Kong Ji had said this phrase the last time too. Back then, Tong Xilin hadn’t seen that painting yet, hadn’t thought so much, hadn’t been this deeply affected.
He stared fixedly at Kong Ji, stomped his foot, making the stairwell sensor light turn on again.
“Really?” he asked Kong Ji.
“Mm?” Kong Ji was still maintaining that overly close distance, his eyes reflecting Tong Xilin’s eyes—the exact same eyes as Tong Yuzhi.
“My dad,” Tong Xilin said. “And me.”
“Yeah.” Kong Ji responded, then pressed his forehead against Tong Xilin’s again. “Very similar.”
He seemed to really like this posture of foreheads touching.
For the first time, Tong Xilin seriously considered: he liked these intimate gestures from Kong Ji too, but previously, he had never thought about Tong Yuzhi’s connection to them.
“With my dad, before… did you also do this?”
“Do what?” Kong Ji asked.
“Touching foreheads,” Tong Xilin listed, “ruffling hair, stroking noses, pinching ears.”
The stairwell light went out again. Kong Ji was silent for a long moment. In the end, he offered no explanation, simply taking Tong Xilin’s hand and saying, “Let’s go home.”
“Uncle.” Tong Xilin stood still.
“What is it?” Kong Ji looked back at him.
At that moment, Tong Xilin desperately wanted to rip the mask off his face, to make Kong Ji see his face clearly, see that he was Tong Xilin, not Tong Yuzhi. But he opened his mouth, feeling his eye sockets burn from the low-grade fever, and with a choked voice, all he could squeeze out was, “…My legs hurt.”
