Kong Ji’s sexual orientation wasn’t any secret.
From the day he’d brought Tong Xilin home, he’d shown absolutely no intention of hiding it.
In truth, even half a year later, thinking back on it still felt surreal to Tong Xilin—this whole business of coming home with Kong Ji.
Back in that hospital room, his care hadn’t been overly attentive, not exactly. He had signed the surgery consent forms, handled the payments. But once Tong Xilin was back in the bed with his leg in a cast, what concerned him most was this: how Tong Yuzhi had died.
“Cancer,” Tong Xilin had said, maneuvering his right leg onto the bed. He drew a rough circle over his abdomen. “It was already late stage when they found it. They couldn’t even finish the surgery. It had spread everywhere.”
Kong Ji had squinted, the emotion in his eyes completely veiled. Beyond that silence, Tong Xilin couldn’t detect any reaction from him.
“Were you a friend of my dad’s?” he asked in return. “Or a relative?”
Neither option had crossed his mind when his father left that message.
Logically, that entrusting message, akin to handing over one’s orphan, implied the recipient would be a relative or an exceptionally close old friend of his father’s.
But if it was a relative, his father had never associated with family. He didn’t even know who his own mother was. If it was an old friend, this Kong Ji hadn’t even shown up at the funeral.
Kong Ji had been leaning back then against the windowsill, an unlit cigarette between his lips. He’d stared at him for a long time, and then finally smiled and said, “A friend, I suppose.”
Tong Xilin didn’t ask further.
That long look was transparent, yet distant. It was clearly directed at him, yet it gave the uncanny feeling that Kong Ji was looking through his face, somewhere else entirely.
During those few months waiting for him to heal, Kong Ji asked for his home address, the cemetery location of Tong Yuzhi’s tombstone, and the contact info for his Head Teacher.
Tong Xilin gave it all, even directly handed over his house keys.
He had no guard up around him. For one, this was someone his father had spoken of. For another, there wasn’t exactly anything in that house worth stealing.
He didn’t know what methods Kong Ji used, but by the day his cast came off, Kong Ji was there holding a packed suitcase for him, simply saying, “Let’s go. Come home with me.”
“What about my school?” he’d been a little lost.
“Transfer,” he’d said, so casually. “It’s all taken care of.”
It took Tong Xilin only two minutes to accept this arrangement.
In those two minutes, he thought about the 37,000 yuan left in the savings book right after his father died.
A few school leaders had specially called him to the office during a break. The teachers patted his shoulder, encouraging him: “Be strong. If you run into insurmountable problems, tell the school.”
Living alone for the next two years, Tong Xilin often thought of that airy “be strong.”
It weighed as little as his father’s ash urn.
The school cared, but that care had conditions. He hadn’t understood what kind of “insurmountable” problems they meant.
His only problem was loneliness, a pervasive loneliness: wearing old uniforms and worn-out shoes for years to save money; eating the cheapest meal set in the school cafeteria; not ostracized by classmates, but never approached either; being rejected again and again when looking for a part-time job; returning each night after self-study to that pitch-black home…
He didn’t think he’d suffered too much. He was just… lonely.
Yet “loneliness” was such a light word, seemingly the easiest thing to overcome.
So he didn’t even have the right to vent it, nor anyone to vent it to.
He had thought this life-pervading loneliness would stretch on forever.
To him then, Kong Ji’s appearance was another form of lifeline.
He needed someone to take over his life.
And Kong Ji, in a way, was the inheritance his father had left him.
With this slightly selfish thought in mind, he’d said goodbye to the small town where he’d grown up for sixteen years and followed this man, practically a stranger, to this unfamiliar Northern city.
It was late spring frost when they arrived at Kong Ji’s place, the sky overcast, which only made this high-end apartment complex seem to almost glow.
Dragging his beaten-up suitcase, he followed him inside, silently memorizing the apartment number. But the moment the door opened, a man in pajamas walked out of the bedroom.
“Back already?” The man had greeted them with an intimate familiarity, his arm moving to drape over Kong Ji’s shoulder. Spotting Tong Xilin standing in the doorway, he’d looked thoroughly surprised.
“Why’d you bring a kid back?”
Kong Ji patted the man’s lower back, and looked at Tong Xilin, standing there awkward and at a loss. After a thought, he said, “My nephew.”
The man walked past him to look Tong Xilin over, his smile slightly suggestive. “Quite the looker,” he drawled, drawing out his words meaningfully.
Kong Ji tossed his coat onto the sofa, glanced back at the man, and then studied Tong Xilin for two seconds. He came over, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and led him to a side bedroom. “You’ll be staying here from now on. Get yourself sorted.”
Kong Ji closed the door as he left, and Tong Xilin heard him say to the man, in a bland, offhand tone, “Get lost.”
Eighteen-year-old Tong Xilin had never been in a relationship, and knew next to nothing about homosexuality, but he wasn’t stupid.
The state of an intimate relationship can’t be faked. Like blood ties, the clues all surface in the details and the surface actions.
That man never appeared again after that day, but two or three months later, a second man did.
The second one had a rather willful, or maybe just easygoing, personality. He brazenly displayed the dark hickeys on his neck and interacted with Kong Ji with even more overt ambiguity.
“Are you gay?” he’d asked directly once he’d left.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kong Ji’s expression and tone were utterly nonchalant. He sized Tong Xilin up with a half-smile. “Or is it making you uncomfortable?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Just asking.”
He told a small lie.
Imagining those hickeys on that man’s neck, left by Kong Ji, imagining the state they were in when those marks were created… he hadn’t been able to sleep well all night, clogged with an inexplicable, heavy feeling.
Thankfully, after he’d spoken up, that second man also ceased to appear.
Until today, when a third one showed up.
The sounds of reheating food came from the kitchen. Tong Xilin thought back to the tone the Eyebrow Piercing Guy had used with Kong Ji, and lowered his face into his hands to rub it.
Why was that person wearing his clothes?
Why had he just been in the shower?
What had they originally planned to buy? To do?
Was he imagining things right?
And then he remembered his wait at the cake shop, even specially bringing back a cake he thought was good. That feeling of unexplained blockage in his chest, like acid reflux, surged up again.
But… Kong Ji had said he’d specifically brought him a present.
That thought brightened his mood instantly. Composing his expression, he pulled the door open and walked out.
Before he could see what he’d brought, he noticed first that the cake bag on the table was gone.
“Where’s the cake?” he stood frozen by the table.
“That bag?” Kong Ji set down another exquisitely wrapped bag on the table, glancing at the empty spot. “That guy took it with him.”
Tong Xilin stared at him fixedly, his lips pressing together again.
“What was in it?” Kong Ji raised his eyes and, seeing his expression, walked over and asked gently, “Was it for me?”
“No,” Tong Xilin moved to avoid him, heading toward the kitchen.
“Just like your father.” Kong Ji grabbed his arm and pulled him back in front of him without a by-your-leave. “Presses his lips together whenever he’s upset.”
He really was a little upset.
But there was a strange quality to Kong Ji. With a low-toned, teasing reprimand, as if he was talking to a pet, most of his irritation subsided.
“It really wasn’t,” he insisted stubbornly, not pulling away from his grasp, eyes still downcast. “I bought that cake for myself.”
“Ah.” Kong Ji leaned against the table edge, watching him, a hint of laughter in his voice. “My bad. I’ll take you out to buy one later.”
“No need.” He changed the subject. “What did you get me?”
Kong Ji ruffled his hair and pushed the bag he’d just brought toward his hand. “Open it yourself.”
The bag bore a sharp and pricey logo. He knew the brand. It was a luxury item.
He carefully lifted out the box and opened it. A men’s scarf lay inside.
“For me?” He gently touched the fabric, looking up at him with some pleasant surprise.
Kong Ji didn’t answer, just met his gaze for a long moment before the corner of his mouth twitched. “Like it?”
“It’s nice.” He pulled the scarf out. Pure cashmere, soft and warm to the touch.
“It’s getting cold, wear it to school.” Kong Ji tapped his forehead against his, released him, and headed toward the kitchen. “This place is different from the South.”
He went to try it on in front of the mirror. The light camel color suited his skin tone well. When it covered half his face, his eyes looked exceptionally bright and dark, abruptly reminding him of that ID photo of Tong Yuzhi.
“Does it suit me?” he asked, coming over, happy and a bit shy.
Kong Ji turned his head to look at him, his gaze pausing for a beat. “Looks good. It suits you.”
The emotions of a youth come fast and go fast, easily soothed by a few words from an adult man.
He returned to the mirror to keep studying himself—not just the scarf. After coming here, everything he wore and used, from head to toe, inside and out, was all curated by Kong Ji.
The old Tong Xilin had no aesthetic to speak of, just a skinny, plain, small-town boy.
Now, saying he’d become a completely different person wasn’t an exaggeration.
He liked this feeling.
Not the branded clothes, not the scarf itself, but this sense of being thought of in every aspect of his daily life.
Kong Ji, a cigarette between his lips, came up behind him. Standing very close, he looked at the mirror’s reflection of him together and suddenly asked, “Have you gotten taller?”
“Probably.” He compared his height with his hand. He had grown a bit. But he still fell short of his towering height of over 1.9 meters.
Kong Ji hunched down slightly, resting his chin on his shoulder. He helped him pull up the scarf that had slipped, covering the lower half of his face again like before.
“Looks good,” he breathed out a thin trail of smoke, squinting his eyes in another compliment.
