Eyes Cast Down at the Reunion

From the narrow kitchen came the hiss and spit of oil, rice hitting a hot wok. He Yu and Xie Xue sat at the small, slightly greasy dining table.

Xie Xue's gloom had lifted entirely; she waited with easy, cheerful patience for her brother to finish cooking.

He Yu smiled along — a performance — while inwardly he rolled his eyes.

The kitchen's sliding door, plastered with stickers, rolled open. First came the warm, familiar smell of the food, then Xie Qingcheng stepped out, apron off, shirt still neatly tucked, dress trousers still knife-sharp. He was a cold man by nature, but a good older brother — his parents had died young, leaving him head of the household, and years of looking after younger family had made him an excellent cook.

Xie Xue watched her brother come out with his sleeves half-rolled, carrying a tray he set down on the modest little table, and let out a delighted cry, bouncing up to help him arrange the dishes and lay out the chopsticks.

'It smells so good. Gege, you're so handsome, you're so handsome! I love you so much I love you so much — hurry, hurry! I'm absolutely starving!'

Xie Qingcheng's face stayed flat. 'A girl shouldn't have words like that constantly running out of her mouth. It's unseemly. Go. Wash your hands first.'

Then, to He Yu: 'You too.'

He Yu hadn't eaten fried rice like this in a very long time.

Xie Qingcheng's rice was loose and golden, every grain distinct — He Yu had once stood at the edge of the stovetop as a child, watching him make the dish his little sister loved most, and he knew: good fried rice needed overnight rice, neither too damp nor too dry. Before it went into the wok, the rice was tossed through a large bowl of beaten egg until every grain was coated evenly in gold.

Then the oil brought to a rolling heat, two fresh eggs cracked straight into the wok, broken and stirred and lifted out quickly. Lard next, and the egg-coated rice poured into the flat-bottomed pan to be tossed over a high flame.

It wasn't strictly authentic Yangzhou fried rice — Xie Qingcheng had tailored it to Xie Xue's palate and never used green peas — but that hardly mattered. Three plates arrived steaming and golden-grained, glistening under the light, studded with small cubes of ham and silken, tender shrimp, pale-green scallion scattered across the top. The color and the smell were both irresistible.

He Yu ate, and ran calculations.

He found he could barely taste it. Xie Xue kept up a bright, lively stream of chatter across the table, but with her brother here most of it was directed at him; the two of them talked with easy, natural fluency, and He Yu — too long out of practice with either of them — couldn't find a way in. He'd become a piece of scenery, background with no presence at all.

The scenery was displeased. He needed to find a way to get Xie Qingcheng out of here.

'More?'

He'd drifted off, and the fragrant fried rice had quietly disappeared while he wasn't paying attention. He Yu came back to himself, met Xie Qingcheng's glance, and answered politely: 'No, thank you.'

'Gege, I want more — can you add a bit for me!'

Xie Qingcheng took Xie Xue's plate and headed back to the kitchen. Xie Xue turned to He Yu with her chopsticks between her teeth. 'My brother's is so much better than yours, you know. Incredibly good. Sure you don't want another bowl?'

He Yu smiled with his mouth only. 'One person who could break a bathroom scale is enough at this table. I don't need to cause more trouble.'

'Hey! What kind of thing is that to say! You hate me, don't you!'

'You're the one who said mine wasn't as good as his —'

They were still squabbling when Xie Qingcheng's voice came from the kitchen: 'Xie Xue. Why is there a bucket of water in here?'

'Oh.' Xie Xue stopped tormenting He Yu instantly — as though she hadn't just been laughing and bickering with him a second ago — and straightened in her seat with impeccable composure. 'The school announced the dorms will have the water cut off tomorrow, so I filled a bucket to keep in reserve. But the kitchen's so small, it's in the way everywhere else, so I had to put it on top of the chest of drawers for now.'

'That high up — what if someone comes through the door without noticing and knocks it down?'

The idiot said: 'Aiya, gege, don't worry about it, it'll be fine.'

Said without a second thought; heard with great attention. He Yu — who had always enjoyed pulling the braids of the girls he liked — caught every word of their exchange. Those clear, pretty almond eyes flicked once toward the kitchen, and in his mind a truly wicked idea began to take shape.

The three of them finished dinner. Xie Qingcheng disliked cleaning up, so He Yu, performing his role as the gentle, dependable, all-around excellent young man, naturally volunteered to wash the bowls and scrub the wok.

'Need help?' Xie Xue asked.

'I'll call you if I do.' He Yu smiled — not quite a real smile — and turned toward the kitchen, pulling the door shut behind him.

The moment the door closed, the smile vanished.

He Yu began assessing angles with care. First he nudged the bucket sitting on top of the chest of drawers outward — just far enough that opening the door would send it tipping.

Then, perfectly composed, he located Xie Xue's hair dryer on the second shelf of the chest of drawers, and, without so much as a blink, placed it in the sink and turned on the tap.

'Shhhh —'

The high-end hair dryer that Xie Xue had saved up half a month's wages to buy was reduced, by her utterly unsuspecting Young Master He, to an expensive and entirely useless piece of wreckage.

Good.

He Yu dried the hair dryer with unhurried calm and tucked it back into the cabinet.

Preliminary preparations complete.

He peered through the gap in the door — a glance, giving nothing away — at the girl still chatting and laughing with Xie Qingcheng, then turned back, rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, and quietly opened the tap to begin washing the dishes with a careful squeeze of detergent.

The picture of virtue. A model citizen. An upstanding young man of the finest character.

But perhaps there is, in the end, a reckoning for those who do too much evil.

Just as He Yu had finished scheming and executing every step of his plan, had shaken the water from his hands, and was preparing to let the female lead walk in and receive the 'coincidence' he'd engineered — he heard footsteps outside the kitchen door. He turned at once. On the other side of the frosted glass, a tall, upright silhouette had appeared.

He Yu's almond eyes went wide. Before he could move to stop it, he heard Xie Qingcheng's voice from outside: 'He Yu, I'm coming in to wash my hands.'

'Wait —'

Half a syllable out, and then came an almighty crash — the bucket He Yu had deliberately balanced on the edge of the chest of drawers rocked once, twice —

'SPLASH!'

That full bucket of water — the water that, according to He Yu's plan, was supposed to fall squarely on Xie Xue — came down directly and without mercy onto Xie Qingcheng's handsome face.

Fuck.

Not a single drop wasted.

He Yu: '…'

Xie Qingcheng: '…'

Water splashed everywhere, the room a sudden wreck. The bucket, its sacred mission fulfilled, trundled contentedly around Xie Qingcheng — soaked from head to shoe — and then, with the unhurried gait of an old man on an evening stroll, rolled slowly out into the living room, where it came to a satisfied stop in front of Xie Xue's slippers, just as she came running in in alarm.

Xie Xue had witnessed the whole thing from outside. She was shaking.

Done for.

Absolutely done for, done for, done for.

Xie Xue watched her brother stand there soaked through, slowly turn his head toward her. His face, already pale, had been washed by a full bucket of heaven-sent water into something almost alabaster — jet-black brows, jet-black eyes, the wet strands of hair hanging over his forehead dripping steadily. A droplet tracked down through his brow and found its way into his eye; he blinked once, instinctively, then caught himself.

'XIE XUE!!'

Xie Xue flinched from head to toe and made herself as small as possible.

Xie Qingcheng swept the dripping hair from his forehead, livid: 'I told you not to put the bucket on top of the chest of drawers!!'

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' Xie Xue came rushing in, trembling, mop in one hand, paper towels in the other — she thrust a wad of tissues at her brother while simultaneously wrenching open the chest of drawers to dig out the hair dryer. 'Gege, I didn't think it would actually fall… it was fine every time before… here, dry your hair first, don't catch a cold.'

Behind her, He Yu blinked his gentle almond eyes, conscience quietly eating him alive.

Xie Xue steered Xie Qingcheng to the living room, pulled out the hair dryer He Yu had drowned into uselessness — suspecting nothing — plugged in the power strip, and pressed the switch.

Nothing.

'Hm?'

Pressed it again.

Still nothing.

'…'

Pressed it again. And again.

'…Gege.' Xie Xue looked up at her brother's thunderously dark expression, feeling very much as though her end had come, and said in a small, trembling voice: 'The — the hair dryer seems to be broken…'

Xie Qingcheng's cold peach-blossom eyes narrowed. 'This is the hair dryer you told me cost four thousand yuan?'

Xie Xue nearly dropped to her knees.

How could she be this unlucky!!!

Xie Qingcheng had never understood why she would buy a hair dryer that cost more than an ordinary television. He'd torn into her about it at the time; she'd only survived by explaining at length how exceptional it was, how well it would care for her hair, and above all how rock-solid its build quality was — good for twenty years without a single fault.

'I swear, this one hair dryer is all I'll use for twenty years! If not, you can chop my head off as a tax on my own stupidity!'

The words still rang in her ears. Under Xie Qingcheng's glacial stare, Xie Xue felt a chill at the back of her neck, and couldn't stop herself from retreating one step, one hand rising to cover her own throat.

She was at a complete loss — and then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted He Yu emerging from the kitchen looking perfectly presentable, hands dried, innocent expression intact. A lifeline. A god descending from the heavens. She darted toward him, near tears, and blurted: 'He Yu! Can you do me a favor? My hair dryer just broke — who could have predicted this terrible luck! Do you have spare clothes back at your dorm? And a hair dryer? Could you take my brother over to change? Teacher, I'm begging you!'

'…'

Performing such propriety in front of her brother again.

He Yu smiled and played along without missing a beat: 'Xie laoshi, you really are too formal with me.'

His gaze shifted to Xie Qingcheng.

Xie Qingcheng had sunk back against the sofa, the sharp line of his jaw still dripping. His casual grey shirt was soaked through, the fabric clinging to his skin, hinting at the faint contour of his chest, the lean narrowness of his waist. He was turned sideways at the moment, eyes tilted, thin lips pressed together, his expression thoroughly grim as he fixed a stare on Xie Xue — with the air of a man preparing to carry out a righteous execution on his wasteful little sister.

He Yu looked at him, and felt the beginning of a headache.

In his original plan, the person who would end up soaked through and desperate enough to follow him back to his dorm to dry her hair was supposed to be Xie Xue.

How, through some cosmic misalignment, had it ended up being Xie Qingcheng?

He was a through-and-through straight man, and he disliked doctors besides — the last thing he wanted was Xie Qingcheng gracing his dormitory with his presence.

But there was nothing to be done. What was done was done. He'd gotten Xie Qingcheng into this sorry state himself, Xie Xue had already asked, and so He Yu let out a quiet sigh, walked over, and addressed the doctor sitting on the sofa with his forbidding expression: 'You're soaked through — stop glaring at people. Xie yisheng, come back with me and change? My dorm's not far, ten minutes on foot. Let's go.'

'You're soaked through — stop glaring at me, Dr. Xie. Come back with me and change. My dorm is close, ten minutes' walk. Let's go.'

.

The male dormitory at Huzhou University Art College housed four to a room. When He Yu brought Xie Qingcheng back, it was dinner hour and all his roommates had gone out to eat; the room was empty.

'Wear this.' He Yu pulled a clean set of clothes from the wardrobe and held them out to Xie Qingcheng.

Xie Qingcheng's expression curdled. 'A sports T-shirt?'

'What's wrong with it?'

What was wrong with it — clothes like this were for students, for boys still in school. The last time he'd worn anything in that style was ten-odd, twenty years ago; he could barely recall what he'd looked like in them. It simply wasn't suitable for him anymore.

'Give me a dress shirt.'

'Tsk, I'm really sorry, Xie yisheng — you don't have options.' He Yu smiled briefly, and with Xie Xue gone he didn't bother with the act.

His smile thinned to something perfunctory and weightless, like tissue paper held up to the light — eyes flat and dark, not a trace of warmth in them. His manner toward Xie Qingcheng shed its courtesy: 'The thing is, there's genuinely only one piece here that'll fit you. My dress shirts will be too big on you.'

Xie Qingcheng looked up, his gaze cutting through the damp hair pressed against his face to land on He Yu.

With the veneer of politeness stripped away, the mockery at the corner of He Yu's mouth was unmistakable. He met Xie Qingcheng's gaze and raised an eyebrow, easy and unhurried: 'Not going to wear it? Then I suppose you'll have to walk out bare.'

'…'

Xie Qingcheng wrenched the change of clothes from his hand and took his stony face to the bathroom.

He Yu stood outside the bathroom waiting, and was struck by the odd feeling that he'd seen this scene before.

Through the frosted glass door, he struck up a conversation with the man on the other side: 'By the way, Xie yisheng — something just came back to me. From a while ago.'

'You remember that year I came to your university dorm —'

'Don't remember. Get lost.'

He Yu smiled. He hadn't even finished, and Xie Qingcheng had already denied it outright — which was, really, as good as a straight confession.

Xie Qingcheng clearly remembered that old grievance just as well as he did.

Grievances have their origins, debts their owners. Even the clothes were a small revenge on Xie Qingcheng, years in the making.

Thinking about it like that, he actually felt something close to pleasure. So this was what it felt like, turning the tables after all this time.

'Don't take too long in there.' Without Xie Xue around, He Yu was barely managing to keep his tail hidden — he laughed and leaned against the bathroom door frame, arms crossed, his voice carrying a thread of easy insolence he couldn't quite suppress. He curled a finger and knocked on the frosted glass. 'When you're done we still have to go back and find your sister.'

A few minutes later, Xie Qingcheng shoved the door open with force — and walked straight into He Yu, nearly sending him to the floor.

He Yu hadn't seen it coming. He let out a muffled grunt and bent forward, hands covering his nose.

Xie Qingcheng looked up, unperturbed. 'Why were you standing so close.'

He Yu was in genuine pain, and done pretending entirely: '…Xie Qingcheng, are you being reasonable right now? You walked into me.'

When he was worked up, he still called Xie Qingcheng by his full name in private.

Xie Qingcheng paused. 'Go get some ice to put on it.'

'And where am I supposed to find ice?' He Yu lowered his hands from his reddened nose and rubbed at it, barely holding his temper — but still couldn't stop himself from pushing back: 'You look pretty much like ice to me. You might as well press your hand on it.'

Xie Qingcheng considered this image for a moment, and delivered his verdict, face unmoved: 'Too gay. I'm homophobic.'

And with that he pushed He Yu's chest aside and went around him into the room, looking for something.

He Yu stared after him, at a loss: 'What are you — I didn't mean it like that, and I'm more homophobic than you are anyway —'

'Where's the hair dryer?' Xie Qingcheng did not require the young man's permission to explain himself. He wasn't interested in hearing it either.

'…On the stool.'

Xie Qingcheng plugged in the power strip and went to dry his hair. He Yu drifted to the balcony and stood there, still vaguely irritated, watching Xie Qingcheng from across the room — genuinely unable to understand how a person like this could be Xie Xue's brother.

Xie Xue looked at her brother like he was the savior of the world. Her reverence for him had no ceiling.

He couldn't see what there was in Xie Qingcheng worth revering.

He was just an older man, when you got down to it.

But as he kept watching, He Yu's mind began to drift.

He thought about how Xie Qingcheng had once been, in his eyes, a childhood Nightmare. He'd always been afraid of him, and always had to see him anyway — always had to make a spectacle of himself in front of him, losing all dignity. Xie Qingcheng had seen him in his worst states; He Yu had once been strapped into a Black Therapeutic Restraint Strap and struggled and screamed at him like a cornered animal gone feral. Xie Qingcheng's gaze had been perfectly steady then — stepping toward him under the operating lights, the cold antiseptic smell, and then the needle breaking skin —

Xie Qingcheng had seemed so tall to him then.

And so cold.

Strong, unanswerable, hovering over him like a stormcloud — as though He Yu would never in his life be free of this Nightmare.

And yet, unexpectedly — after all these years apart — who looked up to whom, who looked down at whom, had completely reversed.

He Yu glanced down at him now —

Strange.

Seen again like this, he didn't seem nearly as frightening as before.

Perhaps it was the way childhood memory worked — the mind distilling impressions over years into something that bore little resemblance to the original. A TV drama you'd watched as a child always seemed endless, until you looked it up and found it was barely twenty episodes. A sheepdog you'd been afraid of always seemed bigger than a warhorse, until you found the old photograph and saw the animal barely reached an adult's knee.

Perhaps Xie Qingcheng was the same kind of distortion.

He Yu's gaze lingered — long enough that Xie Qingcheng felt it.

Xie Qingcheng turned his head, eyes flat. 'What are you looking at?'

'Seeing if my clothes fit you.' He Yu said it without a flicker.

'…'

'They're big, like I said.' He Yu continued. 'Xie Qingcheng, I remember you being tall.'

Xie Qingcheng said coolly: 'I don't feel I need to assert myself through height or build.'

Then he turned back and went on drying his hair — though his expression, just before he turned, had gone a shade harder than it had been.

In that moment, He Yu suddenly understood: his childhood Nightmare was, in the end, just an ordinary man — lean, even, almost slight. He Yu's white T-shirt sat loose on him, the neckline fallen open, and in the gap was a sliver of pale skin, the color of snowmelt, pooled in the shadow of the fabric.

It was genuinely strange. How had he ever been so afraid of him?

Gradually, without his noticing, Xie Qingcheng finished drying his hair. Straight men don't fuss over these things — he gave it a careless pass in the mirror, set down the hair dryer, and turned to He Yu: 'I'll head off. I'll return your clothes tomorrow.'

'Don't bother. I don't like wearing things after other people have. Just throw them out when you're done — they're old anyway.'

No room to argue with that. Xie Qingcheng gave the still-slightly-damp ends of his hair one more pass and said: 'Fine, then. I'll be going.'

'You're not coming back to Xie Xue's with me?'

'No.' Xie Qingcheng said. 'I have something else tonight.'

'Writing a paper?'

Xie Qingcheng had no particular habit of concealing his private business — or perhaps he simply didn't care enough to bother. He clasped the buckle on his watch, glanced past He Yu: 'A blind date.'

He Yu had been making idle conversation, only half-present. The word landed without registering; he was still inwardly pleased that Xie Qingcheng was finally, sensibly, leaving. But a few seconds later, the two syllables completed what seemed like an orbital journey around the earth before arriving at their destination somewhere in his brain.

He Yu blinked, mildly startled, and turned sharply, almond eyes wide.

Wasn't Xie Qingcheng married?

Why would he be going on a blind date?

Why hadn't Xie Xue mentioned any of this to him?

A flood of thoughts. He Yu blinked, and reached into the confusion for one thread to hold.

He looked at Xie Qingcheng — half his face sunk in shadow, expression utterly indifferent — and after a moment's hesitation, ventured carefully: 'Did you… get divorced?'