Fifty-Six

Amid the noise, Xie Yining raised a hand to shade her brow and suddenly said, 'Oh hey, I see the lyrics and song name on the screen up there — 'The White Brow,' I think it's Cantonese!'

Lu Yuqiu was tiptoeing below, squinting: 'I see it too... composition, lyrics, arrangement... all Do Re Mi!'

'Holy shit!'

'Holy shit!'

'Holy shit!'

The three people next to Fei Bolin said it in unison.

Su Haoran: 'Can't tell, Do Re Mi's actually pretty badass.'

He tilted his head up at Xie Yining, who was sitting on his shoulders: 'He wouldn't happen to be an arts-to-academic transfer like you, would he?'

'No idea,' Xie Yining muttered, bracing her hands on Su Haoran's head, 'but who gave him this dumb idea — singing an original Cantonese song at a singing competition.'

'That's what I'm saying,' Lu Yuqiu frowned along with her, 'it sounds good, sure, but the problem is no one connects with it. Down in the audience, nobody makes a peep — they can't understand a word. That guy before who sang 'Song of Seven Miles,' the second the accompaniment started, the whole place went nuts, everyone sang along. How's he supposed to beat that?'

'It has to be Qi Yichuan!' Xie Yining smacked Su Haoran's head, a light bulb going off. 'I kept hearing him humming Cantonese before, saying he was just a little Edison Chen born in the wrong era... he's just bullying Do Re Mi since he doesn't know any better, feeding him bad ideas, egging him on to write what he likes.'

Lu Yuqiu shook her head: 'Tsk tsk tsk, I think that championship is up in the air. Without that 'Song of Seven Miles' guy, maybe there'd still be hope.'

'This Qi Yichuan again,' Su Haoran said, 'I can't stand him the most.'

Lu Yuqiu and Xie Yining both looked at him: 'Why?'

Fei Bolin raised an eyebrow slightly, also looking at Su Haoran with interest.

The earlier back-and-forth between Xie Yining and Lu Yuqiu roasting Qi Yichuan was all in fun — the guy was half a friend to them, after all. They'd sit down and eat together whenever they ran into him in the cafeteria. Plus Qi Yichuan had a good personality, and it was precisely because they were close and he was easygoing that Xie Yining and Lu Yuqiu talked about him like this.

But hearing Su Haoran's tone, it sounded like he genuinely didn't like Qi Yichuan.

'What did he ever do to you?' Lu Yuqiu asked.

Su Haoran, indignant: 'Don't you think his and Ningning's names sound like a couple's names?'

Xie Yining: '...'

Lu Yuqiu: '...'

Fei Bolin: '...'

Su Haoran rambled on, getting more worked up: 'The second the college entrance exam's over I'm gonna change my name to Su Yiran! Anyway, under heaven only I can be with Ningning... Ow! Ow! Ningning!'

Before he could finish, Xie Yining grabbed his ear and disciplined him: 'Su Haoran, asking for it again, are you? Su Yiran? As if that'd ever happen!'

Lu Yuqiu: 'Pun joke, docked pay.'

Fei Bolin: '...'

The two onlookers wordlessly turned to look at the stage.

Pitiful, sure, but some people just have it coming.

-

Wen Fu's song wasn't that long — just over three minutes.

When the performance ended, a wave of cheers rose from the audience.

'Let's go, let's go.' Xie Yining climbed down from Su Haoran, grabbed them, and headed toward the Teaching Building. 'Champion's hard to say, but second place is locked in. Do Re Mi still has to wait for the vote, no telling how long that'll take. We've skipped almost two class periods, we should head back.'

Fei Bolin glanced at the stage then.

— Wen Fu and Qi Yichuan were side by side on stage taking their bow. The moment the lights dimmed, he saw Qi Yichuan open his arms toward Wen Fu, wanting to hug him.

Wen Fu turned and ran off the stage straight toward Fei Bolin.

Didn't even look back at Qi Yichuan.

Maybe he'd guessed Fei Bolin would leave as soon as he finished performing — Wen Fu came off stage at the same speed as when he heard Fei Bolin call him in for dinner at home. The stage went dark, and he shot off it, gone in a blink.

Qi Yichuan chased after him, calling out.

Fei Bolin stopped and said to Xie Yining and the others, 'You guys go ahead, I'll stick around a bit longer.'

They figured Fei Bolin was in a bad mood from just finishing his talk with the homeroom teacher — after all, he'd had no pleasant expression even while watching Wen Fu perform, and even the smiles he'd forced out midway had been a bit grim. So they naturally assumed he wanted to use this window when he'd slipped out to catch his breath and relax. Without saying more, they said goodbye to Fei Bolin and headed back first.

Fei Bolin stood in place for a while, then moved to a more open spot.

Once Wen Fu came off stage, he passed by the venue and casually took off his guitar and put it back, then shot through the crowd straight to Fei Bolin.

He'd just finished performing, and he was good-looking — carving a little path through the crowd, people on both sides looking at him.

Luckily Fei Bolin was far from the audience. Once Wen Fu broke free of the crowd, the next performance started on stage, and not many people kept staring at him.

Bursting out, Wen Fu saw Fei Bolin hadn't left — hadn't just not left, but was standing in the most visible spot waiting for him. He sped up and crashed headfirst into Fei Bolin's arms.

Fei Bolin let himself get hit, then smiled and steadied Wen Fu by the shoulders to get him standing. The next moment he saw Wen Fu craning his neck up, staring straight at him, his eyes dark and bright, lips slightly parted as he caught his breath, calling: 'Bo-ge.'

He had something he wanted to say.

Fei Bolin smoothed the messy strands of hair on Wen Fu's forehead and said the words Wen Fu wanted to hear: 'You sang really well, Xiao Fu.'

Wen Fu got what he wanted. His gaze flickered slightly, he pressed his lips together — that was as good as a smile for him. He wasn't great at smiling; the most his face could do to show he was happy was something like this.

After saying that, Fei Bolin was about to reach up and pat Wen Fu's head like usual, when he caught sight of Qi Yichuan chasing up behind Wen Fu.

His expression stalled. He looked at Wen Fu in front of him, a dark shade passing through his eyes.

For some reason, the hand hovering above Wen Fu's head wouldn't come down — it just stayed there, slightly higher than Wen Fu's head.

Wen Fu looked at Fei Bolin, then up at his hand, and on his own tiptoed, pressing the top of his head against Fei Bolin's palm and nuzzling back and forth.

Soft, fluffy — Fei Bolin had washed and blow-dried it himself last night.

Qi Yichuan was just walking up when he saw this and froze on the spot.

Fei Bolin had gotten what he wanted.

Without changing expression, he glanced past Wen Fu, his gaze sweeping over Qi Yichuan's frozen face, then lowered his head with a half-smile, rubbed the top of Wen Fu's hair, and said in a praising tone: 'Very good, Xiao Fu.'

Only then, as if just noticing Qi Yichuan's arrival, did he shift his gaze toward him and give a polite nod.

Wen Fu followed his gaze and turned, also seeing Qi Yichuan.

Qi Yichuan quickly rearranged his expression and walked toward Wen Fu with a smile: 'I was wondering why you ran off without finishing your bow — turns out you came to find your brother for some praise.'

Wen Fu didn't say anything.

Qi Yichuan bumped his shoulder with a fist: 'How was I?'

Wen Fu said: 'You were good too.'

Qi Yichuan tilted his chin toward Fei Bolin, but when he looked at Fei Bolin his eyes had lost some of their friendliness: 'Get your brother to evaluate me too.'

Something about that hit a nerve in Wen Fu. Before Fei Bolin could speak, Wen Fu said with great seriousness: 'Bo-ge can only praise me.'

'Ha!' Qi Yichuan put on a fake-angry look and laughed, 'What are you cooking up in that head of yours? Why can't he praise me? Just because he's your brother and not mine?'

Wen Fu dropped his head, looked at his toes for a while, probably felt his last line was a bit unreasonable, then looked up to make up for it: 'I'll praise you.'

Qi Yichuan crossed his arms: 'Then praise me. If you don't pull out something flowery, I'm not done with you.'

Wen Fu rubbed his temple, searched for a while, and squeezed out: 'You're good.'

Qi Yichuan: 'I'm sparkling gold, not a sparkling goldfish. You said that seven seconds ago.'

Wen Fu thought hard for a long time, then squeezed out another: 'Thank you.'

Qi Yichuan: '...'

Qi Yichuan, half-angry half-speechless, tipped his head back and exhaled: 'Getting you to praise me is harder than climbing to heaven.'

His eyes rolled, and he suddenly leaned in mysteriously: 'How about this.'

Qi Yichuan winked at Wen Fu like he was teasing a cat, deliberately seeming to ignore Fei Bolin's existence: 'If you can't praise me, give me a kiss — consider it compensation for that beating you gave me when we were kids.'

Fei Bolin's polite smile vanished instantly.

Wen Fu froze for a second, thought Qi Yichuan was serious, his expression darkened, he frowned and stared at him — the next second he was about to pounce and bite Qi Yichuan.

Angry kitty.jpg

'Look at you!' Qi Yichuan straightened up and lightly punched his shoulder again. 'You can't praise, you won't kiss, you want to hog your brother's mouth all to yourself — so what do we do? When you get first place later, give me the guitar?'

Wen Fu thought for a moment: he really couldn't praise people, didn't want to kiss Qi Yichuan, and even less wanted to hear Fei Bolin patting Qi Yichuan's head and saying 'Very good, Xiao Qi.' So yeah, he did seem a bit domineering. Compared to the first three options, only the guitar was something he could hand over — so he nodded: 'Fine.'

Qi Yichuan snorted coldly: 'I don't want it.'

He made to walk back, took one step, then turned: 'Voting's gonna take a while, I'm gonna grab some Coke. You guys want any?'

Fei Bolin didn't like drinks, but Wen Fu did. He looked back at Fei Bolin, asking permission.

Fei Bolin said: 'If you want it, drink it.'

Only then did Wen Fu turn back and nod at Qi Yichuan.

But Qi Yichuan, walking and patting his pockets, after patting himself all over awkwardly turned and asked: 'I didn't bring my meal card. Did either of you bring yours?'

For today's performance, he'd gone out of his way to put himself and Wen Fu in matching outfits — their jackets were the same style, brought out and changed into right before they went on. Wen Fu's School Uniform and his own were both left at the equipment area, along with their meal cards.

Fei Bolin took out his meal card and handed it over.

Qi Yichuan didn't take it, tilted his lips at Fei Bolin: 'Let's go together.'

Wen Fu stayed at the venue to watch the equipment.

The underground supermarket was in the Teaching Building. Qi Yichuan and Fei Bolin headed out past the field.

Once they were far from Wen Fu, Qi Yichuan spoke first, opening his mouth like he was just making small talk: 'You know why I wanted to kiss him when we were kids?'

Fei Bolin clearly didn't want to bring this up, but Qi Yichuan had raised the topic, and it wouldn't do to let it drop: 'Why?'

'I thought he was a girl!' At this point Qi Yichuan rubbed his nose and looked elsewhere, a bit embarrassed, but also finding the old thing funny. 'The first time I met him was at his house, in the yard. His family didn't really look after him. He was only four then, his hair had grown really long, lots of it, two huge eyes, looked just like a doll — he'd had that little melon face since he was tiny, and pale, you can't imagine how good-looking. And I was popular back in our compound too, every adult holding me wanted me to kiss them, so I figured maybe he wanted me to kiss him too, and leaned in to give him one. I was puckering up, still eight zhang away, and he slapped me across the face and gave me a nosebleed.'

Qi Yichuan told it with great rhythm and inflection, and laughed when he finished. Fei Bolin pictured the scene and laughed too.

Still laughing, the two of them went down to the basement-level supermarket. It was class time now — anyone who had class was in their classroom for self-study, anyone who didn't was at the field watching the performance. The whole underground supermarket had only the two of them besides the staff.

Qi Yichuan pushed aside the plastic curtain at the supermarket entrance and walked in first, stepping through the door, then suddenly asked out of nowhere: 'You don't really like me much, do you?'

Fei Bolin followed him in, didn't catch it for a moment: 'What?'

Qi Yichuan turned back and gave him a knowing look, then repeated: 'I said, you don't really like me much, do you?'

Fei Bolin met his eyes for a moment, didn't take the bait, and walked toward the drink shelves.

Qi Yichuan followed, talking to himself: 'The first time I went to your house to pick up Wen Fu, I already noticed something off about you, but Wen Fu said back then that you liked me quite a bit, so I figured I was overthinking it.'

He grabbed a can of Pepsi from the shelf. Beside him, Fei Bolin was picking between Coke and the various flavors of Jule Milk.

Qi Yichuan went over and picked up the pink-packaged Jule Milk: 'This one's good.'

Seeing Fei Bolin take it, he continued: 'But thinking about it now, with Wen Fu's communication skills, he can turn black into white. That little show today, I get it now — but no matter how I think about it, I can't figure it out.'

He leaned in close to Fei Bolin: 'Are you afraid I'll threaten your position?'

Fei Bolin leaned back silently, putting distance between them, then circled over to the snack rack to look at chocolate.

Qi Yichuan followed him, looking thoroughly puzzled: 'You're his brother. What are you afraid of? I'm not fighting you for the right to be his brother.'

Fei Bolin stopped, picked up the sweetest Dove matcha chocolate, and glanced sideways at Qi Yichuan: 'Then what do you want to be to him?'

'A friend.'

Fei Bolin smiled, and the smile wasn't very friendly: 'A friend would repeatedly try to get him to kiss you?'

The two of them, having grabbed their stuff, walked toward the register.

As they walked, Qi Yichuan kept watching Fei Bolin's attitude.

He grinned shamelessly: 'A boyfriend's a friend too, you know.'

Fei Bolin's face went cold instantly.

Qi Yichuan deliberately let the scene sit frozen for a few minutes, watching how bad Fei Bolin's expression could get.

At the register, paying one after the other, neither spoke. Not until they were out of the supermarket did Qi Yichuan run over and sling his arm around Fei Bolin's shoulder: 'What's with you two brothers, can't either of you take a joke?'

Before Fei Bolin could react, he grinned first: 'Just messing with you. I'm not gay.'

Fei Bolin looked at him with a dark, unreadable gaze.

Qi Yichuan laughed out loud: 'If Wen Fu were your sister, I'd really want to be his boyfriend.'

Fei Bolin actually glared at him: 'What did you say?!'

Qi Yichuan wasn't scared in the slightest — if anything, a bit provocative: 'I said, if he were your—'

The word 'sister' didn't make it out. The arm Qi Yichuan had slung over Fei Bolin's shoulder was suddenly knocked off.

In a flash, Fei Bolin was striding off at a fast pace, leaving him behind.

Qi Yichuan couldn't be bothered to follow. The two of them walked apart, far apart, one in front and one behind.

But those words had struck some chord in Fei Bolin. Walking out of the Teaching Building, he moved through summer wind that gusted and lulled. The wind was cool, but his head felt hotter and hotter.

Fei Bolin quickly lowered his eyes, his lashes trembling slightly, and looked at his own fingertips — the ones that had shaken when he heard those words next to Qi Yichuan.

They still hadn't stopped trembling.

...Sister.