Your Distance

90.0 - Final Chapter (1/2)

Late at night, Ting Shuang woke up in the bedroom on the second floor. He padded barefoot down the stairs, looking for Bai Changyi by following the light. He vaguely remembered Bai Changyi calling him for lunch in the afternoon, but he couldn’t get up, so Bai Changyi had carried him upstairs to sleep.

He walked to the entrance of the study without disturbing him, and just quietly watched as Bai Changyi worked, until Bai Changyi saw him when he looked up.

“You’re up.” Bai Changyi put aside his work and stood up to see Ting Shuang barefoot. So he picked him off the ground and carried him into the kitchen.

Ting Shuang was placed on the cooking table, where he drank a bowl of seafood soup that had been left simmering to warm his stomach, while waiting for Bai Changyi to warm up his food.

The snow had stopped, and a thick layer of white had accumulated outside the window. The kitchen lights revealed footprints left by Vico in the snow.

Ting Shuang thought back to their first date, and countless other moments they had shared afterwards, much like now. But winter felt exceptionally different. Winter made him feel warm.

After drinking the soup, Ting Shuang ate the clams in the soup one by one, picking out the meat, and tossing the shells away into the trash can a distance away.

“There’s still more than three months until the start of the next semester.” As he ate, he talked about what he planned to do over the next few months. He paused every so often, talking very casually, “During this period, I plan to do what you did… Drive to different places by myself, go talk to different people… I’ve told you about this idea before. I think I should experience something like that.”

Otherwise, he wouldn’t know where to build that building of his.

He was in no rush to build that building in a place he’d already known, nor was he in a rush to. He just wanted to stray from the fixed path, to walk around, to stop for a break, and to pick up a brick or two.

He set off on his journey after spending Christmas and New Year with Bai Changyi.

He rented an ordinary jeep, filled it with gas, brought with him clothes for winter to summer, and then went to the barber’s for a haircut that was only a few millimetres shy from being bald, saying it was convenient.

“Do I look a bit like a juvenile delinquent?” Ting Shuang looked in the mirror and touched the bristles on his head.

Bai Changyi wrapped an arm around his waist, lowering his head to kiss him, “Tell me which prison you’re assigned to.”

Ting Shuang returned the kiss and joked, “Why, are you going to break me out?”

Bai Changyi said with a low laugh, “I’ll be the warden.”

Ting Shuang nipped Bai Changyi’s jaw, “You want to lock me up so badly?”

Inwardly, Bai Changyi sighed. If only he could lock him up.

But children, they had to be released into the wild.

Before leaving the house, Vico pounced onto Ting Shuang, who was carrying his suitcase, and kept rubbing himself all over him. Ting Shuang patted his son’s head, “Good son, your father does look a bit like he’s leaving the house after a divorce… but he’s actually only leaving for less than three months. Take good care of the house. Look out for fires and thieves, and good-looking uncles.”

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After saying that, Ting Shuang put the luggage in the trunk and climbed into the car.

Bai Changyi stood outside the car, and Ting Shuang rolled down the window, kissing Bai Changyi as the first snow of the new year fell.