My time came through. I watched myself being buried under. But when I opened my eyes again I wasn't in heaven or hell. I've crawled out of my grave to come home to him.
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Wei Ying
Wouldn't it be nice to disappear? Literally disappear.
In a way that doesn't involve living hidden, or sleeping to forget the existence of a conscience . . . Just dissolve into the nothingness of air, flow away with the wind, and mix into the millions of atoms around. Forget that you ever lived, forget that you ever loved.
Will I eventually be invisible?
The ceiling of my hotel room comes to focus, with a buzz that's coming from miles away; I realize, my phone is ringing. I slide my hand along the side of my pillow, a metallic cold of a phone comes into contact. I bring it back to the front of my face and almost turn it on. Not this one.
I blink my mind to a little stable state. I roll around to my front, propping out from the side of the bed, and spot the ringing phone on the floor.
I don't have to read the screen to know who is calling. Only one person had this number. "Cheng." My voice comes hoarse than I expected.
"Your leave of seven days ended today," he says. "Are you coming back tomorrow?"
"I—uh, can't. Not yet." I sit up, rubbing a hand against my face, still having no heart to tell him that I might never return. "I have to stay low a bit more. I'll work from here."
"Where is here? Jesus, I don't even know where you are."
"I can't tell you," I mumble, falling back to the bed.
"Why? Because I'll tell him?"
"Cheng—"
"Xian, what the fuck is going on? Why are you doing this to him? Why are you doing this to yourself?"
I squeeze my eyes. "Cheng, don't—"
"—I will because what you're doing is fucking stupid."
Such a concrete statement.
I throw my head back, open my eyes, the ceiling is fuzzy again. "I have reasons."
"Fucking tell them!" he exclaims. "How can I help you if you don't say anything?"
"You can't help me."
"No, fuck that. How would you know?"
"If it was simple as telling you, don't you think that I would've done that already?" My words come through gritted teeth. "I'm not doing this because I want to, Cheng. I left him because I didn't have another option. I'm fucking helpless, okay? Please, I don't want you to make me regret this more than I do. Fucking stop before I lose my mind."
I crush my face to the pillows, then lift it back up with a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Cheng, I just can't make anyone feel better right now."
"I don't—" he stops himself. "Wasn't it the same last time?"
"Yes! And leaving him did both of us good."
I hear a long sigh. "Did it really?"
"Of c—" I pause. Did it really?
"Listen. Just this one, okay?" He says. "Wangji is planning to resign."
"What?"
"I thought you might want to know. I don't know when or why, he's considering it apparently."
"How did you know?" I sit up on the edge of the bed.
"Xichen told me. I just kept you informed. I think he's figured out that we kept in touch. Hang on— Come in." He tells someone away from the phone. "Go through the highlighted parts again. Look, I'm covering for you, so I need to hang up now."
I shake my head back to reality. "Yeah, sure," I mumble.
"Okay. Call me again."
"Hey, Cheng."
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for all this. I—I'll make it up."
He sighs. "I never asked you to. Just look after yourself. I'm hanging up." The line goes dead.
My mind immediately jumps back to what Cheng said earlier. He absolutely can't be resigning.
I rummage through the pillows for the other phone—I can't find it, fuck, yes, it has slid under the covers—and turn it on without thinking. The light of the screen reminds me, you promised yourself to not look at it. "Fuck you, Xian," I whisper, shutting it down as soon as it boots up.
But the image of the lock screen that caught the corner of my eye repeatedly plays in my mind; I cheated. I saw his name.
I need to hide this thing.
I pull out the clothes in the closet like a maniac. Something clatters out of a jacket and falls on the hardwood. I've fucking—I've fucking brought my keys with me. I throw that and the phone both in and stuff the clothes back. That helps for two hours. Distracting myself with a movie helped for another two and a half.
At sunset, when I crawled down against the wall, I didn't even realize that its screen was already lit and that I'm swiping it unlock.
A picture. He has sent me an invitation. Do you want to go with me?
Lan Zhan, the wholesomely smitten, hopelessly caring, unmoved for seven years, lover of mine—used to be mine.
"We're supposed to be moving on, idiot," I mutter, but it was through tears, staring at his name at the top of the blurred screen, swallowing down a cracking sob.
You don't get to mourn for what you ruined, I've been telling myself. But, did I only abandon us, or did I abandon him?
Lan Zhan
Once again, I find myself coming home to an empty house, marking ten days of his absence.
He was cruel enough to leave traces of him all over the house. I notice them on my way even though I try hard to avoid them.
A pair of sneaker boots at the door; a jacket thrown over the sofa—a denim one this time—which always used to replace itself when I put it back in his wardrobe; his notes spread across the coffee table with an opened pen; the large tub of chocolate ice cream in the fridge; his black bathrobe that served many other purposes; the side of the bed he made that day which I didn't dare to touch.
How does he expect me to live, having a glimpse of him everywhere I go, without actually seeing him at all?
I sharply turn away from the bed, shaking off all sorts of thoughts, and open the closet. What I see first, is an empty hanger right in the middle. On the left corner, I had arranged the unused ones as usual. I most certainly did not leave one in the middle.
I remember arranging them yesterday. The one that was supposed to be in this—a quick look tells me that it's a white shirt. The comfortable one. The one that Wei Ying liked.
The slightest of hope swipes through me.
I take a stroll around the house, not letting myself feel anything as I've always practiced. It didn't have any difference from the way I left it in the morning. It didn't have the . . . messiness . . . I'm missing. After reconsidering a few times, hand on the handle, I push open his study. It's empty.
When something desperate and dark sinks down my sternum, I realize I did let myself feel something. I hoped.
I drink a full glass of water, letting the liquid cool off the burn, the hunger. Fill another one. I need a distraction. Work. I have work. I walk into my study.
There, on the right wall that held shelves of books, spines out, I find another empty rectangle of a missing item in the middle. I know by memory what I usually kept there. One of my processions I held dear from London: a book my brother gifted.
It's replaced by a black binder. I walk over. Pick it up. Turn it open.
It's a contract—the G Group investment plans, the deal, a marriage, leaving me—at the end, his signature. Below it, another note. This time a pastel yellow one with a message saying, 'Keep this VERY safe,' and 'Don't let anyone know that you have this,' under it.
Before I could finish taking it in, a ring comes from my phone. I almost drop it when I answer it. When I bring it to my ear, I don't need to look at a name to know who it is. I've held him, watched him sleep enough times to know him by breath. I can hear them fast on the other side of the line.
I stay still and silent with a pounding heart; as if he could see me; as if a slight movement from me will scare him away.
"Lan Zhan, don't quit, okay?" His voice comes unstable, and before I could say anything, the line disconnects.
But he's—he's alive.
My legs make me fall back on my chair, feeling something cold run down my face; it's a tear. A tear of relief after the maddening circles of what-ifs and uncertainties. I recall, it has been seven years since the last time I felt tears on my face.
Extra:
Breaking and entering by Wei Wuxian: Use your keys, enter your own house, steal a shirt and a book.
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