Duan Shumin gave them a call, asking: “Is it cold in Shanghai?”
Duan Yuche said: “It’s okay.”
“What did you eat for dinner?”
“Just whatever.” They had looked at the nightscape, walked around for a bit, and went into an arcade that they passed. Cao Feng managed to catch a little toy for him, and then they took a taxi back to the hotel.
“Remember to dress more warmly when you go out at night, otherwise you’ll get sick.”
“Okay.”
“Sleep earlier, don’t stay up too late.”
“Okay…”
Cao Feng listened to Duan Yuche talking on the phone and could feel his perfunctoriness. It seemed like recently, the relationship between father and son had become worse.
Cao Feng made sure to take a very thorough shower before going to bed. He cleaned himself very well using the hotel’s shower gel, and when he smelled very nice, he put on his pyjamas and came out.
Cao Feng thought he probably didn’t smell bad. He liked to be clean, and showered every day, but smelling good would always be more appreciated by others.
Cao Feng leaned against the headboard, turned on the TV, and waited for Duan Yuche to come out.
Cao Feng didn’t usually watch TV shows. He much preferred the news or programmes about the law, but his attention wasn’t on the TV at all. He twisted his head to look at the bathroom. It was originally a transparent glass wall, but a curtain had been drawn across it, leaving only a small crack for the sounds of water splashing to come through.
The temperature in their room was very high, and Cao Feng’s mind couldn’t help but think of a hundred and one different scenarios. He didn’t know why he was thinking of these things, but the more he thought of them the hotter his body felt, until he had no choice but to get out of bed and open the balcony window.
The cold air from outside rushed in. Their hotel room was very high up, but it still wasn’t the highest building in the city. Cao Feng looked out at the vibrant bright lights of the city, his gaze filled with confusion.
Cao Feng took out the photos he had taken that afternoon, and looked at them for a while. When he heard the water in the shower turn off, he immediately stuffed the photos back in their original hiding spot.
Duan Yuche came out of the bathroom with wet hair, and said: “Breakfast service ends at 10, so we just need to get up at 9.”
He sat on the bed and started drying his hair. “Where’s the remote?”
Cao Feng found it and gave it to him: “What do you want to watch?”
Duan Yuche began flipping through the channels one by one, but it seemed like he wasn’t satisfied with any of them. The towel was piled on his head, and through his thin, slightly open sleeping shirt, Duan Yuche’s skin seemed half translucent under the soft light. Cao Feng stood at the side and didn’t move for a very long time. It was so long that Duan Yuche noticed, and felt it was strange: “Cao Feng, are you in parade rest?”
“No…” Cao Feng’s Adam’s apple moved a bit. “Xiao Che, have you ever slept in the same bed as someone else before?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Yeah, with Vic, and Zhou Zeliang.” Duan Yuche looked at him. “Should I sleep on the sofa?”
“Rb, P vlvc’a wfjc atja, atf yfv lr ylu fcbeut obg ybat bo er. P’w pera rmjgfv atja P wluta rcbgf jcv vlraegy sbe.”
“Tbe rcbgf?” Gejc Temtf ibbxfv ja Jjb Mfcu rajcvlcu ys atf klcvbk, tlr qbraegf jr ragjluta jr j qfcmli. Llr tfluta kjr rb ajii, jcv tlr fsfr kfgf rtjgq sfa mjgglfv kjgwat.
“I don’t know if I do or don’t, so if I…disturb you, just wake me up, I’ll go outside to sleep.”
“Okay. Come in, don’t stand there and get a cold.”
There wasn’t a single channel that satisfied Duan Yuche. He settled on a sketch comedy show and watched it boredly. It was about a woman who suspected that her boyfriend was cheating on her, only to find that it was all a misunderstanding. He was sponsoring a child in the hospital, and the woman he had been frequently contacting was a female nurse.
Duan Yuche said pensively: “Cao Feng, don’t you feel like my dad’s work has gotten a bit too busy recently? Why is he always not coming home?”
Cao Feng: “…..”
“I, I never noticed.” Cao Feng was a bit nervous now.
The light from the television flickered across Duan Yuche’s face, and his eyes were as empty as black holes. Who knew if he were talking for himself to hear or for Cao Feng: “My parents had that kind of a relationship, if he really started liking someone and didn’t want to come home anymore, I can’t criticise him. If he fell in love with someone, and had a kid with her, then afterwards, would he stop loving me?”
“He won’t.” Cao Feng could only robotically give that kind of answer.
“You can’t just answer however you like. You have to admit, it could be entirely possible.” Duan Yuche’ gaze seemed unfathomably dark. “If he stops loving me, what do I do?”
Cao Feng watched the way Duan Yuche’s expression changed, and seemed to fully understand what he was feeling. His heart felt a sharp pain. He didn’t want to see didi like this, he wanted to see him smile.
“…Xiao Che.” Cao Feng reached out and held onto the hand Duan Yuche was using to hold the remote. “Gege loves you.”
Duan Yuche looked at him. Cao Feng’s expression was serious, his gaze focused, as if he were swearing an oath. Duan Yuche suddenly smiled. Even though he didn’t entirely take Cao Feng’s words to heart, they still gave him a little comfort. “Thank you, gege.”
The killing power of that sentence was like Typhoon Lekima sweeping along the coast. Cao Feng’s face instantly went red, and the heavy thumps of his heart simply couldn’t be suppressed: “No need for thanks.”
After a while, Duan Yuche’s hair dried, and he lay down to sleep. He had a problem of not being able to fall asleep in unfamiliar beds, so he tended to only fall asleep when he physically couldn’t stay awake anymore.
And Cao Feng, because he couldn’t put his belt knife under the pillow, felt like he was missing some kind of protection.
The two of them lay side by side, unmoving.
When they finally fell asleep, Duan Yuche unconsciously stole the blankets. Cao Feng was woken up by the cold, and moved into the centre of the bed, wiggling into the blankets.
Not even a minute later, Cao Feng felt Duan Yuche’s leg hook over his body.
Cao Feng didn’t move.
Closely following Duan Yuche’s leg was his arm. Cao Feng stopped breathing. His whole body was frozen.
Duan Yuche maintained this hugging position, and Cao Feng didn’t dare to move at all. His heart was thinking wildly. Didi liked boys, so this…wasn’t very good.
No, no, he was Xiao Che’s older brother. Even if they weren’t blood related, he was still his older brother, and it was totally normal for family to hug each other.
Cao Feng had hugged Duan Yuche before, and knew that this kid was very nice to hug. Duan Yuche smelled good, and he wouldn’t try to pull away. When Cao Feng hugged him, he would lean against him, like he was putting all his trust in Cao Feng.
–
In the morning, the alarm rang. Cao Feng reached out and turned it off. He sat up, and found that didi had already rolled to the other side of the bed.
Cao Feng went into the bathroom and took off his soiled underwear. He didn’t know whether to wash it or throw it away.
In any case, buying a new pair would cost a few yuan.
But Cao Feng himself couldn’t bear this kind of smell. It was extremely thick. When he hugged Duan Yuche to sleep last night, it seemed like he might have had a dream he shouldn’t have had. This was common. After moving to the Duan house, he had frequently had these kinds of dreams already.
Cao Feng washed his underwear, and hung it on the curtain rod in the shower.
At this time, Duan Yuche walked in rubbing his eyes. He motioned for Cao Feng to move, because he wanted to brush his teeth.
Cao Feng stepped away from the sink, and Duan Yuche suddenly said: “This bathroom has a weird smell, don’t you think?”
Cao Feng: “……”
Duan Yuche closed his eyes to describe it: “It doesn’t stink, it’s just weird.” He left with the toothbrush in his mouth.
Cao Feng looked up at the underwear he had hung in the shower and turned on the ventilation system. He followed Duan Yuche out: “Xiao Che.”
“En.”
“Next time…don’t share a bed with other guys.” The words had just come out of Cao Feng’s mouth, when he felt that his request seemed a bit unreasonable. “I mean, not with friends, but you can with your…” Boyfriend.
That word, he couldn’t make it come out of his mouth.
Duan Yuche hadn’t fully woken up, and hadn’t understood what Cao Feng was saying, so he just “oh”ed.
Cao Feng smiled, and felt that Tommy was really obedient.
After eating breakfast, the two of them took a cab out to go explore. The driver recommended a few places to check out, so they went to all of them. Duan Yuche had originally wanted to go to the airport to pick up his aunt, but she sent him a message, saying that the concert organisers had already arranged for a car to pick them up, so he didn’t need to make the extra trip.
At night.
The organisers’ car dropped the performers off at the hotel. In total there were a few dozen of them, plus some valuable instruments. As the group of them got out of the car, Duan Yuche easily spotted the person he wanted to see, and immediately stood up from the sofa in the hotel lobby. He didn’t care about Cao Feng next to him, and ran straight to her: “Auntie! Auntie!”
His aunt enjoyed teaching him Chinese and Chinese culture, because she thought that people shouldn’t forget their roots. If it weren’t for her vision, Duan Yuche might have really been a complete foreigner when he first returned to China.
Duan Yuche ran over and hugged her. Cao Feng watched from afar, and walked over. He saw that woman, and she bore some resemblance to the photos Cao Feng had seen online of Xiao Che’s mother Vivian. Only their styles were completely different. Her skin was pale and her features beautiful, she had short hair with romantic curls, and she wore an indescribable oversized pink shirt, with a skirt as red as dates, and a dark red top hat.
Cao Feng had never seen anyone dressed like that before. But he also couldn’t deny that she looked very nice. It was like she was from an entirely different era.
He saw this woman tilt her head to kiss didi’s cheeks, then hold his face, seeming to say something about how tall he had grown, how handsome, and so on.
Cao Feng wove through the crowd and went over. He was nervous. He had prepared a passage in English introducing himself, but he didn’t think he could use it, it was too weird.
“You must be Xiao Feng, hello!” Her smile was as warm and youthful as her clothing. “Tommy and his dad told me about you, thank you for taking care of Tommy.”
“No, no problem.” He scratched at his head, embarrassed.
This aunt’s Chinese was too good.
“Oh, Tommy, I want to introduce you to someone. I didn’t come back just for this performance, it was also to invite you to my wedding.”
“Robbie.” She shouted.
Duan Yuche was stunned, and looked up.
He was a white man a lot older than his aunt, tall and handsome, but at least 40 years old. And since white people tended to appear older, even if he were only 35, when he stood next to Duan Yuche’s 28 year old aunt, Duan Yuche felt that they weren’t compatible.
“Robbie, this is Tom, you can call him Tommy.” She introduced. “Robbie is the conductor…Tommy, we’ve decided to get married next year, you have to come.”
Conductor.
A 35 year old would not be able to achieve that position. Duan Yuche thought, he could be 50.
He nodded unhappily. “I will.”
Robbie said hello to Duan Yuche, then asked about Cao Feng: “Is this your nephew too?”
Duan Yuche’s aunt said: “He’s Tommy’s…gege, they live together in his dad’s house. You can call him…”
Cao Feng didn’t even have an English name, and when he was nervous, he couldn’t even remember the names that usually appeared in the textbooks. He panicked, and blurted out: “I…my name is Louis.”
Duan Yuche stared at him, and didn’t understand why Cao Feng suddenly stole their foreign language teacher’s name.
Hahahaha big brother Cao Feng committed identity theft