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“Maybe we should take a break.”
Xiao Xingchen had never been more devastated. Song Lan should have just broken up with him outright. It was what he really meant, wasn’t it? No one ever got back together after they went on break.
He’d just nodded. Song Lan had left. And Xiao Xingchen had thrown all of the things he could fit into a suitcase and a backpack and left. If he had forgotten anything important, it didn’t matter anymore. He got in his car, and as he got onto the freeway to start the 16 hour drive to his mother’s house, he called his workplace and told them he wouldn’t be returning. He hung up when they started asking him why.
As soon as he got to Arizona, he changed his number. He deleted all of his social media accounts. Not that Song Lan would look for him. Song Lan had clearly been fed up with him for a long time. Xiao Xingchen knew himself, and he knew he would be too tempted to check in on him every day if he didn’t take these steps. Better to quietly disappear and try his best to pretend the last two years of his life had never even happened.
The coin flipped in the air, and Xue Yang caught it with a soft “plink” in his palm. He opened his palm and looked at the coin. He smirked.
“Tails. You lose, your turn to go to Trader Joe’s. Good luck in that parking lot,” he said, laughing.
Xiao Xingchen sighed, but he started to stand and retrieve his wallet and keys. The parking lot really was a nightmare. But it had the nicest produce in town, and it was the only place that sold the white chocolate macadamia cookies Xue Yang liked. If they ever discontinued them, there’d be hell to pay.
“Xiao Xingchen,” Xue Yang said, still laughing, and he pulled Xiao Xingchen back onto the couch. “You didn’t even bother to look, you idiot. I lied, it’s heads.”
“Oh,” Xiao Xingchen said, and he laughed too. “I can still go, it’s fine.”
“No, no, no, you won fair and square. Don’t trust people so easily, Xingchen. It’ll get you in trouble,” Xue Yang said, standing. He kissed the top of Xiao Xingchen’s head, and he started for the door, grabbing the keys hanging on the hook. “I’ll be back soon,” he said.
“Okay. Love you,” Xiao Xingchen said.
The door closed, and he was left alone with his thoughts.
He didn’t know if he fully trusted Xue Yang. He loved him, of course. He would never lie about something like that. Xue Yang had become the most important person in his life since they happened upon each other. Xiao Xingchen hadn’t been able to afford the apartment without a roommate, and Xue Yang had been looking for a room.
They’d both been in rough shape when they met, Xiao Xingchen purposeless and alone, and Xue Yang coming off of a job with a boss that, if you asked Xiao Xingchen, probably needed to be reported to OSHA. They’d learned how to become a new normal together.
But Xiao Xingchen was hyper aware of how quickly that could change. Xue Yang was a free spirit. One day he would decide to leave, and Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t stop him.
“Some guy’s here to see you,” A-Qing said.
Xiao Xingchen looked up from his desk.
“Xue Yang?” he asked. But that didn’t make sense. A-Qing knew Xue Yang well, even if she still didn’t like him much. They had reached a tentative truce when it was clear Xue Yang was going to continue coming around.
“No, some other guy. He says he went to college with you. He had selfies,” she said, with a shrug.
College? Xiao Xingchen couldn’t think who he knew who’d moved to this part of the country. Not that he’d kept up with his classmates much. They’d been collateral damage in the breakup, and it wasn’t as if…
No.
Could it be?
“Do you want me to tell him to fuck off?” A-Qing asked, her brow furrowing in concern.
“No. No, it’s okay. Send him in,” he said.
A-Qing hesitated, but she left the office to go back to the lobby. Xiao Xingchen shuffled around his desk, rearranging papers, straightening his shirt, adjusting his glasses. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, in a sense.
A figure appeared in the doorway, and Xiao Xingchen stood.
Song Lan looked the same as he remembered. Like a work of art chiseled from granite. His hair was a little longer, maybe.
His expression, though. Xiao Xingchen had never seen him look like this, his eyes soft, jaw a little slack, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Desire, want, disbelief, all of it was there plain on his face, more plain that it had ever been.
“Xiao Xingchen,” he said, softly.
“Zichen,” Xiao Xingchen replied.
At the single word, Song Lan exhaled like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. No one else had ever called him that, Xiao Xingchen knew. It was a silly little thing between them. Maybe not so silly.
“Come in?” Xiao Xingchen said, more like a question than an invitation.
“You good?” Xue Yang asked, his fingers in Xiao Xingchen’s hair, massaging his scalp.
“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said, listening to his boyfriend’s heartbeat through his chest.
“Okay. Just checking,” Xue Yang asked.
Yesterday, Song Lan had been here, his arm cradling Xiao Xingchen instead. He had thought then, I have to tell him. The time just wasn’t right yet. And now, he thought the same. He should tell him. But how was he supposed to say it right now, their skin sticking together and the smell of them still in the air?
I’ll tell him later.
Later turned into weeks. Song Lan had uprooted everything to be here. He didn’t seem to have any intention of going back home. He insisted that home was wherever Xiao Xingchen was. As much as Xiao Xingchen was afraid to breath it out loud, Song Lan’s cock inside him and red fingerprint marks on his hips felt like home too.
Xue Yang was an easily busy person with an erratic schedule. It wasn’t difficult to keep him distracted, keep him from noticing anything different. He was a different side of the same coin, easy to fall into, to let his hands and open mouth speak without words.
They were both happy. He could just keep them both happy. He didn’t want to break one heart, let alone two. It might break him in half if he tried.
“You must be Xingchen’s roommate,” Song Lan said.
“Roommate? Yeah, in a oh my god, they were roommates way I guess,” Xue Yang said, laughing.
Xiao Xingchen looked on in horror. Song Lan wasn’t supposed to be here. Xue Yang wasn’t supposed to be here.
“I didn’t know what to do, they just showed up to surprise you,” A-Qing hissed, throwing her hands up helplessly.
He hadn’t realized she had been part of it all until that moment. That she’d been behind the scenes lying for him, making sure the two of them never met, never overlapped, telling one Xiao Xingchen was free and the other he was busy. He would have never asked her to do this. The guilt made him feel sick.
Xue Yang’s eyes caught the small bouquet of flowers in Song Lan’s hand, calla lilies, which Xiao Xingchen loved. He squinted at them, every split second though spinning in his head showing on his face. He looked up at Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing, who’d just emerged from the back offices, and he cocked his head to the side in a question he seemed to have already answered himself.
Song Lan was looking at Xue Yang, with some confusion, not sure what to make of him. Then he followed Xue Yang’s gaze to Xiao Xingchen. He must have seen something on Xiao Xingchen’s face, because his brow furrowed.
“Xingchen?” he asked.
Xiao Xingchen had no idea what to say.
“Good luck, gege,” A-Qing said, under her breath, and retreated back to the front desk, hiding behind her computer.
Xiao Xingchen tried not to stare out the window, watching Song Lan and Xue Yang talk. The lilies were in a vase on his desk. Xue Yang had come by to take him to lunch, but that obviously wasn’t happening now.
Xiao Xingchen hadn’t even really explained. He hadn’t known what to say. He’d just said I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just…
Song Lan had grabbed Xue Yang’s arm and dragged him outside. Xue Yang had resisted at first, and Xiao Xingchen had been worried they were about to fight. Song Lan wasn’t exactly a violent person, but he was sometimes an angry one. And Xue Yang was always ready to make a scene at the slightest offense. Xiao Xingchen had started to follow them, but Song Lan had pointed at him and told him to go back inside.
“Don’t talk to him like that, you fucking—” Xue Yang had snarled, but his words were cut off as A-Qing pulled the back of Xiao Xingchen’s sweater and locked the door behind him.
They hadn’t started fighting. Song Lan had his arms crossed over his chest, and he was listening to Xue Yang intently. Xue Yang was pacing, a nervous habit, but he had his eyes on Song Lan the whole time. He didn’t look angry. Neither of them looked angry. Instead they both looked serious.
Xiao Xingchen tried to go back to work, tried not to stare at them. He wasn’t very successful. He absently clicked around an Excel document. He stared at the lilies. He wondered where Xue Yang had planned to take him. Probably the dumpling place up the road.
A knock on the door frame of his office made him startle and stand. Song Lan and Xue Yang were both standing there.
“Okay,” Xue Yang said.
Song Lan nodded.
Xiao Xingchen blinked at them.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “Come on, we’re going to get dumplings. I’m only treating you, though, not him,” he said, jerking his thumb at Song Lan.
Song Lan nodded, as if they’d agreed to this already.
“I’m—” Xiao Xingchen started to say.
“We know you’re sorry,” Song Lan said. “It’s all right. Over lunch we’ll discuss it.”
“Yeah, boundary shit or whatever,” Xue Yang said rolling his eyes. “Can we go before I literally starve to death?”
Xiao Xingchen’s eyes burned, and he nodded, blinking away the tears that threatened to fall.
“Give me a minute,” he said.
“I’m counting,” Xue Yang said, stepping away from the door and back down the hallway.
Song Lan smiled reassuringly at him, and he stepped away too.
Alone in his office, Xiao Xingchen sat down, taking deep breaths in. He’d been convinced it was the end of everything. Instead they’d given him a gift, a new beginning. He wasn’t going to waste it.