Gu Wenxi smiled at his phone, “Where are you staying?”

“Wenxi,” Du Yunyan told him, “I’ll be going back tomorrow.”

It was noisy by the roadside, but every syllable he uttered was clear.

“Then I should see you even more.” Gu Wenxi said.

“Wenxi, don’t be like this.”

“Like what? Can’t I see a friend from out of town? Besides—” Gu Wenxi made up something on the spot, “today is my birthday, grant me this wish.”

Anyway, Du Yunyan wouldn’t know when his birthday was.

Sure enough, the other person hesitated. After a while, he replied, “Okay,” then added, “Why don’t you tell me where you are, and I’ll come to you?”

“No, I want to come to you,” Gu Wenxi insisted, “unless you have someone else with you?”

“What are you thinking?” Du Yunyan chuckled helplessly, “I’ll send you my location.”

Seeing the long-silent chat window light up again, Gu Wenxi felt relieved. He didn’t call a ride through an app but got into a taxi on the roadside.

The car sped through the night, and Gu Wenxi opened the window on his side, letting the cool breeze brush his face.

Du Yunyan’s place was a simple, modest inn near the train station. The area was bustling and a bit chaotic, with many randomly parked vehicles, especially in front of the hotel. The driver managed to stop a few meters away.

After paying, Gu Wenxi opened the car door and immediately saw someone standing under the signboard, wearing a khaki trench coat and craning his neck to look down the road. The neon lights flickered across his face.

Gu Wenxi walked quickly, his steps unsteady from the dizziness, and went straight to Du Yunyan, “Why did you come out?”

Du Yunyan looked around, “It’s a bit chaotic here.”

Guessing that Du Yunyan was worried about him made Gu Wenxi feel more at ease. He patted his shoulder and said, “What’s there to be afraid of for a grown man like me?”

They hadn’t seen each other for half a month, and though there wasn’t much change, Gu Wenxi felt a sense of disorientation, perhaps due to the alcohol. Du Yunyan’s face seemed to blur like a hallucination.

Du Yunyan supported him and pulled him into the lobby. The hotel was old and in average condition, with a very slow, antiquated elevator.

Once inside the elevator, Du Yunyan asked, “Have you had too much to drink?”

“Who doesn’t drink on their birthday?” Since he had already lied, Gu Wenxi decided to keep up the act.

Du Yunyan’s expression showed slight hesitation as he asked, “What day is it today?”

“Hmm?” Gu Wenxi, who had been staying at home every day, had no concept of time or dates, especially not in his current state of intoxication. “What day?”

“You don’t even know your own birthday?”

“Of course I remember, it’s the tenth—”

The elevator dinged, and Du Yunyan stepped out first.

Gu Wenxi, half-sober now, desperately tried to calculate the date in his mind as he quickly followed. “My birthday is—”

“Alright, stop trying to fool me,” Du Yunyan said as he opened the door and invited him in. “Your birthday is December 16th, isn’t it?”

Gu Wenxi stood at the door in a daze. “How do you know that?”

“Your ID card!” Du Yunyan looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. “I registered your ID card, remember?”

Maybe it was his meticulous nature that made remembering such details effortless for him, so he spoke about it so casually. However, Gu Wenxi felt as if a stone had been thrown into his heart, creating endless ripples. He recalled that on his birthday, they had watched the sunset together. It was only after returning from the hillside that he saw the birthday messages on his phone.

“Did you take me to see the sunset that day because it was my birthday?”

Du Yunyan, uncomfortable under his direct gaze, turned his head away. “Yes.”

Gu Wenxi was grateful that he had the audacity to insist on coming to see him today, even concocting such an outrageous lie, which led him to learn about this past episode. He also understood that even though Du Yunyan knew he was making things up, he still chose to indulge his unreasonable request.

“Hey, what about you?” His eyes lit up. “When is your birthday?”

“My birthday was a while ago.”

“When exactly?” Gu Wenxi pressed.

“November 6th.”

“November, huh…” Gu Wenxi did some quick mental math. “So, I was already with you in the village for your last birthday? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Du Yunyan seemed unimpressed by his surprise. “What would be the point of saying anything?”

“If you’d told me, I could’ve prepared a surprise for you.”

“You did give me a surprise—”

Seeing his half-smiling expression, Gu Wenxi had a bad feeling. Had he done something incredibly foolish that day?

“You nearly blew up my kitchen,” Du Yunyan calmly reminded him.

“Ahem,” Gu Wenxi remembered, and that incident had led to a huge argument. “Well, if you had told me, I would have known.”

Rehashing old grievances was pointless, and Du Yunyan didn’t intend to dwell on it. He filled a kettle with water and set it to boil. “Why are you just standing there? Sit down, you don’t have to be so formal here.”

Only then did Gu Wenxi take a look around the modest standard room. There were two single beds separated by a small nightstand. The bed by the window was untouched, with a bag and some toiletries on it, while the bed by the wall, with its spread blanket, seemed to be Du Yunyan’s.

Gu Wenxi sat on the unused bed. “Have you been staying here since you arrived?”

“Yes, where else would I stay?”

Gu Wenxi thought of the scene he’d seen outside the cake shop. “I thought you were staying with Yun Han…”

“Yun Han?” Du Yunyan looked surprised. “No way, Yun Han stays in a dormitory. He happened to contact me the other day, so we met up.”

“He contacted you?” Gu Wenxi was puzzled. “Didn’t you come here to see him?”

“No.” Du Yunyan fell silent for a moment after saying this.

The kettle boiled, and Du Yunyan walked over to the table, pouring two cups of hot water to cool. With his back to Gu Wenxi, he said, “A former teacher of mine passed away. I came to pay my respects.”

“Teacher?” Gu Wenxi stood up and walked behind him. “Did you go to school here before?”

Du Yunyan made a sound of acknowledgment but still didn’t turn around. “She was my middle school Chinese teacher. I left after middle school graduation, and she retired.”

So that was the reason he came back. And he also grew up in S City. These two realizations surprised Gu Wenxi. He had never thought they had spent over a decade in the same place.

“Did that teacher… have a big impact on you?”

“Yes,” Du Yunyan nodded again. “She was like another family member to me. We kept in touch through letters for over ten years.”

When Gu Wenxi remembered that Du Yunyan had mentioned writing letters when they first added each other on WeChat, it must have been to this teacher.

“I’m sorry, Wenxi. The day you left, I received the news. These past few days… I just wanted to be alone, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. When Yun Han contacted me, I only told him I was here for personal matters. I couldn’t say it out loud…” His voice was unsteady, but there was no trace of tears.

“Then don’t talk about it.” Despite the overwhelming information, Gu Wenxi could sense that Du Yunyan’s grief was much deeper than what he showed. Now wasn’t the time to focus on other issues. He took a step forward, “Yunyan, can you turn around?”

Du Yunyan slowly turned, his face pale, his eyes clear. He hadn’t cried.

Gu Wenxi opened his arms slightly, “Can I hug you?”

Du Yunyan hesitated for a moment but then nodded, “Mm.”

Gu Wenxi’s arms wrapped gently around his shoulders and back, not too tightly, with his chin resting on Du Yunyan’s shoulder. After a few seconds, he finally felt Du Yunyan’s hands loosely encircle his back.

Since coming here, it was the first time Du Yunyan felt at ease, as if he no longer had to face the nightmares he always tried to dispel. He half-closed his eyes.

“Yunyan, do you want to cry?” Gu Wenxi suddenly asked.

Du Yunyan opened his eyes again, “No.”

“Have you never cried before?”

Du Yunyan exhaled slowly, remembering the last time he cried a long time ago.

In his first year of elementary school, during a particular class, the teacher asked everyone to talk about their families. While others talked about their parents, he only mentioned his mother. His classmates were curious and kept asking where his father was, but he couldn’t answer.

When he got home, he asked Du Yaning why he didn’t have a dad. He cried softly as he asked, but Du Yaning went mad, cursing him furiously. Those words still echoed in his mind.

“What right do you have to cry? What makes you think you can feel wronged? I should be the one crying! You’re just as worthless as that man!” That day was also the only time Du Yaning ever hit him.

For nearly an hour, she hit and scolded him. Out of fear, he kept quiet, not daring to resist, only sniffling quietly. Afterward, Du Yaning regretted it, hugged him, and apologized, but he never dared to cry again.

From then on, Du Yaning’s moods became increasingly unstable. She took antidepressants, was very gentle when she was well, and taught him many things about reading and life. But when she had an episode, though she didn’t hit him again, her words became increasingly harsh, calling him a bastard and saying he shouldn’t have been born. Any hint of grievance from him would lead to more endless scolding.

Eventually, he learned to hide all negative emotions.

He had long forgotten the feeling of crying and would even offer to help his mother cook when she cried.

Now thinking back, he didn’t see it as something worth lamenting. His mother was the real victim; this was their fate. So he told Gu Wenxi, “What’s the use of crying? It just makes the people who care about you sad too.”

“No,” Gu Wenxi said. “If I see you cry, I would indeed feel sad, but not because you’re crying. It’s because the things that caused you pain also hurt me.”

Du Yunyan let go, stepping out of his embrace, again maintaining a certain distance, “Wenxi, thank you.”

In the past, Gu Wenxi couldn’t stand Du Yunyan’s indifferent, unflappable demeanor. But now he vaguely understood that this was merely a way for him to protect himself.

He didn’t push further. He sighed deeply, “Can I stay here tonight? It’s too late, and I’ve had a bit too much to drink. I don’t feel like moving.” He said, stifling a yawn.

“Mm,” Du Yunyan indeed didn’t refuse. He moved the items from the unused bed onto a chair. “Drink some water and get some rest.”

Gu Wenxi insisted that Du Yunyan take a shower first. But when Du Yunyan came out of the bathroom, Gu Wenxi was already lying on the bed, his jacket off, but without a blanket. It was unclear if he was truly asleep or just pretending.

“Wenxi?” Du Yunyan waited for a moment, but there was no response. He patted his shoulder twice. “Aren’t you going to take a shower?”

“Mm?” Gu Wenxi turned over from his prone position, his eyes half-closed and seemingly not very clear-headed. “I’m so sleepy.”

“You won’t be comfortable sleeping like this.”

Gu Wenxi wasn’t actually sleepy, just slightly drunk, feeling a bit dizzy and detached. “It’s okay. Or… could you help me clean up?”

Du Yunyan’s right hand was still on his shoulder, but his expression froze. “How can that be appropriate?”

“Mm… is it because you’re gay and want to avoid suspicion?” Gu Wenxi mumbled, dazed. “But you don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t mind. You can take advantage of me however you want…”

Du Yunyan was both amused and exasperated. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

“What’s wrong,” Gu Wenxi muttered quietly, “if you didn’t have any feelings for me, why would you deliberately avoid suspicion? And why would you let me come looking for you in the middle of the night?”

“It’s obvious that you…”

“Mm,” Gu Wenxi smiled contentedly, his words slurring, “if you had told me directly that you didn’t want to see me at all… I wouldn’t have come because I don’t force people… But you couldn’t bear to say that.”

“Wenxi,” Du Yunyan sighed again, “stay with your family.”

“See, you still didn’t say you don’t want to see me,” Gu Wenxi continued, half talking to himself. “I get it. I will come find you. You’re very sad right now, don’t worry about anything else.”

With that, he tilted his head against the pillow and completely closed his eyes, looking as if he had fallen asleep.

Du Yunyan sat by the bed and helped cover him with the blanket. Gu Wenxi mumbled, “But you have to wait for me.”

A strange emotion welled up in Du Yunyan’s chest. After a while, he managed to shake off the lingering, indescribable feeling. Carefully, he tucked the strand of hair that had fallen over Gu Wenxi’s forehead back behind his ear.