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Yuan doesn’t know a moment where he was not in love with Qian. Once the realisation came to him, a little after his high school. It was a three-fold realisation you could say. First, he was gay; he was in love with Qian; he has always been in love with Qian he just didn’t realise it. It took a while for him to reconcile with it. Qian may not necessarily be his brother by blood, but he and Lili, and by extension San Pang were his only family. Only people he had in his corner, so to speak. He doesn’t remember his days before Qian found him. He thinks that the days of sleeping on the street, cold and hungry and unloved were all the fate’s way of helping him find Qian and he is forever indebted to the universe and Qian for that. He shows this in his unconditional love and devotion towards Qian, but also through helping out and lending a hand in whatever way he could. Running a house took effort and money, he knew as much, and wanted to lend a hand to Qian in whatever way possible. Qian shouldn’t have to take care of their family alone, he wanted to show Qian that he was also responsible, that he also cared.
The certainty of his love and devotion was accompanied by a certainty that he would not tell Qian about it unless he is sure about where Qian stands. But like San Pang said, one doesn’t has to use words, when they are in love with someone the way Yuan loves Qian, eyes speak much louder than words. With how overwhelmed he was with his own feelings, he figures his eyes would be screaming then. Either way, the Incident was not planned, it was not something he wanted to do even. He regretted it, not because he was ashamed of his feelings, but because he had hurt Qian. For weeks Qian didn’t come back home. Living and spending his days in the office and then soon after going for his work trip. For the first time since finding his family did he really feel lonely all over again.
When San Pang came with the offer for him to move to the US, he was ready to go with it. He did try to convince San Pang, but both of them knew these words were for Qian and not San Pang. After the last ditch attempt (which he anyway didn’t expect to lead to any resolution anyway) he picked the school and packed his bags, ready to leave. He didn’t know if he would be able to come back, so when Lili tried to fight with Qian over it, he stopped her. He didn’t want to strain the both of their relationship. Now that he wouldn’t be here, they would both be able to focus on each other and Yuan was happy just with that.
The day of his travel, although San Pang and Lili had insisted that San Pang would drop him off as Lili had her graduation trip, he felt like he couldn’t ask that of them anymore, so he started earlier than he planned to. Took the bracelet that ge left for him and got into the public bus from the stop 30 mins from home. He spent the half an hour’s walk taking in the entire place. Etching it into his brain, as if this was the last time he was here (he wasn’t really sure if it wasn’t).
As anticipated he reached way earlier than he needed to and went to the processes for the travel quite seamlessly. Even though it was the first time of his to even be in an airport let alone to fly internationally, Qian’s stories of the first time he travelled to Hong Kong for a work trip a few years ago helped him to navigate the airport and figure out things while being semi-prepared for them. Around the 4th hour of his waiting his ringing phone shook him out of his reverie and the jittery nap. As expected it was Lili, ‘oh! Xiao bao, have you gotten up? How is your trip going? Are you liking it? I am already at the airport. I didn’t want to worry San Pang to drop me. I know you wanted him to but it’s okay. I am a big boy now, remember. You should concentrate on your trip, enjoy it. I will see you again Xiao bao. Please don’t cry. Remember to drink some hot tea with honey and lemon to avoid getting a cold. Sleep on time and go to school. You can always call me for school doubts and write your exams well, okay? Always remember you have your ge with you. Even if I am not there. Please take care of da ge for me? I know you will, but I also know you are angry at him but he is doing this for my own good. Don’t worry about me. I will be okay. Both of you need to take care of each other now. Take San Pang’s help, I know he is always there to help. Don’t let da ge drink a lot, study well, take care of yourself….. I will take care of myself too. Thank you xiao bao. I need to get onto the flight now. I will message you once I settle in. Take care. Eat well.’
Just as Yuan cuts Lili’s call, his tears are ready to roll down. He is actively trying to hold onto the sobs that were wrecking his body, sobs that he didn’t want to spill at the expense of feeling weak and like an exposed nerve.
He knows things are going to change now, maybe they needed to. Qian certainly believes that. For the next 25 hours of the journey and the months right after he moves to New York, Yuan does everything in his power to be okay with the changes. For so long he didn’t know of a life without his family of four, and now he had none of them.
******
Qian has always had to make tough decisions in his life. When he joined Le’s gang, when he quit the gang, when he decided to start H.O.T with San Pang and Xiong and honestly so many more on a daily basis. That being said, adding Yuan to his family was never a difficult decision. At least not as far as decisions go. It would be tough for sure, logistically and monetarily, but seeing Yuan tailing him around on a cold rainy night, Xian couldn’t deny him safety and shelter any longer. It was an answer that came without any doubts for him. Never in his life did he think that one such decision would be sending Yuan away to study. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he left that Qian realised just how much he would miss him, not because he didn’t think that he would miss him, rather because the circumstances of sending Yuan away was so heightened with emotions and anxiety.
Qian, knew of no world beyond Lili, Yuan and San Pang. When he said so to the girl that San Pang was trying to get him to go out with, the beauty influencer who came to the office for the sponsorship, he had been entirely humble and true. It was in no way to demean anyone. He was just being honest and real. For so many years, he lived by counting every single penny, making sure that not a single minute of his day was wasted and in doing so, he had severely cut his social interactions down. Right now, he had two things, his home and his work. So when things got tough at home with Yuan’s love confession he relied on work to distract him and give him a respite. After a couple of weeks of over working and staying at the office, it was the day after Yuan left that he comes back to the house for a full day. It was the first weekend he was home. Maybe it was the fate punishing him because he was all alone. Lili was at her graduation trip and San Pang was visiting his sister and her family in the outskirts. It was the first day in ages where he really felt lonely. The entire house eerily silent, the walls reprimanding him about sending Yuan away. A loneliness that will seemingly take over his world in the next four years.
Over the next 18 months, he continues over working himself, his reasoning was that it would help in setting up Lili’s modelling and fashion career. Everyone other than him knew that it was his way of keeping himself occupied so as not to think of Yuan. He also spent most of the time in company of alcohol or nursing a hangover. When it wasn’t the hangover, it was the migraines. Pain was never foreign to him, but earlier he had Yuan to help him out (he feels queasy to think about this, because was all of it out of a misguided expectation, or just unconditional love with no expectations, or was he overthinking it to be romantic when it was not.) Questions that were not really helping his migraines either. He knew in technicalities what and how he has to take care of himself, but he didn’t really have the motivation or the energy to really do something about it. He has been nursing these wounds, literal and figurative for ages now, and the one person who cared enough about him feeling better or at least to help him, was now gone, all because of his own inability to deal with things head on.
As the years of Yuan staying away grew, Qian started relying more and more on alcohol. Being more drunk than not, barely having a day where he was not hungover. Desperately waiting for the one of two calls that Yuan did on each of their birthdays. Holding on to Yuan’s messages for dear life, those being the only source of comfort. He was constantly lost, unable to understand himself. Although it was true that he had lost a family member, why was it that he couldn’t focus on taking care of the sister who was still there. Lili started relying more on San Pang than him and it was all his fault.
Everytime he caught himself peeking into Yuan’s room his mind was left reeling, with memories as well as imagined scenarios. Of him still being here, of his soft eyes and warm smile. It wrecked his heart all over again. He had started to spend more time in Yuan’s room than his own when he was home. Hoping that being there would bring him back somehow. Would relieve Qian off his pain somehow. Would erase this overwhelming sense of guilt, panic and loneliness.
One such cold evening, about four years since the incident and Yuan’s leaving, Qian called him, just to cut the call immediately on realising it for what it was. A moment of peak desperation. A plea. Come back if you miss home (if you miss me).
******
Yuan was coming to the tail end of his integrated bachelors and masters program. He only had the project to submit and then it would just be the job placements and graduation that remain. In the past four years, he knew he had grown a lot, physically as well as matured a lot mentally and emotionally. He was no longer the insecure teen, with shrugged shoulders and deer in headlight eyes. He was taller, grown into his own body, his everyday run has helped tone his body a little while still keeping him lanky, but more than anything it was the self assuredness that was new for him as well.
As soon as he came to New York, the first thing he did was try and get a job. For the first few months it didn’t work, he had to really go out begging for work, do trials but come back with nothing working out. Finally, he managed to find work at a hole in the wall bar, the pay was meager, but with his scholarship, it was manageable. Meanwhile, he was doing some of the design projects on the side. It was late in his 2nd year, that his professors ended up seeing one of his projects and referred him to someone who was looking for some freelance work in building their website and database. Since starting there, he built up his portfolio. One after the other. Around the same time he stopped working in the bar and got work at a high end east Asian restaurant. Currently he was shuffling between his school project, his work at the restaurant and the freelance work. It wasn’t that Qian refused to send money, in fact it was the complete opposite. Yuan had always felt guilty taking more money than required from him, and this is his way of ensuring that he doesn’t do that. Every three months when Qian (or at least San Pang instead of Qian in the first two years) sends the money, he transfers them into a deposit account that he doesn’t disturb. All his expenditure otherwise goes through his earnings.
Along with that, Yuan had also explored his sexuality while here. As the baby gay that entered New York, he was very taken away with the pomp that was the New York Pride parade. He had always heard about it, and wanted to experience it as well. While he loved the vibe, he also realised that he didn’t fit into it most of the time. Although it came as a shocker, he did manage to make a couple of friends from in and around his university in that moment. Although he never went back to the parades after that, he tried to help in other ways however he could. Volunteering here and there whenever possible, sometimes he would tutor and othertimes other things.
When he was not busy studying or working or volunteering, he was trying to get over Qian. Maybe then he would be allowed to come back home. To come back to his world that he didn’t deserve anymore. A blur of dates, in parks, movies, restaurants, just something to get his mind off of his deviant feelings. It almost reminded Yuan of the dates that San Pang forced Qian to go to. None of them went beyond a few dates and a few make out sessions, almost as though everyone knew that he was not in it for the right reasons so to speak.
At the end of his second year in New York, Yuan met Alex, a final year student from Spain. Charming, warm and welcoming. He was a senior in the department who he got assigned to partner with for a project. It was just a friendship for the most part until a few days after the submission when Yuan and Alex had submitted their work and were celebrating. In a rush of adrenalin and exhilaration, Yuan felt himself tumble into bed with Alex. The next couple of months had both of them exploring their feelings and bodies with each other. There was a safety between them, along with an understanding. Both of them intending to go back to their own homes once done with their commitments here. Alex was the only person who heard about Qian from Yuan. At first he just mentioned him as a childhood friend, but then the more he talked about him, the more his walls broke down. One particular night of them lounging at the student accommodation, had Yuan sobbing his eyes out. For the first time allowing all of his hurt and pain and his disappointment in himself and self-hatred coming out in spades. Alex was there, holding him and hearing him. Didn’t say anything except wishing that he stops hurting this much and urging him to call Qian. Although he had been messaging ge, he has never gone out of his way to call him except for birthdays. That evening, while with Alex he called Qian. It was a short call, none of them really said much, but it made Yuan all the more resolute. He clearly hasn’t been able to get over Qian. At most, he can accept it and just live his life the way he knows. By doing what he could, for Qian and making his life easier. Whether it is by being close to him or being away. Forcing himself to get over Qian has clearly been pointless.
Six months later, Alex leaves to go back to Spain. He had finished his education and was going back to work in Spain. Alex was the first friend he made in his life. The only other number he added onto his phonebook to save, the only other person other than his family he cared about and once again he was all alone in the big, lonely city.
The next year and a half once again goes in a blur, he doesn’t remember much of when and how he grew into his own self. At a point, he gave up on trying to date people as it clearly didn’t work for him. He had a handful of one night stands here and there but nothing alarming. Most of his time went in work and studying once again. By the end of his tenure here, he was happy to know that he hadn’t wasted his time and instead actually worked and would be able to get into work once he goes back to Taipei. If Qian would be uncomfortable with him being at home, he was ready to stay away but he couldn’t get himself to live in a completely different continent, let alone a country. He also had money saved up. He was no longer the lost, sad kid. He was well on his way to be the competent adult that Qian would be proud of. And that was all he thrived for. So when he got the call from Qian, telling him in his own roundabout way that he still has a home he can come back to if he misses it. From there it took him just enough time to finish his project and rush back home. The home he missed for so long. The home he felt desperate to go back to.