Page 89 of From Beijing, With Love

Yang set the half-eaten baozi aside, an uneasy silence saturating the small space like smoke. “What’s wrong?”

Ba wouldn’t hold Yang’s gaze. “You shouldn’t have brought him home.” Sighing, he took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “Twenty-six already. Isn’t it about time you found a girlfriend?”

How many times had Yang heard this question before? How many times had he pushed it away with an excuse and a laugh? But today there was an unspoken undercurrent to it—the threat of implication—that made his mouth run dry. That made him feel … sixteen.

Yet, with his usual excuse on the tip of his tongue, ready to come to his rescue, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t spew those lies. Not tonight. Not after Daniel had told him those three words that demanded bravery from both of them.

“What if I don’t want a girlfriend?” Yang looked up, willing his dad—the only parent he had left—to see the plain truth behind the thinly veiled question.

To see him.

The silence that followed filled him with equal parts dread and hope. Perhaps it would be okay. This was Ba. It had to be okay.

“I saw the two of you yesterday … by the water pond.”

Yang froze, his body forgetting how to move, how to fill his lungs with air. Yesterday. His dad saw them yesterday, and he’d held on to that knowledge—the definitive and damning evidence of who Yang was—and not said a single thing.

“That. To do that. To be that way … it’s not normal.” Ba gritted his teeth through the sentence like he couldn’t stand the taste of the words in his mouth. Then he slouched over the table like the weight of it was all too much. When he looked up, his tone took on a pleading edge. “Maybe that kind of thing is fine where he’s from, but not here. Just look at yourself …” Ba touched his own neck with a trembling hand.

Reflexively, Yang mirrored the movement, raising a hand to his neck. Then he remembered Daniel’s lips being there not so long ago, marking him with more than his whispered words. And just like that, his last ounce of hope crumbled by his feet, replaced by white-hot shame. The baozi he’d eaten was fighting its way back up.

Yang wanted to get up and run, to go anywhere else, but he was rooted to the chair in the room whose walls were crashing in. Where would he even go? He couldn’t outrun where he came from. Who he came from.

“Ba …” He tried to speak, to logic it away, but he couldn’t hear his own voice over the deafening thuds of his heart.

“Yangyang,” Ba said with a sigh, using the nickname reserved for family. His voice was soft, like he was placating a wayward child. He came and sat next to Yang. “Just let that man go home and forget about him. If you don’t want a girlfriend now, it’s fine. Just focus on finishing your PhD. Young academics are too busy to date anyway.”

Too busy to date. That had been the excuse Yang wielded like a shield for years. Now his own father was shoving it at him, even after knowing the truth.

“Ba …” He tried again, his voice cracking. The defiance had all but left him.

“Go to bed. It’s late. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Yang nodded. He knew there’d be no talking tomorrow, or ever again. He didn’t have the fight left in him anymore. And what was there for him to fight for, anyway? Daniel was leaving tomorrow, and all he had left was his family.

He wasn’t going to risk losing them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINEDaniel

Daniel practiced the ask in his head. Yang had been the one to ask him to come to Xi’an (twice), so he had to be the one to ask now. He wasn’t going to ask Yang to drop everything and fly to Japan with him. He didn’t know what he was allowed to ask … A long-distance something, maybe?

It wasn’t about control or commitment; he just wanted continuity. He needed today not to be their goodbye, because he was stupidly and hopelessly in love with Yang.

God, he was going to bumble through the words.

“Practicing your big speech?” Poppy asked without looking up from her phone.

“Of course not.” Daniel sat on the edge of the chair, his eyes fixed on the lobby’s sliding doors. For once, he was early and Yang was late.

“Well, you should.” Poppy looked up from her phone, a smile dancing on her glossy lips. “Love you, babe, but you aren’t exactly articulate under pressure.”

“I’m not asking him to marry me.” Daniel rolled his eyes, warmth creeping up his neck. The whirling fan overhead did little to stave off the heat. “Just to keep in touch. That’s it. No pressure. Okay, some pressure. Low pressure.”

“Great speech. Nailed it.” Poppy flashed him a wicked grin, and he contemplated murdering his best friend.

At twenty minutes past noon, Yang still hadn’t shown up. Daniel had either gotten the time wrong (he hadn’t; he double-checked), or Yang had been run over by a car on his way to the hotel.

“How was the tour yesterday?” Daniel asked without taking his eyes off the hotel entrance. People came and went with luggage in tow, but still no Yang.