Chapter 12: The Kettle

Ye Ming woke at noon on Sunday to a gray window and an empty pillow.

The empty side was only cold, not gone.

Gu Chen stood by the glass with his back to the bed, as he had stood all night.

The thin daylight went partway through his coat.

"You stayed out," said Ye Ming.

"You asked me to."

"You could have sat down."

"I was watching you sleep." Gu Chen did not turn. "You sleep with one arm over your eyes. Last night you didn't."

Ye Ming lay still and let that settle.

He had told no one, in eleven years, that he was afraid of the ceiling.

"That's a secret," he said.

"It's been a secret for four years. I never told it to anyone."

"You couldn't."

"I wouldn't have," said Gu Chen.

He turned then, and the light made him thin at the edges, a long grey figure that was only half a man by day.

But he looked at Ye Ming with the same dark and entire attention, and nothing about it was thin.

They spent the day in the room, and it was the best one Ye Ming could remember.

Ye Ming washed the cups twice, and Gu Chen counted, and said so.

Ye Ming read the contract Lu had left.

Gu Chen read it over his shoulder and pointed out the clause where the permanent release hid under the word gratitude.

At four the rain came back and the window went dark.

By dusk the body had returned.

Ye Ming felt it before he saw it, a weight in the room, a cold that settled on his shoulders.

He was at the stove, filling the kettle, when it came up behind him and rested a chin on his hair.

"I want to ask you something," said Gu Chen.

"Ask."

"Last night. Was it the lamp, and the belief, and the cold? Or was it me?"

Ye Ming put the kettle on the flame.

He had spent four years learning what people wanted to hear.

He turned around, and for once he said what was true.

"It was you," he said. "It's been you since you corrected the tea."

Gu Chen's face did something complicated.

"Then I'll say what I want," said Gu Chen. "I want it again."

"Last night you led."

"I did."

"Then it's my turn," said Ye Ming.

He did not wait for an answer.

He took Gu Chen by the lapels and walked him backward until the table caught his knees.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Fake Medium Hooked a Real Ghost from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.