Chapter 8: What He Kept

Shen Yan woke before the light and did not move.

Xiao Chen was asleep beside him on his stomach, one arm flung over the pillow.

His black hair was damp on his forehead.

He looked younger when he slept.

He looked like a person who could be hurt.

Shen Yan lay on his side and studied the small mole under his left eye.

Then he looked at the curve of the shoulder where the bite had been.

The faint mark was already fading.

He had made it. He had wanted to make another one, higher, on the neck.

He pressed his lips together and looked at the ceiling instead.

He had a list in his head, and it was longer than the one in his exercise book.

The first line said: he does this because he is kind.

He had carried a stranger home, paid a doctor, and cooked rice for a boy who owed him a hundred apologies.

That was what a good man did when he saw something broken.

The second line on the list was: he did not choose me.

It was true, and it hurt in a clean, ordinary way.

Shen Yan turned his head on the pillow.

Whatever happened between them in the dark, it happened because a doctor said a body should not be alone with a heat.

It happened because Xiao Chen was thorough, and responsible, and had decided to carry another person's trouble.

It did not happen because anyone wanted Shen Yan for himself.

He knew that, and he turned the thought over and over, and it did not change.

Behind it, quieter, lived the other thing.

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