“You know about those? Yeah, I’m going to a few just for appearances’ sake. Ba wants me to start easing more and more into the public eye so everyone will be supportive when he announces that I’m the heir. I asked him why I didn’t do this, you know, before I’d already been here for a month, and he said that it was because he wanted to say that I hadn’t come back for fame or something. That I’d been working hard to earn my place, or whatever.” He paused to scoop up a piece of tangyuan21 and for a moment Weiran thought that his slip-up had gone effectively unnoticed. Then: “Did Xiao-Xiao tell you about the parties?”

Damn. “Yeah.”

“He came by? When?”

“A bit before you got here. He just stopped by for a few minutes.” Best to be vague so he didn’t say something else he would regret. “How traditional are these parties supposed to be?”

Xingyu shrugged. “Not very. I think it’s more just another way to show off wealth, like Ba’s Christmas party.”

In the last few years, it was Xingyu that Weiran spent New Year’s Eve and New Years with. They had other friends—lots of friends, actually; both of them were good at making friends and good at keeping them—but of course it was only Xingyu and Weiran that didn’t have anyone else to turn to during the holidays. While everyone else was going back home to visit their families over the winter break, Xingyu and Weiran made themselves comfortable in their dorm, putting up decorations that would remain for months longer than they need to, staying up until midnight watching the countdown on their cheap laptop, cracking open a bottle of grocery-store sparkling wine and drinking them out of plastic cups from the same grocery store. On New Year’s Day, after they’d gotten enough sleep, they got up together and partied together, bouncing between clubs until they collapsed, exhausted, back in their dorms. These were sweet memories—sweeter before Weiran and Xingyu told each other about their parents. Sweeter before they’d decided they would get revenge together. And yet, after all of that—here was Xingyu next to him on New Year’s Eve, so beautiful and so easy to love, just as he always was. So oblivious to how much Weiran loved him.

There was a dull ache somewhere in Weiran’s chest. He was never going to have any of that again. Xingyu was never going to love him back, but he was also never going to laugh with him in their cramped college dorm, never going to go clubbing together, never going to fall asleep on top of each other when they couldn’t keep their eyes open any more.

“Happy New Year, Weiran,” said Xingyu, holding up his cup, and Weiran picked up his own cup.