This wasn’t the first time that Xiao-Xiao had avoided him. Indeed, he’d spent most of his life avoiding Xingyu. It was difficult, when Weiran had asked Xingyu what their relationship was like—Xiao-Xiao hated Xingyu, but Xiao-Xiao was also perhaps the only person that Xingyu could say he really loved. When he was born, Xingyu was only six, but he’d immediately felt the responsibility for the little hand that grasped at his. As they grew up, Xiao-Xiao was taken under their mother’s wing while Xingyu trained under their father, but whenever they weren’t in those lessons, it was Xingyu who was taking care of his didi—Xingyu who made him lunches, Xingyu who helped him with his homework, Xingyu who held him when he was sobbing from nightmares. Xingyu who watched him grow up. Xingyu who avoided his eyes when he left.

He wondered sometimes why Xiao-Xiao hated him so much. Then he remembered all the things he had done to him.

He distracted himself by searching for anything he might have left behind.

7

THE EVENT

THE DAY FOR the Chen’s event had arrived. Unsurprisingly, Xiao-Xiao had not said a word nor even looked Xingyu’s way since that morning two days ago; he kept telling their father he had things to do, that he was packed with meetings, that Xingyu should use the couple days until the event to get his suit fitting, do some shopping, drink in that nostalgia factor—all of which meant, of course, that Xiao-Xiao was still avoiding him.

He got dressed in his new suit as it approached afternoon. The fabric was soft, luxurious—nothing like anything he’d rented while he’d been abroad and everything like the suit that Xiao-Xiao had loaned to him when he’d accompanied him to work. Xiao-Xiao had left long ago in the early morning—because he was part of the planning, their father had explained—and their mother was gone midday, and their father had stayed behind “despite his heavy schedule” so he could arrive with Xingyu.

“I’m sure you’ve lost your touch by now,” he said, and when Xingyu had looked confused: “I wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself when we arrive. Try to speak as little as possible. Remember your posture and your tone.”

Translation: I don’t want you to embarrass me.

As if Xingyu could ever forget.

As if his father hadn’t drilled it in, over and over, until it was burned into his mind so he constantly thought of it, into his skin so he constantly felt it, into his spine so he was constantly straightening it, into his chest so it scraped up his throat with every word—as if a mere decade away would make any of that disappear. Heal—that was the word that Zhang Weiran used. He hadn’t been able to heal.