The Decade of Deep Love

Wenxu Jiang hadn’t been back to this place for many years. Even if there was an important interchange meeting here, he would just send his confidential assistant over. Before, Wenxu never gave what was behind everything he would do a deliberation, but now he suddenly realized that he felt guilty to Zhishu all along.

He owed Zhishu He from the start. Granted, being good to Zhishu, standing up for Zhishu were all because of the crush on him, but more often, the selfishness of an adolescent boy that was showy, impatiently vanity-oriented. He would get complacent every time he saw Zhishu blush or being evasive. He got the self-conceit when his confession of love was accepted.

Zhishu was always the silly one. He kept every little random endearment of Wenxu’s in mind and paid him back with his love wholeheartedly as if he owed him a great debt.

Zhishu He’s very first sex was on Wenxu Jiang’s 18th birthday. In a shabby cheap hotel, they did it on an old bed made of planks where god knows how many people had had their fucks. Both of them lacked in experience; Wenxu Jiang was impulsive and curious; Zhishu He compromised throughout the whole thing. That time, Zhishu was really hurt, so hurt that he couldn’t even make a sound. Nor he dared because sound insulation of the room was terrible. Zhishu had been submissive in silence, insecure and conditioned to compromises ever since.

Wenxu Jiang didn’t pretend to love Zhishu He, not even after more than 10 years, but he had always loved himself a bit more. This was why he randomly picked Zhishu He despite the arduous future lying ahead of him, why he looked for sex out there when Zhishu couldn’t meet his desire, why he was so possessive that he kept Zhishu restricted in the house.

But now it had come to the stage of life and death. The moment that Wenxu had to face the consequences, he realized that he loved Zhishu slightly more than he thought. Well, more than slightly, he loved him more than himself. If, at this point, anyone offered the recovery of Zhishu’s health at the cost of Wenxu’s career or even his life, he would agree without a second of thought.

Wenxu’s love for Zhishu never lessened; on the contrary, it built up little by little. It started with the reckless passion of a young man, then was lost in temptations, and now came to the awakening. For more than a decade, Wenxu had been soaked in Zhishu’s tenderness that could even melt a stone-heart.

Wenxu’s lips appeared blue. He heavily pressed his chest and took the medicine out of his pocket.

The manager sitting on the passenger seat peeked at Wenxu through the rearview mirror. Last time he saw his boss was at a meeting in Beijing headquarter around this year’s National Day Holiday, when the man was spirited, bossy and confident. But only after less than six months, he looked so dejected as if he took a hard fall from the divine pedestal. The manager kept silent, which was discerning of him, and told the driver to head straight to the hotel.

*

It was a cloudy day and it rained for a while in the afternoon. The house was suffocatingly cold and humid.

Zhishu He’s body was more sensitive than the weather forecast. For the whole day, lassitude and a bad appetite had been holding him down. Anything he ate, he puked them out, which made Ziyu so worried. At the end of the day, Zhishu threw up all the honey water Ziyu fed him with, and the vomit was even mixed with blood.

Ziyu Ai was horrified. He immediately got Zhishu in the car, raced to hospital and had him injected ara-C.

Zhishu then slumbered at hospital. Ziyu Ai held Zhishu tightly in his arms as he didn’t want the thin bed-sheet in the ward to chill him. Ziyu was genuinely frightened. His heart pounded so hard that he couldn’t even control the steering wheel and it was something he didn’t want to experience again.

As a long-serving doctor, he used to hate the hysterical shouts and cries of a patient’s family. He used to believe that God has his plan, what human could do is try their best. Ziyu Ai now understood that in the most desperate situation, no human behaviors were crazy when the one you cared the most was dying in your arms.

If Ziyu Ai wasn’t so panic that he lost his soul and his normal voice, he probably would beg one by one for his old fellow leukemia specialists’ help to save Zhishu’s life, regardless of how humiliating it might be.

Zhishu He looked better when he woke up, but remained pale-faced. Ziyu still kept his position and was absolutely absent-minded, having no idea where his mind wandered.

“…What’s on your mind?” Zhishu asked in a weak voice.

Ziyu Ai slowly re-focused on Zhishu and smiled, “Something important.”

Zhishu didn’t ask more but gently pinched Ziyu’s side waist, “You were in my dream.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you dream of?”

“You were standing in the distance with a sea of flowers behind you...”

“Ha, I was a flower seller, wasn’t I?”

“You were. You wouldn’t ignore me when I requested a free flower from you otherwise.”

Ziyu abruptly tightened his hug, “I will give you whatever you want.”

Zhishu smiled grudgingly and pushed him away, “I said that was a dream. Don’t take it so seriously. I do have a request though... Let’s go home, shall we? Hospital stinks.”

Ziyu forced a smile. “Would you say yes if I kneel in front of you and beg you to have yourself treated?” He answered after a long quiet.

“You just said whatever I want, and here you trade your dignity for my resignation?” Zhishu looked into Ziyu’s eyes, sighed with a smirk, “Come on, what’s the purpose of this anyway...”

Ziyu didn’t say anything; he looked very sad, so sad that Zhishu couldn’t even bear to watch.

Zhishu’s lips compressed a little and suddenly raised his head, lay a light kiss on the end of Ziyu’s lips. “…I will be yours for my next life, couldn’t you at least pretend to be happy?