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There are nine moles on Xiao Zhan’s body. Yibo has been counting them since he was seventeen.
The most visible one, the one that everyone knows, is the mole just under his lips. Xiao Zhan never misses out this mole in his self-portraits. He’s immensely proud of that mole. It’s sort of a thing with him.
And then there are the less celebrated ones, the two tiny moles on his cheek that he refuses to acknowledge, and a bold one nestled in the nape of his neck.
There is a teasing little mole on his waist, just above the curve of his ass, and a splatter of miniscule moles on his right ankle.
But the mole that Yibo loves most is the one on his left hip. It’s basically invisible, reveals itself only when Xiao Zhan’s underwear is off him, and for that reason alone Yibo considers himself the only one in the world who knows it.
The rest of the moles can be seen by anyone at all if they look hard enough. But that mole, the one on his left hip - that mole belongs to Yibo.
No matter what happens in the future, no matter who else gets to look upon Xiao Zhan’s body, that mole will be Yibo’s, because he discovered it. It’s like a scientific discovery, he explains. If you discover it and take out a patent on it, it’s yours forever, no matter what anyone else does with it after. I’ve taken out a patent on this mole.
Xiao Zhan says, okay then, it’s yours.
-
The sky is grey and overcast. It’s only three in the afternoon, but it looks like it’s six. These summer rains take their time, rolling across the sky in dark, ominous clouds for hours before blanketing the evergreen mountains around them in misty, silvery lines.
They’ve had four days of sunshine. One day of rain doesn’t matter. But Yibo feels resentful anyway. He’d been looking forward to this part of their road trip; stripping off and diving naked into the lake, challenging Xiao Zhan to a race before turning around at the last moment and swimming right into him, pushing the heat of their mouths against each other.
Eight years ago, when he was seventeen and they were here in this exact same spot on another road trip that now feels ten thousand years ago, he’d done just that in the bold red of the mid-summer evening when all the other boys’ backs were turned. Xiao Zhan had stiffened, gasped into his mouth, thrashed his legs against his.
But Xiao Zhan had kissed back. That was the start of everything.
Yibo doesn’t remember anymore who else had been on that road trip. All he remembers is Xiao Zhan. Him and Xiao Zhan. Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan. Just the two of them, holding hands under water when the other boys turned back, touching thighs when they piled back into the car.
He remembers how loud the beat of his heart had been, how clammy his hands that night when he crawled into Xiao Zhan’s bed, whispering, can I sleep with you?
The rain comes just as Xiao Zhan stops by the side of the road where it runs down into a little beach. They stare silently out of the windshield at the lake. It’s misted over, turbulent. When Yibo blinks, he seems to see that calm, mirror-like lake from eight years ago, so blue that it felt like drowning just to look at it.
Hey, Zhan-ge, he says. Sleep with me.
-
They set off on this road trip four days ago. Xiao Zhan had arrived at his hometown from Beijing over the weekend to visit his parents, and Yibo had arrived one day later. They’d exclaimed at how coincidental it was that they’d come back to visit their families on the same week. They came from neighbouring villages; their families have known each other for three generations. Over the course of a big, hearty meal that Xiao Zhan’s dad had slaughtered a chicken for, Xiao Zhan and Yibo agreed that, given this miraculous coincidence of being back at the same time, they should take some time off for a relaxing drive around the countryside.
Nobody guessed that this trip had been in the making for approximately five months. But then again, nobody guessed that Xiao Zhan and Yibo were anything more to each other than childhood friends from the same hometown.
Yibo won’t sugarcoat it. Keeping their relationship a secret has been singularly the hardest thing in his twenty-five years of life. Sometimes he wakes up sick with it; a bitter ache lodged deep in his chest that restricts his breathing and makes him want to throw up. The only cure is to be near Xiao Zhan. To touch Xiao Zhan. To slide every inch of his skin against Xiao Zhan’s, to feel his heart beating against his palm.
Recently, even this cure hasn’t been working. The bitter ache has worked itself into his bones and blood, merged itself with a wild, desperate hunger that doesn’t go away even when they’re as physically close together as two people can possibly be. He can’t seem to touch Xiao Zhan enough. Can’t sink deeply enough into him. Can’t keep him.
Xiao Zhan touches his face. His fingertips are warm. Yibo turns his head, sucks a finger into his mouth.
Don’t cry, says Xiao Zhan. We promised that we wouldn’t cry. Not this week.
He thumbs a rogue tear away.
I’m not crying, Yibo wants to say. Why should I cry when I have you here with me, all alone for miles around? When right now I have everything that I could ever want?
He turns them over instead, pushing Xiao Zhan down onto the thin mattress that they’ve spread on the back of this rickety old green van that they borrowed from Yibo’s uncle. The van smells rather strong after four days of sex; they can’t help it, they’ll just air it out on the last day. It’s not the last day yet. They still have forty-eight hours left. Forty-eight hours of belonging to each other.
He slides Xiao Zhan’s shorts off with an easy, practised movement and places himself between his legs. He isn’t wearing underwear; neither of them are. He strokes Xiao Zhan’s hips, kisses the mole, his mole, on the left hip.
This mole is mine, he says. Don’t let anyone else touch it.
Look at you getting so possessive over a mole, Xiao Zhan says. His voice has that breathy quality in it that tells Yibo he’s getting very, very aroused.
Yibo glances up at him. He’s propping himself on his elbows, lips slightly parted, eyes dark. Luminous even in the grey darkness of the van. In years to come he’ll remember everything about this rainy afternoon in the old green van, this moment, this image, this feeling and sound. He’ll hear the noisy beat of the rain, he’ll smell the thick, slightly oppressive air of the enclosed van, he’ll taste Xiao Zhan on his tongue.
He’ll say, if not to Xiao Zhan then to himself in countless waking dreams, at least I know there’s a part of you that belongs to me.
-
Their bodies are known terrain, curves and plains and valleys as familiar to them as the mountains and lakes of their childhood. Yibo knows how to coax Xiao Zhan’s body into every form of pleasure that they’ve discovered through eight long years of being together. He’s been ticking them off in his mind for the past few months, this technique and that, this position and that. There isn’t enough time to go through them all. There’ll never be enough time, not when each form of pleasure needs multiple redos, needs to be explored and owned over and over.
It doesn’t have to be this way, Xiao Zhan had said to him three weeks ago when he found Yibo sitting in the shower after work one day, head in his hands as water poured down on him. Yibo, we don’t have to do this. We can continue the way we are.
Yibo has heard those words often enough in his heart. He’s even said them before to Xiao Zhan and thought them to be possible. But Xiao Zhan is over thirty now. Xiao Zhan’s parents are getting old and they dearly want to hold a grandchild before they pass on. They aren’t reckless boys anymore without a responsibility in the world. Xiao Zhan needs to be set free.
Xiao Zhan likes women as well as men, in a way that Yibo can’t relate to. But what he does understand is that one day, Xiao Zhan will find someone he can be together with in a fully legitimate way, can marry and have babies with, can delight his parents with. Xiao Zhan will have a son who has his lovely eyes, who laughs in the same hur-hur-hur way and whose mouth will droop at the corners when he’s sad. Xiao Zhan will be accepted by society instead of keeping his love hidden in dark corners, constantly dodging the scrutiny of people around him, living off stolen moments behind locked doors and curtained windows.
This can only happen if Xiao Zhan is set free. And Yibo loves him so much, so deeply and intensely, that he has to let him go.
Perhaps, if they’d been born fifty years in the future, they might have been able to continue on together for the rest of their lives. Maybe they met too soon.
He strokes his fingers over Xiao Zhan’s parted mouth when he finally slides in. Zhan-ge, he says, what did you think of when I first kissed you?
Xiao Zhan tips his head back, considering. He says, I thought, does this brat know what he’s doing?
And what was I doing, gege?
You were turning my life upside down, says Xiao Zhan through a gasp when Yibo thrusts in at a well-known and very well-loved angle. Making me want things I know I shouldn’t.
And he smiles.
-
It doesn’t take long to come. When Yibo pulls out, come trickles out after him. It can’t be the nicest feeling in the world, but Xiao Zhan doesn’t complain.
Xiao Zhan hasn’t complained about anything that Yibo has done to him. Not the first unsought kiss in the lake, not the way Yibo had clung to him and refused to let go, not the fumbling explorations at first or how Yibo bites him during sex. Not the disastrous, half-burned, over-salted dinner that Yibo had cooked for his twenty-fifth birthday, nor the time Yibo had given him the cold shoulder for a week because he thought Xiao Zhan was flirting with someone else.
Yibo has taken so much from Xiao Zhan over the years, barging into his life and filling up every inch of it, and Xiao Zhan hasn’t complained.
Xiao Zhan knows him better than anyone else ever will. Xiao Zhan has known him since he was little more than a snotty-nosed kid, rebelliously kicking water from the stream at his face. Xiao Zhan, round-faced at fifteen years old, tasked to haul little Wang Yibo back to school, sliding out of his flip flops and plunging into the stream to play with Yibo instead.
Xiao Zhan piggybacking Yibo home after a strenuous day out, singing to him under stars that seemed like they would shimmer if Yibo reached out and touched them.
Xiao Zhan gifting Yibo with his very first pair of brand new sports shoes after scrimping and saving for a whole year to afford them.
Xiao Zhan giving Yibo the special privilege of tagging along with the older boys, letting him ride on the back of his bike, sharing his food with him.
Every childhood haunt and memory of Yibo’s has Xiao Zhan in it, lanky and grinning, eyes alight with mischief and laughter, the gege that Yibo loves most.
Just as every adult haunt and memory of Yibo’s has Xiao Zhan in it, impossibly beautiful and irresistibly filthy, open and willing, smart as a whip and soft as silk with arms that feel like home. The person that Yibo loves most.
Will you think of me sometimes, after? he asks.
You ridiculous human, says Xiao Zhan. When do I not think of you?
When you’re married, and have your child, and your own life and family apart from me, says Yibo, it’ll be nice if you thought of me sometimes. It doesn’t have to be all the time. But I’ll like it if you thought of me sometimes. Maybe when you’re carrying your baby at night, or when you’re cooking cola chicken, or when you turn on the TV and see someone dancing.
As long as you think of me too, says Xiao Zhan. Wherever you are. When you have a quiet moment. Or when you’re happy about something, or celebrating, or maybe even a little sleepy after a long day as the big boss of the best mechanics shop in Beijing. It’ll be nice if you thought of me then.
Yibo rests his hand on Xiao Zhan’s hip, right over the mole. The rain is easing, and their warm cocoon inside the van is musky. Perhaps the sun will come out and they’ll get to swim after all.
-
When they open the van doors and emerge, they’re barefoot in white singlets and shorts. Xiao Zhan pauses to look around and make sure that they’re really, really alone, but Yibo runs ahead, strips off, dumps his clothes on a rock and dives right in.