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The young boy sits, quietly, watching others play and wrestle on the grass field.
He’s covered in sweat, the sun feeling almost unbearable. The shading given by this tree is sparse, and he shifts uncomfortably. His classmates seem unaffected by this problem, laughing and shouting as they throw a ball around.
Once in a while, someone glances over to him before casually turning away. No invitation is passed forward, but no blatant discrimination either. He is simply ignored.
He takes a glance at his watch, and does a quick mental subtraction in his head. After a few more seconds, the boy stands up and straightens his uniform, preparing to return to the classroom.
“I’m back!” Rings a cheery voice. A couple off-beat notes of humming followed it, and another boy skids down the grass hill, barely avoids hitting the tree, and stops beside him.
“Here, I bought you a drink! It should still be cold, and,” throwing an arm around Mo Xi and pulling him closer, he continues, “Surprise! I got us ice cream. But we have to eat it right now, because if we bring it into the classroom, we’ll have to deal with the teacher…”
Hastily grabbing a hold of the bottle shoved carelessly into his hand, Mo Xi’s word of thanks was swallowed back down his throat. “You ran off campus?”
Gu Mang giggles and claps Mo Xi’s shoulder, and Mo Xi feels like he should be a little angrier, should reprimand Gu Mang for risking the rules just to buy them ice cream, but in the flaming sun, he simply purses his lips and holds back a smile.
~The general awaits at the northern frontier, happily anticipating a word from you.~
Two birds sing to each other from atop a telephone pole, and a light breeze carries the faint smell of flowers to each person.
It’s a nice, calming sort of weather. How ironic.
They walk side by side, away from the police academy, and Mo Xi glances over to Gu Mang every couple seconds. Silence fills the air between them, and Gu Mang wears a light smile on his face. Mo Xi wishes he could tear that smile off.
In his memory, Gu Mang was supposed to be a crybaby. This man who self-proclaimed himself as his older brother, who Mo Xi secretly admired as a hero, has always been too soft, too kind. His empathy seemed to know no bounds. He could shed tears for those he barely knew, harbour anger for those irrelevant to him, and Mo Xi feared it would crush him one day. But right now, Gu Mang catches Mo Xi’s gaze, and immediately gives him a reassuring smile, as if that would distract Mo Xi from the limp in his step, or the bruise on his face.
Mo Xi hates it.
“Why can’t you treat yourself better?” Is what he wants to ask. “You can cry. It’s okay.” But how can he say that, when Gu Mang is trying his hardest to stay put together amidst all this chaos? His heart hurts, but there’s nothing he can do, nothing he can say, and Mo Xi has never felt so helpless.
And Gu Mang sends him a smile, like Mo Xi is the one in need of comfort. Like Mo Xi is the one losing a once-loving father to the underworld, to drug addiction, and in place, an insane abusive man who is about to be sentenced to death.
Mo Xi hates how Gu Mang is still exercising that endless kindness of his at a time like this.
But Gu Mang is strong, Gu Mang has always been strong, and so Mo Xi will stay beside him. Even if as a return gift for all the times Gu Mang has helped him, he'll stay and do his best to help Gu Mang through this time.
~Waiting for the day you return, my tears sing a ballad for you.~
Rain falls hard on the cement roads, and a stray cat leaps off its place on the curb to seek shelter.
Mo Xi locks the door behind him and removes his uniform jacket, laying it on the cabinet where he knows it to be, without turning on the lights. He walks into the dark room and collapses onto the couch, staring dully at a ceiling he cannot see.
Each sound of a rain droplet splattering onto the outside ground feels like a punch against his chest, and he can’t breathe. He feels as if he’s suffocating, and an invisible weight lays across his lungs and on his shoulders.
Every day, he takes low level cases at the station. He works hard, and given his grades, he’ll likely be promoted much earlier than any of his peers.
He works tirelessly, because he can’t give himself half a second of rest, or his mind will take him over. All Mo Xi can see these days when he attempts to fall asleep is that sight of Gu Mang, carelessly lounging on a prostitute’s lap.
Gu Mang, smiling at him, with none of the warmth and kindness he’d been used to, and had taken for granted for years.
He had screamed at Gu Mang, and then begged, and then riled to anger again, but Gu Mang sat through it all with an emotionless grin, replying with the most hurtful words. Empty wine bottles were scattered on the floor, and the scent of weed permeated through the air.
Gu Mang, finally being selfish, putting himself ahead of his useless empathy, except this wasn’t what Mo Xi wanted.
It was all wrong.
Mo Xi rubs the heel of his hands into his eyes, hard, and wants nothing more than to melt away, somewhere where he doesn’t have to deal with this reality. A reality where he’s alone, where Gu Mang has strayed onto the wrong path, where Gu Mang has abandoned him. Where Gu Mang would rather destroy himself than stay with him.
He can’t find Gu Mang anymore.
When Gu Mang disappeared for the first time, Mo Xi had panicked. He stressed, he worried, and instead of joy upon finding the other, felt only pure dread.
And now, Gu Mang was gone again, and everyone collectively stopped bringing him up. Treated him like he was dead.
Time goes by without Gu Mang regardless. Mo Xi finished university, and became a true policeman. He’s achieved a part of his life he’d always imagined together with Gu Mang, one where he’d never thought of anything but living it together.
~I should have long gotten used to life without you.~
Mo Xi dimly notes the naval ship rocking slightly under his feet. It's a survival skill, trained into him as part of his career: to be aware of one's surroundings at all times, especially when feeling in danger.
Wind hits against the cabin wall, and the shadows twist and turn as the overhead lamp sways hypnotically. The scent of blood stings his nostrils. He feels damp all over, soaked by moisture in the air from the saltwater, the blood seeping into his uniform from his fallen comrades, the cold sweat on the back of his neck.
Gu Mang.
He’s everything Mo Xi remembers, everything he’s cried and yearned for in multiple sleepless nights, but also a complete stranger in his best friend’s skin. And Mo Xi has imagined many times what he’d do if he ever found Gu Mang, perhaps be relieved in the fact he still lives, or anger for the fact he hid away for so long, but instead, Mo Xi feels weirdly calm.
Or completely dead inside, he’s not sure. He can’t tear his eyes away from the blood-stained police cap hanging off Gu Mang’s head.
He tries to look into Gu Mang’s eyes, but almost cowers back at the insanity they hold.
It’s all his worst nightmares come true.
It’s all his lies toward himself, insistence towards others, being immediately torn to shreds by a pair of familiar hands that proceed to slap him across the face. It’s his last lifeline, his singular hope he had been desperately grabbing onto, turning to dust in his hands, uncaring of how hard he pleads.
Gu Mang is on this ship, in control of this ship. This cargo ship stacked with crates of illegal drugs, and littered with the dead corpses of multiple cops.
Of all things, Mo Xi can’t understand why Gu Mang would choose the underworld, choose those same drugs that destroyed his family. But the truth stands before him.
It’s not as if there were no warnings, no hints. But Mo Xi had always believed Gu Mang, believed in him. Gu Mang, who was a crybaby, and was too soft, and sensitive enough to insist one could die of sorrow. There was no way that person could become an irredeemable criminal from the underworld.
He had scoffed at Gu Mang back then. How could anything die from sorrow?
He understands now.
~Those prideful tears that refuse to leave my eyes, they sparkle in the light. How much longer can this pair of burdened shoulders last?~
It’s pure chaos around them, blaring sirens and shouted commands, but Mo Xi can’t make sense of any of them.
Gu Mang lies against his chest, arms locked around his neck. Someone, probably a medical officer, tries to pry Gu Mang off, and shouts at Mo Xi to help.
Mo Xi blinks as he watches Gu Mang spasm in pain, his features momentarily contorting even while unconscious. Blood gushes from his wound onto Mo Xi, and Mo Xi’s brain is still replaying Gu Mang’s maniacal laughter from earlier.
“I’ll bring you to hell with me.”
Unfamiliar hands finally pry Gu Mang off him, and he watches, baffled, as Gu Mang is hastily shoved onto an ambulance bed. And then he remembers that Gu Mang had already gone limp moments ago. It must’ve been himself still clinging on.
“Officer Mo, do you think you can understand me! Huh?! I can’t live on if I stay normal! I can’t live on if I keep my sanity!!”
Gu Mang’s hands are twitching, and they’re entirely covered in blood. He looks down and realises his own are the same, then that his entire chest is dark red and thoroughly soaked in blood.
Briefly, he remembers the last time he had a confrontation with Gu Mang. He’d gotten a bullet in the chest for that, one barely missing his heart. His scar starts throbbing.
Today’s mission was a success, and all these years of chasing after the druglords, chasing after Gu Mang, could finally come to an end. It was done. It’s over. Gu Mang almost had him, but then Officer Meng had shot Gu Mang right in the lung. It’s over.
“Do you understand what it feels like, to wish for death every minute, every second of your life?!”
He wonders why Gu Mang’s words keep ringing in his head. As if on cue, his mind starts providing lists and images of every body of Gu Mang’s making.
Officer Meng runs to him, her frantic hands checking him for wounds. He’s not sure whether or not he answers her, eyes watching as Gu Mang is carried away into the ambulance.
Gu Mang can’t die, he insists to himself, He still owes me an explanation. I still need him to say sorry. He hasn’t paid for his crimes.
They all sound oddly like excuses.