"Pan-fried buns aren't exactly healthy either," Zhuang Yi said, almost offhand, like he was commenting on the weather, and then he didn't say anything else. The silence behind him stretched long enough that he finally turned around, his expression softening a fraction as if he'd remembered that the person trailing him wasn't one of his patients or assistants, but someone who could get stuck in his own head and never come out. "If you don't want to eat here," he added, voice gentler, "there's a shop up ahead you should like… It's fine." He said it's fine like a conclusion, like a door quietly closing without a fight.
They wove through alleyways that were dim and slick with old grease, the kind of narrow lanes where the air always carried a mix of oil smoke, chili, and damp stone, and where the lights overhead looked yellow and tired as if they'd been working overtime too. Xun Yuming kept his hands in his pockets and tried to walk like he knew where he was going, but he didn't; he was following Zhuang Yi's back, following the long, familiar outline of a stranger he used to know, watching the way his shoulders moved when he turned, the way he stepped around puddles without looking. When the alley opened suddenly into a broader street lined with taller buildings, the scenery shifted so sharply that Xun Yuming stopped without meaning to, staring as if he'd walked into a photograph that had been edited by someone else.
"Is this Sanmen Town?" he asked, genuinely surprised. The name came out of him on instinct, an old label from memory, yet the place in front of him barely matched the one he remembered.
Zhuang Yi hummed in agreement, following Xun Yuming's gaze with the calm patience of someone used to explaining cities to people who had been gone too long. "The old archway's been swallowed by the rebuilt blocks," he said, pointing with his chin toward a cluster of newer structures that loomed over what used to be a landmark. "We're walking over Sanshi Bridge right now, only it's been paved up. The river under it got diverted and connected to the moat. And those buildings ahead, those are still the German-era ones. They didn't demolish them." His tone was matter-of-fact, but the details came out precise, like he'd walked this route enough times to memorize what had changed and what stubbornly refused to.
"I don't recognize any of it," Xun Yuming admitted, and the words felt heavier than they should have. He'd left at the end of high school and came back into a country that kept rebuilding itself faster than anyone could keep up; he sometimes couldn't even find his own old neighborhood without a map, let alone a place he only visited a handful of times more than ten years ago. He looked at Zhuang Yi from the side and couldn't stop the thought from slipping in: places change, and people do too. "Is this where we're eating?" he asked, partly because he was hungry, partly because he needed something safe to say.
"It's by the river," Zhuang Yi replied, already turning as if the question had been answered ages ago. "Down the stairs." They descended stone steps slicked smooth by years of footsteps, and beneath the bridge the world shifted again, moat-side air, damp and cool, willows hanging low like green curtains that brushed your shoulders if you weren't careful. Zhuang Yi lifted a branch aside without looking back, walked straight to a small restaurant with a modest, unshowy storefront, and said, "This is it," like he was placing a stamp on the night.
Xun Yuming pushed open the glass door and was hit by warmth and noise, clattering bowls, oil sizzling somewhere in the back, the smell of soy and broth and grilled eel woven together. The restaurant was busier than it looked from outside. Two waiters moved like they were playing a timed game, one taking orders with a deadpan face, the other delivering dishes with a practiced arm. No one paid attention to them, so Xun Yuming picked a two-person table in the corner, the kind that made you feel slightly hidden even in a crowd, and sat down with a quiet exhale, as if he'd been holding his breath for the entire walk.
Zhuang Yi went to the counter and returned with the ordering tablet, sliding it across to him first. "The first two pages are decent," he said, tone almost dismissive. "The rest are just… so-so." It was a strangely domestic gesture, choosing food, evaluating menus, something that didn't fit the fact that they hadn't spoken properly in eight years, that they were still circling each other like strangers at a reunion who didn't know which memories were safe to touch.
Xun Yuming scrolled once, barely reading, then pointed at a beef rice bowl more out of exhaustion than preference. He lifted his eyes and asked silently, Is this okay? as if he still needed permission to exist in this moment.
"Okay." Zhuang Yi tapped the screen a few times, then said, almost too casually, "After you eat, go upstairs and walk south along the way you came. That's your maternal grandfather's house. You can walk back later." It sounded like an instruction he'd been holding onto for years, an assumption delivered with the confidence of someone who had once known every detail of Xun Yuming's life.
Xun Yuming unfolded a napkin and wiped the edge of the table slowly, as if buying time. "I don't live at my maternal grandfather's house," he said, voice flat, like he was stating a fact about weather rather than a fracture line running through his life.
This time, Zhuang Yi's composure cracked for the briefest moment. His eyes flicked up, a faint pause suspended between his breath and his next word, he clearly wanted to ask why, and he clearly knew he had no right to. Before anything could be said, the waiter arrived with side dishes, setting them down with a soft clatter that sliced the tension neatly in half. The conversation died without needing to be killed.
Xun Yuming nudged the tempura toward Zhuang Yi, and Zhuang Yi pushed the onsen egg back toward him. Neither looked particularly invested in being polite; it was more like they both needed their hands to do something harmless so they wouldn't reach for something dangerous instead. They sat there with the awkwardness from the mountain path creeping back in, the kind of awkwardness that wasn't about unfamiliarity, but about knowing too much and pretending you didn't.
When the beef rice arrived, Zhuang Yi's eel rice and a small bottle of sake followed. Zhuang Yi poured two cups with the calm ease of someone used to drinking without making it a performance, then placed one cup in front of Xun Yuming as if it belonged there. "Is sake within your selection," he asked lightly, "or does it have to be strong liquor?"
"I don't drink!" Xun Yuming blurted, even though his face had already flushed, as if his body had betrayed him before the alcohol even touched his lips. He could feel the heat rising to his ears, to his cheeks, and he hated the way Zhuang Yi's eyes seemed to notice everything. As if to prove the opposite of what he'd just said, he grabbed the cup and drank it down in one go, the way a stubborn person swallows medicine to show they're not afraid.
The sake burned his empty stomach like a small, bright flame. His chest tightened, and before he could stop himself, before he could choose a safer sentence, he said the one thing he'd been chewing on since the moment they met again. "Do you still hate me?"
The second the question left his mouth, he knew it was a mistake. One cup of wine had made him brave in the stupidest way, brave enough to bleed in front of someone who hadn't offered a bandage.
"Hate you?" Zhuang Yi echoed, taking a sip of his own sake as if he were tasting the word. The curve of his lips was faint and almost amused. "You're over twenty, and you still talk about 'love and hate' like that," he said, voice mild and cutting at the same time. "Aren't you afraid people will laugh at you?"
Xun Yuming's spoon scraped the bowl as he stirred the beef rice too hard, like he could mix the embarrassment away. Something in him, some stubborn, cornered part, flared up, and he shot back without thinking, "That's still better than having it on your face."
Zhuang Yi blinked, genuinely caught off guard for once, then his eyes narrowed slightly with a hint of mockery. "Better than keeping it in your heart," he returned smoothly, as if he'd been waiting years to say that line.
The rice in Xun Yuming's mouth suddenly felt like sand. It stuck in his throat, neither going down nor coming back up, and the air between them turned tight again, the same tightness as the stairwell, the villa, the assessment room, every place where they tried to speak and ended up wounding each other instead. Xun Yuming stared at his bowl and thought, with bleak clarity, that dinner together was a terrible idea. Dinner was for acquaintances, for friends, for people who could laugh about the past without choking on it. Dinner was not for exes who had broken badly and then spent eight years pretending they didn't.
He shoveled in a few quick bites, then put down his spoon like he was setting down a weapon. "I'm full."
Zhuang Yi glanced at his bowl, at the rice hardly touched, and said quietly, "Eat some more. Every grain is hard-earned." The sentence was plain, almost old-fashioned, but there was something about the way he said it, soft, familiar, like someone quoting a parent, that made Xun Yuming's chest tighten in a different way.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of Zhuang Yi's mouth, the kind that made his dimples show for a second and made him look warm enough to fool you. Xun Yuming's heart jumped stupidly, traitorously. Before he realized what he was doing, he picked up the spoon again and kept eating, like his body had decided compliance was safer than resistance.
"When will my evaluation results be available?" Xun Yuming asked, forcing his mind onto a topic that wouldn't explode. He needed something neutral, something professional, something that wouldn't lead back to love, hate, guilt, or the past. He spoke like a man walking across thin ice.
"Two or three days," Zhuang Yi replied, pushing a stack of napkins toward him as if anticipating more spilled soup, more mess. "Personnel will receive it. They'll notify you."
"Mm." Xun Yuming's voice came out dry. He tried, clumsily, to loop in the only other safe subject they had: surgery. "Aunt Qin's surgery will also take two or three days to schedule," he said, like he was offering reassurance. "That's already fast. Beds are scarce. Some patients with less serious conditions wait half a year."
"I know." Zhuang Yi poured him a cup of barley tea, the warm steam curling upward between them like a thin curtain. "I wasn't rushing you. Why are you in such a hurry?"
"Am I in a hurry?" Xun Yuming muttered, head drooping as if the alcohol had finally reached his nerves. "I'm just… afraid you'll get impatient and won't wait."
"I can wait," Zhuang Yi said, eyes lowered to his drink. "No rush." The words were simple, but they landed like something heavier, like a promise that wasn't quite a promise, or a sentence that sounded kind until you remembered it could also mean: I can wait because I'm not the one who still cares.
A spotlight above them cast a circle of light that made Xun Yuming's face look too clear. His skin was pale, his cheeks flushed from the sake, and a few beads of sweat clung to his temple. Under the light he looked strangely fragile, like someone who could be broken by one more careless sentence. Zhuang Yi glanced away quickly and poured himself another glass. His left ring finger twitched again, small and involuntary, like a muscle remembering a habit it shouldn't.
When they finished eating, the sky had darkened further, and the river outside reflected the streetlights in long, trembling lines. The wind was warm, not hot, not cold, just enough to make you feel awake. Xun Yuming stood by the riverbank, pressing a hand to his stomach with a faint grimace. "It's been a long time since I've eaten this much," he said, half complaint, half relief.
After paying, Zhuang Yi walked beside him and asked, as if it were a casual question, "Where are you staying now?"
"Huh?" Xun Yuming turned his head too fast and immediately regretted it. "Are you… taking me home?" The words slipped out with that same stupid, tipsy boldness, and the second he said them he wanted to swallow them back.
Zhuang Yi paused too, then spread his hands in a small gesture of helplessness. "I didn't drive. I can only walk with you for a while," he said, then added, almost gently, "But it's late. Are you sure you want to walk back?"
Xun Yuming had wanted to walk. He'd wanted the cold air and the steps and the time to digest the rice stuck in his throat and not the rice in his stomach, but the words between them. Yet with Zhuang Yi saying it like that, he couldn't insist without sounding like he was begging for company. So he compromised, as always, and hailed a taxi with a stiff wave.
There was no moon. The stone steps leading up from the river were lit by streetlamps that cast yellow circles on the ground. The dim light made everything around them look darker, and it made the space between people feel smaller, as if the night itself encouraged closeness. Xun Yuming stood at the curb, told himself to stop thinking, and forced his voice into something steady. "I live in the hospital dormitory. It's close by taxi. You should go back now." Then he raised his hand again, not daring to look too long, and said, "Bye."
Zhuang Yi watched him climb into the backseat, then leaned down and told the driver in a polite, careful voice, "Please drive slowly. He gets carsick. Thank you." He stayed on the curb until the taxi rolled away, his figure tall and straight under the streetlight, as if he were carved out of the night.
Xun Yuming let out a long breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He tugged at his shirt, which clung to his damp back, and rolled the window down a crack. Cool air rushed into his collar, drying the sweat like an unspoken comfort. In the rearview mirror, he saw Zhuang Yi's back growing smaller, swallowed by mist and distance, leaving behind a brief impression of loneliness that faded as the car turned.
Eight years had passed like a blink and also like a lifetime.
Reunion felt like opening a box that should've stayed sealed, good and bad, fear and joy, all spilling out at once, messy and unstoppable.
He got home, showered, changed clothes. The clock read 9:30. His body clock was ruined from long nights and operating-room time; sleep didn't come when it was supposed to. So he leaned against the headboard with his laptop and pulled out Qin Xueyan's films again, spreading them like a map of a future he couldn't afford to misread. For him, it wasn't "a major surgery." For the person on the table, it was a life being placed into someone else's hands. There was no room for carelessness, no excuse for arrogance, no forgiveness for a mistake.
Xun Yuming had never believed in last-minute cramming. The habit had been beaten into him early.
In sixth grade, his homeroom teacher had appointed him to give a Mother's Day speech after the Monday flag-raising ceremony. He'd been class monitor, top of the grade, the kind of child adults liked because he made them feel secure. That year he was also grinding for a math Olympiad, exhausted to the bone, scribbling a speech at his desk at night until his eyes closed without warning. He only remembered, horrified, when he stood on stage the next morning and realized he hadn't even read the speech through once.
So, in front of the entire school, he slipped and mispronounced "great maternal love" as "the great love of the mother." Laughter rose like a wave. His face burned. He looked up and met his teacher's gaze, sharp, disappointed, cutting straight through him, and in that instant he felt as if the little red flower pinned to her skirt had withered on the spot.
From then on, whenever he had time, he prepared early. Whenever the thought of slacking off surfaced, that gaze came back to haunt him like a warning light. And now, as he stared at Qin Xueyan's scans, another gaze threatened to overlap with it, the clear, narrow phoenix eyes of Zhuang Yi, looking at him the way he looked on the day they broke up. The thought made Xun Yuming's stomach tighten until he couldn't tell whether it was hunger, fear, or something uglier.
He reviewed Qin Xueyan's history again: prior conditions, medication, reactions, anything that might matter even a little. Then, without warning, his mind slipped sideways into a different thought, Zhuang Yi's line over dinner: better than keeping it in your heart.
Until today, Xun Yuming had believed they had been in love. Hadn't they? The question gnawed at him until he slammed the laptop shut as if he could trap the thought inside. He rolled over, stared at the ceiling, and scolded himself in silence like a child caught doing something shameful: What does it matter if he loved you or not? You're just hoping he still does. You're hoping he still thinks about you. You're hoping he's still stuck on you somewhere deep down.
He scratched at the blanket with a sulky, restless hand, pulled it over his head like armor, and forced himself to sleep.