#xunong

linong knew, even before he ran for recording secretary, that cai xukun was always first to the student council office. if linong were to recall it, and he really can, he’d see the sprouting of new leaves on dead tree branches, the sun burning through clouds and asphalt melting the soles of his shoes. it was nearing summer, during his freshman year. cai xukun was a junior. xukun still had his bangs up to his eyelids, and linong could barely make sense of his face from under the obscurity, but linong knew xukun would be pretty, either way. it was also the same hour and minute as this. five in the morning, but it had looked like twelve in the afternoon. the sun had already risen so high and it was ready to sink so low. linong needed to go to school early for punishment; he’d been texting in class, and its equivalent was to help the janitors clean classrooms before school started.

linong had just dragged his body everywhere, holding the broom, sweeping the floors, wiping windows. but he didn’t feel too empty when he was watering the flowerbeds. watering them felt like he was giving out his heart, and this was enough to make up for an entire morning spent in sweat with damp hands. when he was about to finish, he decided to clean one last classroom. it was at the very far-end of the third floor. ‘student council office’, it flashed onto its placard, taped and re-taped many times on the top part of the doorframe. linong had let himself in, a bucket and a mop in his two hands, and cai xukun looked up from the papers he had in both of his two hands. and linong couldn’t breathe, just like now, but he’d still managed to mop the floors. he had still managed to survive it. and that was that.

linong hears something from inside the office. it’s soft and it’s quiet; almost invisible, if linong hadn’t been so alert. it sounds of xukun’s voice, and someone else’s, humming deeply against xukun’s echo. there was hard breathing, and the breathing would suddenly stop and continue again. linong moved, knowing quite well what it had all sounded like. he didn’t know why he moved. he didn’t want to, but he does. the window right next to the door had been left open. linong slowly pushes his right shoulder down, hunching his back to make himself smaller and smaller, and peers through the gap between the glass.

xukun and a taller man were by the very corner of the office. linong squints; he recognizes the man. for a moment, all linong could see were their lips locked together and xukun’s hands gripping the hem of his blouse until his knuckles faded white, but his mind buzzes and he is left looking at the face of the man that had xukun’s shaking shoulders in his hold.

it was wang ziyi, a senior that graduated last year.

deep into the kiss, xukun is the first to separate. between their lips, linong hears xukun’s shaky breath. and linong sees more. more bruises, more scratches, more red, black and blues on his face, and they are fresh, unlike those from saturday’s that looked like wounds over wounds over wounds; a month’s worth of them.