During those initial days when he first arrived in the Bay Area and moved into the student dormitory, Ning Yixiao felt as though he had turned into an animal. An animal that was acutely, hyper-sensitively aware of everything around it.

He could smell the faint trace of antiseptic seeping through the heavy perfume and deodorant of strangers, even if they just brushed shoulders in passing. He could hear a woman suppressing her sobs on a phone call across the street, the honking of horns on midnight streets, the roar of lawnmowers, the sloppy, drunken footsteps pacing past his door, and the showerhead across the hall that would suddenly sputter with a violent increase in water pressure. Drip, drip, drip… the endless sound of leaking water coming from some untraceable origin.

At first, he didn’t understand why this was happening and found it highly distressing. His roommate, Jason, suggested he see a therapist, but it didn’t do much for him.

Later, he met Jingming and told him about these strange occurrences. Jingming simply laughed it off, not thinking much of it, and patted him on the shoulder.

“You’re just too lonely.”

Lonely. What an unfamiliar word. Ning Yixiao refused to look at it that way, so he naturally blamed it on his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Yet, Jingming’s words silently transformed into a water snake, slithering into his mind and swimming through every single night he spent soaked in alcohol.

Take this night, for instance—it was as ordinary as any other. Facing a screen split halfway between code and research papers, Ning Yixiao emptied yet another bottle of alcohol. He heard the sound of his roommate returning. Jason was complaining about the weather and his hereditary sinusitis.

Seeing the empty bottle, the good-natured guy shrugged and walked over. He opened his mouth, managed to utter a single “Shaw…”, and then bright red blood dripped from his nose, landing right onto the carpet.

Ning Yixiao looked down. That perfectly round drop of crimson rapidly bled into the fibers, vibrant and glaring, like a beautifully ripe cherry. Suddenly, everything warped and shifted. The faux-cashmere carpet vanished, the lights dimmed, and the brownish-yellow wooden floor of the apartment dissolved into a deep, dark grey. A subtle odor began to diffuse through the air—the scent of musty mold, long hidden from sunlight, being baked dry by a radiator. It was a complex, cheap smell.

“I’m bleeding from my nose again…”

Ning Yixiao froze for a second. He lifted his gaze toward the source of the voice. There stood a person clad in cream-white brushed-cotton pajamas. His face shone translucent and pale under the dim light as he pinched the bridge of his nose, tilting his head downward with an apologetic smile.

“Ning Yixiao, I really am bleeding from my nose again,” he repeated, explicitly including his name. His voice was thick with nasal congestion, sounding like a soft pout.

“Su Hui.” His throat felt incredibly parched. He couldn’t even articulate a simple two-character name seamlessly.

“Mm… help me get some tissues.” Su Hui gave his arm a gentle nudge. “Hurry up.”

“Oh, okay.” He turned his head and realized he had somehow returned to their old rented room. It was cramped, dim, and lined with the textured beige wallpaper they had put up together. There was the blue plaid bedsheet and the electric fan whirring with a rhythmic creak, blowing against layers of sticky notes on the wall until they fluttered like a miniature wave.

Like a player rapidly dropping into a saved game slot, he familiarly located the tissue box, quickly pulled out a few sheets, and cradled the back of Su Hui’s neck to carefully tend to him.

Gradually, Su Hui tilted his head back, completely relaxing his posture until the back of his head rested entirely in the palm of Ning Yixiao’s hand. He looked up, beaming at him.

“Thank you,” he said in a sweet tone, lightly brushing his cheek against Ning Yixiao’s fingers.

Toward the end of that summer, Su Hui bled from his nose frequently, usually right before sleeping or while asleep. Waking up one morning, Ning Yixiao opened his eyes and saw bloodstains on the pillow. His heart skipped a violent beat and his mind went entirely blank for a fraction of a second. He immediately scrambled up to check on Su Hui sleeping beside him, inspecting his wrists and his neck.

It wasn’t until Su Hui was roused by the commotion and dazed-ly turned his face over that Ning Yixiao finally breathed a sigh of relief. He kissed Su Hui’s lips, got up, and used a damp towel to gently wipe away the dried blood.

Initially, he thought it was because Beijing was too dry, so he wanted to buy a humidifier. But the moment Su Hui heard about it, he refused.

“Don’t. You’re always buying things for me,” Su Hui started rambling again. “We just bought a mattress, and the bedding set was just replaced. The old one was perfectly fine, it was comfortable to sleep on. Whatever kind of cotton this new one is, it’s way too expensive.”

He hated it when Su Hui used the word “expensive.” That word always dropped like a block of lead into Ning Yixiao’s heart. He stared at Su Hui, feeling as though he were looking at a pristine white phalaenopsis orchid fostered in a shabby rented room. He loathed this kind of life where they were so impoverished that they only had each other; Su Hui deserved to live a much better life.

“Humidifiers are useless anyway,” Su Hui emphasized. “I’ll just drink more water, don’t worry.”

He felt as though he had picked up an expensive stray cat—deeply happy, yet laden with a constant trepidation that he might not take good enough care of it.

While working overtime, Ning Yixiao secretly placed an order anyway after a colleague recommended a specific model. The bill grew by another digit, shattering the fragile financial equilibrium they had been maintaining, but his mood wasn’t bad at all. To make do on the night before it arrived, he boiled a full kettle of hot water, poured it into a washbasin, and brought it over for Su Hui to bury his face over and steam it. Su Hui obediently lowered his head. The steam flushed his face a deep, full pink, leaving even his eyelashes dewy and wet.

Su Hui said with a laugh, “I have a premonition that I definitely won’t bleed from my nose tonight.” He said thank you, wrapped his arms around Ning Yixiao’s lean back, and pressed his damp cheek gently against Ning Yixiao’s—first the left side, then the right side, before leaning in for a kiss.

And just like that, Ning Yixiao realized that his illness of hyper-sensitivity had suddenly been cured.

His hearing, touch, taste, and smell all returned to normal, converging entirely onto a single person: the way the end of Su Hui’s sentences always trailed off with a light, upward lilt; his laughter which was bright, and his crying which was entirely soundless. He was very thin; when they hugged, the ridges of his ribs could always be clearly felt, yet his cheeks and stomach were incredibly soft. He tasted faintly sweet when kissed, and he smelled like a very luxurious fragrance. It was the scent of love.

Inside this dim, shared apartment, he transformed from an animal back into a human being.

The already cramped space felt even tighter with two people occupying it. They had to squeeze together in front of the mirror to brush their teeth, crowd into a kitchen where turning around was a challenge just to make food, and press against each other on a single bed to sleep in a tight embrace.

However, Su Hui’s premonition didn’t turn out to be that accurate. He still bled that very night. Ning Yixiao couldn’t sleep; he lay on his side facing him the entire time, watching the blood stream down with his own eyes. He quickly stopped the bleeding. In the darkness, the glowing screen of his phone scrolled through endless paragraphs of text—all of them warnings about the side effects of medications.

Yet another one added to the list. Ning Yixiao took a deep breath, leaned down, and lightly kissed Su Hui’s forehead.

The other medication Su Hui had taken before—which Su Hui claimed tasted like berries—sounded lovely, but its actual side effects were severe. Every time Su Hui took it, he would become lethargic and break out in tiny rashes that bit with an intense itch, which he would always scratch until the skin broke.

From then on, Ning Yixiao could never sleep through the night. He would always wake up in the dead of the night to apply anti-itch ointment on Su Hui. The tube was the size of a lip balm and felt cool upon application; Su Hui would always nuzzle into him while it was being applied.

As if that weren’t enough, he clipped Su Hui’s fingernails down until they were completely stubby.

“Are you taking revenge on me?” A overly rounded fingertip poked his shoulder.

Ning Yixiao looked slightly puzzled. “Hmm?”

“I scratched up your back,” Su Hui lunged forward to wrap himself around him, pretending to scratch him through his T-shirt. “So you’re giving me a manicure as punishment.”

Hearing this, Ning Yixiao let out a very soft chuckle. Instead of denying it, he pinched his finger. “In that case, I might as well just tie your hands up.”

“It’s not like you haven’t tied them before.”

Su Hui pushed his luck, leaning in close until his lips brushed against Ning Yixiao’s earlobe, whispering softly, “They’re all clipped. Isn’t it time to test the results?”

Desire surged. This wasn’t a side effect; it was a common manifestation of his manic phase. Ning Yixiao knew it well at the time, but he never questioned it. He was caught in the vortex of love, unable to pull himself out.

The mist sprayed by the humidifier resembled smoke, silently enveloping their sleek bodies, rising and falling with them like waves. At this moment, he finally stopped staring at the ceiling and the widening, bruise-like water stain upon it. He focused entirely on Su Hui’s face as it tilted backward, and the beads of sweat sliding down to his collarbone.

When Ning Yixiao focused intensely, he often gave off a false impression of being “absent-minded”—something he hadn’t realized about himself before.

“You… you’re spacing out again…”

Misunderstood once more. Ning Yixiao interrupted him with action, grabbing Su Hui’s wrists. His first move to reclaim dominance was a bit too fierce, causing Su Hui to let out an accidental cry.

“The soundproofing…” Su Hui gritted his teeth, his ears turning red as he desperately tried to pull his wrists free. However, Ning Yixiao pinned him down, his broad shoulders casting a massive shadow over him. Ning Yixiao’s eyes shone bright and deep in the darkness.

He leaned down to bite Su Hui’s lips. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does…” Su Hui remained unyielding, his shoulders trembling slightly as his hands pushed hard against Ning Yixiao’s arms.

Ning Yixiao used his fingers to touch the lower lip Su Hui was biting down on, gently parting it before sliding inside.

“I think he found out a long time ago.”

Su Hui’s teeth bit down on his finger, but his tongue stud wrapped around to press against it, like a planet in orbit.

Ning Yixiao muttered to himself, “He knew the very first time we met.”

“Why?” The words were mumbled, the trailing tone almost floating away.

“Because I didn’t hide it well,” Ning Yixiao toyed with that small, smooth steel bead, his voice dropping lower than the creaking noises of the bed frame. “And you didn’t plan on hiding it at all.”

Su Hui was thoroughly spent from the torment, unable to clench his teeth hard. No matter how much force his fingers exerted, they couldn’t leave much of a mark. Once Su Hui gradually stopped trembling, Ning Yixiao withdrew his hand. His index finger traced a path along his lips, Adam’s apple, and collarbone, gliding all the way down until it stopped at his lower belly, tapping it lightly to trace the outline of a peach using the moisture.

With a half-smile, he paused right there without moving away. “You’re completely sticky. Who wouldn’t be able to tell?”

Su Hui rested for a moment and laughed. He let go of his grip, attempting to prop up his upper body but failing to sit up, so he slumped back down, saying lazily, “You’re right. I was too busy seducing you back then… I didn’t have the time to hide it.”

Ning Yixiao pulled him by his wrist, dragging him up to sit securely in his embrace, and repeated the word, “Seducing.”

Su Hui leaned contentedly against his shoulder. “Yeah. You were so cold. I had to think of so many ways.”

“I wasn’t,” Ning Yixiao held his sweat-slicked back, pausing to think before adding, “Not toward you.”

But Su Hui refused to accept that. His words suddenly multiplied—a frequent occurrence for him.

“No matter what strange words I said or what bizarre things I did, you never questioned me, as if you weren’t curious about me at all.” His soft fingertips tapped against Ning Yixiao’s spine. “You must have heard those rumors, right? What did you feel back then? Did you listen to them and picture those scenarios in your head?”

As he spoke, he lifted his head, pressing his forehead flush against Ning Yixiao’s, as close as he used to press himself against glass windows.

“Did you dream? Have you ever dreamed of me? What was I doing in your dreams? Was it like what they described? What about you? Did you just watch, like you did before we were together, never reaching out to touch me, or…”

The remaining words were cut off by Ning Yixiao’s kiss.

Breaking away from the wet kiss, Su Hui burst into laughter, his voice pitching a few octaves higher. “You’re embarrassed.”

Ning Yixiao stared at him, putting on a cold look to threaten him, “Rested enough? I’m continuing.”

Su Hui kissed his tear mole, talking to himself, “You like me. You showed your hand a long time ago.”

You saw through me a long time ago, didn’t you?

Ning Yixiao tilted his head, unwilling to participate in a discussion about how he had fallen. It always brought a sense of preordained destiny—the very thing he wished most to escape.

So he began to engage in a very long kiss—lips, ears, the side of the neck… he could clearly feel the temperature rising within the body in his arms. That frame softened once more, his breathing fracturing into beautiful, low whimpers as everything verged on melting.

Until Su Hui fell into disorientation again, gripping him tightly one moment and pushing him away the next, softly begging for mercy with utterly contradictory requests—one second saying ‘no’, the next saying ‘want’. In reality, they all meant the same thing. Ning Yixiao knew this better than anyone, yet he insisted on asking despite knowing the answer, acting purely malicious.

“Hmm?”

“What do you mean? Do you want to or not?”

“I don’t understand, spell it out for me.”

Going too far naturally invited retaliation. Though no marks were left on his back, his lip was bitten open. But Ning Yixiao didn’t care. It was the next day’s Su Hui who cared, applying medicine on him with a face full of guilt, allowing Ning Yixiao to squeeze and fondle him as he pleased.

Physical squeezing and kneading happened frequently. Whenever Ning Yixiao’s OCD flared up, he would wash his hands incessantly. He didn’t mind it himself, but Su Hui couldn’t stand it. To distract him, Su Hui bought a lot of strange stress balls. Those gizmos didn’t really do anything, and they eventually rolled into various obscure corners of the single room, only surfacing when the two did a deep clean.

But squeezing Su Hui’s hand was highly effective. After trying it once, Ning Yixiao did it often, sometimes squeezing tightly enough to cause Su Hui pain.

“Does it hurt?”

“I like the pain,” his little human stress ball would reply.

This wasn’t entirely a lie. When they hugged, Su Hui also preferred them incredibly tight—bone crushing against bone, tight enough to ache. Sometimes Su Hui would be squeezed into letting out a very cute sound, though usually just a brief one.

The heavy compression lasted only for a moment, after which Ning Yixiao would cradle him gently. Because every time he held Su Hui, Ning Yixiao would think of the cheap umbrella he used to use—the moment it opened against the monstrous Beijing winds, its ribs would instantly snap.

A impoverished material life made his instinctive metaphors sound so cheap, yet Su Hui was clearly so precious.

He was precious enough to make Ning Yixiao feel that no matter how exhausted he was, it was all worth it. Juggling school, part-time jobs, overtime, and accompanying Su Hui to medical appointments and counseling—this frantic lifestyle actually granted him a profound sense of fulfillment. It felt as though the busier he was, the more he proved he was worthy of having Su Hui, even if he had absolutely nothing to his name right now.

Yet Su Hui was always firmly convinced that he would have everything in the future, cradling his face and speaking with absolute certainty.

“Only at times like this do I remember you’re a finance major,” Ning Yixiao teased.

“What do you mean?” Su Hui laughed too. “Do you think I’m investing in stocks? But I truly believe it—you will definitely become a super incredible engineer in Silicon Valley in the future.”

“I don’t need to be that incredible,” Ning Yixiao said. “An ordinary programmer’s salary is also very high. I’ll just work less overtime, come home early every day to keep you company, and ideally have more vacation time so I can take you traveling.”

“Then during spring break, let’s go to Europe. How about Southern Europe? The food is better there.”

Ning Yixiao let out a soft laugh. “How about we go to Iceland first, to personally investigate whether there are actually any mosquitoes?”

Su Hui nodded, kissing his cheek. “And then we go to Africa!”

Ning Yixiao kissed him back. “Mm, to Africa.”

Inside that fifteen-square-meter basement room, the brightest things were their anticipation of the future and Su Hui’s eyes.

They huddled together on the single bed that required them to press tightly against each other just to fit, imagining saving up enough money to buy a small house in California a few years down the line. Su Hui wanted a garden, but instinctively added that it would be too expensive. Ning Yixiao told him that he would learn to maintain it himself; he would handle the lawnmowing and tree planting, while Su Hui would only need to plant flowers.

“Can we plant a cherry tree?”

“Of course.”

“Can we get a dog? I like big dogs.”

“Mm, a big dog.”

These boundless, drifting daydreams occurred over many nights. They were like the lone, hand-made steamed egg sitting among takeout containers on the folding table, or the carrot dangled in front of a donkey’s eyes. Sometimes Ning Yixiao was certain he could give all of this to Su Hui; at other times, he felt he might never achieve it.

To drive away the pessimism, to make himself more certain and drive himself to work harder, Ning Yixiao murmured to himself, “I will give you a home.”

Yet Su Hui merely smiled. He set his newly lit cigarette down by the edge of the table and wrapped his arms around Ning Yixiao’s neck.

“I have a home right now.”

Through the thin wall, the sound of their roommate arguing with his girlfriend drifted in clearly, breaking Ning Yixiao out of his daze.

“You mean this place?” Ning Yixiao glanced up at the ceiling, shaking his head at Su Hui. “This isn’t a home.”

“I say it is, so it is.” Su Hui lay flat on his chest, his fingers playing with Ning Yixiao’s lips. “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

Ning Yixiao mimicked his tone, “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

Su Hui let out an understated gasp, and began to tickle Ning Yixiao’s waist, sending the two of them twisting and tangling together. The bed groaned under the pressure, emitting rhythmic, creaking noises. The humidifier hummed to life automatically, causing the room’s humidity to climb and turn sticky, while the bed’s creaks settled into a steady cadence.

The voices from next door spliced into the background. Ning Yixiao found it a bit amusing—how did those two go from screaming at each other to messing around in bed?

But a second later, he began to laugh at himself—how did the two of them go from playing around to ending up like this?

“The first time I came to your place… it was just like this,” Su Hui whispered, panting lightly.

“Do you want earplugs? Or do you want to go over and knock on their door?” Ning Yixiao played the villain on purpose. “I can carry you over just like this.”

Su Hui’s eyes widened a fraction, as if gaining a fresh appreciation for his shamelessness.

A sweet conclusion echoed from the other side of the wall. Wang Cong’s girlfriend was acting spoiled, using a term of endearment she frequently used.

Su Hui suddenly wrapped his arms around his neck too, pressing close to his ear, and mimicked her in a syrupy, sticky tone:

“Hubby.”

Ning Yixiao blanked for a moment, turning his head to gently bump his forehead against Su Hui’s. “Copycat.”

Su Hui didn’t argue. Pressing against Ning Yixiao’s flushed ear, he called out again, “Hubby.”

Ning Yixiao tilted away slightly. Knowing he couldn’t escape, he simply used the momentum to flip Su Hui’s body over. Once Su Hui was kneeling properly, Ning Yixiao leaned down close to his ear and asked in a low voice, “Are you a little parrot? Is that the only word you know?”

Su Hui turned his face around, repeating the exact same word, “Hubby.”

The moment the word left his mouth, he was forced to take a sharp, deep breath, his fists clenching tightly.

Ning Yixiao pressed flush against his back, wrapping his arms securely around Su Hui’s chest, holding him incredibly tight. His voice sounded somewhat raspy. “Say it again.”

Su Hui could barely catch his breath. “I’m not saying it.”

“Hurry up.” Ning Yixiao was stubborn, pausing to wait.

“Hurry up,” Su Hui echoed right back.

Ning Yixiao was entirely helpless against him. “So you’ve started copying me now, huh?”

“Hurry up,” Su Hui leaned in closer, repeating it in a breathy whisper, his tone shifting. “Hurry… a bit faster. It needs to be very, very fast.”

Next door, the couple had started chatting about something, laughing merrily. Amidst the happy laughter of others, Su Hui turned his head, opened his mouth, and repeated that borrowed term of endearment, teasing with his tongue stud, begging Ning Yixiao to completely break him.

Ning Yixiao failed to exercise restraint.

He held that body incredibly, tightly close the entire time, as though terrified he might vanish into thin air. He kissed Su Hui until he could barely breathe, plundering whatever little oxygen he had left, until Su Hui burned out completely like that cigarette, falling into a dazed, exhausted stupor. He lay quietly in his arms for a short while before he began talking again.

His thoughts remained erratic. Just a moment ago, he was saying he wanted a latte with extra sugar, and Ning Yixiao was about to point out that no coffee shops would be open at this hour. Before he could voice it—

Su Hui suddenly asked, “Yixiao, tell me, what would you be like without me?”

Ning Yixiao frowned. “I don’t know.” He loathed making such hypotheses.

Su Hui said softly, “You’re not allowed to say you don’t know.” He reached out his hand, his fingertip tracing the bridge of Ning Yixiao’s nose, before answering his own question, “It probably wouldn’t be anything drastically different. You’re a very capable person; you can survive anywhere. You would live an exceptionally good life.”

There it was again. This absolute, hypnotic spell.

Ning Yixiao experienced an illusion—the light flickered erratically, and something seemed to be suspended in front of his eyes, swaying back and forth. Was it his future?

“I don’t know,” he repeated in a low voice, burying his face into the crook of Su Hui’s neck.

Seeming to sense his underlying sorrow, Su Hui wrapped his arms around him, gently stroking Ning Yixiao’s back to comfort him, just like he did on every night they suffered from insomnia.

After a long silence, cradled in his tenderness, Ning Yixiao laid himself bare and gave his answer.

“I would probably be… very lonely.”

I am very lonely.

The hand stroking his back froze abruptly. In the next second, the soft embrace enveloping him vanished completely.

Drip. Drip.

A collection of minute noises flooded into his brain.

Where was it leaking water again?

Drip, drip, drip… endless and unceasing.

A burnt smell. The toast had burnt again. The sound of stainless-steel forks scraping against plates made his scalp tingle. A massive roar echoed out—the coffee machine was operating, though it sounded violently as if it were grinding down his previously injured leg bone. Ning Yixiao’s head throbbed with a splitting pain as he snapped his eyes open.

Through his blurred vision, his roommate, Jason, was standing by the bed, refilling his newly purchased humidifier with water. Noticing him awake, Jason smiled and offered a friendly “Good afternoon” in his distinctly accented tone.

The room smelled of coffee mixed with a hangover.

The curtains were drawn open, and the sunlight was blindingly abundant—a luxury that absolutely never existed in that basement unit. Those dark, sticky memories, along with the dream, were thoroughly scattered.

Squinting through the dizziness, Ning Yixiao dragged himself up, using the wall for support as he walked slowly into the bathroom. He retched violently, vomiting until his insides felt entirely hollowed out. Five minutes later, having splashed his face with cold water, he stepped out of the bathroom. His body moved like a walking corpse, but his mind was entirely sober.

Armed with cleaning detergent and wet wipes, Ning Yixiao knelt down, fiercely scrubbing a minuscule, almost invisible speck of blood on the carpet. Repeating the motion over and over, just like an animal.

Jason asked with concern, “Is your OCD flaring up again?”

“Mm,” he mumbled in response, “I’m just having a flare-up again.”

__

Author’s Note:

While listening to the audio drama’s third episode, it gave off a distinct vibe of “rented room literature” (Yi-Hui is truly the most compatible couple). So, I wrote a snippet of sweet yet painful memories from their rented apartment days. This section didn’t get much coverage in the main text, nor did the parts about Ning Yixiao being alone in America, so this serves as a good supplement.

In reality, loneliness was the baseline norm for Ning Yixiao, even before he met Xiao Chao (Su Hui). It’s just that he was used to it, so he didn’t feel it at all. It was only after they separated that this extreme agony was magnified.

Despite growing up in poverty since childhood, it was only when he cohabitated with Su Hui that he truly felt financial embarrassment. Yet, paradoxically, during those most embarrassed days, Ning Yixiao was at his least lonely.