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“You’re here early.”
Renjun blinks. He’s never early. “What?”
“You’re here early,” the man—boy, really—repeats, not glancing up from his cellphone. His name is Zhong Chenle, Renjun remembers that. The son of a wealthy conglomerate executive. He’s playing some kind of video game, with bright colours and boxes and explosion noises kept at a low volume. “I’m supposed to have, like, a week.”
“I’m,” Renjun falters. He’s gone through this hundreds of thousands of times, and never knows what to say each time. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Apologies are meaningless in this state, especially from someone like him, someone who never learnt how to apologise. “You have some time left.”
Chenle snorts and sets his phone aside to meet Renjun in the eyes properly. They’re dark, glinting with mischief and a touch of something else he can’t quite name, shadowed by his bangs. He’s young, in his twenties. Too young. “How much, an hour? Two?”
He sounds so unimpressed, Renjun can’t help wincing. “Four.”
That gets Chenle to laugh, high-pitched with his whole body. His laugh is full of life. “Man, you’re funny.” He sinks back into his bed and pushes his hair out of his face. “Are you going to be here all four hours, then?”
“I—”
“Stand in the corner there like a boogeyman, warding away the staff with your stinky vibes until you pull my ropes?”
Any sympathy Renjun felt towards Chenle melts into annoyance. The thing with the younger ones, is that amidst all the tragedy weighing down their shoulders, a good percent of them still have all of their audacity and none of their basic respect. Renjun has a job to do. He’s tired. “I can kill you now.”
“Please do,” he moans, and suddenly Renjun feels much, much worse. “What the hell am I supposed to do in four hours? Ten bot matches in CSGO?”
After an awkward pause, Renjun replies, “Most people call their family and friends. Write letters, get a nice meal delivered, say goodbye to their pets one last time. Some hospitals make exceptions for animal visitations.”
There’s a shift in Chenle, almost imperceptible. Renjun’s been doing this for aeons though; he knows what it looks like, when someone tries to hide their grief. It doesn’t usually last long in front of him, ending with him brushing away tears and murmuring as many weak assurances as he can conjure in the moment. He wonders why Chenle needs to keep himself so resolute.
“My dog died last year,” Chenle murmurs, eyes drifting to stare out the window. Half obscured by cotton curtains, what peaks through is a nice view of the city, blue skies dotted with white clouds and the early spring sun washing every skyscraper in warmth. Renjun doesn’t get to go out much, and he can taste the exact tug in his heart he sees reflected amidst Chenle’s eyes. “My entire family is in Beijing for the weekend ‘cause, you know, the doctors said I had a week left, and there’s no reception here. I’m not allowed to eat solid food, either, and I can’t hold pencils anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I can leave one of those sad voicemails you see in the movies,” he muses.
“You should.”
“What are we thinking? A long eulogy for myself they can play at my funeral? One of those tear-jerking apology letters for every fault I made as a son? Or maybe I should sing a Chou Chiehlun song. They wouldn’t be able to complain that all my years of choir went to waste.”
“Any last message would be fitting.”
Chenle doesn’t make a move towards his phone, and Renjun sighs, dragging one of the chairs to his bedside. With every generation, filial piety seems to crumble a little more to the wind. Every next person, Renjun always wishes their parents are better.
Chenle’s family doesn’t break the chain.
“Are all your rights settled?” Renjun takes a seat; this part becomes mechanical. “It’s not too late to notarise your will. Your primary doctor can act as a witness.” Any legal complications encountered wouldn’t be hard to settle, given Chenle’s age and status; it takes a certain kind of monstrosity to fight court cases against grieving parents. “Funeral arrangements, insurance, accounts you want to memorialise and posts online you want to announce, those are the things people forget about the most.”
Most Chenle’s age never get a chance to talk to Renjun, never get a chance to go through their checklist one last time. Never being early doesn’t mean never being late, and Renjun carries regret in his back pocket like a good luck charm.
“Did that stuff last month with the family lawyer.”
“Are you happy with the terms? Familial ties to your lawyer influences your decision-making.”
“Does it matter if I’m happy with the terms? I’m never gonna know if they take my portion of my waigong’s inheritance and invest it into overseas markets instead of donating it to animal shelters.” Chenle waves an absent hand, and Renjun watches the way it flops back to rest in his lap, where it twitches, a fish out of water. “I don’t qualify for organ donation anymore, so I’m having my body cremated and turned into one of those baby trees. Hopefully it’s a ginkgo tree, and they’re gonna plant it in my dog’s old favourite park.”
Renjun doesn’t get to linger on how—well, sad the idea is, because Chenle turns back to Renjun again with a childish pout, breaking up any sense of solemnity. He looks like a cat. A rather handsome cat, but a cat nonetheless. “I’m losing my Golden State Warriors English to Chinese translation account. It had twenty thousand fans on Weibo! My goodbye post got five thousand likes.”
Has Chenle ever been serious in his entire life? Renjun’s used to people on their deathbed making jokes, yet something about the humour coming from Chenle, with all the years he should’ve had left, pinches Renjun somewhere he hasn’t touched in a long time. “Do you have anything on your bucket list left?”
“Yeah, three things.”
“What are they?”
“Learn how to play violin, get engaged, and watch the new Shinkai Makoto movie with my best friend. I can’t really do any of them.”
The list surprises him; he expected more thrill-type activities, like bungee jumping or vacationing to some distant island untouched by commercial hotel chains. In particular, the last one has Renjun tilting his head. “Why can’t you watch the movie?”
“My best friend lives in Korea, and we haven’t talked in months. Our parents hate each other, so no one ever told him I was dying.”
“You couldn’t ask a doctor to phone him now?”
“No reception, remember? At any rate, he probably hates me now, because I ghosted him for so long. He’s sensitive like that.” He goes from blasé to wistful in seconds, and how he dips in and out of his emotions leaves Renjun dizzy. If Chenle was at full strength and full energy, Renjun can only imagine how whiplash-inducing talking to him would’ve been. “He loves Shinkai movies. We had plans to go to Tokyo and visit all the places in Your Name.”
“I can watch the movie with you,” he suggests, and immediately wishes he could take it back, what with the expression of sheer incredulity Chenle sends him.
“Do you have time to watch movies?”
“I have time to be here with you for four hours.” A lot of people watch movies before they leave. Renjun’s seen The Notebook more times than he can count on his fingers and his toes. “I like Shinkai. My favourite movie from him is Five Centimetres Per Second.”
“That’s a good one.” Chenle frowns. “You’re not my best friend. The sentimentality is all off. I appreciate it, though.”
“Sorry.”
“Quit saying sorry, it sounds so fake coming from you,” he chides. Renjun doesn’t get to defend himself before Chenle trucks on, “What’s your name, anyway? You’re too good-looking to be one of the Heibai Wuchang.”
Renjun’s ears heat up. He knows he resembles Chenle’s age, another human being with awfully pale skin, but Chenle’s simple earnestness is leagues different from comparisons between him and angels, or him and other deceased relatives. “Renjun. Benevolence and righteousness ren, intelligence and talent jun. Huang Renjun.” He adds lamely, “I’m not the Heibai Wuchang.”
“What a normal name. Jun, like every other Chinese boy,” he comments. “My best friend’s name is Park Jisung.” The name is entirely unfamiliar to Renjun; Park Jisung must have a lot of time left. “We met at a business event when we were in middle school. His parents are in pharmaceuticals. Wouldn’t it be funny if they knew how to fix me?”
Renjun doesn’t think it would be funny. “I don’t think it would be funny.”
“You’re such a party pooper,” huffs Chenle. “Jisung would’ve found it hilarious. Jisung laughs at all my jokes.”
“I’m sure Jisung wishes he was here.” Renjun tries for a smile, and doesn’t feel himself landing quite there. No matter how lightly Chenle takes every word, he can’t get himself to joke along; sincerity has always washed off him in too-big waves. “I’m sure he wishes he had the opportunity to watch the movie with you too.”
“Maybe in another life.” The moment the words leave his mouth, Chenle pauses, then asks, “Is that a thing? Reincarnation and second lives?”
“If you want it to be,” Renjun answers honestly.
Most people hate that answer. Chenle seems satisfied enough. “I hope Jisung and I meet each other again in our next life. And maybe we can be best friends again, and our parents can be friends too, instead of sticking to those silly generational divides.”
“Most people want different families.”
“I don’t hate my parents,” says Chenle, “All I think is that they should get over themselves. It would be pretty sad, if they couldn’t even get over themselves after a lifetime. I definitely want them to do something other than business, or at least let me do something other than business.”
“What would you want to do in your next life?”
Every time Renjun poses this question, he’s always answered with already prepared thoughts full of years’ worth of crushed dreams, unpursued ambitions, and a healthy dose of longing.
Unsurprisingly, Chenle does the opposite.
For once, he stills while he considers, and Renjun takes the momentary silence to study him. Despite his current state, he maintains a healthy glow, and coupled with the soft planes of his face and his pink-streaked bangs, he embodies youth to a T. If he was wearing anything other than his current blue gown, Renjun would’ve expected to see him walking around with a large group of friends, drinking out at night on high streets, maybe on social media with posts capturing vibrancy from both his life and the shine of his smile—people he sees getting hit by cars, or caught in freak subway accidents, or indulging in their vices an ounce overboard.
Fast deaths, death that falls in and out of Renjun’s fingers, sand from too many hourglasses to count each year.
“I’d want to be a basketball player,” Chenle settles on.
Renjun hesitates. “Is it because you wish you were up and moving right now? If it’s a sore spot, we don’t have to talk about it.”
“No? What are you talking about?” He sniffs. “It’s because I fucking love basketball. I fucking live basketball. I paid extra for the doctors to dissolve basketball juice into my IV drip. Back when the TV was working in this room, I managed to nag the nurses enough to get them to project American games.”
Renjun feels a bit stupid.
Chenle doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care enough to notice. “Okay, actually, if I’m the same person physically as I am in the next life, I wouldn’t be tall enough to play basketball. Maybe I’d be a piano soloist, or a singer.”
He’s a musician, then. Renjun glances down at his hands—long fingers and soft skin—and back up to Chenle’s wistful look. Someone like him would shine on stage. Someone like him, bright as the sun, would shine anywhere other than the inside of a hospital room.
“Presumably, you wouldn’t be the same physical person,” Renjun points out, “or you’d be ill for the rest of eternity.” Someone like him doesn’t deserve a fate that cruel. No one does.
Chenle wrinkles his nose, and his entire face scrunches to follow. “True. I guess it doesn’t matter what I am. As long as the next Zhong Chenle is having fun and living life, I don’t care what he is.” He snaps out of whatever daze takes over him and raises an eyebrow at Renjun. “Do you get another life?”
Renjun doesn’t know. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”
“I’ll let you be in my next life,” Chenle declares, as if it’s his decision to declare. The gall makes Renjun laugh under his breath. No one’s ever let him do anything. “I like talking to you. Your accent is cute. In our next lives, we should have more time to talk to each other.”
He had no idea his voice was accented. The more Chenle points out about Renjun, the stranger he feels. He’s never been perceived like he has, under Chenle’s gaze, and he doesn’t know how to feel.
He lets himself imagine another world, where Chenle and him face each other one on one the way they do now. Their roles could be reversed, or neither of them could be dying. They might both be laying in bed, or in chairs, or outside breathing fresh air and smoothing grass beneath their fingers, or in a car watching buildings race by into one bright blur. Chenle would still be loud, maybe more so, and Renjun would still be tired, maybe less so.
“I would like that,” Renjun finally says. “I like talking to you, too.”
“Do you talk to people a lot?”
Renjun shakes his head. “Not a lot of people have the time to. Those who do, don’t like talking to me in general.” Talking to Chenle now, it’s the first time Renjun’s ever wished things were different. If everyone spoke to him the way Chenle does, he isn’t sure he’d ever stop talking.
“Lucky me,” Chenle snickers. “Long, drawn out demise is the real way to go. At least when my life is flashing in front of my eyes, it’ll be short. Birth, forgettable homeschooling, forgettable dinner parties every week, piano, basketball, Daegal, unfortunately unforgettable diagnosis, forgettable family members coming to wail over my unconscious body, the end.”
Another beat passes, and Renjun voices what lingers in the back of his mind. “Why marriage?”
“Huh?”
“Why is engagement on your bucket list?” he rephrases. “How would marriage make your life any—less forgettable?”
Chenle shrugs. “It wouldn’t really. I don’t believe in that ‘find yourself in others’ crap. I just think it’s nice, promising to spend the rest of your life with someone else. Time is the world’s most valuable currency. Finite and irreplaceable. To pay someone in time is to value them above all.” He recites the last sentence sing-song.
“That’s—profound.” All he gets paid is other people’s time. He isn’t so sure he feels valued, isn’t so sure he deserves to be valued. “You’re good with your words.” Better than Renjun ever was. Perhaps, if Chenle was the face of the end instead, death wouldn’t be seen as so miserable.
“Maybe homeschooling wasn’t so forgettable.” He clicks his tongue. “I know you’re early, but you should’ve come earlier. I would’ve liked someone interesting in the room with me, instead of giving away my precious time to my father’s business partners. We call that a bad investment in business. In my next life, I should get an older brother too, in case this garbage happens again and I’m cursed to be alone forever.”
In a life where Chenle has a life outside the four sterile walls enclosing them, there isn’t a single chance that could ever happen. People like him draw people in as the sun pulls planets into orbit. Maybe Chenle isn’t so fit for the face of the end. People like Renjun are better off a little disconnected, comets streaking past and lost in the blink of an eye.
Hypotheticals aside, in this life, there’s a fault in Chenle’s statement regardless.
“You’re not alone,” Renjun points out, “You’re spending the rest of your life with me.”
A few seconds tick past as Chenle narrows his eyes. “Is that supposed to be the same as a proposal? Is this how you’re proposing to me?”
“I—okay, that’s not what I meant.”
“Huang Renjun!” he gasps, so loud he bursts into a fit of coughs that almost sends Renjun into a heart attack. Once he clears his throat, Chenle sits upright and demands, “Where’s my ring?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I’m dying in anticipation!” He grins. “Get it? Dying?”
Renjun gets it, he gets that it’s a joke, that every other word to fall out of Chenle has been dipped in a bittersweet syrup and offered out on a skewer for Renjun to bite into, yet Chenle’s body is thin and the bags under his eyes grow darker every time he glances back and the heart rate monitor beside him keeps slowing down for reasons Renjun doesn’t know, but sure as hell recognises, and—
And he breaks.
He breaks the glass wall meant to separate him and the dying, breaks past Chenle’s hardened sugar shell, breaks his heart, breaks the thin red cord tied around his neck.
There’s a ring looped through, given to him centuries ago by two women that longed to be born earlier, later, never at all, and Renjun thumbs over the polished gold for a second before sinking to his knees.
“Wait, wait, waitwaitwait,” Chenle stammers, “wait, I was joking.”
“Zhong Chenle.” Renjun swallows and looks Chenle in the eyes, seeing the panic he’s accustomed to seeing in all the people he meets for the first time. “Will you marry me?”
“Huang Renjun,” he croaks, “you’re so unromantic, I think I’m going to die.”
Renjun cracks a smile. “It’s less funny when you say it a second time.”
“I would’ve appreciated a better build-up!” he protests.
“This is one of your last wishes, not mine.”
“I’m upper-class, I deserve wining and dining.”
“You can’t eat solid food.”
“What about candles?”
“Hospital fire hazard—”
“Mood music?”
“No reception—”
“Flowers?”
Renjun bites his tongue to keep himself from groaning. The more Chenle rattled off, the easier it was for him to slip back into his biting, cheeky tone, but Renjun’s been doing this for aeons; he knows what it looks like, when someone tries to hide their grief. He fishes around his pocket and unearths a small, slightly crumpled chrysanthemum. He holds it together with his ring.
“Zhong Chenle,” he tries again, as soft as he can get his voice, praying it’s soft enough to ease past Chenle’s candied heart, “Will you grant me the privilege of spending the rest of your life with you?”
“You just said I was going to, do I even have a choice?” he protests weakly.
He doesn’t have a choice. “Of course you have a choice.”
“Yes.” Chenle shakes his head and rubs the bottom half of his face. “Yes, I do, whatever.”
Chenle’s hand is warm to the touch, and it’s nothing short of a miracle, the way the ring slips on his fourth finger in a perfect fit.
They lapse in silence as Chenle ghosts his right hand over the other. “It’s a real diamond,” he says eventually. With Renjun standing, he has to look up, and it makes the overhead lights reflect brighter against his watery eyes. “You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
Renjun leans forward and tucks the chrysanthemum into a strand of hair behind Chenle’s ear. He doesn’t flinch away from the touch, even with how cold Renjun knows his hands run. “You’re insufferable,” Renjun teases, “You know that?”
“You’re engaged to me.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“I would’ve liked a winter wedding,” Chenle starts. By the sound of it, he’s thought about this more than he’s thought about his next life, the last words to his family, and his own grief combined. “Somewhere in the North. I made this friend on the internet, a long time ago, who lived in Harbin, and she sent me pictures of the sprawling ice sculptures up there. I was so jealous! I wouldn’t have minded Jilin either. I’ve always wanted to lick the ice. Honestly, the specific city doesn’t matter. As long as I got to see snow through the windows, it would’ve been enough. I would’ve delayed the ceremony to a day with high precipitation.” The deep breath he takes after he finishes his thoughts shudders through his body.
“Both of those cities sound beautiful.”
“The honeymoon would’ve been in Southeast Asia, with as much seafood as possible. I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten tired of eating seafood.”
“In your next life, I’ll watch the snow with you and take you to eat Southeast Asian seafood.”
“Would you really?” Renjun nods, and every last minute is made worth by the look of absolute wonder Chenle returns. “The next Zhong Chenle is luckier than he realises,” he marvels, “I hope he isn’t taking anything for granted. I hope he isn’t taking life for granted.”
Renjun’s sure the next Zhong Chenle is living well beyond what either of them could imagine. “I’m sure the next Zhong Chenle is living well beyond what either of us can imagine.”
“I hope he isn’t taking you for granted.” Chenle stretches a feeble arm out to tug the cuff of Renjun’s sleeve. His grasp is weak, and his fingers can’t curl around the fabric all the way. Renjun gets the message anyway, and slips his hand into Chenle’s, holding on extra tight in his stead. The warmth under his skin pulses weaker with every passing second. “I like you a lot, Huang Renjun.”
Renjun likes Chenle a lot too, more than he should. Far, far more than he should. Something about Chenle makes Renjun indulge, far more than he should. Renjun aches somewhere he hasn’t ached in a long time. “You’re the first person to tell me that.”
“Huang Renjun, what would you do in your next life?”
“My best,” he answers honestly.
Chenle hums. “What a Huang Renjun answer.”
“You haven’t known me for more than four hours.”
“I mean,” Chenle trails, “Unless you back out on the engagement now, I have the rest of my life to get to know you.”
There’s a shift in Chenle, almost imperceptible. Renjun’s been doing this for aeons though; he knows what it looks like, when someone lets their grief settle over them in a blanket, ready to curl up and rest. To sleep, perchance to dream.
“Are you sure?” Renjun runs his thumb over Chenle’s knuckles. “Your four hours aren’t over yet.”
“I think I’ve had enough.” He slumps into his bed, as deep as the unyielding mattress will let him. “You’ve been more than enough, Huang Renjun. Tell me when it’s our wedding night.”
“I’m glad you think so, Zhong Chenle.” Renjun presses a button on Chenle’s remote to fade off the overhead lights, and another button to pull back the curtains, leaving the sun, the sky, and the endless expanse beyond the room to flood in light. Without the yellow tint of the fluorescents, everything in the room falls to a soft shade of white. “You can sleep now, I’ll wake you up when we’re North.”
“You have to promise, Renjun,” Chenle whispers.
“I do,” Renjun whispers back, and leans down to place a gentle kiss on Chenle’s forehead. With his free hand, he reaches out to cover Chenle’s eyes. “Sleep well, Chenle.”