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A-Yuan should have known better than to allow A-Yi to goad him into things. He was tempted to take his normal route home, but he knew that, somehow, A-Yi would find out he had gone back on their dare, and there was no way he was going to break their best friend code.
Still…the alleyway was dark, and it smelled horrible. The entire block was lined with restaurants, and the dumpsters were full of spoiled leftovers left to sit in the heat. Taking a deep breath and making sure his backpack was secure, he took off through the alley at a run.
He was halfway through when his foot slipped out from under him in a puddle of some kind of unidentifiable goo, sending him flying into the side of an open dumpster. Stars filled his vision and tears filled his eyes. This was the worst thing A-Yi had talked him into yet.
After a little cry, he wiped his face on a clean patch of shirt and stood up on his wobbly legs to go home. If he hurried, he could still make it home on time.
As he walked toward the street, he accidentally kicked a cardboard box and something came flying out of it, landing on the dirty ground. A-Yuan crouched to see what it was and was surprised to see a stuffed toy. It was a plushy, stuffed man with a filthy red ribbon in his hair. He was dressed in traditional robes like the ones A-Yuan’s father wore for important ceremonies, except his father’s were white and blue while these were black and red. The toy also had a tiny wooden flute stitched to one hand and a jar of—A-Yuan blushed—alcohol in the other.
A-Yuan looked around. The toy had been set in a box and left with the garbage, but although it was dirty, it was not garbage. A-Yuan’s father had told him to respect the planet and not to be wasteful. It was good—what was the word?—good stewardship to take this toy home, clean him up, and play with him.
A-Yuan didn’t mean to hide the toy from his father. It just happened. The moment he walked in the door, he was sent for a quick bath before supper and he forgot all about the toy until bedtime.
After his father read him a story, kissed him goodnight, and tiptoed out of the room, A-Yuan got out of bed and pulled the toy out of his things. It smelled a little funny so he didn’t want to sleep with it.
“You can look out the window,” A-Yuan whispered, setting the toy up on his sill. “A nice view of the moon must be much nicer than that cardboard box. I’m careful with my toys. You won’t have to go in the garbage again.” It was probably the moonlight playing tricks on his eyes, but A-Yuan thought he could see the toy’s smile get a little brighter, and perhaps it winked at him.
The last sight A-Yuan saw before he fell asleep was the toy, sprawled on his windowsill, one hand up, as if reaching for the moonlight.
A-Ying’s memory was as fuzzy as his head. He thought perhaps someone had loved him before, but the clearest thing he could recall was the little boy picking him up out of the garbage. The moonlight was bright and beautiful, and A-Ying could feel himself waking up a little more as the boy slept, perhaps dreaming of their meeting. He had the unshakable thought that he should be able to move, to speak, but he couldn’t quite manage it.
He still hadn’t managed it when the boy woke up and rushed to get ready for school. A-Ying had just resigned himself to a long boring day until the boy came home when a sharp inrush of air startled him from his reverie. He could not turn to see what was happening, but he didn’t have to wait long to discover what the sound was. Gentle hands plucked him from the windowsill and turned him around.
“Wei Ying,” the most beautiful man in the world said, looking down at him with the saddest eyes A-Ying had ever seen.
A-Ying said nothing—he was just a toy—but he wanted to.
The man sighed. Holding A-Ying in one hand, he bent to pick up the boy’s laundry from the day before.
The man said nothing more, and that somehow did not surprise A-Ying at all. He did not seem the type to converse with random toys, even if he somehow, inexplicably, knew that toy’s name.
A-Ying was taken to a big and bright laundry room. The rest of the clothes were sorted, and a load of laundry was begun. A-Ying was set on a table out of the way while the man puttered around. Eventually, he returned and sat down, examining A-Ying with a keen eye.
“Someone has not been taking very good care of you,” the man said softly, startling A-Ying. He took out a pair of small scissors and carefully clipped the threads holding the flute and the jar of alcohol in his hands. That done, he carried him over to the sink and submerged him in warm, soapy water. For a moment, A-Ying panicked, fearing he would drown, but logic took over. He was only a toy; he was simply being washed.
The man’s hands were gentle, washing A-Ying’s hair and clothes with a focused intensity that felt somehow familiar. All too soon, he was removed from the water and wrung out and hung to dry in front of the open window.
The man did not stay in the laundry room and A-Ying resigned himself to hours of boredom. He looked around at everything he could see, curious to learn more about the little family he’d found. While the room was quite neat and tidy, there were some clothes on display: a stacked pile of soft little graphic tees, the top one blue with a white rabbit on the front and text saying “somebunny loves you”; a pair of well-worn fuzzy pajama pants decorated with cartoon clouds and rainbows; a long bar at the end of the room with clothing on hangers, freshly pressed slacks, functionally identical white dress shirts, and an entire three feet of good quality, long, white robes with flowing sleeves.
For some reason, those robes, carefully sewn and intricately embroidered, made A-Ying feel as if he was forgetting something important. It was there, in his brain, on the tip of his cotton tongue, a name, an important name. He could feel the shape of it on his tongue, even as it eluded him. Finally, “Lan Zhan,” he whispered, the first words he had ever uttered.
Try as he might, he could say nothing else. He had not succeeded by the time the man returned to complete more laundry.
The man (Lan Zhan?) took him down carefully from where he had been drying in the sunlight and returned him to the table. Threading a needle, he sewed the little black flute into his right hand, leaving the left one empty. Laannn Zhannn, he whined inside his head.
“You will survive without the alcohol,” Lan Zhan said, in a tone that made A-Ying think he was teasing. A-Ying attempted to smile but it was not easy to do it on purpose.
Finally, Lan Zhan repaired the tear in his sleeve, straightened his robes, and combed his hair. He also tied a thin, little, red ribbon around A-Ying’s ponytail. A-Ying didn’t remember what it felt like to be new, but he assumed that was what he was feeling now. Thank you, Lan Zhan, he tried to say.
Lan Zhan didn’t hear him, of course. A-Ying found himself back on the windowsill staring down at the street a few moments later. He thought Lan Zhan had left the room, but a few moments later, he heard him speak again. “I hope you are safe, Wei Ying.”
A-Yuan was so excited to get home from school. He wanted to take his new toy to school, but he knew the dirt would have gotten into his backpack and all over his homework. Maybe Baba would help him clean the toy up. He could see it sitting in his window waiting for him.
To his surprise the toy was already clean and repaired, perfect for hugging now that it wasn’t covered in dirt and smelling like garbage.
A-Yuan collapsed backward onto his bed, holding the toy above him. “What’s your name?” he asked, mostly thinking out loud.
“A-Ying,” A-Ying said. He wanted to jump for joy that he’d finally made himself heard, but speaking his name was the most he could manage.
A-Yuan sat up, looking at A-Ying in wonder. “You can talk?”
A-Ying concentrated hard. It took some time—A-Yuan had sunk back to the bed in disappointment before he managed it—but eventually, he said “yes.”
“Wow,” A-Yuan said, pulling A-Ying in for the biggest hug he could ever remember receiving. “How did you learn to talk?”
Speech was already becoming easier. “I don’t know,” he said. “It happened for the first time this afternoon.”
“This is so cool,” A-Yuan said. “A-Yi will never believe me!”
A-Ying felt his mouth moving slightly, the fixed open-mouthed position relaxing into a genuine smile. “Who is A-Yi?” he asked.
“A-Yi is my very bestest best friend in the whole wide world!” A-Yuan said. “We’re both in the third grade! Do you—do you want to come with me tomorrow?”
A-Ying had vague flashes to something that might have been like school. There was someone droning away in the background and he was supposed to be quiet and still, something he thought he disliked. There was also someone there who was fun to tease, with red ears, icy glares, and whispered reprimands. That part was fun.
“Yes,” A-Ying said. “I do.”
A-Ying was practically vibrating in the dark. He could not remember the last time he’d felt so…there. It was like he’d woken up from a dream when A-Yuan had found him in the alley, and now he was living, really living.
After A-Yuan’s baba dropped them off, A-Yuan sprinted across the playground to find A-Yi.
A-Ying could hear them, both chattering so quickly he was surprised they could understand each other. In A-Yuan’s school bag, it was muffled just enough that it blended into a wall of sound.
A moment later, A-Yuan’s bag unzipped and another little boy with a round, open face and a big smile that displayed his missing front tooth looked inside.
“Whoa!” A-Yi said. “That’s so cool! Didn’t I tell you there was neat stuff in the dumpsters? Does he look familiar to you?”
A-Yuan undid the zipper more and his face appeared beside A-Yi’s. “No? I don’t think so.”
“Yeah,” A-Yi said, looking closer. “He looks like one of the guys in the pictures in the university. I was there with my baba last week. He was standing right next to your Baba and everything. He didn’t have a flute though.”
“I could look at Baba’s pictures and see,” A-Yuan said dubiously. He zipped up his backpack again, reducing their conversation to an unintelligible stream once more.
The sound of the bell was clear enough to hear through the layers of fabric, and A-Ying could feel that A-Yuan was on the move.
A short time later, the movement stopped and the zipper was unzipped a little way so A-Ying could see out. He was on the floor, looking up at rows of desks and children, neatly dressed and paying attention, for the most part.
The teacher stood at the front of the room, explaining something, but it was hard to see the chalkboard, and A-Ying didn’t like math. He much preferred science, and hands-on science at that. He had a sudden and brief flash of memory of an open flame and a boy dressed in purple screaming at him, but it was gone almost as quickly as it arrived.
As A-Ying sat in A-Yuan’s backpack and grew more bored, he discovered it was growing easier to move. His arms felt stronger and his legs seemed more coordinated. A little ball of warm energy was growing in his belly, and it was bringing him closer to life. He stood up in the backpack and only needed to support himself just a little. He pulled the backpack open a little more and stuck his head out to get a better view.
A muffled shriek beside him swung his head around quickly. A-Yi had both his hands clamped over his mouth as he stared at A-Ying with wide eyes and fought with himself to stay quiet.
A-Ying dropped back down into the backpack, hoping he wasn’t in trouble. Nothing else happened and A-Ying grew bolder.
He found a piece of blank paper in A-Yuan’s backpack and tore off the corner, crumpling it into a little ball. He popped his head back out and tossed the ball at A-Yi’s ankle, using the warm ball of energy to toss it farther and harder than he should have been able to.
A-Yi screamed for real.
“Jingyi,” the teacher yelled immediately. “That is enough.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” A-Yi protested. “A-Yuan’s doll threw something at me.”
“I am sick of your stories, Jingyi,” she replied, marching down the aisle.
A-Ying held very still. He didn’t want to get A-Yi in trouble, but he couldn’t reveal himself.
“Time out. Now!” the teacher said, standing over A-Yi with arms crossed.
“Okay,” A-Yi said, rolling his eyes. Clearly, he was used to this.
“In the corner!” she yelled. She turned to A-Yuan. “Just…don’t bring your doll to school again, okay?”
A-Yuan nodded sadly. “Yes, teacher,” he replied.
A-Ying resolved not to move a muscle until the end of the school day.
A-Yuan went straight upstairs when he reached home, stopping just long enough to wave hi to his dad, who was gardening in the backyard.
Carefully, he lifted A-Ying out of his backpack and set him on the floor.
“Did you really throw something at A-Yi?” A-Yuan asked.
A-Ying nodded. “Sorry,” he said.
A-Yuan scooped him up into a big hug. “It’s okay, but you’ll have to tell Jingyi sorry the next time you see him, even though he does get put in time out nearly every day.”
“I promise,” A-Ying said, raising his hand to his forehead. Then, he got to his feet and began to wander around the room, trying out some of A-Yuan’s toys and investigating the closet and drawers.
“A-Yuan?” Baba asked, knocking on the door.
A-Ying fell to the ground right where he was standing as the door creaked open.
“Dinner time, A-Yuan,” Baba said softly.
A-Yuan jumped up and grabbed A-Ying from the floor. “Can I bring A-Ying?”
Baba gasped, his face going white, and he frowned at the doll in A-Yuan’s arms. “You may,” he said, after regaining his composure.
“How did you know his name was A-Ying?” Baba asked at the table, breaking their long-standing rule of no talking while eating.
A-Yuan chewed carefully and swallowed before answering. “He told me!” A-Yuan said.
“He…told you?” Baba asked.
“Mmmhmm!” A-Yuan nodded happily. “He’s not a normal toy. He’s a special toy! He couldn’t talk when I first found him, but he’s been learning the whole time, and now he can even move sometimes!”
Baba looked at the toy, considering. A-Yuan nudged Wei Ying, trying to get him to speak, but the toy remained silent.
“Maybe he’s tired,” A-Yuan said, sighing in disappointment.
“Perhaps,” Baba said.
A-Yuan gave Baba a quick hug before skipping downstairs to eat supper. At the bottom, he looked up to see his Baba at the top of the stairs with his thinking face on.
“Are you coming, Baba?” A-Yuan asked.
Baba gave his head a little shake. “Of course. Don’t forget to wash your hands.”
A-Yuan dutifully went to wash his hands.
“You can talk in front of Baba,” A-Yuan whispered. “He’s very nice. You’ll like him.”
A-Ying gave no indication he had heard. If A-Yuan didn’t know better, he would have seemed like any other toy.
Dinner was uneventful. A-Ying did not speak or move at all. A-Yuan wondered if A-Ying could eat, but he didn’t want to get sesame oil or soup broth all over him.
“Do you have homework?” Baba asked once they had both finished eating.
“Yes, Baba,” A-Yuan said. “I have some math, and I’m supposed to practise writing the sigil for light. If we all do very well, we’ll be allowed to try it on a real talisman next week!”
“Let me know if you need any help,” Baba said, rising to clear his plate.
A-Yuan nodded and climbed the stairs to pull out his homework. The moment he closed the door behind him, A-Ying came to life and wriggled to get down.
“Were you hiding from Baba?” A-Yuan asked, a little bit hurt. He didn’t keep secrets from Baba, and it felt a little bit like he was being sneaky, even though he had told the truth.
A-Ying shook his head. “Sometimes it is like my body and my voice forget how they work,” he said. “I would love to talk to your Baba, but I just couldn’t.”
“Okay,” A-Yuan said. “I understand.”
“Such a good child,” A-Ying said, patting A-Yuan’s pant leg.
A-Yuan grabbed his backpack and flopped to the ground before pulling out his homework. He spread it all out on the rug and contemplated what to begin first.
A-Ying walked across some of the math pages to take a closer look at the talisman homework. Reaching down, he traced the light sigil with his hand. “I know this. Why do I know this?”
“You do?” A-Yuan asked, pulling the sheet closer. “Can you watch me do it and tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
A-Ying nodded and sat down next to the sheet while A-Yuan pulled out a pencil. He looked at A-Ying and frowned a moment before pulling out another pencil, this one used and sharpened so many times that it was barely an inch long, and a sheet of blank paper. “In case you get bored,” he said.
A-Ying accepted them gratefully. It was not easy to draw with the pencil held in both hands, but he soon got the hang of it, doodling lotus flowers around the edge of the paper. Taking inspiration from the wallpaper, A-Ying then drew a little black bunny, hopping among the flowers, and another one, bigger, with white fur and an elegant silk ribbon tied to its brow, at the top of the page. He then sketched a mountaintop, high above the clouds, beneath the bunny’s feet. Finally, he drew a sigil, one that had been tickling his brain ever since he saw A-Yuan’s worksheet. He could not remember what it meant, but it looked perfect there, right between the lotus flowers below and the mountains above. Before he could decide what else to add, A-Yuan asked him to help with the light sigils, and once that was finished, A-Ying could feel himself growing cold and stiff once more; whatever magic was bringing him to life drained away.
A-Yuan looked disappointed, but he dutifully turned to his math homework, humming a little tune under his breath as he did so.
A-Ying drifted, not sure what was happening around him. By the time he resurfaced, he and A-Yuan were tucked under warm covers. A-Yuan’s Baba was reading a story in a deep, soothing, beautiful voice, and A-Ying wanted to sink into this moment and live in it forever.
He only heard bits and pieces, still not quite here after drawing the sigils.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
That sounded nice, A-Ying thought as he drifted out once more.
“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
It would be worth it. If A-Ying could truly be loved, he would give up his ribbon and his flute. He would willingly become threadbare, give all of himself, for love.
“Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.”
A-Yuan snuggled A-Ying a little closer into his side, and warmth spread throughout A-Ying’s body. Was it happening? Was he becoming real?
“Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The book was over too soon. Lan Zhan set it aside and pulled the covers over A-Yuan’s shoulders, kissing him gently on the forehead. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Baba,” A-Yuan yawned.
Lan Zhan turned to leave, but a crinkle of paper under his slipper sole stopped him. He picked up A-Ying’s drawing; his hands began to shake. “A-Yuan,” he asked, his voice thick with an emotion A-Ying didn’t recognize. “Did you draw this?”
“No, Baba,” A-Yuan said, snuggling deeper under his covers. “A-Ying did.”
“A-Ying—” Lan Zhan’s voice broke. He sounded like he was about to continue, but instead, he turned toward the door, shut off the light, and left, A-Ying’s doodles held carefully in his hands.
A-Yuan was very sad to leave the next morning, but A-Ying remained behind, still tucked up in the bed. He was lying still, gathering strength to get up and explore the room, when the door opened softly.
Lan Zhan entered, a little frown—not a sad one, but a contemplative one (A-Ying wondered how he could tell the difference)—on his face.
A-Ying attempted to speak, but he was still—frustratingly—silent. Lan Zhan picked him up once more and carried him out of the room, returning to the laundry room.
Lan Zhan, you old fuddy-duddy, you even wash your kid’s toys every other day? A-Ying thought.
He was not given a bath though. Lan Zhan picked up some neatly folded black fabric and shook it out, showing a miniature set of black silk robes, twin to the white ones hanging on the rack, right down to the exquisitely embroidered clouds picked out in fine black thread.
Carefully, Lan Zhan undressed and redressed him, replacing scratchy, cheap polyester with smooth, rich silk.
A-Ying expected to be returned to A-Yuan’s room, but they went in the opposite direction after leaving the laundry room. They entered a large room with a vaulted ceiling and large windows to let in the natural light. It was both elegant and cozy somehow, perfectly tidy and well-maintained, but with lots of places to sit and have a cup of tea.
Lan Zhan set A-Ying down in one of the chairs, propping him up with a pristine white throw pillow. Then he sat down in front of a covered table near the window and removed the cover to reveal a beautifully preserved guqin. A-Ying could tell instantly that it was old, far older than Lan Zhan himself, but lovingly cared for and treasured for its entire life.
Lan Zhan sat for a moment, hands on the strings, eyes closed, just breathing, and then he began to play.
Surprisingly, A-Ying recognized many of the songs Lan Zhan played. He started with Inquiry, but A-Ying felt no compulsion to reply, then he continued on to play various curse-breaking and diagnostic songs, which again, had no effect on A-Ying. Finally, he played Cleansing and then Rest, but A-Ying’s remained in the same state he had always been, feeling no urgency to leave or to sleep.
Lan Zhan’s brow furrowed. He likely could tell his music had no effect. He sighed and began to play another song, this one without the weight of spiritual power behind it. It was the most beautiful thing A-Ying had ever heard. It, too, was familiar, but he could not remember its name. Whereas the other songs had no effect, with every note played, A-Ying could feel himself growing more real, more awake, stronger.
When Lan Zhan silenced the strings and sat, eyes closed, A-Ying found the strength to speak.
“Hey, Lan Zhan,” he said.
“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan scrambled to his feet, practically knocking the guqin to the floor in his haste to reach A-Ying.
“Just A-Ying,” he corrected.
“How did this happen?” Lan Zhan asked frantically. “You disappeared years ago. No one could find you. Have you been a doll all this time?”
A-Ying frowned—He could frown now!—and shook his head. “I’ve always been a doll,” he said. Although that wasn’t entirely true, sometimes he had flashes of before, too fuzzy and insubstantial to call them memories, like a copy of a copy of a copy.
Lan Zhan reached out, tugging on A-Ying’s synthetic hair. “That can’t be true,” Lan Zhan said. “You are too like him. You carry his name. You drew our bunnies and binding. How can you do that if you are not Wei Ying?”
A-Ying tried to think, casting his mind back as far as it would go, to a goodbye in the rain, but his mind immediately shut it down, locking him out, putting him to sleep again as it wove threads in his mind to obscure it.
The next thing A-Ying knew, A-Yuan was coming in his bedroom door, chatting away about his day at school. A-Ying lay in the bed where A-Yuan had left him. If it weren’t for his brand-new black silk robes, he would have assumed it was all a dream
As days and weeks passed, they all fell into a sort of routine. A-Yuan went to School; Lan Zhan went to work two days a week, worked from home two days a week (while A-Ying did his best to make himself a nuisance), and spent the final day of the work week doing chores around the house, playing the guqin for hours, or sewing new clothes for A-Ying. If A-Ying really had once been a real boy, he was certain he had not had so many clothes as this: more sets of robes, some of them embroidered with Lotus flowers instead of clouds or purple instead of black—A-Ying liked them, but they didn’t entirely feel like they belonged to him; modern clothes like A-Yuan’s, little pairs of jeans and cotton shirts with bunnies, soft pajamas in flannel, a mini leather jacket and the stompiest of boots.
A-Ying still insisted he was no more than a toy, but Lan Zhan’s relentless determination to turn him back into the boy he knew gave A-Ying some doubts, but every time he thought too hard about it, he would fall asleep and wake with his memories once more obscured.
Lan Zhan played for him as often as he could, and it helped a little. It was easier to move, to speak, after the music, but the effects always wore off, and if A-Ying tried to remember, they wore off faster.
When A-Yuan was in school, A-Ying and Lan Zhan talked. Something seemed wrong to A-Ying every time that Lan Zhan was the first one to break the silence, but he couldn’t complain. Lan Zhan was fun! A-Ying loved to hear stories about his students and classes—Lan Zhan taught Theoretical Talismans at the local university, as well as meditation and golden core formation in the elementary schools.
“”How do you not just die every time you see their serious little faces?” A-Ying asked, after Lan Zhan expressed his pride at the progress he’d seen in A-Yuan’s class. A-Ying was of the firm belief that A-Yuan was the cutest child he’d ever met, and he regularly had to turn away and squeal inwardly whenever A-Yuan got particularly focused on a project. The kid radiated sincerity and A-Ying was so weak to it.
“I am unsure,” Lan Zhan said evenly. “They are, indeed, quite adorable. I often die on the inside.”
A-Ying squinted suspiciously for a moment, trying to figure out if Lan Zhan was sincere, but if he was, in fact, bullshitting A-Ying, there was no sign of it on his face.
“Of course you do,” A-Ying replied. “You’re not actually made of jade.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agreed.
“He is such a good kid, your A-Yuan,” A-Ying continued. “Toys can’t be fathers, but I don’t think I could love him more if I’d birthed him myself. His mother…is she—”
“He’s gone,” Lan Zhan said quietly. “I don’t know why or where.”
“I’m sorry,” A-Ying said.
“There is no need for an apology,” Lan Zhan said quickly, but A-Ying felt like that wasn’t quite true.
“Is A-Yuan like him?” A-Ying asked, curious.
“A-Yuan is mostly like himself,” Lan Zhan replied. “But yes, there is some of his a-die in A-Yuan: his tenacity, his compassionate heart, his ability to bring joy to those around him, but he is more reserved, more deliberate in his actions, and prefers to work in the background rather than the spotlight.”
“So he was flamboyant, impulsive, and an attention hog?” A-Ying teased.
“There were many who were unable to see his value,” Lan Zhan said. “They would agree with your assessment. But he was uninhibited by other’s opinions, quick to act to protect people without care for his own safety, and he did not shrink in the face of censure. I wish I had the courage to be more like him.”
“Don’t say that,” A-Ying protested. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met!”
The corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth tipped up in a sad smile. “You have met very few people. I have my regrets. If I had been stronger, less concerned about what other people think of me, maybe he would have stayed.”
“You can’t know that,” A-Ying said. “He sounds like a bit of a jerk. Did he even think of his family, his friends, when he was running around playing the hero? Or was it more important to him to be right than to back down. He hurt you. He hurt his brother, his sister, his son, his…whatever you were to him because once he had begun walking down a path, he could not turn back.”
“You remember?” Lan Zhan asked, looking at A-Ying with naked hope in his eyes. “Wei Ying?”
“I remember,” A-Ying said. “I remember…Lan Zhan, I remember. I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. I—” But it was already fading, holes burning through his mind, erasing everyone: Jiang Cheng, Shijie, the Wens, dear A-Yuan, and Lan Zhan, the best of all men, who Wei Ying could never hope to be worthy of. He slept for a long time, and when he woke up, he had forgotten once more.
It took weeks for things to feel normal again. A-Ying didn’t know what had happened, but Lan Zhan was sad and silent, like a ghost haunting his own home. A-Yuan was still very well taken care of, but if it weren’t for A-Ying, there would be complete silence in the home.
“He was like this before, a long time ago,” A-Yuan whispered one night. “It’s the first thing I can remember, my baba in mourning for someone, someone I’m supposed to know but I’ve forgotten.”
“I’m sorry,” A-Ying whispered in kind, even though he couldn’t remember doing anything that might have caused this.
“Baba says grief is a funny thing,” A-Yuan said. “You can think it’s over or you’ve found something else to fill you up, then it hits you like a…what’s the word for a really big wave?”
“A tsunami?” A-Ying asked.
“Yeah,” A-Yuan replied. “A tsunami. So it’s okay for him to be sad. He just found more grief and now he has to swim back out for a while. I just wish I could help him.”
“You can,” A-Ying said. “He’ll need lots of love and hugs and funny stories about Jingyi from school and a little bit of time and space, and you can give him all of that.”
“Thanks, A-Ying,” A-Yuan yawned. “I love you.”
At those words, A-Ying felt warm again, and a picture of a serious boy in white robes calling him home swam before his eyes; for a moment, A-Ying was almost ready to answer.
They slowly settled back into their routine, although a little of the earlier ease between A-Ying and Lan Zhan was gone. Lan Zhan still played for him as often as before, but there was a tension there that had not been present before Lan Zhan had been reminded of his grief. Every time his fingers stilled the strings, he looked over at A-Ying, searching for something, but A-Ying didn’t know what it was.
The days grew warmer as the seasons began to change. A-Yuan had his last day of school, and all he talked about with A-Ying were his plans for summer.
One afternoon, Lan Zhan took them to the park. Of course, A-Ying had to stay still so no one would see a living toy and decide to take him home, but he was strapped to A-Yuan’s back while A-Yuan rode his bike along the paths, able to roam so long as he didn’t go out of sight from where Lan Zhan was watching from a bench.
A-Ying was enjoying the sensation of wind in his hair. It was the closest he’d come to feeling like he was flying since he’d had a sword of his own. He shook his head. He’d never flown; of course he had never flown.
The sound of barking pulled him out of a moment of pure bliss and froze him in fear. A big dog, standing well over half A-Yuan’s height, dragged his owner along by a lead, snapping at everything he passed.
It was okay; the dog was under control. He had a collar and a leash. A-Yuan would likely turn off the path before it reached them. There was really no reason to panic, no reason at all. If A-Ying had lungs, he would be hyperventilating.
The worst happened. With a lunge, the dog snapped his lead and made a beeline for A-Yuan, mouth open wide to bite.
There was no time to think amidst the terror, but A-Yuan must be protected at all costs. A-Ying gathered together every bit of warmth he had collected inside while staying in the Lan home and used it to fuel one big jump, out of the straps on A-Yuan’s back and well ahead of him in the dog’s path. Hopefully, that would buy A-Yuan enough time to run to Lan Zhan. He wished he could say goodbye. Mercifully, his body went cold and his consciousness fled just as the dog’s teeth closed around his middle.
A-Yuan didn’t know what happened. The dog ahead of them slipped his collar and came running toward them, a big doggy grin on his face, tail waving madly, and suddenly, A-Ying leapt from A-Yuan’s back and practically into the dog’s mouth. A-Yuan ran to save him, but the dog had already torn off an arm and left deep punctures in his soft belly.
The owner ran to catch up to them and handed A-Ying back with an apologetic look. “I’ll pay for him,” she promised. “I’m so sorry.”
A-Yuan burst into tears and ran to his Baba.
Baba talked to the lady with the dog, but A-Yuan wasn’t paying attention. Whatever spark of life A-Ying had carried was gone, and he looked like nothing more than a broken toy.
When Baba returned, he took A-Ying from him with careful hands.
“Baba,” A-Yuan wept. “Can you fix him?”
“I’ll do my best,” Baba replied, pulling A-Yuan close to his side.
A-Yuan didn’t want to ride anymore, so Baba carried his bike in one arm and carried A-Yuan—who carried A-Ying— in the other, even though A-Yuan was big and hadn’t needed to be carried for years.
It seemed to take hours before Baba brought A-Ying back to him, sewn together with small, even stitches, dressed in his bunny pajamas because they were the softest thing to get well in, but still looking like just a toy. They waited all through supper and bath and bedtime routine, but A-Ying did not wake.
“Can we sleep in your bed tonight, Baba?” A-Yuan asked.
Baba nodded. Without even discussing it, the two of them wore the bunny pajamas that matched A-Ying’s and climbed into the bed with A-Ying in the middle.
“Do you think he’ll ever wake up, Baba?” A-Yuan asked, voice thick with tears.
“I don’t know,” Baba replied. “But I am grateful you had him with you to love for as long as you did. We won’t forget him.”
A-Yuan hesitated. “I was in your office yesterday and I found…a picture.”
“You did?” Baba asked. “What was it a picture of?”
“You,” A-Yuan replied. “And there was another boy. He looked a lot like A-Ying.”
Baba nodded, his eyes far away. “He was my friend, a long time ago.”
“He was real, wasn’t he,” A-Yuan whispered.
“Mn,” Baba replied.
“Do you think he’ll be real again?” A-Yuan asked.
“I don’t know, A-Yuan,” Baba said softly. “I hope so. I think all we can do is love him and hope that will be enough.”
A-Yuan planted a goodnight kiss on A-Ying’s head. “I love you, A-Ying.”
Baba leaned over to kiss A-Ying as well. “I love you, Wei Ying.”
A-Yuan didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but the excitement of the day soon caught up with him, sending him into dreams.
Lan Zhan woke slowly. He’d slept surprisingly well, considering. They’d started the night out apart but migrated into the centre of the bed as the hours passed. When had A-Yuan grown so heavy?
Lan Zhan opened his eyes to see that A-Yuan was still curled up on the opposite pillow, and the weight on his chest was the head and torso of a fully grown man with long hair and a red ribbon who was dressed in identical bunny pajamas.
Lan Zhan held his breath—he must be dreaming—but the man stirred and opened his eyes, turning to look up at him.
“Lan Zhan!” he said, a familiar joyful smile lighting up his face.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, clutching him as tightly as he could. “A-Yuan, wake up!”
A-Yuan scrunched his nose adorably before opening bleary eyes to look at them. All sleepiness disappeared in an instant when he saw what had happened. “A-Ying? You’re real! It worked!”
He launched himself at Wei Ying, knocking the wind out of the smiling, warm, living man. Wei Ying clutched A-Yuan tight, both of them crying, happy tears this time. “I’m real,” he agreed. “You did it. You loved me and you made me real.”
“Welcome home, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan whispered, clutching tight and praying he would never again have to let go.