Divorced - Chapter 22

()x12-15 minutes 02.06.2022

With his mouth covered by Lu Yang, Chen Yuchuan could only make a humming nasal sound, like a small animal. Lu Yang’s breathing became more ragged.

Chen Yuchuan moved his neck, but Lu Yang didn’t let go. Therefore, he grabbed Lu Yang’s wrist and shook it.

In the past, Lu Yang always liked to cover his mouth, usually when he made Lu Yang angry, or when they were in bed.

Chen Yuchuan also had a trick. Every time this happened, he would lick Lu Yang’s palm and Lu Yang would immediately let go. It was the same this time. Chen Yuchuan dragged the tip of his tongue across the palm of Lu Yang’s hand.

Lu Yang’s hand over his mouth loosened, but he didn’t completely let go.

Chen Yuchuan took a few deep breaths. Although Lu Yang was only covering his mouth and not his nose, Chen Yichuan felt as if he was suffocating.

“Brother Yang, whether I can get hard with him or not, it has nothing to do with you,” Chen Yuchuan said with a laugh, wanting to avoid this topic. He added, “You want to know what Hua Song and I were talking about earlier?”

Without waiting for a response, he answered, “He told me that he will be holding a private concert next week and he invited me to attend. Brother Yang, do you think I should go?”

The sound of breathing close to his ear became a little heavier, and there was a little pressure on his neck, but it soon loosened.

Another drop of water fell on Chen Yuchuan’s forehead, and he guessed that it should be water from Lu Yang’s hair. Or maybe it was sweat, because he was sweating all over himself, and his shirt was soaked.

He patted Lu Yang’s arm on his neck and said, “Brother Yang, not so tight. Are you trying to strangle me? If you strangle me, I definitely won’t be able to go.”

“You dare? You dare go?”

“I didn’t agree to go.” Chen Yuchuan smiled, “I told him, if you dare hit on me, Lu Yang will definitely hit you. Brother Yang, will you hit him?”

Lu Yang didn’t speak, and Chen Yuchuan continued to ask, “Did you divorce me because I could no longer respond to you once you take your clothes off? You can wear your clothes during sex. It’s not like we haven’t done that before. But you always insisted on taking your clothes off…”

“Chen Yuchuan, do you think that’s why I want to divorce you?” Lu Yang seemed to be using all his strength to hold onto him. His voice sounded fierce, but his exhaustion could still be heard.

Chen Yuchuan didn’t speak. He knew that he could not escape today.

The shower seemed to not have been turned off tightly enough, because water was still dripping in a dull background noise.

Lu Yang’s hand holding Chen Yuchuan’s arm loosened, but Chen Yuchuan no longer struggled. His back was still pressed against Lu Yang’s hot body, both their hearts beating at the same frequency.

“Brother Yang, do you still love me quite a bit?” Chen Yuchuan rubbed his chin against Lu Yang’s arm. “If you still love me quite a bit, we’ll get remarried, right?”

After he said this, Chen Yuchuan laughed, and finally began to cry.

“Remarriage? Chen Yuchuan, it’s been so long, but you won’t even look at it, and you don’t even dare touch it. And yet, you still want to talk about remarriage?” Lu Yang was still standing behind Chen Yuchuan, hugging him, as if not planning to ever let him go. “Didn’t I just block it for you? Why are you so afraid?”

Chen Yuchuan sniffed twice and said with a smile, “I’m afraid, I’m very, very afraid. I dare not think about it. It hurts when I think about it. I’ve told you before, not to block anything for me.”

“You’ve talked a lot,” Lu Yang interrupted him. “Do you want me to count it for you?”

“You said, you don’t want to just try, you want to be serious in our relationship.”

“You said you wouldn’t let go…”

Before Lu Yang could finish speaking, the bathroom light suddenly turned on, and the originally dark space suddenly became bright. They, who had become used to the darkness, were suddenly blinded by the light.

Lu Yang quickly adapted to the light and opened his eyes first. His red eyes and unsteady breathing were reflected in the mirror, but Chen Yuchuan’s eyes were still closed.

Lu Yang spread his palms, dragging Chen Yuchuan’s chin up, forcing him to raise his head and look in the mirror. With his mouth still close to his ear, he said, “Xiao Chuan’er, do you still want to get remarried? You want to, but you don’t dare to open your eyes, right?”

“Brother Yang…” Chen Yuchuan’s eyelashes trembled a few times, and he slowly lifted his eyelids. In the mirror, the redness in Chen Yuchuan’s eyes was deeper than Lu Yang’s.

Lu Yang dragged Chen Yuchuan’s chin, making him face the mirror. “In those six months, have you never looked in the mirror to see what you are like? Every day you see me, you tried so hard to pull out a smile, but you couldn’t hide the gray in your eyes. You said you want us to get remarried, but have you thought about what would happen after the remarriage?

Chen Yuchuan shook his head, and a few drops of cold sweat fell from his hair.

Lu Yang continued, “You didn’t think about it, but I’ve thought about it. I’ll tell you.”

“Every time I come back from work, you would always be hiding in the balcony of the second bedroom and smoke, so that you can see me from upstairs. As I am parking my car, you would wave your arms vigorously to fan the cigarette smoke away, then close the window. You would run into the bathroom to take a shower, brush your teeth, and change your clothes that smelled of cigarette smoke.”

“You would wake up earlier than me, and breakfast would be hot and ready by the time I’m up. Before, you didn’t even know how to cut a potato, but you have suddenly learned how to make soup and even how to knit sweaters. You can do these things, I know, because you are very capable.”

“When you saw me eating with Ye Guanghe, you held yourself back and didn’t even mention a word of it to me.”

“You never told me about your insomnia, about the fact that you couldn’t sleep all night. You secretly went to the doctor for sleeping pills, but when I asked, you told me it was vitamins.”

“The moment I take off my clothes, you would want to hide from me, and as soon as I hug you, you would tell me that you’re tired. In fact, the fucking truth was that you couldn’t get hard.”

“Every time I want to talk to you, you would run away.”

“I said I would take you to see a psychiatrist, and I even went with you. As a result, you changed four doctors in one month. You cheated every time. In the end, you didn’t even say anything to them.”

Lu Yang paused and then said, “Chen Yuchuan, you are fine, you are fine, because you want to run away. You want to withdraw again…”

Chen Yuchuan’s tongue was a little bitter. He wanted to open his mouth to say something, just say anything to interrupt Lu Yang’s words, but in the end he didn’t say anything except move the base of his bitter tongue.

Seeing that he did not refute, Lu Yang continued, “You’re not afraid to drive through the tunnel when you’re alone, but you become afraid when you’re with me. You’re only afraid of me. Chen Yuchuan, you’re a coward. You’re not afraid of anything, you just want to let go. If you want to let go, then I’ll let you go…”

“Brother Yang, I don’t want to let go…” Chen Yuchuan protested in a low voice, the sound very small. After he spoke, he knew that this sentence was quite unconvincing, and even he himself didn’t believe it.

“Don’t you want to let go?” Lu Yang said aggressively. “Chen Yuchuan, ask yourself, have you really thought about it?”

Chen Yuchuan admitted that he had thought about it. Before today, he’d been very conflicted about it. But he had thought about divorce.

He wanted to run away, he wanted to retreat, he wanted to be a shriveled turtle hiding in its shell.

He wanted to let go.

“You thought about it, right?!” Lu Yang asked again.

Chen Yuchuan in the mirror finally opened his mouth, “Brother Yang, don’t say anything…”

“You can’t stand it if I just say a few words, right?” Lu Yang pushed Chen Yuchuan forward a little, moving them closer to the mirror.

Their chaotic breaths were intertwined. Lu Yang’s breathing was pressing on Chen Yuchuan, and Chen Yuchuan could not move.

Lu Yang’s bathrobe covered half of his chest, and when he tore off the strap of the bathrobe, the front completely unraveled. Without the cover of the bathrobe to separate them, Chen Yuchuan shrank away from Lu Yang’s chest, his body visibly trembling.

Lu Yang took a half-step to the side, so that most of his left chest was exposed in the mirror. He grabbed Chen Yuchuan’s hand and raised it, stretching it out toward the mirror. Chen Yuchuan resisted, forcefully pulling his hand back.

“You don’t even dare touch it across the mirror?” Lu Yang was much stronger than Chen Yuchuan and so Chen Yuchuan’s fingers inched closer and closer to the mirror.

In the mirror, Lu Yang’s skin was full of unwiped water droplets and fine sweat, glowing coldly under the light.

On Lu Yang’s left chest, near the heart, was a round, puckered scar with wide and irregular edges. The scar was still fresh, only half a year old, and so it was still dark red.

Chen Yuchuan’s fingertips were completely white, as if there was no blood left at all. Lu Yang forced him to touch that scar in the mirror, and he could feel the obvious bulge of the scar, even in the mirror. Chen Yuchuan’s legs had gone so soft that he could barely stand and had to lean into Lu Yang’s arms.

When his fingers touched Lu Yang’s chest in the mirror, he sobbed hard in pain.

Lu Yang was still holding Chen Yuchuan’s hand, his thumb rubbing across Chen Yichuan’s palm. “We haven’t talked about that day, and now I’ll tell you.”

“Brother Yang, don’t say anything. I already know it…I know it…” Chen Yuchuan tried to stop him.

“The tunnel had only two lanes, and it wasn’t too wide. There are walls on both sides. Because of the approval of one of the resort’s projects, you offended a leader by saying something wrong and so I said a few words to you. After that, you decided to go and have a drink with the group by yourself. You never told me. When you got too drunk, you called me and asked me to pick you up. On the way back, you were sleeping soundly in the passenger seat. A truck lost control and the tunnel was so narrow that, no matter how I tried to avoid it, I still hit it anyway. I wasn’t thinking about the steel bar passing through the windshield, I just wanted to protect you…”

Lu Yang pressed Chen Yuchuan’s fingers on his chest through the glass.

“Xiao Chuan’er, do you know what I was thinking at that time? I was thinking that the fool in the passenger seat wouldn’t sleep well…” Lu Yang pinched Chen Yuchuan’s fingers, rubbing them across the cold mirror surface. “At that time, when the steel bar went through my body, I didn’t feel how painful it was. But thinking about it now, it was very painful, incredibly painful…”

Chen Yuchuan’s fingers and wrist shook. He rested his chin on Lu Yang’s arm, tears streaming down his face. For a moment, the figure in the mirror became blurred but then soon cleared. He whimpered, “Brother Yang, I’m not worth your hard work for me.”

Lu Yang wiped the tears from Chen Yuchuan’s face with his free hand and said, “Then tell me, what’s worth it and what’s not? You are indeed not worth my hard work. I did my best not for you, but for myself. We’ve been together for 16 years, and you’ve long been a part of my life…”

“Brother Yang…” Chen Yuchuan took a deep breath, his breathing louder than his voice. “I have been with you for 16 years, and there are only two spots on your body that I can’t wipe off. These scars…I’m afraid. I dare not look at you. Just thinking about it hurts…”

“Does it hurt? Since it hurts, do you still want to live the same life you’d lived this past six months?” Lu Yang said. “Since you’re afraid, do you still want to marry me again?”

Chen Yuchuan covered his face with his hands, unable to look at the mirror any longer. His voice leaked from his fingers, “No more, Brother Yang, no more…”

“Chen Yuchuan, I’ll ask you one last time. This time, you’ll answer me after you’ve made up your mind. Do you still want to marry me again?”