Cucummato (TianShan)

34. Donkey

The class was busily preparing costumes for an upcoming activity. Mo Guan Shan's assignment was to help paint the trees that would serve as props, his focus directed on taking directions from their class' best artist. Jian Yi stood still on top of a chair while female classmates took his measurements for his costume. Meanwhile, Zhan Zheng Xi sat at the corner of the room with the lighting committee, discussing the movement and positioning of the spotlight and effects throughout the play. He would occasionally nod and take notes, simulating inside his head.

He Tian stood by the window, memorizing his own script while Mo Guan Shan used his foot as a weight to keep a tree in place while he painted the green part.

"He Tian, can you hold this please?" a female classmate asked. He Tian looked behind him and the girl pushed a white cloth towards him.

"You're borrowing a hand?"

"Basically," the girl wiggled her eyebrows at him. He smirked and pulled the cloth. "Please hold it up higher."

"All right, geez," the boy raised his arm and stared at the fluttering white cloth. He felt Mo Guan Shan's grip on his shoe as he lifted his foot and slipped another tree to paint underneath. "Ah, my arm's dying!"

Some of their classmates where cutting patterns on the cloth while He Tian and Jian Yi, who's holding the other end, held it up.

"Why don't you just make a line across the room?" Zhan Zheng Xi asked after observing the suffering of the human posts. "You're inviting disaster with half-assed setups like that."

Jian Yi blushed, assuming that his best friend suggested it so he wouldn't hurt his arm. They might lose their Alice if they don't treat him like a celebrity, he thought.

The lines were made. White clothes fluttered in the wind. He Tian glanced at Mo Guan Shan and noticed that the wide cloth separated them from the rest of the class. The boy lightly kicked Mo Guan Shan's knee to get his attention.

"What?" asked the redhead as he raised his face to glare at the other boy. He Tian smiled and bent down to gently kiss his parted lips. Mo Guan Shan quickly looked around in panic while kicking the other boy's shin. "Are you an idiot?!"

"I said I'll help you, right?"

"Help with what?!" Mo Guan Shan was half-shouting, half-whispering in utter shock.

He Tian just shrugged.

"Do you like me less now?"

"Oh, Christ," Mo Guan Shan furrowed his brows and returned to the task at hand. "Can't you wait until we're alone?"

"Whaaat?! You'll let me kiss you again if we're alone?"

The red-haired boy didn't answer as he went on with his assignment but his ears reddened that He Tian grinned and pinched his earlobe gently.

"Take it easy~" He Tian said. 

His grandfather's right on the money. He's a fucking lucky donkey.

"You're unusually productive today," He Tian's grandfather broke the silence after taking a break from hauling in a big harvest of radishes. He's doing all the heavy lifting while the old man tells him what to do. "Productive but broody. Is that why you're going out every night lately? Are you, Batman-ing?"

He Tian snorted at the way his grandfather gestured the "Batman-ing" bit  and finally let out a laugh. He reminds him of Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa the way he irks him at times. The old guy can think up so many weird explanations for everything. 

"No. I'm thinking," he said while wiping his sweat with a towel. He's thinking about the way Mo Guan Shan acted towards him. It was suspicious as hell and he intended to find out what's going on.

"Good. Sometimes I feel like young ones nowadays don't think as much as we did back then. With all your itty-bitty faces and small heads, makes me think that the brain's shrinking as phone memories expands," the old Qui Sheng said, staring off into the distance. A helper carefully placed a tray of refreshments and the old man smiled while bobbing his head up and down.

"Did you just elaborately call my generation dumb?" 

"Not intentionally. But that's why you need some good education."

He Tian sighed. He'd been thinking about that too. About going to college, and going to a college his family wants for him. It isn't so bad, apart from the fact that he's going to be so far away from Mo Guan Shan and they won't be seeing each other until he graduates.

And that it would mean Mo Guan Shan would move on with his life, get a girlfriend and go down the straight path that's meant for him. He Tian would become a passing memory of Mo Guan Shan's high school fling and experimentation.

Going to the United States for college means he's safe from Ling Ling and all the other granddaughters who would want to marry him. It means he's on to a future where he'll become a respectable man. When he's all settled and stable, making his own money, then he could proudly show the world the person he chooses to love.

Nobody's going to tell him who he's supposed to be with for the rest of his life.

"If I go, would you really take care of. . . them?" He Tian didn't meet his grandfather's eyes. He's afraid he might see what he really feels for the person they're talking about and that he'd reject them. He's an old person after all.

Old people and their old, medieval point-of-view. 

"Of course. What do you take me for? Even without you asking me, I would still look after my kindred spirit."

"Just so you know, I made it the condition so you would never abandon them whatever path they happen to choose."

"You know, you should learn to trust me with all your gut," old Qui Sheng said. "Someday, you'll return to this garden and sit down where I sat, then you'll remember how I'm the best, most incredible person you've ever met, who happens to be your grandfather. And you'll realize you're a fucking lucky donkey."