Chapter 12#

NB Chapter12#

At that age, it was hard to honestly say one had never been in a relationship.

My first love was three years older than me, he was a doctor; gentle, proper, and perhaps a little too courteous. We first met in a bar washed in deep blue light. In the past, whenever I frequented such places, it was almost always for a case.

I had virtually no private leisure activities and rarely explored my own preferences. Having received so little as a child, I grew up lacking the imagination for happiness.

In the police academy, everyone lived and ate together, and even showers were divided only by thin partitions.

But no one knew about my unique anatomy.

Sometimes, when a person wants to maintain distance from others, they need certain worldly achievements to act as a buffer. My grades were excellent, and I successfully hid myself.

I merely viewed that incomplete organ as a scar on my body. If it were a bit more complete, perhaps I would have had choices in life. What a pity.

Once, we all gathered to play basketball. After dozens of minutes, everyone was drenched in sweat. We crowded into the showers, laughing and joking. We were all young and full of vigor, unafraid of being naked in front of one another, there was even a bit of a competitive spirit regarding our physiques.

I don’t know if it was adrenaline from the intense exercise that day, but inside the steam-filled shower room as hot droplets rolled over wheat-colored skin, I suddenly realized I was having an unspeakable reaction, though I couldn’t say whose body had triggered it.

At that moment, I understood I liked men. While sexual desire isn’t shameful, I felt I should at least have my own boundaries. From that point on, I began to keep to myself.

Even with Li Yi, I would intentionally keep some distance. He just assumed I had a lot of annoying habits or that I was a germaphobe.

While sexual desire surged easily enough, actually falling for someone always proved difficult.

In my second year after graduation, I was transferred to a very busy department where one person was expected to do the work of five.

During one arrest, my colleagues and I chased a suspect into a gaudy, neon-lit bar. The chase erupted amid a deafening chaos of shouts and screams, with glasses and bottles shattering everywhere. I gritted my teeth, stepped over the shards of glass scattered across the floor, reached out, and grabbed the suspect’s arm before pinning it down with force. My colleagues swarmed in, and we finally subdued him.

Once the arrest was over, I looked up and suddenly realized this was a gay bar. Those watching from a distance were all men of various styles; some were even wearing heavy makeup. I felt a sense of bewilderment, was this the community I belonged to? They seemed so distant from me.

Perhaps my experiences in the welfare institute had created a shadow-like feeling of abandonment; most of the time, I lacked any sense of belonging. Suddenly, I spotted two men in the crowd. They were dressed quite ordinarily; if you saw them on the street, you wouldn’t prematurely guess their sexual orientation.

While everyone else was gawking and gossiping, they were kissing.

Thinking back now, kissing in a place like a bar isn’t necessarily born of love or affection; the possibility of being drawn together by mere lust is far greater. But as I gazed at them then, I felt as though something deep in my heart was breaking through the soil.

I suddenly realized that I wanted a certain kind of steadfast affection, one that wouldn’t waver because of others.

A week later, I returned to that bar. Facing the eloquent bartender, I suddenly realized I seemed to have no personality of my own; without Li Yi there, I didn’t even have the chance to say, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

The flashy, complicated names of the drinks gave me a headache. Dazed, I randomly repeated one I’d heard. Just as the bartender acknowledged me, I heard a man’s voice.

He said, “That drink has a very high alcohol content. Are you sure?”

I masked my fluster and surprise with an expressionless face and turned toward the source of the voice.

It was a very well-dressed man. He wore framed glasses and had deep, defined features that gave him a somewhat mixed-race appearance. He smiled at me while leaning against the counter and said, “If you don’t know what to drink, why not choose a Coke?”

I nodded awkwardly, completely forgetting to tell the bartender myself. The man turned naturally and made the change for me, “A Coke will be fine for this Officer.”

He knew I was a policeman.

He turned back and asked me, “Would you like ice?”

I nodded, then shook my head. I had a bit of a cold recently, and my throat was sore.

“My name is David.” He said, extending his hand toward me without any preamble.

I froze for a moment, then stiffly reached out, “My name is Yu Fuchao.”

David laughed when he heard that. He didn’t ask which specific characters made up my name, but his eyes curved into crescents, and he seemed to be in an excellent mood. “Officer Yu, people rarely give their real names in a place like this. Well then, my surname is Xu. I’m Xu Yanzhou, ‘Yan’ as in language, and ‘Zhou’ as in universe.”

He was still holding my hand, a gesture that made me feel a bit uneasy.

I cleared my throat, and only then did he notice, releasing his grip. “My apologies.”

“How did you know I was a policeman?” I asked curiously.

David seemed to carry a perpetual smile. “I was here the last time you came to make an arrest. That was my first time in a place like this, so the memory is quite vivid.”

“I’m sorry for leaving you with such a bad impression.”

“Not at all. You have such an extraordinary aura, Officer; once someone sees you, they can’t forget you.”

I knew he was just teasing, but he said it so naturally that, for some reason, my face began to heat up. Fortunately, Coke was served just then, saving my life. I lowered my head to take a sip and heard David ask again, “I remember that you stepped on some broken glass last time. Were your feet injured?”

It took me a moment to register what he was talking about. I raised an eyebrow, finally realizing his meaning. “It’s fine. Our boots are very sturdy.”

David let out a genuine laugh. “Officer Yu, it seems like caring for you is a difficult task. I’m a doctor, after all; I thought I’d found a reason to keep the conversation going.”

My face turned an even deeper shade of red.

And so, Yanzhou and I began a romance. He was wonderful, a bit older than me and organized in everything he did, though his work kept him busy and our meetings were sparse. We never lived together; even as Yanzhou continued to test the waters, I still felt unable to fully commit.

He seemed to truly like me. I didn’t even know myself what it was he found in me.

Every time we kissed, he was full of emotion. I knew he was aroused, yet I felt nothing. I would apologize sincerely, but he would only say it was fine; that it was my first time loving a man and it was okay not to be used to it.

Our relationship was plain, consisting of nothing more than finding time to eat together, watch movies, or take the occasional stroll. For people like us, this kind of quiet, Platonic connection was incredibly rare. But I also discovered that the price of such a long, level existence was perhaps a total lack of passion.

I liked Yanzhou. He was mature, self-disciplined, and reliable; he would habitually help me handle the cluttered details of life. But our time together was simply too polite, so polite that I often didn’t know what to say.

I think it was my fault. On the day we broke up, a fine drizzle was falling. He drove me home, and downstairs, I apologized once more. Yanzhou only said, “Ah Chao, you aren’t wrong. We just lack a bit of fate.”

I said nothing and kept looking down at my shoes.

I heard Yanzhou’s voice again; I could imagine his expression; he was probably wearing a bitter smile.

He said, “It’s a pity, Ah Chao. I really liked you.”

I stood under the eaves watching him walk away, feeling utterly dazed. It felt as if everything in the world was a shame. If being with someone as good as Yanzhou couldn’t give me a sense of belonging, then where was I supposed to go in this life?

Compared to breaking up with Yan Zhou, what saddened me more was discovering that I seemed destined to stand forever in the shadows of loneliness. However, my identity as a police officer did not permit such sentimental indulgence; I threw myself entirely back into my work, and thanks to my outstanding performance, I even secured an exceptional transfer to a more critical department. Yet, I became increasingly unkempt, even appearing somewhat disheveled.

Li Yi came to my desk to drop something off, “Everyone thinks something is up with you. They’ve been asking me privately, so I just told them you went through a breakup.”

How could he know? I looked up at him, and he shrugged in return, “Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not that I was intentionally tailing you, but that doctor boyfriend of yours always ‘happened’ to pass by our station. I’m far too clever not to notice.”

Li Yi didn’t say much regarding my sexual orientation; he possessed a certain capacity to absorb all sorts of new information.

I was grateful to him.

Li Yi added, “But that guy… I always felt like he wasn’t exactly a good person.”

“Don’t say that.” I said as I pulled a file toward me and prepared to read.

That day, I happened to be assigned to the same small squad as Li Yi. We were dispatched to keep watch at a gala that evening to investigate leads on a smuggling case.

Not long after Li Yi left, he returned in a huff before slamming a file onto my desk and shouting, “Crazy! Giving the hardest job to the two of us!”

“Shut up.” I said, keeping my head down as I scanned the guest list, my brow furrowing.

I couldn’t blame Li Yi for being angry. The high society of Hong Kong Island looked down on cops like us the most. Who knew what kind of trouble we’d face while staking out the gala? With members of the Zhang, Zhan, and Song families attending, the higher-ups only sent me and Li Yi. They likely knew that sending more people wouldn’t yield results and would only annoy the big bosses, but sending no one would also make the station look bad.

Because of our mentor, Li Yi and I hadn’t taken sides within the station. Initially, people tried to win us over and treated us well, but as time passed and they realized they couldn’t gain anything from us, they felt their previous efforts were wasted and began to demand a “return” on their investment with interest.

I figured that was the real reason only Li Yi and I had been assigned to this stakeout.

I sighed and told Li Yi, “At worst, we’ll just go through the motions and clock out early. I’ll take you for some braised pork rice.”

Li Yi looked at me with obvious disdain. “Officer Yu, you are the famous stubborn Officer Yu. You’d leave early? I think I’d better go sign for my service weapon as soon as possible, lest I get dragged into a corner and beaten to death tonight!”

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