Whenever i think of 19 days, i think of you and I check in on your profile to see if youve been around.
Take good care of your health. Be happy. Have a warm month 💖
🌻
thank you so much—you’re incredibly kind and i hope you’re well too.
i fell off the tumblr earth a bit and things have been really good!
a bit of a life update since i was last around (apologies for hijacking this ask!)
bought my first home
learnt to embroider
fell in and out and in love with running
got two promotions
trained for and nearly joined the army then didn’t lol
met someone! ♥️
began learning cinematic videography
fell even more in love with my allotment, sustainability, veganism, and trying to live a loving life
had the worst anxiety and depression for a while around the time i stopped posting in 2021
read very very little
wrote even less
I’ve been locked out of my commission email account and my tumblr messages are wiped. If anyone needs to get in contact with me or is still interested in a commission, please get in touch. I don’t have that much time anymore with work and hobbies, but I desperately miss writing and if you are happy to be patient with me then please reach out. I’m sorry to anyone I have let go unanswered. ♥️
ps. I’m not going to use this platform consistently and no longer like it that much as it’s quite a bittersweet place. I don’t feel attached to it as an adult in the same way I did when I was younger, and I’d quite like to leave that part of me there. Weird for me to say that a place that doesn’t really exist can have that much impact on me but it does! I’ll check this occasionally and then possibly open an Instagram or something since I use that regularly. I’m not really sure!
When I was young
I thought that I could reach the sky
But when I look up
Now it doesn't seem so bright
And then I grew up
That was when I realised
That everything's fucked
So I don't get out of bed 'til 5:00
Oh, I, I wish that I could go back
To those days where I was losing teeth
Instead of losing sleep
(It’s like I got fucked up the more I seen)
And I, I know that I was naive, but
I'd rather be
I'd rather be
THE UPDATE 😭😭😭 JUST STAB ME, IT'LL HURT LESS😭 also Jian Yi and He Tian seeking each other and being sad about Mo just leaving them. Especially Jian Yi, since him and Mo were probably the closest (even if Mo wouldn't like to acknowledge it).
I remember reading this when the update launched and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply. Honestly the last three updates have been killers (in a good way). The angst has flung up a bit out of nowhere (in typical 19D fashion) and I’m very curious to see how it gets resolved/how the characters move on from here, but it gives me the same vibes as when He Tian gave Guan Shan his jacket. It’s that kind of momentous/development vibe and I love it.
I completely agree as well: I love how this hardship affects all of them—not just He Tian. Goes to show how close they’ve grown as a group and how one person’s pain affects them all/how they band together to form a resolution. Despite Jian Yi’s comic relief, it’s pretty amazing to see how determined he is to help those he cares about and I think this is a great developmental arc for him too. They’re lucky to have him. ❤️
thanks so much!! i had my first week last week and it went really well, feels like a much better fit for me and i feel like i’m finally (maybe) “getting somewhere”! ❤️❤️
The shop will be closing soon. He’s seen an attendant wandering around, who will probably ask him to leave in the next five minutes. There’s no one else here. His clothes are vivid against the neon glow of the tanks. The fish cast strange shadows on his shirt, living out a second life on his skin.
They swim in half-circles before sharply changing direction, never touching the glass. He wonders if they know it’s there, as if they can sense some immovable wall that holds them back.
He’s not getting deep about this. He could contemplate, quite extensively, about how their freedom must be bought by some higher power, and they would really only go from one tank to the next, slightly bigger, slightly richer. It’s all fake shit, and he remembers that in some ways he’s got it better than an animal. He can, at least, run away. Maybe he won’t get far. Just to the edges of the city villages where he’ll get a job earning less than before and lose his place in school.
Guan Shan puts a finger on the glass in front of him. There’s a label in the corner, peeling away from the glass. Veiltail goldfish. They have wispy, membrane-like tails. He could put his hand on the other side and see all the way through. Guan Shan watches the only black fish in the tank move placidly through the water.
Beneath the label, a smaller one: Black moor. For a minute he considers tugging the label off and putting it in his pocket, a little secret. He remembers that would be stealing, in some way, and someone in the shop would have to go to the effort of printing and laminating and reapplying the label just for one fish.
Guan Shan turns away.
He wanders for a few more minutes. He’s aware of his reflection in the glass. He worries about how long the attendant will let him stay there, and the thought that they will make him leave makes him feel slightly sick. He likes it here—the quiet, the muted hum of the tanks, the strange lights. They make him feel somewhere else.
His mother is working the night shift and won’t be home until just before he’s meant to go to school the next morning. They’ll have long enough together that he could tell her he got fired from the shop, but not long enough that he could reasonably pretend to have forgotten as he tugs on his uniform and slips out the front door.
She won’t be mad—she never is.
She can’t take on another shift.
Mentally, he has started taking stock. His Xbox is a few years old, but he’ll get something for it. He has a stack of old music magazines from his dad that could catch the eye of a collector. His computer, maybe.
The earrings.
His stomach twists.
Really, it’s not much. It’ll earn them a month, which could be just long enough for him to get another job, but what’s the likelihood of that in a city where most kids are just trying to bulk their CV’s for their college applications. Besides, his grades speak for themselves. He got lucky with the shop, and lightning doesn’t strike twice.
‘Hey, kid. We’re closing soon, so unless you wanna buy something…’
Guan Shan nods. His shoulders round.
For no logical reason, he says: ‘Can I take a goldfish?’
‘Sure. The black moor? Saw you had your eye on that one.’
‘No, one of the others.’
The attendant comes up next to him. ‘Just the one? They don’t like being on their own, you know.’
He presses his jaw tightly. A small sound comes out of him. He looks at the price tag and is somehow shocked and saddened to see the figure so low.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The black one, too, I guess.’
He pays, then leaves. It’s late enough that the streets are quieter than he expected. He’s usually home by now, his shift over, reheating leftovers while he works on his homework. He stands there while the shop attendant locks up behind him, holding the plastic bag with two fish in his hand. He feels stupid. Behind his eyes, he can feel a sort of stinging sensation.
He has the unnameable urge to grab one of the passing strangers and tell them how he’s feeling, what has happened, what could happen. On some level he knows that everyone has their own problems, and he’s not the type of person to overstep his bounds. Instead, he watches them pass, and after a few more minutes he goes to the nearest subway station and gets the train home.
/
He had half expected He Tian to find him on the street. He’d imagined it, He Tian catching his arm as he wandered from store to store, deliberating at large windows with thin mannequins and expensive jewellery without price tags. There is a part of him that’s disappointed that it didn’t play out like this, a part of him that is even angrier to find He Tian sitting in the stairwell of his apartment when he eventually does get home.
It’s close to midnight, and the stairwell is clinically quiet. Outside, the stars are dusty and covered in a thin layer of smog that is less noticeable in the day. He Tian looks exhausted. He’s the type of good looking where even the slightest imperfection somehow makes him even more attractive. Guan Shan hates it.
He stands when Guan Shan walks in, suddenly filling the space, and Guan Shan says, ‘Get outta my way.’
‘Where have you been?’
Guan Shan shoulders past him. There’s a moment where he thinks He Tian will grab him around the shoulders, the air around him simmering enough that Guan Shan is convinced it’s a near thing, choking with danger, but he lets him pass. He follows Guan Shan up the staircase, his footsteps silent, his body casting long shadows on the steps where Guan Shan sets his feet.
At the door, Guan Shan pockets the notice that’s taped there, knowing He Tian has already seen it. Less sharply, he picks up the notes in He Tian’s and Jian Yi’s writing and folds them into careful squares.
‘You’re not comin’ in,’ he says.
‘I called you, like, fifty times. Did you block me?’
Guan Shan thinks He Tian sounds angrier than he really has a right to be. He turns and presses his back to the door. He has his keys clenched tightly in a closed fist.
‘Yeah. I didn’t want to talk to you. I thought you would’ve gotten that.’
‘I can get you another job. Something better paid.’
‘You’re so fuckin’ clueless.’
He Tian’s eyes tighten.
‘You’re ruining my life,’ says Guan Shan.
‘That’s—that isn’t true. I’ve helped you. You would’ve been expelled if—’
‘Maybe I would’ve gotten expelled. But I wouldn’t have had She Li on my dick all the time, would I? Wouldn’t need you to get me a job ‘cause you made me lose my last one, would I? You’re just—stickin’ a bandage on shit when you hurt me first.’
‘It’s not always like that. Don’t make it sound like it’s always like that.’
Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘I want you to go. I told you I didn’t want to see you again. Fuck off.’
He Tian says, ‘Let me pay what was on the door.’
‘Fuck off.’
He Tian doesn’t move and Guan Shan squeezes his eyes shut. He’s going to cry again, the frustration bubbling sourly in the back of his throat. He doesn’t trust himself to open the door while He Tian is still here because he knows he’ll probably let him in.
‘Do I really make you feel like a failure?’
Guan Shan rubs at his eyes with his fist. His voice comes hoarse and thick: ‘I am a failure. Bein’ around you just makes it so much more fuckin’ obvious.’
He doesn’t want He Tian’s pity when he says this, or his reassurance. He’s just being honest. Saying it out loud is kind of breathlessly relieving. He couldn’t say something like that to his mother, or any of the teachers at school. He couldn’t say it to Grey, who he’s known for years. He Tian knows more about him than anyone. It’s a terrifying thought.
If they never see each other again, will He Tian tell everyone the things Guan Shan has told him? About the restaurant and his dad, or about She Li and the things Guan Shan has let him do to him? He feels vulnerable and sick thinking about it, completely powerless, as he does a lot of the time when he’s around He Tian.
He oscillates between that feeling of uselessness and the feeling of being so empowered that he thinks it must be what being high or drunk feels like. That latter has him trusting his own convictions, having an unadulterated faith in himself like jumping from a bridge and thinking he might just fly—so long as He Tian is with him. He doesn’t like how it’s one or the other, empowered or powerless, and rarely anything in between. He’s heard adults on TV talking about being codependent, pulled punishingly into each other's orbit, and he wonders if this is the same thing.
In the end he supposes it doesn’t really matter. So what if He Tian tells everyone? Probably, he won’t see the rest of the year out at school. He’ll get a job on a different side of the city and no one will hear from him ever again. The embarrassment will all be internal and will only last a week or two. Then life will move on. He wishes he were older and wiser and better at believing this. He wishes it didn’t feel like the universe might fall out from beneath him.
‘Doesn’t matter what I do, it turns to shit,’ he tells He Tian. ‘No matter how hard I work, I’m never gonna earn enough. I can spend three hours studyin’ for a test and still come last. If it isn’t She Li, then it’ll be someone else. I just—I can’t catch a fuckin’ break, He Tian. But you do somethin’ and you come first every time. Life’s so easy for you.’
He Tian shifts from side to side. ‘Do you think things wouldn’t feel so hard if you stopped focussing on what you think my life is like?’
‘You’re pissin’ me off.’
‘I don’t know how I’m meant to help you. You won’t let me give you money. It’s like pulling teeth from you just trying to know what’s going on with you. What are you so fucking afraid of?’
‘I never asked for your help.’
‘You shouldn’t have to—that’s why we’re friends.’
‘I never said I wanted to be your friend.’
He Tian frowns, his look very serious. He isn’t teasing tonight. Neither is Guan Shan. There is the sense that their interactions are always anything but teasing, really, some dark undercurrent that runs between the two of them like dark veins.
He Tian says, ‘Are those fish?’
For a moment Guan Shan thinks he’s joking, deflecting wildly to distract from the seriousness of what Guan Shan has just said. Then he feels the crinkle of a plastic bag in his hand and, remembering how he’d just spent the last few hours, nearly drops the two goldfish onto the floor.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
‘You don’t have a tank.’
‘Yeah, no. I don’t know why I bought them.’
He Tian hesitates. There is a curious, predictable gleam in his eyes. ‘Red and black?’
‘It’s all they had left at the store.’
He Tian is looking intently at the bag. ‘Do you remember when we went to the aquarium? And you said I wasn’t someone you could forget?’
‘I just meant that—’
‘I know what you meant. But I always pretend like you meant it the other way.’
Guan Shan thinks, Don’t you think things would be easier if you stopped focusing on what you want me to mean and what I actually mean?
Instead of saying anything, he looks down at his sneakers. They’re scuffed and starting to rip at the seams. The thought of having to buy new ones makes him panic and the thought of buying a pair of second-hand ones online makes him panic even more. There’s no shame in it, but the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes makes him feel strange, especially when he knows He Tian could buy fifty pairs without blinking.
Guan Shan considers that thought and replays what He Tian has just said about focusing on his life too much more than his own. Maybe part of that is true.
Before He Tian, did he always feel things so intensely? Did the bad always feel so fucking awful? He knows that things were mechanical, and he was mean and didn’t think much about other people in particularly nice ways. He knows he didn’t laugh much then, or have dinners and sleepovers with friends. He knows everything hurt on a distant, muted level that was easy to ignore. Not much time has passed since then, and he reasons that nothing about him has probably changed, just everything else around him.
‘I can’t understand why you won’t let me help you,’ says He Tian, when the silence has stretched too long.
‘Because I’ll get used to it.’
He Tian frowns, not understanding.
‘One day, you’re not gonna be around. And I’ll be fucked.’
‘I’ll always be there for you.’
‘You don’t know that. People say that a lot and then they disappear or get taken away, even if they didn’t want to.’
It’s obvious they’re talking about his dad, but it feels safer to talk about things in vague, subjective conversation. Maybe things would be easier if they talked openly about things and didn’t use metaphors and hypotheticals. As it is, Guan Shan doesn’t feel ready to try the alternative. He is conscious of the fact that this feels like a conversation. They are passing words back and forth that hold meaning and neither of them has touched the other yet. It feels new and fragile as an oil painting, still wet, and so he doesn’t let himself think about this for long.
‘I think you’re getting this wrong,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m not asking you to rely on me. Obviously, I’d kind of like that. I like the thought of you needing me, and I know that says something about me. But—I’m just asking you to let me help you. Just here and there, no strings.’
Guan Shan rubs his forehead with the back of his knuckles. His keys are starting to pinch his skin and he can feel a headache starting to surface.
‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘I actually do want you to go.’
He Tian’s jaw clenches and he breathes out heavily through his nose. He’s probably thinking he’s wasted his time.
‘Okay,’ he says then. ‘But we’re not done.’
A new wave of exhaustion comes over Guan Shan, crippling and final. He wants to get into bed with his skin against cold sheets and sleep for twelve hours without waking once.
‘You’re not the only one that ever gets to decide that,’ he tells He Tian, a little sharply. ‘You’ve gotta learn to let people go.’
‘But what if I know I can help them?’ says He Tian. ‘If I don’t, I’ve just—failed.’
They look at each other.
A minute stretches into an eternity that could be seconds or hours, and everything has gone backwards. Everything is the same.
Guan Shan can’t put his finger on what has just happened, but he feels like laughing. Their fears are twinned, self-perpetuating, some kind of ouroboros chasing its tail. Who will get caught first?
They both seem to take in a breath at the same time, and He Tian takes a step back.
‘Goodnight,’ he says.
Guan Shan nods. He waits for He Tian’s retreating back to disappear a few flights down before opening the door to his apartment, and shuts it swiftly behind him.
/
There’s a knock at the door while he’s brushing his teeth. The fish are swimming placidly in their bag on the edge of the bathroom sink. It’s past one, and he keeps all the lights off because his eyes are feeling sore. He’s adjusted to the dim glow that comes from street lamps seeping through the curtains, the blink of the timer on the electric stove, his Xbox gleaming in his bedroom. His mother shouldn’t be home yet and she has her own set of keys.
With a sinking heart, Guan Shan pictures his landlord demanding payment.
Worse, he pictures He Tian. Before He Tian left, they’d resolved nothing. It feels like being back to square one, chasing each other around a chess board. It fills him with a vast emptiness that makes him feel like he’s existing outside of himself, waiting for someone else to take over.
He pads silently towards the front door, his toothbrush jammed into his cheek, and peers through the viewer. There’s toothpaste dripping down his chin. In the hall, there’s no one there. He’s half-convinced he imagined it. He counts to ten before he opens the door, steps out—and his foot connects with something hard. There is a cardboard box sitting on the welcome mat.
Guan Shan peers around. The light in the stairwell is artificially bright. He kneels down and opens the tabs on the box, which hasn’t been taped. He swallows.
For the fish, says the note on the second box, nestled inside the first. Careful, it’s fragile.
Guan Shan rubs the heel of a palm into his right eye. He sighs. Then he reaches out, braces himself, and picks up the tank. He carries it into his apartment, and the door locks behind him.
/
thank you for reading! if you’d like to support me on my ko-fi/request a short drabble, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/agapaic 💞
The shop will be closing soon. He’s seen an attendant wandering around, who will probably ask him to leave in the next five minutes. There’s no one else here. His clothes are vivid against the neon glow of the tanks. The fish cast strange shadows on his shirt, living out a second life on his skin.
They swim in half-circles before sharply changing direction, never touching the glass. He wonders if they know it’s there, as if they can sense some immovable wall that holds them back.
He’s not getting deep about this. He could contemplate, quite extensively, about how their freedom must be bought by some higher power, and they would really only go from one tank to the next, slightly bigger, slightly richer. It’s all fake shit, and he remembers that in some ways he’s got it better than an animal. He can, at least, run away. Maybe he won’t get far. Just to the edges of the city villages where he’ll get a job earning less than before and lose his place in school.
Guan Shan puts a finger on the glass in front of him. There’s a label in the corner, peeling away from the glass. Veiltail goldfish. They have wispy, membrane-like tails. He could put his hand on the other side and see all the way through. Guan Shan watches the only black fish in the tank move placidly through the water.
Beneath the label, a smaller one: Black moor. For a minute he considers tugging the label off and putting it in his pocket, a little secret. He remembers that would be stealing, in some way, and someone in the shop would have to go to the effort of printing and laminating and reapplying the label just for one fish.
Guan Shan turns away.
He wanders for a few more minutes. He’s aware of his reflection in the glass. He worries about how long the attendant will let him stay there, and the thought that they will make him leave makes him feel slightly sick. He likes it here—the quiet, the muted hum of the tanks, the strange lights. They make him feel somewhere else.
His mother is working the night shift and won’t be home until just before he’s meant to go to school the next morning. They’ll have long enough together that he could tell her he got fired from the shop, but not long enough that he could reasonably pretend to have forgotten as he tugs on his uniform and slips out the front door.
She won’t be mad—she never is.
She can’t take on another shift.
Mentally, he has started taking stock. His Xbox is a few years old, but he’ll get something for it. He has a stack of old music magazines from his dad that could catch the eye of a collector. His computer, maybe.
The earrings.
His stomach twists.
Really, it’s not much. It’ll earn them a month, which could be just long enough for him to get another job, but what’s the likelihood of that in a city where most kids are just trying to bulk their CV’s for their college applications. Besides, his grades speak for themselves. He got lucky with the shop, and lightning doesn’t strike twice.
‘Hey, kid. We’re closing soon, so unless you wanna buy something…’
Guan Shan nods. His shoulders round.
For no logical reason, he says: ‘Can I take a goldfish?’
‘Sure. The black moor? Saw you had your eye on that one.’
‘No, one of the others.’
The attendant comes up next to him. ‘Just the one? They don’t like being on their own, you know.’
He presses his jaw tightly. A small sound comes out of him. He looks at the price tag and is somehow shocked and saddened to see the figure so low.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The black one, too, I guess.’
He pays, then leaves. It’s late enough that the streets are quieter than he expected. He’s usually home by now, his shift over, reheating leftovers while he works on his homework. He stands there while the shop attendant locks up behind him, holding the plastic bag with two fish in his hand. He feels stupid. Behind his eyes, he can feel a sort of stinging sensation.
He has the unnameable urge to grab one of the passing strangers and tell them how he’s feeling, what has happened, what could happen. On some level he knows that everyone has their own problems, and he’s not the type of person to overstep his bounds. Instead, he watches them pass, and after a few more minutes he goes to the nearest subway station and gets the train home.
/
He had half expected He Tian to find him on the street. He’d imagined it, He Tian catching his arm as he wandered from store to store, deliberating at large windows with thin mannequins and expensive jewellery without price tags. There is a part of him that’s disappointed that it didn’t play out like this, a part of him that is even angrier to find He Tian sitting in the stairwell of his apartment when he eventually does get home.
It’s close to midnight, and the stairwell is clinically quiet. Outside, the stars are dusty and covered in a thin layer of smog that is less noticeable in the day. He Tian looks exhausted. He’s the type of good looking where even the slightest imperfection somehow makes him even more attractive. Guan Shan hates it.
He stands when Guan Shan walks in, suddenly filling the space, and Guan Shan says, ‘Get outta my way.’
‘Where have you been?’
Guan Shan shoulders past him. There’s a moment where he thinks He Tian will grab him around the shoulders, the air around him simmering enough that Guan Shan is convinced it’s a near thing, choking with danger, but he lets him pass. He follows Guan Shan up the staircase, his footsteps silent, his body casting long shadows on the steps where Guan Shan sets his feet.
At the door, Guan Shan pockets the notice that’s taped there, knowing He Tian has already seen it. Less sharply, he picks up the notes in He Tian’s and Jian Yi’s writing and folds them into careful squares.
‘You’re not comin’ in,’ he says.
‘I called you, like, fifty times. Did you block me?’
Guan Shan thinks He Tian sounds angrier than he really has a right to be. He turns and presses his back to the door. He has his keys clenched tightly in a closed fist.
‘Yeah. I didn’t want to talk to you. I thought you would’ve gotten that.’
‘I can get you another job. Something better paid.’
‘You’re so fuckin’ clueless.’
He Tian’s eyes tighten.
‘You’re ruining my life,’ says Guan Shan.
‘That’s—that isn’t true. I’ve helped you. You would’ve been expelled if—’
‘Maybe I would’ve gotten expelled. But I wouldn’t have had She Li on my dick all the time, would I? Wouldn’t need you to get me a job ‘cause you made me lose my last one, would I? You’re just—stickin’ a bandage on shit when you hurt me first.’
‘It’s not always like that. Don’t make it sound like it’s always like that.’
Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘I want you to go. I told you I didn’t want to see you again. Fuck off.’
He Tian says, ‘Let me pay what was on the door.’
‘Fuck off.’
He Tian doesn’t move and Guan Shan squeezes his eyes shut. He’s going to cry again, the frustration bubbling sourly in the back of his throat. He doesn’t trust himself to open the door while He Tian is still here because he knows he’ll probably let him in.
‘Do I really make you feel like a failure?’
Guan Shan rubs at his eyes with his fist. His voice comes hoarse and thick: ‘I am a failure. Bein’ around you just makes it so much more fuckin’ obvious.’
He doesn’t want He Tian’s pity when he says this, or his reassurance. He’s just being honest. Saying it out loud is kind of breathlessly relieving. He couldn’t say something like that to his mother, or any of the teachers at school. He couldn’t say it to Grey, who he’s known for years. He Tian knows more about him than anyone. It’s a terrifying thought.
If they never see each other again, will He Tian tell everyone the things Guan Shan has told him? About the restaurant and his dad, or about She Li and the things Guan Shan has let him do to him? He feels vulnerable and sick thinking about it, completely powerless, as he does a lot of the time when he’s around He Tian.
He oscillates between that feeling of uselessness and the feeling of being so empowered that he thinks it must be what being high or drunk feels like. That latter has him trusting his own convictions, having an unadulterated faith in himself like jumping from a bridge and thinking he might just fly—so long as He Tian is with him. He doesn’t like how it’s one or the other, empowered or powerless, and rarely anything in between. He’s heard adults on TV talking about being codependent, pulled punishingly into each other's orbit, and he wonders if this is the same thing.
In the end he supposes it doesn’t really matter. So what if He Tian tells everyone? Probably, he won’t see the rest of the year out at school. He’ll get a job on a different side of the city and no one will hear from him ever again. The embarrassment will all be internal and will only last a week or two. Then life will move on. He wishes he were older and wiser and better at believing this. He wishes it didn’t feel like the universe might fall out from beneath him.
‘Doesn’t matter what I do, it turns to shit,’ he tells He Tian. ‘No matter how hard I work, I’m never gonna earn enough. I can spend three hours studyin’ for a test and still come last. If it isn’t She Li, then it’ll be someone else. I just—I can’t catch a fuckin’ break, He Tian. But you do somethin’ and you come first every time. Life’s so easy for you.’
He Tian shifts from side to side. ‘Do you think things wouldn’t feel so hard if you stopped focussing on what you think my life is like?’
‘You’re pissin’ me off.’
‘I don’t know how I’m meant to help you. You won’t let me give you money. It’s like pulling teeth from you just trying to know what’s going on with you. What are you so fucking afraid of?’
‘I never asked for your help.’
‘You shouldn’t have to—that’s why we’re friends.’
‘I never said I wanted to be your friend.’
He Tian frowns, his look very serious. He isn’t teasing tonight. Neither is Guan Shan. There is the sense that their interactions are always anything but teasing, really, some dark undercurrent that runs between the two of them like dark veins.
He Tian says, ‘Are those fish?’
For a moment Guan Shan thinks he’s joking, deflecting wildly to distract from the seriousness of what Guan Shan has just said. Then he feels the crinkle of a plastic bag in his hand and, remembering how he’d just spent the last few hours, nearly drops the two goldfish onto the floor.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
‘You don’t have a tank.’
‘Yeah, no. I don’t know why I bought them.’
He Tian hesitates. There is a curious, predictable gleam in his eyes. ‘Red and black?’
‘It’s all they had left at the store.’
He Tian is looking intently at the bag. ‘Do you remember when we went to the aquarium? And you said I wasn’t someone you could forget?’
‘I just meant that—’
‘I know what you meant. But I always pretend like you meant it the other way.’
Guan Shan thinks, Don’t you think things would be easier if you stopped focusing on what you want me to mean and what I actually mean?
Instead of saying anything, he looks down at his sneakers. They’re scuffed and starting to rip at the seams. The thought of having to buy new ones makes him panic and the thought of buying a pair of second-hand ones online makes him panic even more. There’s no shame in it, but the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes makes him feel strange, especially when he knows He Tian could buy fifty pairs without blinking.
Guan Shan considers that thought and replays what He Tian has just said about focusing on his life too much more than his own. Maybe part of that is true.
Before He Tian, did he always feel things so intensely? Did the bad always feel so fucking awful? He knows that things were mechanical, and he was mean and didn’t think much about other people in particularly nice ways. He knows he didn’t laugh much then, or have dinners and sleepovers with friends. He knows everything hurt on a distant, muted level that was easy to ignore. Not much time has passed since then, and he reasons that nothing about him has probably changed, just everything else around him.
‘I can’t understand why you won’t let me help you,’ says He Tian, when the silence has stretched too long.
‘Because I’ll get used to it.’
He Tian frowns, not understanding.
‘One day, you’re not gonna be around. And I’ll be fucked.’
‘I’ll always be there for you.’
‘You don’t know that. People say that a lot and then they disappear or get taken away, even if they didn’t want to.’
It’s obvious they’re talking about his dad, but it feels safer to talk about things in vague, subjective conversation. Maybe things would be easier if they talked openly about things and didn’t use metaphors and hypotheticals. As it is, Guan Shan doesn’t feel ready to try the alternative. He is conscious of the fact that this feels like a conversation. They are passing words back and forth that hold meaning and neither of them has touched the other yet. It feels new and fragile as an oil painting, still wet, and so he doesn’t let himself think about this for long.
‘I think you’re getting this wrong,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m not asking you to rely on me. Obviously, I’d kind of like that. I like the thought of you needing me, and I know that says something about me. But—I’m just asking you to let me help you. Just here and there, no strings.’
Guan Shan rubs his forehead with the back of his knuckles. His keys are starting to pinch his skin and he can feel a headache starting to surface.
‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘I actually do want you to go.’
He Tian’s jaw clenches and he breathes out heavily through his nose. He’s probably thinking he’s wasted his time.
‘Okay,’ he says then. ‘But we’re not done.’
A new wave of exhaustion comes over Guan Shan, crippling and final. He wants to get into bed with his skin against cold sheets and sleep for twelve hours without waking once.
‘You’re not the only one that ever gets to decide that,’ he tells He Tian, a little sharply. ‘You’ve gotta learn to let people go.’
‘But what if I know I can help them?’ says He Tian. ‘If I don’t, I’ve just—failed.’
They look at each other.
A minute stretches into an eternity that could be seconds or hours, and everything has gone backwards. Everything is the same.
Guan Shan can’t put his finger on what has just happened, but he feels like laughing. Their fears are twinned, self-perpetuating, some kind of ouroboros chasing its tail. Who will get caught first?
They both seem to take in a breath at the same time, and He Tian takes a step back.
‘Goodnight,’ he says.
Guan Shan nods. He waits for He Tian’s retreating back to disappear a few flights down before opening the door to his apartment, and shuts it swiftly behind him.
/
There’s a knock at the door while he’s brushing his teeth. The fish are swimming placidly in their bag on the edge of the bathroom sink. It’s past one, and he keeps all the lights off because his eyes are feeling sore. He’s adjusted to the dim glow that comes from street lamps seeping through the curtains, the blink of the timer on the electric stove, his Xbox gleaming in his bedroom. His mother shouldn’t be home yet and she has her own set of keys.
With a sinking heart, Guan Shan pictures his landlord demanding payment.
Worse, he pictures He Tian. Before He Tian left, they’d resolved nothing. It feels like being back to square one, chasing each other around a chess board. It fills him with a vast emptiness that makes him feel like he’s existing outside of himself, waiting for someone else to take over.
He pads silently towards the front door, his toothbrush jammed into his cheek, and peers through the viewer. There’s toothpaste dripping down his chin. In the hall, there’s no one there. He’s half-convinced he imagined it. He counts to ten before he opens the door, steps out—and his foot connects with something hard. There is a cardboard box sitting on the welcome mat.
Guan Shan peers around. The light in the stairwell is artificially bright. He kneels down and opens the tabs on the box, which hasn’t been taped. He swallows.
For the fish, says the note on the second box, nestled inside the first. Careful, it’s fragile.
Guan Shan rubs the heel of a palm into his right eye. He sighs. Then he reaches out, braces himself, and picks up the tank. He carries it into his apartment, and the door locks behind him.
/
thank you for reading! if you’d like to support me on my ko-fi/request a short drabble, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/agapaic 💞
hi all, just a note to say sorry if i'm slow at actioning/replying to things lately - i don't log into tumblr much these days/have the app installed anymore, and i start a new job in a couple of weeks so i've been hyperfocused (and anxious) on that. if you're waiting for me to send responses i will get back to you as soon as possible. i am still working through my active commissions but just need another week or two to complete them - if you have any questions about your commission, just shoot me a message on my ko-fi and i'll get back to you ASAP.
How do you see 2 latest updates,do you have any visions for following updates?Could be seen,OX finally (?)chose to pulled down the curtains of happy teenage days memories,the story shall go on with more serous mood,bounded by mistakes and resolves too late to come,in the past.
hi anon,
i have seen the most recent updates (thank you @plumb19 for sending me them because i'd be so oblivious otherwise). tbh i feel a bit lost with each update? i don't really understand what's happening and the chapters feel quite disconnected. i don't know what the general fandom feel is for it at the moment, but it gives me whiplash!
it's sort of like... every time old xian puts their toes into comedy they feel like they have to yank it back in with something angst-ridden and vice-versa. it's a push-pull that i don't fully understand.
i found the school showpiece chapter quite odd tbh. but i also resonated with guan shan's deep shame/embarrassment and the way anything that happens in your life when you're 13/14 seems like the most awful thing in the entire universe, especially since it was a catalyst to so many more things going wrong. it presented a disconnect between guan shan and he tian: he tian is still fucking about and nothing has a consequence, while the smallest thing for guan shan has massive implications - in this case losing his job. i understood the chapter as a standalone insight, but in the grand scheme of things i just thought it was a bit odd.
half of me is expecting old xian to release some kind of statement that says they're finding the manhua a bit of a drag and they'll just draw the last few chapters (with a time skip to the first days of highschool) just to put it to bed and focus on a new story (whether in the 19 days universe or not).
the tone isn't consistent and i get the impression old xian could want to explore darker tones but also feels an obligation to stay true to the original fan base/slice of life genre. maybe it's all carrot and stick.
i really have no idea and i've honestly stopped trying to figure it out because we'll get no answer unless it's from old xian themselves!
what do you guys think/how do you feel about the direction of the comic lately? are you still reading updates?
was that a Just Kids reference in in the round when guan shan says ‘you’re a different breed’ and in Just Kids, patti says to robert that ‘artists are their own breed.’ cause wow 100/10
god i wish it was and i was that classy but i'm sorry to disappoint!!! ;_; it was just my own mental splurge.
i don't really know why
i don't really know why i like you
you always talkin' out your mouth sideways
make me wanna fuck you and fight you
i wanna fuck you and fight you
i wanna, wanna kiss you and fight you
'cause none of these goodie-goodie two shoes
mama's boys is anything like you
life taught you the hard way
you get your paper quick, quick, easy
and you fuck with your — the long way
you, you, you, you, you hate your father
but you'd take a bullet to the head for your mama
i'm tryna get to know you
but i can't break through all your shiny armour, so
I read your latest drabble while listening to Taylor Swift’s album Lover and it had me thinking about he tian writing albums and albums about guan shan like Taylor did about her boyfriend Joe <3
thank you to the very kind person who donated to my ko-fi and requested the below drabble! i hope you enjoy. <3
/
‘How remarkable.’
‘Nice word.’
The man glances at him, a bright look full of mirth. It’s expectant. Guan Shan doesn’t like feeling under the spotlight.
They’re standing side by side. Guan Shan has his hands in his pocket; the dark-haired man beside him has his arms folded, revealing ropes of tattoos that snake around his bare forearms. He has on dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt and he has Guan Shan, sweating in a starched white shirt, feel underdressed.
‘Do you know what I mean? By remarkable?’
‘Guessin’ you’re gonna tell me anyway, aren’t you.’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
Guan Shan looks him square in the face. ‘No? Every artist wants to hear someone tell him what his own fuckin’ work means.’
The man points a finger at him. ‘That’s sarcasm.’
‘That’s perceptive.’
The man grins. Probably, he’s waiting for Guan Shan to say he knows him. That he recognises his face. Guan Shan does, of course—He Tian’s face is plastered across every latest edition of Rolling Stones and NME, and pops up at least once an hour on TV for a cologne advert tinted with the blue-black hues of a bruise.
Tonight, He Tian’s movements through the city were tracked on Twitter with disconcerting detail. Perhaps no one quite expected him to arrive at the doors of a public art gallery currently pitching the work of local artists hidden by obscurity and unoriginality. Guan Shan isn’t impressed by celebrity, even if his breath did catch in his throat when he caught sight of his temporary companion. Even if he’s been listening to He Tian’s music since he was a Soundcloud kid mixing tracks from his lonely skyrise and sharing moody preview clips on Instagram.
Guan Shan says, ‘If you’re interested in buyin’, there’s a price book at the front desk.’
He Tian quirks a pierced brow. ‘No charitable raffle?’
‘Oh, you thought starving artist was just a metaphor, huh?’ Guan Shan asks, ignoring the grin that splits across He Tian’s face, handsome as the devil. ‘No, here we’ve gotta actually get paid for our shit. Even the remarkable stuff.’
‘What if I wanted to dispute the cost?’
Guan Shan’s look darkens. ‘The gallery already takes five percent.’
‘I’m—No. What? No, I’m a multi-millionaire. I’m not looking to cut your prices. I’m offering more than I know you’ll be charging.’
Guan Shan rubs the bridge of his nose. After a moment he mutters, ‘This isn’t a charity raffle. You just pay what it’s worth.’
He Tian looks again to the bust standing on its hollowed plaster plinth. It’s good, but it’s not great. It isn’t Guan Shan’s best work, and he has the unnameable desire to tell He Tian this, as if to protect his reputation somehow—or simply feed his ego. It’s a model of himself, throat-up. A sort of brutal rendition in clay, four-fold. A 360-degree walk around the plinth reveals each expression: happiness, sadness, fear, anger. Somehow Guan Shan thinks there is a touch of the same expression in all. He wonders if he should have put something else: joy? Humour? Surprise? But he is sure that each positive emotion is really all the same. He knows too, that the same is said for the negative. Anger is fear and sadness is fear. Guan Shan frowns critically. He should’ve stuck to the two faces, a bust of duality, but instead he chose Janus on steroids. Stupid.
'I want to commission you.’
Guan Shan blinks. He’s forgotten the A-lister standing at his side, who is probably used to being looked at.
‘Yeah?’ he says. He shifts and swallows, his throat clicking dryly.
‘You won the prize for the MFA exhibition, right?’
Guan Shan pauses. ‘I won a prize. They put my work in the basement. At the back.’
‘Well, I saw it.’
Good for you, Guan Shan nearly says. But he doesn’t want to ruin it. He Tian is, bizarrely and suddenly, a potential client—and Guan Shan has already hinted at the embarrassing state of his financial affairs. What the fuck does a rock star like He Tian want with a mid-rate artist like him? He’d find better in New York. Something more avant-garde in LA. Really, he should be looking at Europe. Not Guan Shan’s brutally Bostonian attempt at a self-portrait.
‘What kind of work are you looking for? I only really do in the round.’
‘I know,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m looking for—a gift.’
Guan Shan quirks an eyebrow. ‘Girlfriend?’ Grandiose self-portrait?
‘No—my father.’
Guan Shan hesitates. Hasn’t he read something before about He Tian’s father? Some snippet from an interview, dissected into excruciating detail on some lengthy social media thread? Guan Shan can’t remember the details, but he remembers nothing good.
‘What’s the occasion?’ Guan Shan asks carefully.
‘His retirement.’
Another pause. ‘Why do I get the feelin’ this could end my career?’
‘You’re paying a gallery to advertise your work, rather than having them pay you. Your career really couldn’t get any closer to the ground.’
Guan Shan rears back. ‘Fuck you,’ he spits.
He’s halfway across the gallery before He Tian catches up with him.
It’s then that Guan Shan notices the guard on the front doors. That there is no one else in the gallery, not even the staff. They’re completely alone. The blood, quickly boiled beneath his cheeks, drains.
‘It’s a security precaution,’ says He Tian.
‘Am I a fuckin’ hostage?’ Guan Shan demands.
He Tian snorts. ‘Of course not.’
Through the glass outside, there’s the flash of a camera. Guan Shan swallows.
‘Look,’ says He Tian. He walks across to the circular desk facing the doors and pulls a leather-encased book towards him. It’s the evening’s price list. He Tian presses a fingertip to his tongue and then, once slick, swipes through the pages until he lands on Guan Shan’s name.
‘Got you,’ he murmurs. He pulls out a pen from his back pocket and scribbles something loosely on the page. He looks at Guan Shan. ‘My number,’ he says. ‘And a price. I really wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t think it was worth it.’
Guan Shan‘s head spins. ‘Are you complimentin’ me or insultin’ me now?’
He Tian grins. ‘They do say I’m hard to read.’
‘They also say you’re a fuckin’ asshole.’
‘So you do know who I am.’
Guan Shan’s lip curls. ‘I also think you should let the people who came here for the art back in.’
‘I’m not one of them? A fellow artiste?’
‘You’re a different breed.’
He Tian seems to delight in Guan Shan’s displeasure.
‘Think on it,’ he says, tapping a ringed knuckle against the price book. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
Guan Shan goes still when He Tian passes him, unnecessarily close, the scent of mint and cigarettes just detectable. There’s the sound of a car horn outside on the street—He Tian’s ride. His bodyguard unlocks the gallery doors. With a wink, He Tian is gone.
People flood through the doors within seconds, and the cacophony is suddenly deafening. He Tian’s name is on everyone’s lips—both good and bad. Guan Shan’s head reels with the fact that he hadn’t noticed it was just them.
He spots the gallerist making a beeline for him through the crowd, and Guan Shan quickly snatches the price book and heads for the nearest room with a locked door. He ends up in a store cupboard and switches on his phone torch. Chemicals sting his nose. The price on the paper makes his eyes water.
‘He can’t be fuckin’ serious,’ Guan Shan mutters. He slumps down to the floor, the price book open in his lap. Adrenaline is starting to catch up with him. A sculpture of He Tian’s father—it’s a task he could take or leave. Regardless, he knows what features his hands will form when he’s next in his studio.
Sometimes that happens—a glimpse of a stranger on the subway, the woman who packs his groceries at a market, the officer at a stoplight.
There is something about them so distinct that Guan Shan has to commit their faces to the clay just to clear them from his mind, like sucking out the venom of a snake's bite. Guan Shan has never thought it until now, until seeing him in person, but it’s with impossible certainty that he realises he would know the shape and feel of He Tian’s lips with his eyes closed.
/
thank you for reading! if you'd like to support me on my ko-fi/request a short drabble, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/agapaic 💞
