I'm thinking today about Lu Guang's next best friend. The one he meets, after Cheng Xiaoshi. How in the beginning of their friendship, they notice how Lu Guang gets anxious around the idea of autumn. They hear him mention how September is his least favorite month, and it takes several years of assuming it's to do with the weather before they find out the real reason why. Or how he has a precise eye of how to take a photo, and he tells them that his best friend taught him how--his other best friend, no, you've never met him. He passed away, two years ago. Thanks, man. We don't have to talk about it.
I wonder how long it took before this new best friend saw Lu Guang cry. I think when it happened, it was when Lu Guang least expected it. Because he thought he was doing fine, and then something twists, reality twinges, and Cheng Xiaoshi's ghost is visible even to them before they even knew his name.
I wonder how the best friend worried about Lu Guang. Knowing that there was a grief and sorrow that they did not understand, did not know how to care for just yet. They loved through trial and error, awkward and clumsy and earnest. They feel like they could have done more, but they didn't know how.
If Lu Guang had a new best friend--and he would, he has many years ahead of him, and so much love to spread around--he would learn to love things he hadn't indulged in before. Maybe his new best friend introduces him to Korean food. Maybe they share a tradition, like exchanging homemade dumplings during the holidays, or hiking a new mountain every summer. Maybe they teach him about species of jellyfish, or the history of the Smurfs, or how to say curse words in Russian. I think it would happen so slowly, so naturally, he doesn't realise how new it all is to him until he sits back and wishes he could tell Cheng Xiaoshi about all of it, because he misses sharing a life with his friend.
Maybe they met on the basketball court, but I don't think so. I don't think Lu Guang has touched a basketball in a while, and his new best friend is a bit asthmatic so it all works out. But at one point they'll be passing a court and a couple of kids ask them to throw back a runaway ball. Lu Guang will shoot it across the chain link fence with surprising arm and ease, and his new best friend would say, I didn't know you could play basketball!
Not for a while, Lu Guang would say. My friend and I used to play a lot when we were in school.
The new best friend would have an inkling that he means the one who died, the one whose name Lu Guang mentions only to his intimates, and it'll take some time before they are included.
It might take a year or two to learn the name of Lu Guang's deceased friend. Cheng Xiaoshi. Lu Guang shared it as if it were made of gossamer glass. He missed saying it as much as he missed hearing it as much as he was terrified that he would fall apart as soon as he said it. But once he said it, he starved to tell his new best friend again, and again, and again. Cheng Xiaoshi. His name was Cheng Xiaoshi. I had a best friend named Cheng Xiaoshi.
They're a little nervous to say it, sometimes, because there are little opportunities to need it. They never met Cheng Xiaoshi before. They have no mutual friends except for Lu Guang. It feels shy, almost unearned, and yet the first time they say Cheng Xiaoshi's name (my old roommate--oh, was it Cheng Xiaoshi?) Lu Guang's heart skips a beat. He was here, Lu Guang remembers. He was here once, and he existed, and all of this missing isn't just my imagination.
(Do you have a picture of him?) Tons. Well, stupid ones. He liked taking photos more. Um. Here. You can scroll around.
(He looks so joyful.) He was. ...you know, this one time, he and I went on a trip and...
(He sounds like such a funny guy.) You have no idea. He used to always laugh at this joke about a cucumber that...
(I wish I had gotten to meet him.) I wish you did too.