"Who is walking home right now? Zhēng Yù, my medicine man who can heal anything, or is it…" The cheerful, upbeat smooth voice of his best friend broke his brooding anger and unhappiness that boiled inside him like a great big ball of churning lava. Hot and unpredictable, but ready to melt the entire world in its path and cover it with a hardened layer. The kind you couldn't get through once it finished rolling down and covering everything in its tracks.
"It's Zhēng xí, walking home with you." Zhēng Yù responded, despondently hoping that San would get the drift and buzz off. That is without having to directly confront him and tell him that he needed to get lost. That he wasn't in the mood for all of Santiago's pep right now was an understatement.
'He had just been proposed to in a text… A Text!'
"Hey, I love just Zhēng xí too. He is just as awesome as any other version of you." Santiago said, beaming as if unaware of the massive storm cloud he had just poked and that was about to break and rain down all of its terror, it had been saving up over the mass that was time.
"No, not me, I mean, I am the tin man from the Wizard of Oz."
"Oh, that's cool, I love him, he is funny," Santiago responded. "I always thought about the fact that they had to paint that guy all shin.."
"I would be happy to be him right now. It must be handy to not have a heart sometimes." Zhēng Yù stated darkly.
Santiago paused mid-sentence.
"Hey, don't say that, it's just one minor setback." he soothed immediately, wrapping his arms around Zhēng Yù.
Zhēng Yù turned to look over at Santiago.
"Shut up, San." He said flatly.
"Oh, come on Zhēng Yù! It's Ēn Chén, Whatever! Seriously, anything he did or said before doesn't matter because you will forgive him. He is always making stupid mistakes. Let's be honest, whatever he did can't even be that bad, it's you, you always forgive him."
Zhēng Yù stopped walking and looked up at his friend, who was standing up straight, hands in his pockets, looking totally at ease and carefree in the world. A large happy smile on his face, all while he slouched forward, ready to give up on the world.
"He proposed to me." Zhēng Yù grimaced.
"Oh my god, really! That's awesome, why are you so upset? That's what you have always been dream…" San started.
"In a text message. Ēn Chén asked in a text message, San." Zhēng Yù interrupted San partway through his excited raving.
"And not to marry me. He proposed to me not to marry me."
"Wait? What? How does that even?" Santiago asked slowly, his brain breaking from the confusion.
"A fake proposal," Zhēng Yù stated sharply.
"Just for a short time. Ēn Chén only wants to be married for a short time, to cheat having his parents pick someone else out for him, another dude." Zhēng Yù elaborated flatly.
"Why?" San asked.
"He wants to get married to keep both of our parents off his back, all that bugging him so much about marriage, he just wants it to end. He needs the peace and quiet. You know, while he gets ready to finish his last few months of his doctorate and get his degree. You know, before he leaves for Africa for the mission and to get them off his back because of…" Zhēng Yù let his voice falter off not wanting to say the words that crushed him.
"Our moms and dads have been pushing him to find someone he can be with forever… A guy. And the only way they would stop…"
"Was with the person they originally wanted him with all along." San finished.
Zhēng Yù nodded, feeling utterly pathetic.
'A consolation prize… I became a means to an end. Just what is my friendship with you Ēn Chén? How could you even think this was okay? Don't you know this hurts?'
"You know they don't mean to push anything."
"But you know his moms, they have been secretly praying for this day to happen. The whole reason your parents became best friends was because they were banding together as the only gay couples back then at your private school."
"I hate it, I wish it had never happened."
"Awe come on, man, you don't mean that. Your friendship with Ēn Chén has meant everything to you guys."
"I hate that they wanted us both to be as much like them as we could be, and he just… They had hoped." Zhēng Yù closed his eyes and sighed.
'For the day when their son would come out and be openly and happily gay, except he never will like guys.' Zhēng Yù looked at his phone as it buzzed in his hands. Ēn Chén was calling. He slammed the phone into his pocket with a vengeance and winced as the metal slammed into his thigh.
"Honestly, I think Ēn Chén just wants them to be happy before he leaves. So how can I even expect anything less from Ēn Chén? He is always coming up with stupid half-thought-through ideas." Zhēng Yù stated as if lying through his teeth about the real reason Ēn Chén was doing this would make him feel better.
Zhēng Yù's phone pinged.
He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it up.
Meet you at our spot tonight. We really should talk about this.
…
The three dots bounced up and down as Ēn Chén wrote, and Zhēng Yù waited for the next message to appear.
I know it's going to be awkward, but can you just hear me out? I don't want to hurt anyone, especially you. I hate when you are mad at me Zhēng Yù. Can't you just hear me out? Please?
Anyway, I will be waiting near the oak tree, midnight. Just like always.
Zhēng Yù turned the phone around so that Santiago could read it.
San nodded slowly.
"See, told you the dolt probably doesn't even know you're mad. Which, by the way, might I add, he would know if you just told him you are in love with him already."
"San… You know I can't." Zhēng Yù started.
"That's such an excuse." Santiago snapped judiciously.
"You could tell him." He stared at him, a smidgen of his beautiful Hispanic accent heat flaring up as he became heated and passionate about the topic he had been so adamant about for the past five years.
"You could, Zhēng Yù." He said softer, all that heat deflating out of him harmlessly.
"You are just afraid of getting hurt. Afraid of letting go of those sixteen years' worth of loving him as a friend and then as something more. Because saying it out loud would get you a real answer, and then your fantasies would fizzle and die out. Because… Reality would leave you no choice and instead, just replace those fantasies of yours without your permission at all. And when you have held onto a dream that long… Letting it go, finding out the reality inside of it. Well, it's scary."
Zhēng Yù shoved his hands in his pocket and then ran his thumb along the front of the screen of his phone. He stared up at the sky at the big bushy, fluffy white clouds, so filled with light, that they bounced the setting pink and orange rays of the sun around as if they were playing with the light. The sky is bright and hopeful even in its last goodbye.
'Telling you how I feel? Can I really do that? I am not brave.'
'Not even close.'
Not when I already know what's in both of our hearts.
Not when I know they don't match.