A thin layer of dust covered the studio's glass windows. As Ah Yu stood on a high stool wiping the glass, his sleeve brushed against the wall, and the falling white dust landed right on the half-dead potted green ivy in the corner. He clicked his tongue and was about to call Zhong Hua to come and change the soil when he saw Zhong Hua carrying a long, rectangular paper tube, the heels of his leather shoes stained with raindrops from that morning.
"What good stuff?" Ah Yu jumped off the stool, the camera still hanging around her neck, the lens cap not yet fastened, wobbling and bumping into his ribs. Zhong Hua placed the paper tube on the table; the kraft paper at both ends was tightly wrapped with tape, but the edges were still frayed. "You said you needed a world map last time," he said, reaching to untie the tape. As his fingertips rubbed against the adhesive residue, they revealed thin calluses from years of holding a camera.
Ah Yu leaned closer to look. As the map unfolded, it released a fragrant scent of paper, the edges curling with a musty smell from an old bookstore. "Where did you find this?" He traced the curve of the Pacific Ocean with his fingertips, suddenly remembering the plastic map on the wall of their college dormitory, which the three of them had scribbled all over with markers—Zhong Hua had marked the Arctic they wanted to go to, Lin Wanqing had circled Kyoto during cherry blossom season, and he had drawn a crooked camera in Qinghai.
“The old town’s flea market,” Zhong Hua smoothed out the creases on the map. “The owner said this is a 1990s version, which has more of a human touch than the new map.” Ah Yu didn’t reply, but simply took out a red pen, hovered it over the map for a moment, and then drew a full red circle around Qinghai, the ink seeping through the paper like a heart beating on the yellowed pages.
Zhong Hua's gaze lingered on the red circle for three seconds before he turned to go to the break room to make coffee. Amidst the hum of the boiling kettle, he heard Ah Yu sigh as she looked at the map: "If we hadn't been caught in that typhoon, we would have been standing under the stars at Chaka Salt Lake long ago." The steam from the cup blurred Zhong Hua's vision. He remembered the summer after his university graduation, when the three of them waited all night at the train station with their cameras, only to be stranded by the typhoon. Ah Yu had been squatting on the platform crying, the windmill pendant hanging from her camera bag spinning wildly in the wind, irritating him.
That evening, Lin Wanqing made pork rib and lotus root soup. The flames licked the bottom of the clay pot, the bubbling sound mingling with the rustling of Ah Yu flipping through photo albums. "Look at this one," Ah Yu said, holding up a yellowed photograph, "we took this in the dormitory hallway. Zhong Hua was still wearing his military training uniform." Zhong Hua paused, his hand still holding the pork ribs. He was standing ramrod straight in the photo, Ah Yu laughing with her arm around his shoulder, and Lin Wanqing holding up the camera, the lens cap still on.
“Next week is my birthday,” Ah Yu suddenly said, stirring a small whirlpool in the soup bowl with her spoon. “How about we take a trip to make up for it?” Lin Wanqing almost spat out the soup she had just drunk. “Didn’t you say you were going to cook longevity noodles at home for your birthday?” Ah Yu’s gaze drifted to the map on the wall, the red circles glowing warmly in the twilight. “I suddenly want to see if the starry sky we didn’t get to see ten years ago is still there waiting for us.”
Zhong Hua put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a tissue: "I'll be free at the beginning of next month." Ah Yu's eyes lit up, like stars that had been lit up: "Really?" Zhong Hua nodded, got up and went to the kitchen to get rice. As he passed the entrance, he quietly took out his phone, opened the ticketing app, hovered his finger over the words "Qinghai" for a moment, and finally pressed the confirm button.
At night, Ah Yu rummaged through drawers looking for his windbreaker. The smell of mothballs wafted from deep within the closet, making him sneeze. The navy blue windbreaker lay at the bottom of the drawer, the rust on the zipper like a brown scar, and a hole in the cuff that had appeared out of nowhere, the loose threads curling up like a huddled insect. As he stared blankly at the hole, Zhong Hua walked in carrying a folded stack of washed shirts. Seeing the clothes in Ah Yu's hands, his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
“Throw it away,” Zhong Hua said, putting the shirt into the closet. “I just bought you a new one last week, waterproof.” Ah Yu pulled the jacket closer to his chest. “This is different,” he said, running his fingertips along the edge of the hole. “This is the one I wore when I was preparing to go to Qinghai. Look at these salt grains; they’re from when I tried it on at the beach.” Zhong Hua didn’t try to persuade him further. He turned and rummaged through a drawer in his study, pulling out a sewing box. The brass lock on the wooden box was oxidized, and it made a soft “click” when opened, like unlocking a long-forgotten secret.
The lamplight cast a soft glow on Zhong Hua's hand. He held the needle somewhat clumsily, the thread failing to pass through the eye of the needle after three attempts. Ah Yu, watching him thread the needle while leaning over the table, suddenly burst out laughing: "You used to be unable to even open a water bottle cap, and now you can actually hold a needle and thread." Zhong Hua paused in his threading motion, the tips of his ears flushing slightly in the lamplight: "I learned it from a housekeeping channel the other day."
Ah Yu suddenly burst into laughter, the sound so loud it shook the photo frame on the table. It was a group photo of the three of them taken in the studio last year. Ah Yu was holding up the camera, covering half of his face, Lin Wanqing was leaning on his shoulder and laughing, and Zhong Hua was standing on the far right, his lips taut, but on his left, out of the camera's view, he was quietly holding onto the back of Ah Yu's chair.
“Speaking of which,” Ah Yu poked Zhong Hua’s hand with her fingertip, “back in the dorm, you didn’t even know how to wash your socks. You always piled them up and asked Wan Qing to help you.” Zhong Hua’s finger suddenly twisted, and the needle tip poked a small hole in the fabric. He lowered his head and bit off the thread. The stitches crawled crookedly on the cuff, like a string of misaligned stars: “People always have to learn to grow up.”
Ah Yu didn't say anything more, but rummaged through the drawer and pulled out a small tin box. When he opened it, the windmill pendant inside jingled—it was the same one from back then, only the plastic blades had turned yellow. "Take this one too," he said, fastening the pendant to the zipper of his windbreaker, "as a way of giving back to us from back then." When Zhong Hua looked up, he saw Ah Yu smiling at the pendant, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes gleaming with light, brighter than a desk lamp.
The day before departure, Zhong Hua went to the supermarket and bought three large bags of compressed biscuits, and also stuffed a packet of allergy medicine into the side pocket of his backpack—Ah Yu's rhinitis flares up every time the seasons change, and the salt in Qinghai might make him feel uncomfortable. Lin Wanqing, who was tidying up her camera bag next to him, suddenly pointed at Zhong Hua's backpack and laughed: "This isn't a trip, it's practically moving house." Zhong Hua stuffed the last bottle of sunscreen in: "Last time at Qinghai Lake, Ah Yu got sunburned on his arm and cried half the night."
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