Long Way Home - Chapter 5

Everyone was excited for the first winter break of senior high, but the thought of four weeks without Lu Feng made me a little upset. It was the first time in my life experiencing this feeling of missing someone, but the person in mind was... a man... urgh.
                   
I took five days to finish the holiday homework we had, and while I was at it, I helped my younger brother with one of his. Yi Chen was busy playing his guitar, willing to give up food and sleep for it. He had become obsessed with Japanese bands, even hugging his secondhand guitar with his fingers moving in his sleep. The group of rascals had even formed a band of their own, its name was... they might not have settled on a name, because I remember being asked to flip through the dictionary with my eyes closed to pick two words. In the end, the first word I chose was "diarrhea", the second "cancer". No matter how you placed them, the name would have a terrible sound to it, hence it was dismissed.

That unlucky boy didn't score well in his finals, and knowing that I had gotten a reward from Mum and Dad after getting third in the level, he came to his cute older brother to borrow some money. I prayed that he would return me the money once he received his red packet during the new year. Even though I knew the money wasn't going to be returned, I still gave it to him. If you had a brother who loved clinging to you from young, sharing even the fifty cents he found on the ground and looked just like you, your heart would melt too.

As long as he didn't play his guitar in the next room at odd hours in the morning.

Yi Chen had gone to his friend's house to practise, so I was bored to death alone. Besides, the drama serial that was on could bore one to tears, so I dazedly watched the commercials, changing the channel or going to the washroom once the serial started again. Mum wanted to watch Chiung Yao's works, so I stayed, becoming incredibly bothered by those middle-aged women crying until the phone rang. Mum was too engrossed to notice, so I got up instinctively and went round the dining table to pick up the phone.

"Hello? Who are you looking for?"

"Xiao Chen?"
                   
I brightened up immediately. "Lu Feng!"
                   
"What happened at home? Why do I hear someone crying so woefully?"
                   
"Shut your trap! Don't curse me, you're the one that's going to have something happen to you, that's just the television program XXXXXX"
                   
"Oh really? We're watching it too."

After competing who could use the most insulting words to criticise Chiung Yao's classic works, Lu Feng suddenly asked, "Xiao Chen, do you miss me?"
                   
"...gross..."
                 
"Do you miss me or not?" he persisted.
                   
"......a little." I felt extremely uncomfortable after saying it aloud, my face slowly turning hot.

"Oh," he sounded really happy. "I missed you so much. My father brought me out to have fun for a few days, and the first thing I did when we got home was to give you a call. How did you spend the last few days?"

"I finished all the assignments." I was as proud as a peacock.

"You're brilliant! Come over a few days before school reopens. .......let me copy some of the homework."
 
"You still dare speak so loudly when you're asking to copy someone else's work?"

Before we knew it, we had actually talked for two whole hours. When I hung up the phone, my left ear had become red from pressing the phone against it.

Turning around, I found that Mum was no longer staring at the television, and was now staring at me.

"A female friend?!"

"It's a male."

Mum was still looking at me with an expression that screamed "you're lying to me" as she nagged, "Xiao Chen ah, you're only in your first year of senior high, don't date anyone yet, it's not good for you. If your father finds out, he'll beat you to death..."

"I'm not seeing anyone. How do you expect any girl to fall for me if you gave me these looks?"

"What looks? You look fine, don't you? Your nose looks like a proper nose, your eyes look like proper eyes."

"......it's just that my nose is positioned above my eyes isn't it?"

"What are you talking about? The aunts living downstairs all say Ah Chen and you were born handsome."

"Mum, you're not saying this just because I look like you right? If I'm ugly, just say so, I won't blame you."

"Hey, when you were born, you weren't the least bit ugly. Go take a look at the photo on your birth certificate, look at how big your eyes were, it was you who made them smaller by crying all the time..."

I made a beeline for my room, leaving Mum and her nagging outside the door.

After that day, Lu Feng made a call every single day. Once Mum, Dad and even Yi Chen had taken turns picking up and confirmed he was a male, they no longer questioned me. But being a mother, she would never run out of things to nag about.

"Xiao Chen ah, don't spend too much time talking to your friend on the phone, the bills are not cheap. One phone call of yours could pay for a poor family's month worth of meals..."

"Mum, you don't have to be so concerned with our country and its people. He's the one who calls, not me, and his family isn't the least bit poor."

"Aiya, you two can talk to each other when you go back to school too. A long distance call within the state costs sixty cents per minute, that means it'll be thirty-six dollars for an hour, and seventy-two dollars for two hours..." Mum's math was rarely this good. "Youngsters these days don't know how hard it is for their parents to make money..."

After listening to her nagging for a whole day, when Lu Feng called at night, I worriedly told him, "Let's not talk for too long, it must have cost you quite an amount after all these hours."

"Okay, I won't call from tomorrow onwards."

"......" I was stupefied. "You're... you're really straightforward."

"I've always been straightforward."

"......I'll call you tomorrow instead then."

"That doesn't mean your calls are free. There's no need."

"......" Maybe he had always found me annoying, but I was just too slow in realising.

I could no longer get my spirits up, and even though I hung up the phone early to go to bed, I couldn't fall asleep.

Lu Feng...... well...... Lu Feng...... That fellow was really hateful.

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Translator's note: I thought I should clarify something in the chapter for those who might be confused. All this time, you've been reading the story from Yi Chen's point of view, and by Yi Chen, I meant the older brother, 亦辰. Note, his younger brother's name has the exact same pronunciation and spelling (in English), but the characters used in Chinese are different, which is 亦晨. As for how 辰 and 晨 differs in their meaning, our main character will give a short explanation in a chapter far far away :))

Chapter 4

Chapter 6