It was Friday.

Wei had warned Qiqi not to wait for him because he would go out with Yunlan that night.

He worked all day feeling the usual anxiousness bottle up inside him.

During the day Qiqi came to the store to talk to Mrs. Chen; the woman's curiosity was great and she had blamed her husband for not calling her right away when he learned the news, so she had insisted on meeting her personally.

Yunlan saw Qiqi entering and moved to talk to her, but a customer held him behind.
When he was free again he looked around but didn't see her anywhere. He saw a coworker and approached her to ask, "I saw Qiqi earlier, is she still here?"

"Who?"
"She's a friend of Wei's, I saw her before and..."
"Oh you mean Wei's girlfriend, I think she went to the boss's office."
With a wave, the coworker left a shocked Yunlan to his own thoughts.
Did she really say girlfriend?

Maybe he misunderstood, it had to be a misunderstanding, Wei was going out with him, they had a date that same night, why would he accept if he had chosen to have a girlfriend?

He saw another coworker and feigned ignorance, repeating the same question he had asked earlier.
The guy snorted. "Oh yeah, Wei's girlfriend. Why such a pretty girl chose that arrogant jerk is beyond me. Anyway, no I don't know where she is."

Yunlan watched him walk away in angry silence, how dare he talk like that about his Wei? He wasn't an arrogant jerk! He was the sweetest soul he had ever met in his life!

He suppressed his anger, knowing that Wei wouldn't like it if he fought someone for something like that.

But after the anger subsided he was confronted again with the same doubts: what was all that talking of a girlfriend?

Yunlan thought of Wei's words and wondered trying to repress his fear, was he by any chance trying to live a lie to avoid people's judgement?

He thought about it all day, he just couldn't get it out of his mind. It wasn't difficult to avoid Wei since they both had to work, but when the time came to head out together instead of calming down he had managed to work himself up to the point he was about to explode.

When they met at the door and Wei said, "Ready?" he simply nodded grunting something inaudible.

Wei looked puzzled but didn't say anything and they walked in silence.
When they arrived at the usual takeaway restaurant Yunlan told him, "Wait here, you don't want them to see us together."

He regretted the harsh tone he had used, but there was nothing he could do. They needed to talk, he needed to know once and for all what it was that they had, what were they for each other?

He bought food for two and together they reached his apartment. They stepped in and as soon as they closed the door Yunlan said, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Wei's eyes widened, Yunlan added, "Something about having a girlfriend, maybe?"

Wei gasped. "I wanted to tell you, about that..."
Yunlan covered his face with his hands, only now realising he had really been hoping for a misunderstanding.
"So it's true, you want to live a 'normal' life? Then why are you here, what am I, what are we?"

Wei stuttered. "No that's not... I can't... she isn't... I mean she is but..."

Yunlan had had enough, he wanted clear answers this time.

"Is she your girlfriend? Yes or no?"

"Y...yes... officially she is but..."

Yunlan threw his hands in the air, exasperated. "What does that mean? She either is or she isn't!"

Wei closed his eyes and took a deep breath, it had been his intention to explain everything to him tonight so he was prepared.
"She only plays a part, Yunlan, she agreed to stay with me and pretend to be my girlfriend so that my parents may believe it."

"But your parents are not here! Why...?"

"Gossip travels fast Yunlan. Mr. Chen told his wife, she wrote to her cousin who commented about it at the local shop back home. Not even a day and my parents and everyone in town had heard about it."

○○○

Actually what happened was that as soon as Mr. Chen told his wife, as he always told her everything that happened, she got all flustered and asked him lots of questions about the girl. Hearing that she was a fine young woman and the two seemed rather fond of each other, she had wasted no time in writing an outraged email to her cousin in China.
>I did tell you that Wei was a good person that couldn't be as sneaky as you said! I was right in letting him work here, his behaviour has always been impeccable and now he has a pretty girlfriend right here! You and your gossip!

Her cousin read the email and had her husband read it too. "You told me he tried to ruin Feng's life!"

"Our neighbour said that he heard at the bakery that Wei made BeiBei cry with his lies, why are you blaming me now!" He said, and went to talk to the man in question.

She huffed and went to the bakery. "If my cousin says he has a girlfriend then he has a girlfriend! He acted very respectfully with her husband, he doesn't seem anything like you said!"

It turned out that the bakery owner had heard from her son that had heard it from his friends that BeiBei was furious for something Wei did, and she had recently been dumped by Feng for unknown reasons, so they guessed Wei had to have something to do with said reason.

BeiBei and Feng weren't living there anymore, they had eventually married and moved to the big city. They couldn't be questioned directly even if someone actually had the guts to do so.

Soon everyone started asking who said what, and when the next morning Wei's mother went to shop at the local market for some meat and vegetables, she got greeted with, "Do you have a picture of Wei's wife? I heard she's so pretty! Why did they get married so far away?"

The poor woman tried to evade questions and hurried home where Yezun was thoroughly interrogated before he snapped and wrote to his brother.

○○○

Yunlan walked back and forth in the room to let out his frustration. "Is it necessary to go that far just to make your parents believe that you're straight?"

"It's not easy, they're bound to be shocked..."

"Only at first! But then they'll come around, have you even tried?"

"My father might not have the chance to come around."

Yunlan stopped pacing the room. "Why?"

"He has a heart condition, a sudden shock might be too much for him. Maybe not, maybe he knows, maybe he might take it well, but I'm not taking that chance."
Wei's monotone voice contrasted Yunlan's heated tone.

Yunlan remained silent for a bit, he couldn't object to that, but... "Still, you already went so far away, does it really matter now?"

Wei sighed, Yunlan couldn't understand because he didn't have the whole picture. "I need to tell you something."

Yunlan heard the serious, pained tone of his voice and nodded, sitting on a chair to give him his full attention.