Yunlan kept his word, and while they were at work he never did anything as inappropriate as holding his hand or trying to kiss him anymore.
Wei was relieved.

They spent their lunch breaks chatting together, and began going out on their free days. Yunlan took him around Rome, made him try new things out, see lots of places and they chatted all the time.

With him, Wei experienced his first pizza. After walking along Via della Croce they arrived in Piazza di Spagna: even Wei had heard of the famous Spanish Square but he had never ventured this far so he had never actually seen it before.

His eyes wandered around in curiosity until Yunlan pulled him towards a bakery insisting he should taste a slice of pizza.
"Ten months here and you never tried it once! I didn't wait ten days! Come on, you'll love it," Yunlan said entering the place without hesitation.

Wei stayed back while Yunlan ordered for both, admiring how he sounded confident when he asked "io voglio questo. E questo. (I want this. And this)."
"Lo mangi subito? (Are you going to eat it now?)" The girl behind the counter asked.
"Io mangio. Si. (I eat. Yes.)" He replied with enthusiasm. She smiled at him and heated the two slices of pizza while he paid. She gave him the change and wrapped the slices together before giving them to him with another smile "Grazie, arrivederci (thank you, goodbye.)"
"Grazie te (thanks you)" He replied and walked out, extremely pleased to be faced with a very impressed Wei. He had been listening by the door and had his mouth open in awe. "You speak Italian so well!"

Yunlan showed him his biggest grin and lead him towards the Spanish Steps. There were so many people that they chose not to sit until they had climbed more than twenty steps. Yunlan sat down and Wei joined him.

Yunlan had conveniently 'forgotten' to tell the woman that the slices were for two people, so she had wrapped them together and now they sat close to each other and shared it.

Wei frowned seeing all the litterings around left by uncaring tourists or careless locals, Yunlan laughed and they picked up everything and went in search of a bin.

~~

Yunlan was beyond surprised that Wei had never seen the Trevi Fountain. "How is that possible? You've been here ten months!"

Yunlan had enjoyed his first week in Rome seeing as much as possible, but Wei had always been too uncomfortable wandering around by himself, what if he got lost? Who could he ask for help?

Yunlan was about to ask why hadn't he asked a friend to show him around before, but something in the other's demeanour told him it was better to let it go.

He took him to see it now and explained to a bewildered Wei why there were so many coins inside the fountain.
"Is it like a Wishes Well?"

"It's more of a tradition, if you can see where your coin lands it means you will come back to Rome again. I never did it though, since I arrived I knew I wasn't going away any time soon."
Yunlan certainly didn't regret his decision now, basking in the open admiration he could detect in the other's eyes.

He also took him to see the Mouth of Truth, where he dared him to put his hand in its mouth.
"Why should I?" Wei asked.

"It's the mouth of truth, if you say a lie it will bite your hand off."

"Don't be silly."

"It's true. If you don't believe me why don't you try?"

Wei stared at his grinning face then said, "I'm having so much fun with you." And he put his hand in.
Nothing happened, and he smiled a cunning one. "And I always say the truth," he added retracting his hand.
"Your turn."

"I like you," Yunlan said doing like Wei did before. He inserted his hand in and after a second he let out a scream stumbling forward, clutching his own arm that had gone deeper inside.

"Yunlan!" Wei screamed and immediately tried to help him.
Yunlan showed him his perfectly fine hand laughing like crazy, and Wei punched him on the shoulder, embarrassed for having been fooled so easily.

"You should really watch some movies, I can't believe you fell for it."
Wei looked angry at being mocked like this, so Yunlan leaned closer and whispered, "besides, I didn't lie."

Remembering his previous words, Wei blushed and turned his face the other way.
Yunlan was smart and very funny and despite his pretend annoyance Wei had a fantastic time with him. He really liked his company.

From that day onwards every free moment they had they spent it together, and sometimes they ate at Yunlan's place where they shared kisses that became more and more significant, but Yunlan never went too far and Wei appreciated it.

They spent most of their time talking; Yunlan chatted a lot, and Wei tried his best to be sociable. Yunlan talked of the first weeks he spent in Rome, of all the people he met, all the things he saw, he laughed recalling how he joked with a guy named Fabio, how they would walk into a bar and everyone would be left staring speechless after he used some dialect words or expressions. "Their faces were so funny, you should have seen them."

Wei laughed a bit. "Do you still do it?"

"Naaah, they know me now so it doesn't work anymore."

Wei thought of how different they were, he would have been so uncomfortable being stared at, he would have never tried dialect words afraid of being mocked, but Yunlan seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself, he was really blessed with a positive attitude.

Yunlan talked of various friends, of weird customer requests like that time a woman asked for 'that thing I saw yesterday on tv' not giving him the slightest clue about what it could be because she 'didn't remember', he talked of all the things he ate and where they could go to eat them together, like some local dishes or that Indian restaurant that he swore served delicious food. "Just a little bit spicy but I love it," and also many other things.
He seemed to never be at a loss for words or episodes to entertain him with.

Wei thought long and hard of what he could contribute to the conversations and told him of the time he won a students competition and his friend Chu had been cheering so loudly for him that he had felt encouraged and able to win his fears; of all the times he played with Chu and his dog, teaching Poochi a lot of tricks that amazed his friend; he recalled when he tried for the first and last time to join a sport's team failing miserably, he had been so sad that day but then Chu told him that not everyone had to be good at sports, every one had his strong and weak points and he only had to focus on the things he could do better...

Until one day Yunlan turned to look at him with a serious but tender expression. "You always talk about this person, he must have been really important to you."
Wei blushed, it hadn't been his intention to talk so much about him, it was just that all his fondest memories included Chu.

"He was... still is, but we haven't seen each other in a long time. He was my best friend, I grew up with him. He was older than me, but he didn't seem to mind that I kept turning up wherever he was, I probably won him by exhaustion and then we did everything together until I was sixteen."

"He must have been really special. I would have liked to meet you when you were younger."

"Oh no, you haven't missed anything, I wasn't a better company back then."
The reply was immediate and Yunlan frowned, why did he talk like that about himself?

"I like your company!" Yunlan stated firmly, as if challenging him to protest.

Wei said nothing.

"What about your parents?" Yunlan wanted to know why young Wei became so attached to an older figure like his apparently only friend.
"They're good people, they love me and I love them."

It wasn't enough of an answer, so Yunlan encouraged him to go on. "And... what did you do together?"
Wei looked startled. "Together? Well... they were very busy you know, and I was so quiet it was so easy to even forget I was present..."

Yunlan had always been the exact opposite, so much so that his parents had a hard time finding a quiet moment for themselves.
He didn't press him on the matter, he wanted to know so much more on Wei's life but he hoped they would have many other chances for that.

Wei kept thinking about it though. He really did stick to Chu like glue, why had his friend never told him off?

That night before going to sleep he couldn't help himself and wrote him a letter.
>How could you bear to spend all your time with a child like me?

His fingers lingered on the keyboard for a long time, he wanted to say so many things but nothing more came out. Frustrated, he pressed send thinking that simple question summed it all up.

The next moment he cursed modern technology. Had it been a normal paper letter he would have torn it to pieces now. He already regretted sending it, but there was nothing he could do.

He changed and went to bed, but restless thoughts swirled in his mind making it nearly impossible to get any sleep at all.