Chapter 102: I WON’T LET ANYONE WALK OVER MY HEAD

The attendant was right behind her, practically shaking. "Sir, I’m sorry, I should’ve said something, I know I should’ve said something, please, I’ve got rent due next week, thirty thousand dollars, I don’t have thirty thousand dollars, please sir, please..."

Caldwell looked at them both for a long moment.

Then he looked away.

"Security will escort you both out," he said simply. "Your termination letters will be sent to your registered addresses."

The cashier made a sound that was almost a sob.

The attendant grabbed her arm like he needed the support.

Guiying watched them be walked toward the service exit and felt the same thing he’d felt earlier, standing on this concourse, watching this whole thing unfold.

Nothing.

They’d stood there.

They’d watched.

They’d said nothing while a woman screamed slurs at a paying customer, and they’d said nothing when she raised her hand.

Whatever was landing on them now, they’d had the choice to prevent it and had chosen not to.

He looked away.

Nobody looked at the woman again either.

Commissioner Reeves shook Liuxian’s hand once more on the way out. Caldwell did the same, apologizing a final time with the fervent energy of a man who intended to spend the next week making sure this never appeared anywhere it shouldn’t. The officers filed back through the concourse, the crowd that had gathered had long since dispersed, and the mall resumed its ordinary afternoon as though nothing had happened at all.

Guiying stood with the bag still in his hand.

He looked at it.

He thought about the jacket inside it. The clean face, the weight of it when he’d held it up in the shop. How he’d pointed at the display case and thought of Liuxian immediately, the way it had seemed like the right thing before he’d even finished the thought. The small private satisfaction of buying something for someone without them knowing, of getting it exactly right.

All of that was gone now.

Not because she’d touched it.

But the whole afternoon was on it now, her voice, her words, the concourse, the watching crowd, the red mark on his cheek. It had happened in the middle of something he’d meant to be simple and good, and that was enough.

He couldn’t separate the jacket from any of it anymore.

He walked to the nearest bin.

And dropped the bag in.

Liuxian, who’d turned back toward him, went still.

"What did you throw away?"

"I wanted to give it to you," Guiying said. His voice was even. "I went in because I saw it and thought of you. I wanted it to be the right thing to give you." He paused. "It’s not anymore. It’s just something that happened in the middle of all of this." He looked up at Liuxian. "I’m not giving you that."

Liuxian looked at him for a long moment.

"I’ll find you a better one.." Guiying said. "Without any of this attached to it."

Liuxian was quiet.

"Okay.." he said.

Not you didn’t have to.

Not it would’ve been fine.

Just okay.

The clean, uncomplicated acceptance of someone who understood exactly what Guiying meant and wasn’t going to argue with it.

Something in Guiying’s chest settled.

"Are we going back to the hotel?" he said.

Liuxian’s hand came up and rested briefly at the back of his neck, warm and steady, then dropped.

"Yes.." he said. "We’re going back."

They walked out together through the wide glass doors and into the late afternoon, the city opening up around them, bright and enormous and completely unconcerned with anyone’s afternoon but its own.

Guiying put his hands in his pockets and said nothing for a while.

Then, quietly: "It really was a good jacket."

Liuxian glanced at him sideways. "I’ll take your word for it."

Guiying almost smiled. "You would’ve liked it."

"I believe you.." Liuxian said.

They walked to the parking lot.

Liuxian had taken the wheel himself.

Guiying hadn’t commented on it. He’d simply gotten into the passenger seat and watched Liuxian pull into the New York traffic with the focused quiet of someone who needed something to do with his hands.

He had one hand on the wheel.

The other was over Guiying’s, fingers closed around it with a firmness that wasn’t quite gentle and wasn’t quite rough, just tight.

The kind of hold that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with having no other outlet for whatever was sitting in his chest right now.

Guiying looked at their hands for a moment.

Then out the window.

New York moved past them in the late afternoon light, unhurried and enormous, completely indifferent to anyone’s mood.

The silence in the car had a particular texture to it, not uncomfortable, but full.

The kind that meant something was being held rather than absent.

Liuxian hadn’t spoken since they got in.

Guiying could feel it coming off him.

Not anger exactly or not only anger.

There was something underneath it that sat heavier than that, the kind of quiet that came from watching something happen that you hadn’t been there to stop.

"I should’ve stayed closer," Liuxian said finally. His voice was doing a lot of work to stay even. "I shouldn’t have.."

"It’s okay," Guiying said.

"It’s not."

"Liuxian." Guiying turned to look at him. "It’s okay."

Liuxian’s jaw was set. His eyes stayed on the road. The hand over Guiying’s tightened slightly, then didn’t loosen.

Guiying let him hold on.

He looked back out the window and was quiet for a moment, turning something over.

"You know what today actually did?" he said.

Liuxian glanced at him.

"It reminded me how bad my English is." Guiying said it plainly, without self-pity, the way you stated a problem you’d already decided to solve. "I couldn’t read the sign. I couldn’t follow half of what she was saying until it had already happened. I couldn’t say a single thing to Commissioner Reeves or Caldwell myself...I just stood there while you handled everything." He shook his head. "That’s not happening again."

Liuxian watched the road.

Guiying turned to him, and there was a small smile on his face now, not forced or performed, but confident.

The kind that came from having already made a decision and feeling good about it.

"Next time someone tries something like that, I’ll be ready.." he said. "I’ll work on my English properly. I won’t let anyone walk over my head."

He met Liuxian’s eyes briefly.

"So don’t beat yourself up. You already helped a ton."

He laughed, short and genuine.

"And now they’ll spend the next few years going broke trying to pay that fine."