Chapter Text
There was a sharp pain in his lower abdomen and he was instantly shaken awake from his nightmare. Feeling around blindly in the darkness of his room, he felt soft hair and relaxed knowing it was Chengling.
“Daddy,” whispered the bundle of warmth clutching onto him like a vine.
“What’s wrong? Bad dream?” he said groggily as he patted his head in a reassuring manner.
It was quiet for a moment before he felt Chengling shake his head. It was too dark to see anything besides the glow of the digital clock on his night stand that informed him it was 3:20 in the morning. “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” Chengling said, though it came out muffled as he pressed his face deeper into Zhou Zishu’s belly. He sighed. He also did not want Chengling to go to school. But he couldn’t keep him under his protective bubble forever.
“You were so excited about the first grade yesterday. What happened?”
Chengling lifted his head up and said, “I forgot that you weren’t coming with me.” He could sense that Chengling was going to cry from the way his breathing was becoming uneven and quick.
“Hey don’t worry, I’ll be right here when you get home. If you’re good and brave, I’ll buy you pizza tomorrow.” At the mention of pizza, Chengling brightened, though when Zhou Zishu felt his face, he knew a few silent tears had managed to escape. Junk food of any kind had become a rarity after Chengling was born so this news was particularly exciting. “Ok,” Chengling said weakly.“Can I sleep here tonight?”
Instead of answering, Zhou Zishu simply moved Chengling next to him and wrapped an arm around him protectively. His nights were blissfully dreamless whenever he slept like this. As his eyes shut he heard Chengling whisper again, “I’ll protect you from the monster in your nightmares.” He must have heard him thrashing around before he came into the room. He didn’t know how his genes could have produced such a sweet child. He ignored the nudging in his mind reminding him there were two gene pools to consider.
The drive to school was unusually quiet though silence was better than crying. Chengling took his promise to be brave with the gravity of a mortician and Zhou Zishu thought it was adorable.
It was a 20 minute drive though that was to be expected from living so far in the middle of nowhere. His hands were tighter on the wheel than usual as Zhou Zishu tried to quiet his irrational concerns. Logically, he knew Chengling would be ok. He continued repeating this reassurance to himself as he walked Chengling to the door, blending in with the sea of parents that had come to do the same. It had been a long time since he had felt bitterness looking at happy couples and their children. He himself did not have parents and was inured to the unfairness of life from a young age. He did not have either parent growing up, but at least Chengling had one. He had never felt strong resentment for his own life’s misfortunes but with Chengling it was different. His beautiful Chengling deserved to have two loving parents instead of only Zhou Zishu, who constantly felt as unsure with his parenting decisions as a newborn deer on wobbly legs.
Life was not about who was deserving or not, he thought as he took a deep breath and loosened his grip on Chengling’s hand which he had unconsciously been gripping the way he had been gripping the steering wheel. He needed to calm down. Things would get harder, he knew, once Chengling realized the majority of children had two parents. He dreaded the questions that would follow the realization and he often contemplated lying to him and saying that his other father had died loving and wishing to meet him. How could he bring himself to tell Chengling his own father did not know he existed? That he had left Zhou Zishu so abruptly and coldly that the shock made him numb to the symptoms of pregnancy. If it had not been for Yi Baiyi, a friend of his adoptive father, coming to check up on him after 4 months of complete silence, Zhou Zishu might have not realized he was pregnant until he was pushing him out. Even in his belly, Chengling had been calm and gentle as though he could feel Zhou Zishu’s distress and did not want to make it worse. It still felt like Chengling was doing that.
The truth was too terrible to admit to himself most days. There was no way he could do that to Chengling. He would figure out how to deal with that problem when it came. He wanted to be mentally present for the goodbye hug as the doors opened and children flooded inside but he could not stop the sense of dread that crept over him like a shadow as he told Chengling to smile and have fun before letting him go.
Some children were crying and clinging to their parents around them and he was glad his was not one of them as he watched him disappear behind the door. If he had walked two feet to his left, he would’ve been able to see Chengling’s new teacher who was standing just inside the doorway, but he didn’t want to let this growing anxiety get any worse. He walked away to his car and cried once the door was shut behind him. He was a hypocrite for telling Chengling to be brave.
As the days passed, it became easier to drop Chengling off at school though the gnawing anxiety that something terrible would happen never completely dissipated. It stayed on the fringes of his mind like the thread of an old sweater that had come loose. This feeling remained even as Chengling woke up more and more excited to go to school each day. Sometimes waking up before Zhou Zishu did, excitedly claiming that he and some of the other children were going to meet up to play tag before school began. After school, Chengling would be bursting with words, trying to express just how amazing his day had been. What he always seemed most excited to talk about was Mr. K, his teacher. There was always a whimsical story about something he’d done during class to teach or entertain the children. Chengling once forgot his lunch box in the car in his excitement to get to class and Mr. K had apparently given him half his sandwich and macaroons he had made himself. Afterwards, Chengling would not stop begging Zhou Zishu for macaroons at least once a week. Zhou Zishu had no idea where to buy them, much less make them from scratch. He was just glad that Chengling had such a kind teacher.
A month at school came and went as quickly as the leaves began turning various shades of orange and yellow. It would soon be time for parent teacher conferences. Zhou Zishu found himself excited to meet this wonderful and mysterious teacher Chengling was always raving about. A week before he was to meet Mr. K, Chengling said something that froze Zhou Zishu in place as though not moving would make the situation go away. Chengling asked if he could learn to play the flute.
Eventually, Zhou Zishu gingerly put down the dish he had been washing and turned to him. “Why do you want to play the flute?” He tried to keep the anxiety from reaching his voice but he knew he sounded pained as Chengling turned inwards the way he did when admitting he had done something wrong.
He seemed to hesitate before speaking, “Um, Mr. K brought his flute to class today. It sounded so pretty I really want to play too!”
Zhou Zishu knew he was behaving irrationally. Of course Chengling was bound to develop some of his other father’s proclivities. It had been easy to ignore when Chengling was a baby. Babies did not have much of a discernible personality. If Chengling preferred sweet foods over bitter foods, the type Zhou Zishu preferred, then that could be excused away as all children preferring sweet things until they came of age. Small things like that were easy to ignore.
This flute, however, was extremely specific and idiosyncratic of his other father. Just hearing the word ‘flute’ conjured images of long afternoons basking in the sun at a park they had frequented: Zhou Zishu napping in the grass, lulled by the sweet sound of the flute. It’s wielder, always smiling. Smiling at Zhou Zishu as he played on warm spring afternoons after their classes had finished for the day. He hadn’t realized just how much this would hurt him. The knowledge that, though he was gone, he had unknowingly gifted his child with the love of music.
He hadn’t realized he was tearing up until Chengling was clinging to his legs, looking up at him with his big, sad eyes. “Please don’t be sad. I’m sorry. Nevermind, I don’t want to play the flute anymore.” His sweet child, always trying to make him feel better when it should be the other way around. Zhou Zishu tried to keep his melancholy to himself as much as possible for Chengling’s sake, but he was only human, and humans had breaking points.
He quickly wiped at his eyes as though getting rid of the evidence of tears would get rid of the sadness all together. He then smiled and said, “Silly. Who’s sad? I was just surprised, that's all. We’ll go buy you a flute tomorrow. What do you say?”
Though he still looked concerned, Chengling smiled and nodded his head. Though it would pain him to hear the flute again, he would eventually learn to accept it as he learned to accept every painful reminder of him. In the beginning, it had been difficult to even hear the sound of rain as it would bring flashes of lazy days spent indoors doing little more than indulging in the shared delight of each other's company, touching and teasing the day away. He cried every time it rained for a month until he was numb to the sound of it. A whimsical part of him thought the reason Chengling feared the rain now, was because he could feel him crying within his stomach whenever the rain fell against the windows of the small apartment he had been living in at the time.
He could not cry forever and he could not deprive Chengling of his potential because of past heartbreak. Chengling would become a great flute player, he would make sure of it.
True to his word, Chengling had gotten his flute the next day. Thankfully, he had chosen a sleek black one, which the store owner insisted was perfect for beginners. It would have been harder to deal with had he chosen the white one of the same brand. He had inherited Zhou Zishu’s preference for more muted colors.
He enrolled him in a music study program for flute players at the rec center in town. Though classes weren’t set to begin until the Monday after parent teacher conferences, it did not stop Chengling from blowing uselessly into his flute producing some of the most terrible sounds Zhou Zishu had ever heard. Chengling seemed to be having fun regardless though he did ask him why it didn’t sound the way Mr.K’s flute did and questioned whether his was broken. The week leading up to the parent teacher was an uneventful one filled with the unpracticed shrieking of a flute.
The children had been let out of school early for parent teacher conferences and Chengling was at one of his classmate’s house for a playdate—something about wanting to find fossils in his friend’s backyard. Zhou Zishu looked at the paper he was holding, double checking the time he was supposed to be at the school for his one-on-one meeting. He felt nervous, meeting this teacher that seemed to be an unearthly entity in the eyes of Chengling. He hoped to make a good impression despite his introverted ways. Though he had always preferred solitude, he had never had trouble making friends when he wanted to. Since the break-up he had become almost completely antisocial, his world consisting of only Chengling and online meetings with the clients for the web design company he worked at.
He arrived five minutes early, fidgeting with the end of the scarf he always wore around his neck in public. No one needed to know he was unbonded. It was still frowned upon to be unbonded with a child, not that he minded the judgemental stares of others— as with many of his decisions, it was for Chengling’s sake. It was also why he had chosen to move back to his childhood home, where no one would know of his misfortune and Chengling could grow up without the scrutiny of nosy adults. When his wrist watch blinked at 5:30pm he got up, braced himself, and opened the large wooden door.
He could never have predicted who’s eyes would stare back at him, reflecting the shock Zhou Zishu felt in his stomach. He did not know how much time had passed since he had opened that heavy wooden door. Those eyes that he now only saw in his nightmares looked him up and down and blinked hard the way one does when shaking off a dream. Wen Kexing, Mr.K, spoke. “A-Xu?”
That snapped him back into reality. A reality that now seemed like a breathing nightmare of the cruelest kind. He didn’t respond. He simply opened the door and walked away as fast as he could on his shaking legs. This wasn’t supposed to happen. There were other parents walking through the hallway, footsteps echoing loudly, but he could still instinctually tell one set of footsteps apart from the noise of the others around him. He stopped breathing when he felt a hand on his arm and it took all of his will power not to scream.