When Tang Yifeng was alive, Nangong Min had clung to him like a ghost. After his death, the man became a lunatic.
He waited for Tang Yu outside school, wept over the phone, and begged him to reveal Tang Yifeng’s whereabouts. He even forced his way into the Repulse Bay house, shouting through the hall, “Tang Yifeng, you fucking lied to me! You aren’t dead. Come out!”
Tang Yu had wondered the same thing. What if his brother had survived? What if Nangong Min had driven him away?
He ran downstairs and shouted at the man pinned by security. “Stop coming here! My brother doesn’t want to see you. Even if he were alive, he wouldn’t!”
Before Tang Yifeng died, Nangong Min had often visited. They ate and went out together, or Tang Yifeng played piano while Nangong Min listened. Tang Yu had been young enough to think they were merely friends.
The first time Nangong Min spoke to him alone was inside Tang Yifeng’s car.
“Your brother won’t stay with you forever. He’ll have his own life, and so will you. You can’t remain tied together. Learn that early.”
At fourteen, Tang Yu did not understand why he said it. He only knew terror—the fear that his brother would be taken away, that he could no longer claim all of Tang Yifeng’s time and attention.
Their parents ignored him. Tang Yifeng alone waited outside school, sheltered him from storms, and soothed him after nightmares. What right did Nangong Min have to interfere?
But he was not merely a friend.
After Tang Yifeng moved to Central, Tang Yu visited after school with two oolong macchiatos from a Wan Chai shop. His brother loved them, so Tang Yu never minded the queue.
The apartment door stood ajar. A pair of men’s dress shoes waited beside Tang Yifeng’s crooked slippers. Heavy perfume met Tang Yu inside, followed by a trembling sound and the faint clink of metal.
He recognized his brother’s voice, though he had never heard that tone.
Holding his breath, Tang Yu moved down the corridor.
Sunset stained the dim bedroom dark red. Tang Yifeng knelt at the foot of the bed, shirt open and hanging at his elbows, wrists bound behind him with a black tie. Nangong Min stood before him in black, holding a slender implement Tang Yu could not name.
Nangong Min gripped Tang Yifeng’s chin and forced his face up. His hair was disordered, eyes wet, lips reddened from kisses. Yet he was not crying. He wore an almost indulgent smile.
Nangong Min bent and kissed him fiercely. When he drew back, Tang Yifeng followed, pressing his lips to Nangong Min’s throat. His expression held willing surrender.
Tang Yu’s mind went blank. He stood rigid at the doorway, watching his brother give someone else a smile filled with a satisfaction Tang Yu had never seen.
When Tang Yifeng sagged breathless against Nangong Min’s shoulder, his gaze met Tang Yu’s through the gap.
His pupils contracted. He pushed Nangong Min away, but Nangong Min pulled him back onto the bed without effort.
Nangong Min looked toward Tang Yu without embarrassment.
Tang Yu fled with the drinks, ran across the footbridge, and did not stop until he had locked himself inside his room at Repulse Bay.
Now he knew their relationship went beyond friendship. What he had seen in Nangong Min’s eyes was not gentle love, but a warped hunger to possess, break, and command another person—and immeasurable satisfaction when allowed to do so.
If Nangong Min had simply been cruel, Tang Yu could have warned his brother away. But Tang Yifeng had wanted what the man gave him. His longing had been unmistakable.
For the first time, Tang Yu understood that he had never truly known his brother. Tang Yifeng possessed an inner world Tang Yu could not enter.
That night, Tang Yifeng returned with strawberry cake and sat quietly beside his bed.
“Darling, your brother is home. About this afternoon—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“What is he to you?”
After hesitating, Tang Yifeng said, “A-Min is my friend. He isn’t bad, and he won’t hurt me. His temper is only a little impatient.”
“But you were crying!” Tang Yu sat up, worried and bewildered. “What kind of friend makes you kneel?”
“You’re still young. There are things you don’t understand.”
“Then teach me! Why would you let someone treat you like that?”
Silence weighed over the room.
“Xiao Yu,” Tang Yifeng finally said, sounding weary, “what I want is something you can’t give me yet.”
Tang Yu stared. He hated that he had not rushed inside, pulled Nangong Min away, and asked his brother what he wanted.
“Could it be dangerous?”
Nangong Min was addicted to Tang Yifeng, and Tang Yifeng was addicted to pain. Tang Yu stood between them as a child who understood nothing.
“No. What could happen to me?”
Afterward, Tang Yu began noticing things: a scarf around Tang Yifeng’s neck in warm March, hiding marks Tang Yu could now imagine. Every sight of Nangong Min filled him with an instinctive disgust he could never suppress.
One day, Tang Yifeng brought Nangong Min to the old house to collect something. Nangong Min stood beside the Steinway and approached Tang Yu.
“About what you saw—”
“I saw nothing.”
“You should listen to your brother’s explanation.”
“I said I saw nothing. Are you deaf?”
Nangong Min bent closer. “You should know what kind of person your brother is. He likes being restrained. He likes being made to cry. He likes pain. He is more than you think—”
“Shut up!” Tang Yu shot to his feet. “You’re disgusting. You made my brother become like that. You disgust me!”