In the Same Boat

When Qu Yiheng went out, it was raining outside. He rented an umbrella at the front desk of the hotel with a deposit of fifty yuan, which was refunded in full before checking out.

Standing at the front door of the hotel, he did not open his umbrella, waiting for the car to pick him up.

During the few minutes of waiting, the WeChat group on his mobile phone never stopped talking, and everyone who spoke came from the group of ‘Class 13 of the Fifth Middle School.’

The most recent message was from Shao Wei, the class leader of that year, asking who else was going today, and Qu Yiheng replied “I’m on the way.”

Shao Wei sent an “OK” emoji, and said again to go straight to the cemetery.

When the car arrived, Qu Yiheng sat in the back and said to the driver, “The cemetery.”

On the way to the cemetery, he looked through the glass and rain at the world outside. He hadn’t come back here for almost fifteen years and it had changed a lot.

He had thought that he might one day receive an invitation to a reunion from his fellow students, even though he spoke little in school, had a low sense of existence, and was not well liked.

But he never imagined that his first ‘Class reunion’ would be at the cemetery. Which is not a good thing to say, because they were not gathered here to meet, but to attend the funeral of an old classmate.

Fifteen years after graduating from high school, Qu Yiheng is already thirty-two years old. In high school, he was one year younger than most of his classmates, and did not fit in well with them. Especially later on, as an art student, he only spent part of his time at school and focused more on his art exams, so he had less contact with his classmates.

But he remembers Che Hao clearly, the man who passed away a few days ago.

Che Hao was a member of the sports committee in their class. He sat at the same table as him for half of the semester. He had good grades, was a good person and was tall and handsome. At that time, he was in love with the girl in the next class.

He doesn’t know where Che Hao went to university later, or what he did after graduating from university. It’s fair to say after the college entrance examination, Qu Yiheng stopped seeing his old classmates. It was an accident that he joined the WeChat group of this class.

At the end of last year, he was teaching painting in a studio. The students were all seven or eight years old who had just started elementary school. At the end of a class, someone suddenly called him. Qu Yiheng, who was packing his things, turned his head and felt that this person looked familiar.

After the two talked, he remembered that this person was his high school classmate who had come to pick up his nephew.

It was because of such a coincidence that he added his old classmate and was dragged into the class group that night.

The group was very lively every day, but he never said a word.

He came here to attend a seminar yesterday, and as soon as he got off the plane, he saw the class leader saying that Che Hao was gone.

At that time, he hadn’t realised what it meant by ‘gone,’ but when he saw the class monitor asking if anyone was going to come and see Che hao, he realised that the handsome sports committee member had passed away.

The monitor said that Che Hao died suddenly. He had just been married for a year and a half, and the couple had no children yet.

It was only at this point that Qu Yiheng suddenly realised that they were all in their thirties, and most of his classmates had already reached another stage in their lives: getting married and having children.

But death had come too soon.

People in their thirties don’t realize that they are so close to death. They most often go to wedding banquets and baby showers rather than attending funreal banquets.

Sitting in the car, he couldn’t remember exactly what Che Hao looked like. His thirties must have changed a lot from his teens, and his face was probably full of stories, but he was out of sight.

It stands to reason that Qu Yiheng was unwilling to participate in any group activities, but he always felt that this time was different. Although he is not so close to Che Hao, the death of his classmate always gives him a feeling that he should go to send them off. What’s more, he was already in the city.

Maybe the deceased didn’t remember him, but he still came.

The cemetery on rainy days is sadder than usual.

When Qu Yiheng got out of the car, the rain was heavier than when he first went out. He held his umbrella, trying not to get his clothes wet.

As he walked towards the entrance of the cemetery, he saw several people standing there smoking.

He was a little nervous because he was not good at greeting people.

As he approached the gate, a man suddenly called his name, which happened to be the classmate who he added to his WeChat.

Qu Yiheng went over and scanned the few people in front of him with some restraint.

He probably had some impression of them, but all of them were very different from before.

Of course, he himself is different, and no one will remain the same for fifteen years.

He recognized the monitor Shao Wei,

In middle school Qu Yiheng always had poor grades and always failed in mathematics. Shao Wei was not only the class monitor, but also the representative of the mathematics class, The one that gets close to a perfect score seven times in ten exams. At that time Shao Wei pulled Yao Zhan to give Qu Yiheng a supplementary lecture. In the classroom where there was no one on weekends, Shao Wei wrote and drew on paper, telling him one formula after another. Yao Zhan sat next to the table next to him smoking and blowing the smoke rings out of the window. It was probably the summer of his sophomore year.

“Is Yao Zhan coming?” Qu Yiheng suddenly asked such a question.

In the past fifteen years, Qu Yiheng probably only remembered Yao Zhan three times, and it was just the fourth time.

“Yes,” said Shao Wei, “he’s inside.”

Qu Yiheng stretched his neck and looked inside. Shao Wei asked him, “Are you coming?”

Qu Yiheng glanced at the cigarette that the other party had handed over and said, “No, thank you.”

This was not the first time Qu Yiheng had attended a funeral. He attended his grandfather’s funeral thirteen years ago, his father’s funeral ten years ago, and his mother and stepfather’s funeral five years ago.

At the funeral five years ago, his stepfather’s brother, who was one year younger than him, hugged him on the shoulder and said, “Come on brother, this time we are both orphans.”

At that time, he was twenty-seven and his brother was twenty-six. So it was inappropriate to use the word “orphan,” but it was true that they were both fatherless and motherless.

For the next two years they lived together as unrelated brothers, until his brother fell in love and moved in with his boyfriend.

At that time, his brother even laughed and said, “You don’t know I was gay, and if you knew, you wouldn’t have let me stay with you for so long, would you?”

Qu Yiheng said, “Why does it matter?”

His brother shrugged again, “You straight men can’t stand it, can you?”

Qu Yiheng didn’t say anything at that time. Of course, it didn’t mean he was a straight man.

If he was a straight man, how could he hide in high school with Yao Zhan in the unmanned gymnasium and masturbate to each other, how could he hide in the corner of the table tennis room and kneel down to give Yao Zhan a blowjob.

But they probably didn’t think much about it at that time. They were just young and eager and they did all such things when they were confused.

Looking back now, he actually finds it a bit funny.

“People should be almost there, let’s go in.” Shao Wei walked ahead and the five of them went to the cemetery.

Qu Yiheng stepped in the rain, listening to the sound of rain droplets on the umbrella, and saw Yao Zhan from a distance.

He recognized Yao Zhan at a glance.

He remembered that Yao Zhan was half a year older than himself, and his birthday was in the summer, which meant that Yao Zhan must be thirty-three.

Just now, Shao Wei was joking about how everyone is turning into a middle-aged man with a beer belly and a high hairline once they turn thirty, and the old days of walking down the street and whistling at pretty girls were never going to come back.

It was true that the era couldn’t come back, but when he saw Yao Zhan, he noticed that he didn’t have the ‘middle-aged’ look that other people had.

Yao Zhan was wearing a black shirt and black trousers, but he was still very white and tall, and stood out in the crowd.

The man was talking to a girl next to him. Her eyes were red, and he was frowning slightly.

Shao Wei led them over, and Qu Yiheng moved his sight to the gravestone in front of him.

So that’s what Che Hao looks like now.

He looked at the man in the photo, his angular face, his thick eyebrows and big eyes, and round head, and the man smiling at everyone.

He suddenly felt sorry for him. He was in his early thirties, really too young and had left before he could even say goodbye to the world. He felt instantaneously that perhaps he should write a suicide note after going back. Death was such an important and solemn matter, that it was better to prepare it in advance.

There were almost a dozen people, all dressed in dark clothes and with dark umbrellas. As before, they listened to the class leader’s arrangements and stood in front of the old classmate’s tomb to mourn.

The white chrysanthemums were set up one by one, and some people were really crying.

Qu Yiheng listened to the sobs in his ears and looked back to see that it was the girl who had just chatted with Yao Zhan. He remembered that the girl did not belong to their class. But a girl who fell in love with Che hao in highschool.

He didn’t know her name, but he knew that she was crying for her first boyfriend at the moment.

He stood there thinking that it might be their first meeting after their break-up, or maybe not, but no one would have imagined that the meeting again would be on such an occasion.

He moved his sight and met another pair of eyes.

Yao Zhan was looking at him, and when they looked at each other, Yao Zhan nodded at him.

Qu Yiheng’s heart raced and hurriedly turned his head back. He sighed and began to think of his epitaph again.

When the mourning was over, everyone walked out together.

Qu Yiheng deliberately fell to the end, he still couldn’t force himself to talk and laugh skillfully with so many people who had known him and were now extreme strangers.

In order to make himself look less out of place, he took out his mobile phone and pretended to be replying to a message, making people think he was walking so slowly because he was replying to the message.

“I didn’t expect you to come.”

A voice popped up, and Qu Yiheng’s hand shook, almost dropping his phone on the ground.

He lifted his umbrella and looked up, to find Yao Zhan walking beside him.

“Ah…” he nodded in vagueness for a moment without knowing what to say.

“Last week, Che Hao asked me for a drink and told me that he planned to change jobs.”

Qu Yiheng frowned and gave a soft “hmm.”

“You are still so reluctant to talk.”

Qu Yiheng turned to look at Yao Zhan. This person was half a head taller than him. He needed to raise his chin when he looked at him.

He explained, “No…”

“Want to go for a drink?” Yao Zhan said, “We haven’t seen each other for more than ten years, right?”

Qu Yiheng looked at him and replied, “Fifteen years.”