Li Hui × Li Yan
"Brother, tell me, what is normal?"
———
I spent twenty years living as the refrain of your breathing.
After the unspoken rainstorm when I was eighteen years old, my brother Li Yan and I chose to dismember our lives in the calmest way.
He stayed in the old city full of old dreams, while I fled to the south where there is no rainy season.
We have a tacit understanding of playing the role of a pair of normal, estranged brothers, sending template blessings on holidays and being concise and to the point on family matters.
I thought distance was the antidote.
Until I discovered that there was always a coat similar to his hanging outside the window of my new apartment; until he subconsciously ordered my favorite spicy dishes at the blind date dinner, and then was speechless for a long time in front of the table full of red.
It turns out that the chain of blood is not in the Civil Affairs Bureau, but in every subconscious nerve.
My mother was seriously ill and we were brought back under the same roof.
Day and night, facing each other, with extreme restraint, we established a terrifying tacit understanding that was neither brothers nor lovers - like two top surgeons, working together on the operating table called "Family", the knife was precise and never touched the fatal spot.
Until external force forcibly tore this hole open:
"Are you brothers... A little over-reliant?"
"Have you considered setting up separate support systems?"
Only then did I realize that the "normality" that we work so hard to maintain and spend our whole lives acting on is still abnormal in the eyes of others.
This time, we have nowhere to run.
———
Tips:
1. The writing is not good, but I still have some connotation.
2. Five years age difference
Concept: The story of a pair of brothers struggling to survive in the face of fate
