An Old Acquaintance

[Defiant but tender country boy top x proper but darkly brooding beauty bottom]

Note: "country boy" here refers to a Chinese village dog.

There's a certain kind of bewilderment that comes from going to your ex's wedding, only to have your ex and his bride pull you into their elopement car.

That is exactly how Meng Bai feels right now.

Seven years ago, Ji Pingsheng pinned him beneath a tree and kissed him, tasting of beer. Someone happened to see them, and overnight everything turned upside down. Ji Pingsheng was locked up by his family, while Meng Bai left his hometown to attend the university he'd never had the chance to go to.

The price was that Ji Pingsheng couldn't come back until he got married.

Before that, Meng Bai thought his future would be a secret relationship with Ji Pingsheng. They would work together, save up enough to leave Mengzhuang Village, and, once they were financially independent, come clean to their parents and slowly win them over, building a place of their own in the world.

Afterward, he knew his future would mean leaving home for good and never returning. Or Ji Pingsheng would get married, restoring his right to go home, and they would each go their separate ways.

Even on the way back to attend Ji Pingsheng's wedding, he still thought that was how things would go.

But then the unexpected happened.

Ji Pingsheng had grown from a rebellious child into a rebellious teenager, then finally into a rebellious adult. And on the day of his wedding, he went completely off the rails:

He ran off with the bride, and took Meng Bai, who had just arrived home, along with them.

Sitting on a motorcycle headed into the city, Meng Bai stared at the bizarre combination of groom, groom's ex, and bride, completely dumbfounded.

After that day, he could no longer make sense of his future.

He imagined countless paths that had nothing to do with Ji Pingsheng. But on the train, he turned his head and saw Ji Pingsheng leaning against his shoulder. Bewildered and helpless, he let Ji Pingsheng crash back into his life, tearing through the seven years he'd spent struggling in secret and suffering alone.

But when he realized Ji Pingsheng's feelings had never died either, he could only draw a boundary between them, happy and heartbroken at once, stopping Ji Pingsheng from taking another step closer.

No. We can't.

This is wrong, it's sick, it's a sin.

I didn't know before, but now I do. So I can't lead you down the wrong path again.

He shut Ji Pingsheng outside and looked toward the ending he'd long expected.

But he forgot that the person he loved had never been capable of giving up.

That lock, rusted shut for seven years,

needed only one kiss to fall apart.

"I hope you can be normal."

"I'd rather be called insane than live without loving you."

1. Both leads are each other's only partners. One-on-one romance.

2. Set in a northern rural village and provincial capital in the 1990s, when homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness.

3. Some views expressed by the main and supporting characters may be biased by the limitations of their era and do not represent the author's views.

Theme: Happiness comes from hard work.