Absinthe

"Ah, auntie." Hao Ai held a big watermelon in his arms, staring blankly at the woman standing at the door.

Yang Yingqiong has exquisite makeup on her face, wearing a simple and capable apricot-colored suit, and a pair of black satin high-heeled shoes under her feet, she looks very aura.

Hao Ai just put on a T-shirt casually, and underneath it was wearing a pair of black shorts that barely covered the heels of his legs. His hair was not tied up and was scattered over his shoulders.His first reaction when he saw Yang Yingqiong was not panic, but secretly rejoicing that he was wearing pants and didn't walk around the room with bare legs like usual, otherwise it would be too embarrassing.

"Hao Ai?" Yang Yingqiong was also taken aback, looking surprised.

"Hello, Auntie, Zhong Xiu is not at home. He has gone out for competition training." Hao Ai tried his best to restrain the shock and bewilderment in his heart, not letting himself stutter, "I... came to play with Zhong Xiu, and then here Borrow for two days."

Hao Ai was trying to explain why he appeared here, but he himself felt that this reason was lame.

"Auntie, come in quickly." He saw Yang Yingqiong was holding a plastic bag in his left hand, and quickly took it with one hand.

"Can you finish it?" Yang Yingqiong saw that he was still holding the watermelon in his other hand.

"You can hold it all, it won't sink."

"Auntie, sit down." Probably because he was too nervous, Hao Ai felt the bag in his hand was hot, and he put the bag full of fresh fruits on the table.

After Yang Yingqiong sat on the sofa, Hao Ai wanted to pick up the glass jug on the coffee table and pour water for her, "Auntie, drink water."

"Thank you, I can do it myself." Yang Yingqiong took the kettle and poured a glass of water.

"You're welcome, you're welcome." Hao Ai repeated, his palms were sweating from nervousness.

Yang Yingqiong saw him fidgeting and said with a smile: "Why are you nervous, you just woke up?"

"Ah, yes, I'm sorry, Auntie, sit down first, I'll go wash your face." Hao Ai hurried into the bathroom after speaking.

"Fuck." Hao Ai cursed inwardly when he saw himself in the mirror. The feeling of happiness just now turned into worry. He is no better than not wearing pants now.

There are three big characters "didn't wake up" written on one face, the hair is messed up like a chicken coop, and there are still faded purple marks on the neck.

Hao Ai pressed hard on the bite mark on his neck, and it still hurt a little.But he didn't care at all, he just wanted to take off all the blue and purple marks on his body, including the skin.

Auntie probably didn't see it just now, right?What should she do if she sees it?Will she find out?

Hao Ai washed his face with cold water, and lifted his collar up again. Although he couldn't cover it, he had psychological comfort at least.He tidied himself up before walking out of the bathroom.

Yang Yingqiong was still sitting on the sofa in a very elegant and dignified posture.

"Hao Ai, come here." Yang Yingqiong saw him coming out and waved to him.

Hao Ai carefully sat down on the sofa opposite Yang Yingqiong.

"How long have you lived here?" Yang Yingqiong's tone was very casual, just like a normal chat.

"Uh," Hao Ai said very generally: "It's been a few days." He also couldn't directly say that he had lived here for more than half a month.

Yang Yingqiong looked at the clean wooden floor and neat coffee table, and said thoughtfully, "I didn't expect that the two boys kept this place quite clean."

"It's okay, okay, Zhong Xiu loves to be clean." Hao Aike didn't dare to take credit.

Yang Yingqiong looked around again, there were two pairs of slippers in the shoe cabinet in the entrance, and several clothes hung on the balcony, all of which Yang Yingqiong had never seen Zhong Xiu wear.

Her gaze shifted to the two skateboards leaning against the wall that she saw at the entrance just now.

"Do you also skateboard?" Yang Yingqiong asked.

"Well, that's right." Hao Ai said.

"Did Zhong Xiu take you to play, or did you already know it?"

Yang Yingqiong's tone of inquiry was very gentle, without any aggressive posture at all, but Hao Ai couldn't figure out what she meant, and whether she could see any clues.He replied honestly: "Auntie, I would have."

"That's it, that's good."

"Hao Ai, let me ask you something." Yang Yingqiong changed the subject again: "Did Zhong Xiu fall in love at school?"

Hao Ai almost bit his tongue: "There shouldn't be..."

"Don't you know that you have such a good relationship with him?"

"Well, I'm really not sure." Hao Ai pretended to be calm on the surface, but when he spoke, he was guilty of death. In fact, your son is not only in love, but also with a man.

Yang Yingqiong didn't continue to ask questions, she took out the fruit in the bag and put it on the fruit plate: "I bought some fruit, remember to wash it, if you can't finish it, put it in the refrigerator, the weather is dry, you should eat more fruit."

"Okay, thank you, Auntie." Hao Ai nodded obediently.

"I just came back from the airport and passed by here. I just wanted to come and have a look. It's fine. If Zhong Xiu isn't here, I'll leave first." Yang Yingqiong got up.

Hao Ai also stood up quickly, and rationally told him that he should stay politely now, for example, "Auntie, please sit down for a while", but as soon as he opened his mouth, the words came to his lips, and it became: "Goodbye, Auntie."

After walking out the door, Yang Yingqiong still said in that gentle tone: "You guys remember to eat on time at night, and don't stay up late."

"Yes, I see, Auntie." Hao Ai just nodded.

"No need to send it, you can go back."

Hao Ai watched Yang Yingqiong step into the elevator, the elevator door closed slowly, and the red number on the right hand side decreased, and he finally let go of his heart that had slipped into his throat.He thought to himself, Auntie didn't seem to notice.

Zhong Xiu's cell phone is on silent all year round. He didn't want to check his cell phone until he came out of the remedial class, and found that there were two missed calls on the cell phone. The caller was Yang Yingqiong earlier, and Hao Ai was calling 10 minutes later.

He called Hao Ai back first, and he answered it quickly.

"Hey, Zhong Xiu, have you finished your training? Your mother came here just now." Hao Ai said everything he wanted to say in one breath.

"Well, I guessed it, she didn't do anything to you, did she?" Zhong Xiu asked.

"No, Auntie doesn't seem to have noticed." Hao Ai said uncertainly.

"That's good." Zhong Xiu said.

"When are you coming back?"

"In the evening," Zhong Xiu said, he glanced at his watch, and added: "It's about seven o'clock."

"Okay, then bring a Ma Xiao when you come back! I haven't eaten for a long time."

"You can't eat it now, you will feel uncomfortable after eating it." Zhong Xiu said.

"Fuck! I don't care if I want to eat it! Are you still human? I'm going to throw up after drinking porridge these days!" The voice on the phone increased.

"Then next time, don't cry and scream for pain." Zhong Xiu said coldly.

"...Okay, I'm a dog if I cry again! Don't go back if you don't buy crayfish, goodbye!"

After hanging up the phone, Zhong Xiu was stunned for a moment. Hao Ai seemed to have nothing to do there. He saw that it was still early, so he didn't go directly back to Lijinghua Mansion, but took a taxi back home.

He had the key to the house, and when he opened the door, he found Yang Yingqiong sitting on the sofa, as if waiting for him to come back.

"I just came back from the house you rented." Yang Yingqiong looked serious, no longer the gentleness she had when facing Hao Ai.

"En." Zhong Xiu already had a premonition.

"Aren't you going to explain?" Yang Yingqiong suppressed her anger and stood up.

"It's just what you saw." Zhong Xiu simply showed his cards, and he knew it was not that simple.

Yang Yingqiong broke out completely: "Are you quite open?"

"I'm gay, didn't you already know about this?" Zhong Xiu said calmly, as if he was just stating an extremely ordinary matter.

Yang Yingqiong didn't seem to understand what his words meant, she frowned at him.

"Before moving, someone touched my notebook, was it you?" Zhong Xiu only figured this out recently. When Yang Yingqiong asked him many times before if he was in a relationship with a girl, he sensitively felt that something was wrong. .

When he first confirmed his sexual orientation in junior high school, there was a period of confusion.Later, he checked the information and gradually learned about some groups that he had never been in contact with before. He gradually realized that homosexuality is not a disease, so he began to accept the differences between himself and others.In a notebook, he jotted down words such as homosexuality, transgender, and equal rights, and wrote a lot of thoughts and gibberish.

When moving from Yangcheng to Zhengchuan, Zhong Xiu threw away a lot of unnecessary things, but he couldn't find the notebook that he didn't intend to throw away.At that time, the move was in a hurry, and he only thought that he had put the notebook in the unwanted books by mistake and threw it away together, without thinking too much about it.

Later, when he tidied up the bookshelves, he found that he had brought all the things that could be used, except for the notebook.And he has always been very organized, his books and notebooks are placed on the bookshelves in different categories, there is absolutely no chance of misplacing them, and Yang Yingqiong happened to help him tidy up the room.

"Yes," Yang Yingqiong admitted. She also accidentally saw the notebook. When helping Zhong Xiu tidy up the bookshelf, the notebook accidentally fell to the ground. Homosexual and other words, "I have always respected your privacy, and I have never looked through your stuff before, but you have let me down."

From then on, she began to suspect that Zhong Xiu was gay, but she was still not sure. Instead of questioning Zhong Xiu immediately, she tried every means to bring up the topic of girls and love in front of Zhong Xiu, so as to test it out.

"Since you know, who have you been pretending to be for all these years?" Yang Yingqiong asked hesitantly.

From the beginning, Zhong Xiu didn't want to create a fierce conflict when he came out of the closet. He wanted Yang Yingqiong to find out bit by bit, from doubt to disbelief and then to conviction, convinced that his son was gay.

Including being blatant at school and letting Hao Ai live with him were all Zhong Xiu's deliberate actions.He was never afraid of the eyes of the outside world. From the beginning to the end, his greatest resistance was Yang Yingqiong.

He knew that Yang Yingqiong thought highly of herself, so she definitely would not say that she was against homosexuality and classify herself as a stubborn feudal type.The reason why Zhong Xiu concluded that she would not embarrass Hao Ai was also because she was always tolerant to others and only harsh to her son.

He almost planned everything, just to bet on a certain number.

"Yes, it was my fault." Zhong Xiu admitted his mistake frankly.

"You still know it's your fault? You brought a good boy into a homosexual like you!" Yang Yingqiong was furious: "Are you sure I won't tell your father about you? You know him What do you do? But if there is any stain, someone else can write a letter of complaint until next year, he is busy enough all day, and you still want to make trouble for him, you are not a child!"

"I never made trouble for him," Zhong Xiu said, "nor did I make trouble for you."

"It's not that I don't understand. There are also homosexuals in our company." Yang Yingqiong said slowly, "Of course I won't interfere if it's someone else. It's their freedom to like men and women."

"Then I can't be free?"

"I have no reason to interfere with others, but you are my son, you should listen to me now. You are still young and your mind is not mature enough. Some things can only be considered with a student's thinking, and it is too simple to think about things. "

"Do you think your words are contradictory? Just now you said that I am not a child, and now you say that I am still young." Zhong Xiu almost laughed.

Yang Yingqiong shook her head and stopped arguing with him, but said directly: "It's summer vacation now, there is still time for you to transfer schools."

"I won't transfer schools!" Zhong Xiu said decisively.

"It doesn't matter what you say! Am I too used to you? I didn't care about you before because I thought you had your own independent thinking ability and could tell right from wrong. I didn't expect you..."

"Didn't you care less before?" Zhong Xiu felt incredible when he heard this, and he raised his voice a little: "It's useless for you to transfer me to another school. I won't leave. Why do you let me go?" Where am I going? How many times have I changed schools since I was a child? Have you asked me if I would like to?"

Yang Yingqiong was stunned, she was puzzled by Zhong Xiu's sudden accusation.

When Zhong Xiu spoke again, his tone was still calm: "I have any problems I want to tell you before, what about you? You only let me find the reason from myself. Everything is my fault. I can't get the first place because I didn't work hard enough , I have no friends, it’s my withdrawn personality, I deserve it, I was born gay, of course it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have been born.”

"I don't want to tell you now, none of us can convince anyone." Zhong Xiu said coldly, slammed the door and left.