The year was coming to an end.
Shang Zhitao sat at her desk writing her closing thoughts for the year, then pulled the to-do list from her drawer. Learned to drive, check that one off. English had improved a little, so she could put a checkmark next to that too. Made three or more new friends. She thought about it and decided that one counted as done as well.
Looking back over everything that had happened this year, there was a touch of bitterness in it, but mostly happiness. As for what exactly the bitterness was, she couldn't say.
She put the list back in the drawer and started clearing her desk. Tomorrow morning she would be heading home, and the thought of it felt good. She had gotten a year end bonus of over forty thousand. Back when she'd made that mistake, Luan Nian had threatened to dock her bonus, and it turned out he'd just been scaring her. Thinking about the money sitting in her account, she suddenly felt like a person with real savings. She had already started planning how to spend it. New reading glasses for her father, a couple of new outfits for both her parents.
After the new year she needed to get gifts ready for her roommates, for Lumi, and for Yao Bei, and something for herself too. In her drawer sat a small box, a New Year's gift she had bought for Luan Nian ahead of time but never given him.
Luan Nian had given her two bags. Zhitao had no idea how much they cost. She had never even opened them to look. She felt she ought to give him something in return, but he lacked for nothing, and she kept feeling that giving him a gift would look strange, might even upset the balance they had worked so hard to find between them.
She thought about it for a long time and finally settled on a box of fish food, matched to the setup in the tank under his television. She'd gone to the flower and pet market after her English class that weekend and asked at several stalls before she found the right kind. She pointed at one fish and asked the shop owner, "That one there, what's it called? What does it usually eat?"
"Asian arowana," the owner said.
"How much?"
"Four thousand. Better quality ones cost more."
"Oh." So the little red flag fish was an arowana. Every time it saw Zhitao it acted like it already knew her, swimming along the glass in whatever direction she pointed. The little red flag had more warmth in it than Luan Nian did.
"I'll take its food. The most expensive kind you have."
"Four hundred thirty a box."
Zhitao gritted her teeth and bought it. Now, looking at the small gift box in her hands, she couldn't work up the courage to give it to him no matter what. The other coworkers had all left, and Luan Nian was already on his feet packing up his laptop. If she didn't give it to him today there would be no chance tomorrow. His flight to the US left before dawn, and her train back to Ice City left first thing in the morning. This trip would keep him away a long time, visiting family, meetings at headquarters, the creative competition, he wouldn't be back until early March.
Luan Nian left the office. Zhitao slung her bag over her shoulder, picked up the box, and followed him into the elevator. In the elevator's mirror, Luan Nian caught sight of the small box in her hand and how uneasy she looked. He asked her directly, "Is that for me?"
Zhitao's face flushed slightly. She nodded.
Luan Nian held out his hand. When she just stood there without moving, he frowned. "Changed your mind?"
Zhitao set the small box in his palm and, just before the elevator doors opened, said, "Safe travels."
"You too."
Once in the car, Luan Nian looked at the box for a long moment before finally unwrapping it. The instant he opened it, whatever unease had been sitting in his chest disappeared, and he laughed out loud at the sight of the fish food.
Shang Zhitao. Unbelievable.
He drove out of the garage and made a point of swinging back past the front of the building. Sure enough, Zhitao was still there trying to hail a cab. He pulled up in front of her. "Get in."
Zhitao was a little confused. It wasn't Friday, and tomorrow they'd each be leaving town.
"Not getting in?" Luan Nian pressed when she hesitated.
She opened the door and saw her gift sitting in the passenger seat. Luan Nian picked it up, and once she was seated, set the fish food on her lap. Along with it, a set of keys. Zhitao froze, looking at the keys, then at him.
Luan Nian kept his eyes on the road ahead and said evenly, "Since you gave me this gift, you might as well handle a bit of after sales service too. While I'm away, I'd appreciate it if you looked after my fish."
"You have so many valuable things at your place..."
"Can't take them with me."
"Oh."
"Thank you for the gift."
"You're welcome. You've given me gifts too."
Luan Nian noticed how stiff she was and suddenly smiled. "Shang Zhitao, do you know when you're at your bravest?"
"Hm?"
"In bed." He paused. "Completely unrestrained. Very brave."
Luan Nian had wondered before whether there were two people living inside Zhitao, one in charge of her wild side and one in charge of her timidity. Otherwise, why did she switch so fast?
"First, since this is our last meeting of the year, I'd like you to stop calling me that." Luan Nian found the address ridiculous, and did an impression of her voice: "Sir... don't kiss there..."
Luan Nian rarely talked this much, and Zhitao discovered that when he did talk, he was actually pretty funny. His impression of her was uncannily accurate. Of course he had to pick the line that embarrassed her most. She couldn't help laughing, though her face went red too.
"Strange, isn't it?" Luan Nian asked her.
Zhitao nodded. "Strange. So what should I call you..." She caught the look in his eyes and stopped talking.
"Just call me Luan Nian."
"Okay. And second?"
"Second..." Luan Nian pulled the car into the garage and parked. "You're so formal with me, it's like we've never even slept together."
"I didn't mean to be. It's just that we're not that familiar with each other yet..."
Luan Nian nodded. "I see. So it's because we haven't slept together enough."
He picked Zhitao up, tossed her onto the bed, and started undoing his own buttons. He went quiet again, nothing but that dark, intent look in his eyes as he leaned over her, carrying something close to menace. Zhitao felt a flicker of nervousness and bit her lip without thinking, before he pinned her down again. He said in a low voice, "Don't bite your lip. Bite me."
Zhitao obeyed at once and sank her teeth into his neck, expecting him to pull back like he always had before. This time he didn't. In the past Luan Nian would say, "Not convenient when I'm meeting female clients." That part was true. If Jiang Lan ever saw a mark on his neck, she'd come after him demanding a round of her own, and Luan Nian had no interest in dealing with that.
Zhitao's teeth pressed down a little harder, her tongue tracing the vein along his neck, and his breathing grew heavy against her ear, more effective than anything else could have been.
"I want to bite you a few more times," she murmured against his ear. "Dare me?"
"Bring it on."
So she did. She left marks on his neck, his chest, his shoulder, feeling a little like a dog marking its territory, this spot is mine now, so whoever shares his bed in New York had better keep clear.
Luan Nian, for his part, quietly got down to business, and when she was nearly out of her mind, he caught a small patch of skin at her neck between his lips and gave her back that same wildness in kind.
Then he asked her, "Familiar enough yet?"
"A little more familiar."
They carried on until early morning, when Luan Nian had to leave for his flight. Liu Wu was waiting for him at the door. Zhitao hid inside the room, unwilling to let Liu Wu see her, and Luan Nian, who saw right through her small concern, didn't press her on it and simply left.
Zhitao tucked the keys to Luan Nian's place away, feeling their weight, terrified of losing them, and kept them in the small bag she carried close to her body from then on.
By the time she got back to Ice City, seeing snow stretching across the whole world, lanterns strung through snowy streets and alleys, something in her heart finally settled into place. She loved the snow here, the old, worn buildings of the old town, the popsicles laid out for sale along the roadside, the rows of Spring Festival couplets and paintings hung out for display. New Year was almost here.
When her parents saw her, they broke into wide smiles. Her mother squeezed her face into a little dough ball, murmuring, "My daughter's gotten thinner..."
"Mom!" Zhitao pouted in protest. "How am I thinner? Look how sturdy I am!"
"And those dark circles under your eyes, have you been working too hard?"
Zhitao felt a bit guilty. Work hadn't actually been that exhausting these past few days at year's end. It was serving her boss yesterday that had worn her out. Her mother sent her off to bed. "Sleep for an hour first, I'll call you when dinner's ready."
Zhitao really did manage to fall asleep, burying herself under the covers to make up for lost rest. At one point she heard the door creak open twice, softly. The third time, she poked her head out from under the blanket and saw her father and mother standing at the door, sneaking a look at her.
Her parents missed her but couldn't bring themselves to wake her, so they kept coming back to peek in. Zhitao's nose stung, and she nearly cried. She thought about getting up to go be close to them, then remembered the trouble Luan Nian had caused. She had to keep her neck covered, or her parents would definitely ask questions. So she wrapped the blanket tightly around herself and called out to them, playing it sweet, "I want to sleep a little longer. I was up all night yesterday, I'm really tired." She left out exactly why she'd been up.
Her father, worried for his daughter, nodded. "Then sleep a bit more, we'll eat a little later."
"Okay."
Her father closed the door, and Zhitao pulled on a turtleneck sweater, grateful that here in Ice City a turtleneck wouldn't look out of place. Then she went out to eat with her father. She volunteered to drink with him, and he poured her just a splash of white liquor at the bottom of the glass. "You can't hold your liquor, so go easy." Zhitao laughed and clinked glasses with him. Back home, she relaxed completely, and everything in Beijing slipped from her mind in no time.
After dinner she started calling her old classmates. She'd had a few close friends back in high school, some had gone on to work at the city bureau after graduation, some worked for the government, and a couple ran small businesses of their own. That was Ice City for you, everyone valued stability, and nothing beat having a steady government job. They made plans to go sing karaoke together on the second day of the new year, talking late into the night, and when she opened her eyes again, it was already the New Year.
Around the time of the Chinese New Year, Luan Nian had just gotten home. Dr. Liang was in the middle of an argument with Luan Mingrui. "That's an awfully narrow way to look at it."
Dr. Liang was a medical expert specializing in oncology, aloof and disciplined. Luan Mingrui worked in business, handling large sums of money every day. Two people with nothing in common had ended up together and had been bickering their whole lives.
When they saw Luan Nian walk in, both went quiet. Dr. Liang went to hug him, spotted the mark on his neck, and clicked her tongue. "That intense, was it?"
Luan Nian felt his face warm for some reason. He didn't mind carrying the mark across the ocean, but he had never expected to be teased about it by his own mother. He thought to himself that Zhitao really did bite hard, harder than he did.
"Dog bit me," he said flatly, heading upstairs to change. Standing in front of the mirror, seeing the marks on his body, he thought of how wild Zhitao had looked and suddenly laughed out loud.
When he came back down, Dr. Liang's eyes were still on his neck. "Nicely placed, that mark," she teased.
Luan Mingrui finally stood up and came over to look at his son, smiling. "Young people."
"So the three of us haven't seen each other in ages and this is the only topic on the table?" Luan Nian, tired of everyone staring at his neck, went and found a bandage to cover it, which only made it more obvious.
"The bandage looks good on you. Everyone's going to be curious when they get here later," Luan Mingrui teased him further.
"Who's coming today?"
"Today, the Song family and the Chen family."
"Qiuhan and Kuannian coming too?"
"Of course. You think we'd leave them at home to starve?"
Chinese people living in America liked to gather together for the New Year, it made things livelier. Luan Nian was fond of those two boys, a few years younger than him but both fine young men. They'd even made plans to travel together starting next year.
The year wrapped up in a lively gathering, Luan Nian eating with family and friends, when he received an email. Zhitao had solemnly wished him a happy new year in it. She wrote: Happy new year, hope everything goes well for you in the new year ahead.
Luan Nian wrote back: Happy new year. Bite softer next time.