Feng Yu means wind and rain. My parents named me that because, as soon as I was born, I was already like a storm. I had the strength of the wind and the vivacity of the rain, probably being the only one to scream and cry so much. The baby next to me was Muyang, the son of Mom's roommate. We were born on the same day at the same time, but I was forty minutes older. Muyang means sunbathing; as soon as I understood the origin of his name, I knew we could never be friends. We were too different...and it showed from the first glance.
Mom says that I never lent my toys to baby Muyang; I hit him when he touched them, and I refused his as if they were contaminated with cholera.
Baby Muyang was very handsome compared to me, who had recurring baldness; so Baby Muyang was loved twice as much as me; there was no way I'd attract pity with my ugly face.
He wasn't just cuter, he was also calmer, and the way he cried was adorable.
When we took baths together, I always splashed water everywhere while he stayed still. When we ate, I spit it out and cried because my puree was too cold or not good enough, while he just laughed when his mother made the airplane. No way I'd accept the airplane; I just hit the spoon.
Even seeing my reluctance, Muyang's mother didn't give up; she was determined to make us soulmates. That's why she and her husband moved in next door to us two years later. Baby Muyang had learned to walk before me, he spoke better than me, he fed himself before me, and he wiped his own bottom. He had even learned to go to the adult toilet with a step stool.
I was so impressed when I saw him go that I tried...
That day was a traumatic memory for baby Feng Yu, who plunged into the toilet at only 3 years old. I sincerely believe that if our mothers hadn't done everything to bring us closer, we would never have looked at each other. We were like rain and fire. He was burning with talent, I made my mother cry, and she was more than desperate about my situation. She was such a calm woman, and my father was also calm... she didn't know where my hyperactivity came from.
-Muyan.
-Yes?
-Give it to me, if you don't want it.
I took his pacifier from his hands and put it in my mouth before dropping to the floor and falling asleep. In the video, Baby Muyang, who was four years old, had just stopped using the pacifier on impulse, and I, the ugly duckling, had stolen it, thinking he was going to throw it away. He just stood there staring at me, sitting on the floor, while I sucked on it forcefully. It was really disgusting; now that I think about it, there was his drool in it...
-Muya! I want to go to daycare too!
-Ask Mom Yue.
My mother's name was Yue, she was the moon. Or rather, nocturnal beauty. She was, in fact, the prettiest woman in the neighborhood, without a doubt. My father was Ming Tao, he was the luminous wave, or more essentially, clarity of mind. To be clear, he was. His skin was so white and fragile that he had been sick from it; he had almost died of skin cancer shortly before birth. He was also popular with single mothers who tried to flirt with him even when he was pushing me around in the stroller.
I was living proof that two beautiful people could produce an ugly girl. My father called me xiǎo zhòu dan; I was their little wrinkled egg because I lacked hair, I had dull, saggy skin. My appearance had everything to envy of this perfect couple known for being angelic and dashing every day of the year. I had come to tarnish their reputation... When they learned our story, the neighborhood even wondered if Muyang and I hadn't been switched at birth.
It annoyed me, and I blamed Muyang for making me go through this. If he didn't exist, people wouldn't doubt my legitimacy; if my parents didn't know him, they wouldn't be so disappointed when I couldn't do something.
We went to kindergarten together from the ages of four to six to prepare for elementary school. There, it wasn't like at home; I was the king. Everyone wanted to be my friend because I was more fun than Muyang, who was always drawing or reading picture books. When I was five, I told everyone to call him dàtóu; basically, I called him a bighead, because he had a round head and a lot of short hair that stuck up. What annoyed me most was that his cuteness knew no bounds, even though his hair was badly cut. It must have been his dad with the glasses who cut it. Mom told me that people wear glasses because their eyes don't work properly, so he must have cut it crooked by forgetting to put on his glasses.
He didn't care about that nickname; he even appreciated it when I gave him one like friends do. My mother punished me whenever I called him that, but I didn't care; if everyone could make fun of him, that was fine with me.
It was when we started elementary school that things got more complicated for me. I was scolded by the teacher, who said I was behind in calligraphy, reading, and numbers. In short, I was bad at everything, while Muyang ticked all the boxes. Mom signed me up for extra classes without Muyang; it was the first time we were separated. Usually, we came home from school together, and he came to my house for a snack or to go down the slide in my garden... but that evening, I was with students I didn't know... alone... and I cried while calling Muyang As much as I hated him, Muyang was like my twin. He knew how I felt and always agreed with me even when it went against him. His mother enrolled Muyang in these classes because he told her he wanted to be with me. It was no use to her, but they knew it was the only way I would go and work.
From that day on, I no longer called Muyang by his weird nickname and asked all my friends to be his friends too. Muyang earned the title of best friend and was always laughing behind me. He played ball with me, did homework with me, and helped me read, write, and do my math properly.
When Muyang and I were seven, after a whole year of being closer than ever, we were separated for two weeks. His family went to Japan for the summer holidays, and I stayed home because my father was too weak to go on vacation. I remember being so angry with him that I even jumped on him while he was lying on the sofa. Dad, take that!
The holidays weren't so much the problem, but Muyang's absence made me so sad. Mom had to make video calls all evening with her phone, during which we spent half an hour crying. Muyang was very cute when he cried, I looked like a raisin... but he had told me he thought I was cute, so I gained confidence. I realized that Muyang could also cry when I was gone, that I wasn't the only one in that situation. When they returned from Japan, his parents concluded that it wasn't a good idea to spend the holidays without me because Muyang had spent his time crying, waiting for the evening because there was the video call, and crying again; so he hadn't been able to enjoy his holidays at all.
From the time we were eight to nine, it was the same thing.
The same class, the same differences in level. Yet I didn't envy him at all anymore; on the contrary, I thought he was so cool. I was only good at sports, but he fascinated me, understanding everything at once. He read books and used words I didn't know. He was a bit like my idol, whom I protected from the vicious gaze of others. The others started giving me nicknames like Feng Yu the wild beast or the rabid one, because my reaction was like that of a guard dog when someone approached Muyang. Mom told me it was bad, that I should let him have other friends, but... Muyang always smiled, he was always happy when I did that and hugged me. I was quite happy, so I continued to isolate myself near him. It was good when it was just the two of us... we were fine, we were like one. Until we were 11, we were always close together We celebrated our birthdays on the same day, we slept either at my place or his but never apart, we took our baths together, we discovered the telephone, video games and middle school math together. Yes, now that I was reading and writing more or less correctly, math was getting more complicated and I was always way behind. Something had changed, I had a lot of hair. I, who had always had fine hair, it had tripled in volume in a year... even Muyang had never seen that. Dad had to take me to the hairdresser to have it styled because in the summer I had heat rash in the neck. Besides, it was that year that Muyang's mother convinced my parents to let me go on vacation to Japan with them. He put his heart and soul into it, and they gave in on the condition that they pay the travel expenses and that I call them every other day. I flew for the first time, we went to Tokyo, then we took the train to see the Pacific Ocean in the southeast of the island. It was magnificent, and I'll never forget that vacation. I attended a festival and even fireworks. I'd only seen it on TV; it was so exciting in real life.
This closeness seemed unshakeable... magical... like a bond created by destiny. We were the soul mates our mothers wanted us to be when we were born at the same time. I would sometimes pray to Buddha, even though I had never been very religious, and thank him for having Muyang and I born.
We went to middle school together, always in symbiosis, and prayed with all our might to be in the same class. To my parents' great misfortune, this was the case. Nothing had changed since elementary school, and I was about to find myself once again facing the academic gap between Muyang and me. What they didn't know was that it didn't affect me at all; I was even very happy to have an excuse to privatize my best friend's attention a little more.
I thought everything would be the same, but I was wrong. For me, nothing had changed, yet I was the one who had changed without realizing it.
Muyang was slightly taller, but I was now proportional to other boys my age. My facial features had become more refined, and I had beautiful eyes because I had the same eyes as Dad. My skin was still olive-brown because I spent my days in the sun in my garden playing soccer or on my phone with Muyang, but it gave me a wild style that made girls fall for me.
They all left me love notes; for me, who had always been popular with boys, it was a real shock. Muyang said it was a bad joke and that I shouldn't take it seriously. He found other excuses like: take your studies seriously, you're not good enough to have a girlfriend yet, they're all less beautiful than you, you're too young. So, was I like this when I scared off girls who wanted to kiss him in elementary school? Besides, I always found more love letters in his locker than in mine. He threw them in the trash as soon as they started taking up too much space... and I thought that was mean. He was always sweet and kind to everyone in elementary school, but now that we were 12, he had changed...
I told him that this time it wasn't a joke and that I was interested in a girl, just to see his reaction. He was becoming more mysterious with me, my thoughts getting tangled as I pondered what he could be thinking. I had no love for that girl, despite the fact that she was pretty and we spoke often. I had never been in love, but I could see what love was.
-Muya, can I be in a relationship with her?
-No. You're already in a relationship with me; you can't be in a relationship with other people.
He was so serious when he said that that I began to doubt the meaning of the word couple. While he slept next to me, I looked up the meaning on the internet: Togetherness of two beings, of two things.
He was right, we were in a relationship, and it was good for two
The next day, I went to see this pretty girl whose name I forgot and told her I was already in a relationship with someone else. She asked me who it was, and I told her it was Muyang.
Skeptical, she asked me if we had ever kissed because that's what made you a couple. I remained silent...kiss Muyang? So Muyang had lied to me so I wouldn't be in couple with her, or he ignored her too and thought we were really a couple.
A year passed without me daring to talk to him about it. I wanted us to remain a couple in his eyes even if we didn't kiss. That year was complicated for me...very complicated...
Because this boy appeared, Rui Han, with whom I got along very well. Our classes had been mixed and for the first time I was in a class other than Muyang. Luckily, he always came to see me between each hour so we could spend five minutes together. Only, it exhausted him and I told him to stop
I made a friend to compensate, although I lost a bit of sociability from being stuck with the same person. His name was Rui Han, he was nice to everyone and already had a girlfriend. The others called him Mr. Cool, and we became close thanks to a game we played. In the evenings, when Muyang was studying, I would chat with him on this online game, and we quickly became close behind his back.
During the year, Rui Han broke up with his girlfriend and seemed really sad. He often hugged me, and I was so ashamed to feel my heart beating even though he was a boy. He asked me if I was in a relationship one morning. I didn't want to look bad in front of him, so I told him yes... I was in a relationship with a boy.
I didn't see why he could have hated me at the time. He just stared at me with big eyes and then asked me what made us a couple with "that boy."
-I don't really know. He told me we were a couple but never wanted to kiss me.
Completely red from talking about it in front of him, I squirmed in my seat, looking for an escape. He had told me to stay with him at recess so he could tell me a secret, so I made up an excuse for Muyang, telling him I had to go see a teacher.
I had run so as not to be late; I wanted to hear this secret that only I would know.
Behind the school, in a corner where students were forbidden to go, Rui Han stroked my head and face, and kissed me on the mouth. It was my first kiss...
I couldn't say anything to him; I stared at him for a long time with my sparkling eyes. He told me that I would be his new girlfriend now because he had kissed me first.
Innocently, I wanted to tell Muyang the news, but he didn't take it so well. I had been dating Rui Han for a week; he was very nice to me, and kissed me all the time, offered me candy, chocolate, and drinks. He looked at me all the time...and it made my heart boil.
Muyang and I had a fight...and he hit me in the face...
It was painful; only my mother hit me when I was little...and the person I loved most in the world had just done that to me.
Seeing me cry, Muyang hugged me. He told me that we didn't have to kiss to be a couple, that we were a couple as long as both people wanted to and called each other that. That being in a relationship with someone else when we were already with someone was forbidden and that, consequently, the person we were initially in a relationship with could punish us.
He told me he would tell Rui Han, that I didn't need to kiss him anymore, but I was sad
I think I was really in love with Rui Han; he was my first love.
At school, he told her that he had played well with me, but that it was over now. Rui, seeing the mark on my cheek, had more or less understood and hadn't dared to retaliate, but since we were in the same class, he took advantage of class time to talk to me.
We went to the bathroom, and I told him everything. Contrary to what Muyang thought, he wasn't playing, not with me, he really felt something for me because he enjoyed holding my hand and hearing the sound of my voice. Even if he couldn't kiss me or hug him, he wanted us to remain lovers.
I didn't hate Muyang; I had forgiven him dozens of times. He still got so emotional and cried, thinking he was mean. True, but I had already forgotten, and Rui and I were still on good terms.
Since we were thirteen, we didn't do as many things together... our parents would look at us strangely if we always washed or slept together. Only, since we both had phones and exams were more important, during the summer they left and let us use my parents' house.
He suggested we wash together like old times, and I innocently said yes
I was ignorant, pure, I had always been protected from toxic adult information by Muyang, who knew everything.
We had a conversation in the bath... which made me uncomfortable because he wanted to give me a taste of the adult world...
He had wet his hair and his bangs were pulled up on his head. For the first time in a long time, I saw his mole above his eyebrow.
-Do you know how babies are made?