☁

The world is blurred when you're seeing it in its entirety all at once. Times and places spin like tops in front of your eyes, and it makes it hard to pick out details, people, friends. Houses are ever-changing; landscapes die and are reborn in greens and yellows. Tao never moves because he can’t see his own steps.

He doesn’t know who he is or why. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or how. His fingers are in soft focus, the fabric of a shirt he doesn't remember having blending in with the hazy seam of his pants. The only thing he knows for sure is that his world is cloudy, and the worlds he drifts through are even more so. He knows he isn’t meant to touch and isn’t meant to be. He knows he has no place among the umbra of crowds. He is not a shade; he is an eclipse.

But he’s learned that, when a person comes to him, he sticks in their time, if only for a moment. They’re like anchors, slowing down his stagnant passage to their own fixtures of seconds, minutes, hours. Then, they leave, and he flickers into the next millennium, or back into the last one, and it starts all over again, until he’s exhausted all their days and retired them in the back of his mind.

He's only met two people in his life, if it could be called that. They are the only two to ever approach him, and he’s not sure if it’s because of this that they stick, or because of something else entirely. The first was a five-year-old girl, and she was as brief as five years would be to Tao. She told him he looked strange. You're fading, mister. Tao could only smile then and tell her that was what he was supposed to do. She let it be at that when her mother took her hand and carted her away. (Tao couldn't see the mother's face or hear her stern words because she was just as blurred to him as he's sure he was to the tiny girl who toddled like her legs were new.)

The other, as it turned out, was Yifan.

 ☁

Tao wasn't sure who Yifan was or what he'd thus far done with his life when he first met him, but he remembers that he had a burlap sack and a tattered robe that hung down in shreds around his knees. His hair was a mess of windblown tangles and dirt, and his face was smeared with mud. But his smile... His smile was a crystal centerpiece in a trashed room, and it was the clearest thing that Tao had ever seen.

"Hello," he'd said, and Tao had simply waved because he couldn't find the will to speak. "Are you a traveler, too?"

"Do I look like one?" Tao had asked. Yifan had smiled wider, gums pink and shiny and cheeks rosy with biting wind.

"No," Yifan replied. "Not any kind I've seen, anyways." And then he'd sat next to him, as if there was no other place he needed to be. Tao had scooted over to accommodate, but he'd been wary about it. Ever so wary.

"I am, I suppose," Tao said. "An unconventional kind." And he'd planned to leave it at that, but Yifan tilted his head and asked anyways.

"What do you mean?"

Tao smiled a smile he didn't feel and leaned back in his spot. "You wouldn't understand. No one really does."

Yifan puckered his lips in thought, and Tao pretended not to notice. Then, he stood. "I'm going to an inn to wash. Would you like to come?"

"I can't," Tao said, and gestured down. "I can't see my feet."

And Yifan had laughed, a booming sound that made the foundations of the world shake into crisp clarity – a sight that stabbed Tao's eyes like a too-bright star. "You're a strange one," Yifan mused, adjusting his sack. “What’s your name?”

“I’d rather not say,” Tao said dismissively. Yifan got the hint and turned to leave, but not without adding his own commentary.

"Well, my name is Yifan, then. And I'm going to understand you one day." And with that, he'd left, stealing away the sharp features of blades of grass and tree branches and the wide dirt road in front of Tao's feet with him.

Tao had thought that would be the last time. He was wrong.

 ☁

Yifan was clean and sparkling the next time Tao saw him. It had been a while for Tao, but for Yifan, he couldn't be sure. His clothes were new and dyed a deep burgundy that Tao was sure he'd only seen on passing royalty. He raised an eyebrow.

"You look much nicer than before," he commented offhandedly, and even though it sounded like an insult, Yifan smiled and laughed anyways.

"Well, I'm not covered in two weeks’ worth of mud and grime, so that might be why." He took a seat next to Tao, just like before, and just like before, Tao reluctantly scooted over. "I see you haven't moved an inch."

"I told you. I can't see my feet." Tao wiggled his toes for emphasis, but Yifan seemed too absorbed in studying his face to notice. Tao felt himself growing smaller at the scrutiny. He wondered if Yifan would notice how blurry he was, just as the girl had.

Instead, Yifan said, "You look like you haven't slept in a while."

“I don't sleep." Tao picked at a loose string that he felt out on his shirt and stared at the swirling ground. "I don't do much of anything."

"You could probably sleep better if you came to a tavern. A real bed, ever heard of one?"

Tao shook his head. "I can't."

Yifan pursed his lips. "Well, if you can't see your feet, I could always lead you. If you wanted."

"I don't," Tao replied, and this time, he made sure to sound calculatedly cold. "I don't need your help. I'm fine."

Yifan regarded him curiously. Then, to Tao's dismay and disbelief, he smiled again, the bright glint of it throwing sun into Tao's eyes, and stood. "I've never believed someone less than I believe you." He wagged his finger, as if Tao had done something wrong just by sitting. "Don't worry, though. I'm not giving up on you yet."

"I suggest you do soon," Tao seethed. "Forget me."

Yifan shrugged his satchel back on his shoulders from where he'd laid it down and shook his head. "Couldn't if I tried," he responded with a wink.

☁

Tao was tired and holding his head in his hands the next time Yifan came around. He remembers because the second Yifan stepped into his bubble of space, the inside of his palm had become too clear for him to register. He glanced up in irritation, but Yifan just smiled at him the same way as he had twice before and gestured to the log, asking for a seat without words. Tao gave it to him, but he grumbled the entire time and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his chin on the bony knobs of the top. He made no attempt to speak, and neither did Yifan, for a while.

Then, “You look tired.”

“I told you before,” Tao sighed. “I can’t sleep.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

Tao wasn’t even sure how he knew what the word “sleep” meant. He hadn’t ever experienced it that he could remember. He’d tried, sure – he could picture people in his mind laying down and closing their eyes, so he’d attempted to do the same – but it only made him acutely more aware to the world’s times spinning out of control beneath his body. It made him seasick, and although he never ate, either, he’d still begun to retch on an empty stomach.

Of course, Yifan couldn’t possibly have known this. To him, Tao might have looked just as human as every other passerby, sans a little blurrier.

So he pressed on, even as Tao gritted his teeth in annoyance. “I think you just need a nice place to stay. Maybe a warm fire, a blanket, some tea – they serve good tea in the inn I’m staying at, I’ve heard – ”

“I. Can’t. Go.” Tao enunciated every word without separating his teeth, tongue pressed dangerously hard to the back of them. Yifan dwindled to a stop and regarded him with what looked like bewilderment. Tao kept his eyes downcast.

Then, he softened, and Tao hated him a little less. “Can I ask why?”

“No,” Tao said, hugging his legs tighter. “You can’t.”

Yifan gazed at him with what looked almost like fondness. Tao didn’t know what that meant. “Then I’ll stay and not sleep, too.”

Tao looked up at last, face contorted in shock. “What?”

“You heard me,” he said, loosening his satchel and dropping it beside him. He leaned back on the log and stretched his limbs in an almost catlike manner. “I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Tao hissed. He almost swatted at his arms as they hung far too close to his head, but he resisted the urge. “In fact, I’d rather you not.”

“Really? I personally don’t mind what you’d rather me do. I’d like to stay.”

Tao didn’t respond. Yifan looked tensed, as if waiting for him to try to push him from his seat, but he couldn’t be bothered to do that, either. He just stared straight ahead, fuming at the fact that he noticed the pebbles littering the road and the tracks from where horse-drawn carriages had come through. The blades of grass were all separate and swinging lightly from side to side in a breeze that Tao could almost see but not quite feel. If he was honest with himself, he’d say the clarity was giving him a headache.

Tao wasn’t sure how long he stayed with Yifan. He’d long since lost the ability to estimate real time (or even the spacially estranged time that he himself was constrained by), but it was long enough for Yifan to end up laying down and falling asleep despite himself with quiet snores and tired whispers. Tao watched from his perch, the crease in his eyebrows smoothing out at the sight of such a lanky man curled in on himself, head resting precariously on his satchel.

Sleep was fascinating. The idea of pushing away existence for hours at a time had always intrigued Tao. It was as if humans were programmed to waste what little time they were given. A good half of human life was spent unconscious, and that, to Tao, was mystifying. He couldn’t comprehend how they could ever achieve anything in the span of their wake. Tao could achieve nothing, and he was given an entire eternity.

He thought about rising to stand and shuffling over to Yifan’s side – maybe attempting to rest there, too. He almost felt as if, with Yifan setting the example beside him, he could finally close his eyes and let himself lose consciousness. Maybe, if the structures of his universe started spiraling again, he could hone in on the sound of Yifan’s stuttered inhalations. He could scoot closer and feel the gentle winds of breath on his neck, settling waves of struggling epochs into tranquility.

But then, without warning, there was a flash, like lightning cascading from an open sky, and Tao fell backwards, blinded and confused. The ground rolled like liquid, and when he opened his eyes again, Yifan was gone, as well as all remnants of his presence. There was no satchel, no concave footsteps in the dirt from where he had stepped to meet Tao. No tuft of hair, matted or clean, resting against the feathery greens of the grass beneath Tao’s feet. The world was twisting in inks and oils, melting and reshaping into pictures that Tao couldn’t keep straight.

Tao closed his eyes and held his head, trying to recapture the picture of Yifan asleep in absolute transparency. The world began curving beneath his obscured feet again, and he felt himself lose his center of balance.

He gritted his teeth and wished, more than anything, that he could sleep, too.

☁

When Yifan came back the next time, he seemed more than a little concerned.

“Where did you go?” he demanded, looking almost peeved. Tao was taken aback. He had already scooted over to give Yifan room, but Yifan didn’t look much like he intended to sit.

“I was always here,” Tao whispered, shrinking into himself.

“No you weren’t,” Yifan snapped, pointing at him emphatically. Tao leaned back farther, almost far enough to topple. “I woke up and you were gone. You've been gone for three whole days. I thought you said you couldn’t walk, huh?”

“I can’t,” Tao tried again, gripping the log hard enough to feel splinters cutting into his fingers. “I didn’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Yifan slowed to a stop, eyes searching for some sort of indication of a lie. “How else were you gone?” he asked under his breath. He looked hurt, actually pained, and Tao didn't know how to react. He swallowed and picked at the grass, attempting to inspect it. Yifan wasn’t close enough for him to make out the glittering dew he felt on it, but he was just near enough for him to see its oblong shape.

“I honestly don’t know,” Tao said. “I’ve never… This has never happened to me before.”

“What has never happened to you before?”

Tao bit his lip and looked down at the ground. He wiggled his toes. He still couldn’t see the movement. “You.”

Tao didn’t realize that Yifan had balled his hands into fists until they relaxed in his peripherals. “Do you really not know what happened?” he asked quietly, tilting his head in question. Tao shook his head in response.

“No,” he breathed. “There was a flash, and then I was…somewhere else.”

“Where?”

Tao bit his lip because he knew the next answer would be the one that decided whether Yifan would stay or go. He took a deep breath. “It was still here. But…not here.”

Yifan furrowed his brow. “What does that even mean?”

Tao closed his eyes and rifled through his mind for an explanation that made sense. “I’m like…a paradox,” he murmured slowly. “I move, but I don’t move. I stay, but I don’t stay. I’m here, but I’m not here.”

Yifan quieted. “I don’t…understand.”

Tao laughed hollowly. “Of course you don’t. No one does. I don’t even understand it.” He met Yifan’s eyes briefly before looking away. He couldn’t decide why he felt so ashamed. “I think I just…exist outside of your time, somehow. Like I’m not entirely real.”

Yifan lingered a moment, looking indecisive, before he finally stepped forward and took his seat next to Tao. He covered Tao’s entire shoulder with one hand. Tao jumped at the touch, but Yifan only smiled softly. “I can touch you. Doesn’t that make you real?”

Tao slanted his eyes at him. “No.” Yifan’s every feature was clear-cut, like a diamond, even though the sun was dipping low in the sky and the shadows along his profile were usurping the light. “It makes me less imaginary, though.”

“It’s a start.” Yifan removed his hand, and Tao shivered. He’d never realized how cold it was when the sun set. “Can I ask you a question?”

Tao shrugged, partially in response and partially to return feeling to a shoulder that felt bare without the warmth of touch. Yifan turned to look out at an expanse of field in front of them. Tao looked down at the ground because the details hurt his mind.

“Are you anywhere else right now?”

Tao regarded him again because something about the aspects of Yifan’s face didn’t sting like everything else did. Yifan met his gaze with his own, and Tao lost focus. He held his stare for a few moments before turning back to the ground and shutting his eyes tightly.

“No. Only with you.”

The ground had stopped rocking. Yifan held it steady with his presence, with the whisper of his lungs and the brush of his shifting body. And even when he left minutes later, satchel around his chest and words locked up in his throat, Tao felt it murmur calmly beneath his feet. He got up once he was alone. Took one step. Two.

He stilled and stared out at the field. It was just as blurry and unreal as it had been before Yifan came, but he realized with a start that it was the same one they had stared out into. Time was at a standstill, and Tao was caught in it, breathing still air as if it were a lifeline.

Tao felt stuck and unmoving in that moment, even as he shuffled his limbs and stretched his arms out to the sky. At the same time, though, he felt absolute. He wanted to stand in the middle of existence forever, to stop time from ticking in gears and ringing in bells and flowing in wavelengths coiled around his body like tendrils of wind.

It felt like Yifan made that possible. As Tao stood in the essence of humanity, his face flashed across his mind. But just as Tao idled on the precipice of willing him back, there was an angry flare that enveloped his entire vision, just like before. The earth tilted and Tao tilted with it, body strewn sideways as images and shadows of people flew by in fastforward. He heard cacophonies of voices stretching the infrastructure of his brain, feet rustling and dirt being displaced and the swish of cloth sweeping against cloth. He retched, but no one stopped. No one stopped. No one stopped.

Tao realized, for him, there were no pauses or suspensions. There were only stutters, and responsive accelerations.

☁

It was a long time before Tao saw Yifan again by his own measurements. It was as if the inner machinations of his body were avoiding the period in which Yifan existed – as if he were some sort of sickness that Tao’s immune system was fighting to eradicate. Tao pushed this thought to the back of his head as years ticked by like minutes, and he wasted away all his precious moments learning to walk without seeing the ground.

☁

When Yifan came back, the look of concern Tao had last seen on him hadn’t left. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tao beat him to it. “How long have I been gone?”

Yifan shut his mouth tightly before finally muttering, “Two weeks.”

Tao pressed his lips into a thin line before rising to stand. Yifan’s eyes widened in shock, but Tao ignored him in favor of shuffling forward. One step. Two.

“I’ve been practicing,” he hummed when he was half a foot away from where Yifan stood. “For when I came back.”

“Where did you go?” Yifan whispered, and Tao smiled and shook his head.

“There are a lot of secrets about my existence that I don’t know about,” he said. “Where I’ve been is one of them. To me, it’s been decades since we’ve seen each other last. Maybe more.”

“How old are you?” Yifan wheezed. To that, Tao smiled wider and laughed.

“Age isn’t something that applies to me anymore, if it ever did at all.” He took Yifan’s hand in his own. It was Yifan’s turn to jump at the idea of being touched. “You said you’d lead me once. Would you still?”

Yifan eyed him warily. “Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

Tao shrugged. “If you knew how long I’d been waiting, you wouldn’t think that it was so sudden.”

Yifan didn’t have much to say to that, so he chose to pull Tao closer instead. He held out his other arm, and Tao balanced himself on it, closing his eyes to stay his swaying. When Yifan had checked three times to make sure Tao was balanced and ready, he dragged him along in the direction of the town Tao knew but had never seen. Tao huffed.

“Do you have to be so rough?” he hissed. Yifan stopped shepherding him momentarily. Tao didn’t open his eyes, even when it was quiet for too long a moment.

There was a voice by his ear. “Yes,” Yifan said, “because you’re leaning on me so much that I can hardly keep from falling.”

Tao jumped, but he stuck his tongue out in response. “I haven’t walked as long as I’ve lived,” he grunted, waddling forward to urge Yifan on. “I didn’t even know that that was what legs were used for until recently.”

“How recent is your recent?” Yifan asked, striding ahead to regain the lead. Tao tapped his chin in thought.

“Maybe a few centuries ago,” he wondered aloud. “A little girl ran up to me and asked me why I was blurry. That’s when I noticed.”

“And it took you until now to try it for yourself?”

“I can’t see my feet,” Tao reiterated again, rolling his eyes from behind their lids. “I’ve told you this already.”

“I can walk just fine with my eyes closed.”

“I’m surprised. Your height defies the laws of gravity.”

Yifan shook him and snickered when he stumbled. Tao kicked wildly with his foot in retaliation. He felt his shin connect with something hard, and he cackled in triumph when Yifan yelped.

Then, suddenly, his hands were gone. Tao froze, rooting himself to the spot, and called out.

“Yifan!”

“Why the hell did you kick me—”

“Come back,” Tao wheezed, flailing. “Please, I can’t stand—”

“You can stand for a minute while I check the damage,” Yifan asserted. Tao spun in the direction of his voice and took a tiny step forward.

“Please,” he repeated. “The world spins when you aren’t here.”

There was nothing but stillness and the sound of Tao’s panicked breathing for a moment before a hand clasped at his wrist. Tao slumped in relief, reaching to feel for Yifan’s arm and sliding his hand up to clamp onto his shoulder.

“Don’t let go again,” he demanded. He’d meant it to sound authoritative, but his voice wavered and cracked as he realized that tears were burning his eyes. “Don’t.”

“I won’t,” Yifan said, and although he’d been adamant earlier, his voice had melted to a soft mumble. “Just don’t pee your pants about it.”

“I’m not,” Tao grumbled, strength returning. “I don’t pee.”

“Your existence sounds more and more rewarding with every second I hear about it.”

Tao attached to him even tighter and hung on him even heavier, but Yifan didn’t complain about it this time. He only guided him forward, Tao inching forward senselessly, blindly trusting the directions Yifan whispered in his ear. When Yifan stopped next, it was paces away from where Tao had his meltdown. He spoke with normal volume now. “Open your eyes.”

Tao creaked his eyes open one at a time, squinting when candles flickered to life in his vision. They framed a doorway balanced on decrepit stairs and illuminated a front entrance lined with burgundy bricks. He stared in awe at the drips of their melted wax, flames biting at the wick with fervent determination, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have been tempted to touch them. He shouldn’t have known what fire was, but he did. He knew it caused pain, and he knew it killed.

But it was still so beautiful.

“Can you make it up the stairs?” Yifan asked, waving Tao’s arm towards the steps in front of the inn. Tao stared at them for a long time.

“Maybe,” he said, tone petulant. He tried to lift his foot, but the other wobbled perilously, so he put it back down. “Or not.”

Yifan laughed at this and gently reached down. Tao in a breath of burnt air as he felt arms meet the back of his knees and scoop up his gravity. He yelped, but Yifan shushed him, cradling a hand behind his head.

“I’ll carry you,” he said with the tiny upturn of a smile. Tao shut his eyes again. Yifan rocked him like a child. Swaying in the air felt much different than swaying on the earth. “I’m on the top floor. I’ll pay for you.”

“You don’t have to—” Tao protested, but then he remembered that there was no money in his unused pockets. Yifan seemed to sense this because his body shook with amusement.

“Don’t worry about it.” And then lights cut into Tao’s eyes, even from behind the protective barrier of his eyelids. He winced as the sloshing of liquids and stamping of chairs and exclamations of drunken cynicism whirled together into a singular dissonance. His head pounded with noise, noise, noise.

“Yifan,” he gasped. “It’s too loud.”

“Don’t worry,” Yifan cooed, “we’ll be upstairs in a minute. It’s quiet upstairs.”

Tao nodded tersely, but he curled closer to Yifan’s chest anyways, covering his ears with both hands. He felt like a child blocking out a world too new and unfamiliar to love. There was a brief stop, a short conversation muttered in foreign tongue, and then, just as promised, the discord settled to a muted roar as Yifan’s body bobbed up a second set of stairs. He laid Tao down and tried to dislodge him from around his neck, but Tao stiffened in alarm.

“Where are you going?” he said, voice trembling. Yifan touched a finger to his lips.

“Open your eyes,” he said again. Tao obeyed.

The room was small and bathed in darkness. There were no candles lit that Tao could discern, and even Yifan’s figure was drenched in obscurity. Books littered sidetables, and when Tao pressed his feet down, he felt the soft cushion of blankets swathed in mats beneath his body. The only things that shone were the crescent moon dipping low along the skyline through the window and the gleam of Yifan’s teeth.

“It’s nice, right?” he whispered. Tao slipped his arms away with some trepidation and braided himself into the covers, eyes not leaving Yifan’s face.

“It’s okay,” he replied, but the soft affection in his voice gave himself away. He patted a spot beside him. “Are you staying, too?”

Yifan grimaced and shook his head. “I have a separate room,” he stated, straightening himself into a stand. Tao felt his eyes brim, and his hands sought him of their own accord.

“Please,” Tao pleaded. “Everything is calm right now.”

Yifan seemed unsure, but he sat back down anyways. “I have to go pay for your room,” he reminded him. “Before the innkeeper thinks I’ve tried to screw him or something.”

“Just a few minutes longer.” Tao wound his hands around one of Yifan’s arms, effectively mooring him at the bedside. Yifan didn’t resist. They sat in comfortable silence, breaths evening out to lay atop each other in synchronal rhythm until one lung’s work couldn’t be defined from the other. Tao closed his eyes again for a little while, but Yifan's face swam behind them. He thought it silly to picture the way he looked pressed against moonlight when he could just open his eyes and see it for himself. So he did.

The moon lit a halo around Yifan's head, and Tao had to fight to keep himself from reaching out to touch it.

Ten minutes passed, and Yifan had still not stood to go. Tao loosened his grip.

“Okay,” he whispered, shutting his eyes again. “I think I’m okay. You can go now.”

Yifan ran a finger delicately across his knuckles. “I’ll go pay and come back. Don’t worry, I can afford not to use my room for one night.”

Tao smiled wanly, even though his head ached when Yifan let go. Even though his heart chiseled at the inside of his chest and tried to follow him.

Tao laid back, seeking the comfort of the pillows. Yifan had been right – real beds worked wonders. Tao still felt sleep hovering outside the realms his fingers could reach, but he felt closer to it. The blankets hugged the curvatures of his body, dipped in the hollows of his collarbones and wrapped around the planes of his legs. He wondered if Yifan could fit in those places like a comforter. He thought the word rather suited him.

All at once, there were footsteps ricocheting off the walls of the room, even though the stairs were down the hall. Tao could hear them because he anticipated them. He lifted his head, keening his ears to the sound, and as they got closer, he finally opened his eyes—

☁

When a flash winked through his vision, he thought it was the sun. Then, it was, a rising dawn that, by his flawed calculations, was supposed to be hours away from the of midnight he’d just seen outlined around Yifan's body. He looked around, but he couldn’t see. Everything was blurred. The only things he noticed were that the covers he’d cocooned himself in had turned raggedy, and the stack of books beside him were gone.

He heard a woman’s voice crooning from another room, and that was about the time that he decided he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. He rolled off the bed and collided with the floor, a loud thump resonating into a following silence.

A deadened Who’s there? came from a place beyond Tao’s hearing, but his body processes were short-circuiting, so he couldn’t be bothered to answer it. He raised himself unsteadily to his feet, trying to make out anything that he could use to explain himself, to escape.

The window called to him, holding a sun too brightly shining on things that Tao couldn’t make out. He missed the moon’s craters and the shadow of night around its core. He missed the press of Yifan’s palm and the flicker of Yifan’s eyes on him, on the window, on the floor, on him. He wondered somewhere beyond himself if he was in the time before or after Yifan – the end of the world’s greatest creation or the preface of its beginning. As the door to the room slammed open, he plummeted with these thoughts, begging the light of day to catch his fall.

☁

The world whispered to him his discrepancies. It saved him that day by flicking to another like a slideshow of life that Tao wasn’t allowed to be a part of, but it cursed him at the same time by robbing him of feeling. He laid outside the inn for a long time, for a long many times, painfully aware of the fact that he couldn’t wiggle his toes. Then, he dragged himself on his belly to the open field and hid there.

☁

“Where have you been this time?” Yifan asked when he found Tao back at his log, hands folded in his lap and a tired smile playing along his cheeks.

“I was hiding for a while,” Tao answered honestly. Yifan frowned.

“I came back upstairs after paying for your room to find you not there,” he said, a hint of playfulness and a handful of worry in his tone. “Were you playing a prank or something?”

“Nope.” Tao looked up to Yifan with doleful eyes. “I opened my eyes and I was somewhere else. So I tried to run.”

“And?” Yifan asked quietly, sitting beside Tao and settling a hand on his wrist. Tao gazed at it for a moment.

“Turns out running isn’t really my thing.” He gently picked up Yifan’s hand and gingerly placed it beside him. Yifan returned this action with a confused look. “How long has it been this time?”

Yifan bit his lip, as if hesitant to answer. “Three months,” he finally concluded. Tao chuckled under his breath.

“You know, I think I figured out this whole warping thing.”

Yifan nodded slowly. “What’s your theory?” he questioned politely, but Tao could hear his reservations. It was as if he already knew. Tao didn’t care if he did, frankly.

“It’s you.”

He didn’t stop nodding. Tao couldn’t decide if he was agreeing or if he’d just lost the ability to still his quivering limbs. “And how is that?”

“When you’re here, you slow my time down so much, it feels like I’ve completely stopped. Like I’m making no movement forward or backward. And that,” he waved his finger in the air like a flag, “that is not permitted for me.”

“Why not?” His eyes bored into him like drills, straight into his brain, as if trying to find the truth there. Tao forced his mind blank. If Yifan could see the slates of his mind, he’d only see himself looking back at him, and that couldn’t be allowed. He spoke as emotionlessly as he could, training his voice into monotonous fatigue. Yifan ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and Tao concluded that he hadn't found what he was looking for.

He thanked the world for that.

“Because it’s against my nature. It makes me sick. I wasn’t made to crawl through events like you. I was made to stay in one spot and cycle until time ends, and then, when the world goes still, I'll cycle through nonexistence until the next one starts. And you,” he prodded Yifan's chest with a finger, "are slowing down my progress."

Yifan held his tongue, running a finger along rotten bark and pausing to swirl it around a pothole. “Why?” he asked again. “Why should you have to stay motionless when your life is built on motion? How is that fair?”

“I didn’t say it was fair,” Tao snapped. “Life isn’t fair. Even when your life is as twisted as mine.”

Yifan laughed, an angry sound that billowed from his pores like steam. “You’re right. It isn’t. If my life was fair, I wouldn’t feel like this over someone like you. Someone who can't...” He trailed into a bitter pause and laughed again. "Nevermind. Just... Nevermind."

Tao stopped, blood pounding in his head. “Feel like what?”

Yifan waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. If I make you sick, I’ll go. Don’t worry about me.”

“Feel like what?” Tao demanded again as Yifan stood to leave, clutching his satchel to his hips. Yifan shook his head. “Tell me.”

“It’s not important.”

"You're damned right, it is," Tao said, voice raising in decibels. "Don't you leave. Don't you dare leave right now."

Yifan lingered for a moment, and for that moment, Tao thought he might listen and stay. Then, he sighed. "Just...feel better."

He made to go. Tao willed his legs to move after him, but he still couldn’t feel them. It was as if his entire lower body wasn’t there – as if he were only half a man. In reality, he probably was.

He called. “Yifan!” Yifan didn’t turn. Tao became desperate; he could hear it himself. “Yifan, please!”

He got no response. Everything was slowly going out of focus, wiping together into an oil pastel of beads and running paint. His tears didn’t help. He closed his eyes and pictured Yifan’s sleeping face. The world was stuck, so he made a decision and opened his mouth. “Tao!”

He wasn’t sure if anything happened at first. Life quieted down for a second, and for that entire second, Tao longed for the clamor of drunken existence and the squeak of rusty beds, the smash of falling plates and the muted floods of Yifan breathing. Then, he heard the footsteps growing louder in his ears. He was scared he’d flash right then into nothingness before he could grab at Yifan’s next words. Just like before.

“What did you say?” he heard. His sigh of relief was all-consuming, even though Yifan’s tangible presence coiled the atmosphere into screws that twisted into his nerves.

“My name is Tao,” he responded shakily when he could find his voice. “When I close my eyes, the world falls apart underneath me, and when I open them, it’s like I’m looking through a glass dome, and everything’s covered in fuzz. Except when you’re here. I can remember your face in perfect clarity, and everything goes quiet and still when you stand near me. I don’t know what I am, but with you, I feel human, and I…” He gulped and let his eyes flutter open. Stars fell in pinpricks crowning Yifan’s head, and the stretching field framed him like a picture hung in Tao’s memory. His face was close, his eyebrows drawn in seriousness, his lips parted and out the words from Tao’s padlocked throat. He gulped again. “I can’t lean on you anymore because I can’t feel my legs, but I want to. God, I want to.”

There were centimeters between them, but they felt like seconds. The flutter of Yifan’s eyelashes was the tick of the minute hand, and the slow drag of his hand up to cup Tao’s face was the hour. Tao had never felt so impatient for milliseconds to pass. He strained his neck up and pulled Yifan down and stole away the time himself because when he was slowed to match Yifan’s pace, he knew how much every staccatoed moment counted. Yifan’s lips were like ceasefire, his tongue like halting, his hands like pauses even as they urged him to go. Tao fell onto his chest when he leaned too far, but Yifan laughed and tugged him closer by the thighs, sitting him in his lap like a doll and catching his lips again. Somewhere in between, Tao began sobbing, but Yifan swallowed his tears with his mouth, kissing away the drops that trailed rivers along his cheeks.

“Don’t worry,” he soothed, rubbing circles into the small of his back. “Don’t worry. I won’t let go.”

He wasn’t the one who let go. It was Tao. And it was of consciousness, not his arms.

☁

Tao woke up beneath a wooden bench.

He blinked. Once, twice. The bottom of it was clear. Slants of sunshine filtered onto his face from between wooden slabs and illuminated their shapes. He didn’t try to sit up. He just stared in wonder.

Because Tao could see.

Because Tao was blinking sleep out of his eyes.

Because Tao woke up.

And he wondered, briefly, if he was human.

He squirmed a little, rustling the grass, and someone shifted above him. It only then occurred to him that half the bench was occupied. A face peered down at him, hair falling haphazardly to cover thick brows, familiar lips parting in awe. Tao waved timidly.

“Hi,” he said.

Yifan stared.

“Long time no see?” he continued. “I think, anyways. I just woke up. I’ve never slept before. Really, it only feels like a moment has passed. Does it usually feel this quick?”

Yifan stared.

Tao cleared his throat. “We were just kissing, I could have sworn. When did this bench get here? How long have I been—”

“It’s been five years,” Yifan interrupted at last.

Tao dwindled to a stop. “What?”

“Five years,” he repeated. “It’s been five years since that happened. You’ve been gone five years.”

Tao’s stomach didn’t feel strong enough to hold his heart. He willed it to stop sinking, heavy and cold, to the bottom of his being. “Five…years?”

Yifan stood up and circled around to where Tao was laying on the ground. He hovered over him. Tao noticed that his satchel had been replaced by an embroidered leather pouch, and his shoes were polished and shiny. “When did you get here?” he asked.

“Just now, I thought,” Tao whispered. “Has it… Has it really been five years for you? Five?”

Yifan nodded. It was a short, curt movement that Tao didn’t like. “I thought you were gone. For good.”

“I wouldn’t have—” Tao paused and bit back promises he couldn’t keep. “If I had the choice, I wouldn’t have been. I would always come back.”

“I knew that,” Yifan said, voice steady. “I thought the world wouldn’t let you.”

Tao chewed lethargically at his lip, mind clouded even though his vision was perfect. “Well,” he started haltingly. “I guess that’s a legitimate concern.”

It got quiet between them. Tao broke it with a hushed whisper. “Did you not want me to come back?”

Yifan narrowed his eyes. He knelt and hesitantly touched Tao’s face, as if gauging if he were real. Tao wanted to tell him that he wasn’t, even as he leaned his cheek into his palm and breathed into his skin.

“I wanted you to come back with every fiber of my being,” he said. “And then I didn’t. Because it would hurt if you left again.”

Tao peered up at him, reaching out to trail fingers down his jaw. “What do you want now?”

Yifan was stoic for a moment. Then, he smiled, tears escaping the cup of his bottom eyelid and rolling down his face like little drops of ice. Tao marveled at the light trapped inside them. He picked out their aftermath, little, glossy paths of water, and rubbed them away with the pad of his thumb. Yifan didn’t flinch. “I want you to stay.”

☁