Chapter 15 – Stranger

陌生人
（一）Put thumbs of both hands up, fits of both hands are touching
（二）Part the fists, to indicate both don’t know each other
（三）Put index fingers of both hands together, symbolizing the character “人”

It was a rather dull day when Yixing and Yifan arrived at the hospital. They originally had planned to take a taxi, but looking at the Wudaokou intersection and the hopelessly big traffic jam, they went for the subway instead. Thankfully, a new subway line had just opened which saved them the detour with Line 13 so they arrived just in time at the information desk.
Hospitals had never been Yifan’s thing. Somehow, it always smelled like disease and death no matter how clean the building appeared. A young woman sat at the information counter, wearing a pink nurse outfit. Yifan was pushed forward by Yixing and she looked up. Her name tag revealed that she went by the name Wang Hualiang.
“Welcome to Beijing United Family Hospital, what can I do for you?”
The phrase was obviously rehearsed but she had a smile that reached her eyes which made her sympathetic.
“Hi. Umm, we’ve got an appointment with Dr. Sofia Lopez and Dr. Wang Dieyi.”
She nodded and asked:
“Which medical service are we talking about?”
“I guess that would be ENT.”
The woman typed something into her computer and the phone extension of the two doctors popped up.
“Who do they have an appointment with?”
Yifan almost said his own name:
“Wu… no, stop, wait. Zhang Yixing. I’m just… tagging along.”
“I understand,” she responded with a smile and grabbed the phone next to her before she dialed the number on her computer screen – when the other person on the line picked up, she said:
“Hello Dr. Wang, your patient arrived, his name is Zhang Yixing. --- Yes, it’s already half past one. --- No, he’s brought company --- Understood, I’ll tell them, goodbye.”
She hung up and looked back up to Yifan while Yixing stood a little offside. She pointed with an open hand to the chairs in the hallway.
“Please take a seat. Dr. Wang and Dr. Lopez will come pick you up.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Yifan grabbed Yixing’s elbow and placed him on one of the chairs that matched the color of Wang Hualiang’s dress. Yixing had become more and more silent and now he was drumming onto the armrest of his chair. Yifan couldn’t stand people doing that so he took his hand to make him stop which caused Yixing to look at him.
“Don’t be nervous. It will be fine.”
“It’s still weird,” Yixing responded.
“Take a deep breath.”
“That’s definitely not going to work.”
They sat there for a good ten minutes in which Yifan tried to calm Yixing down with smalltalk, but if not, he only made it worse. Suddenly the doors of the elevator next to the information desk swung open and two people emerged. One of them was a young Chinese looking man with very short hair but a handsome face. He was a little smaller than the woman who had long black hair and skin that made Yifan immediately think of long days at the beach during summer. What a weird comparison, he thought, since her name gave away that she must had Hispanic roots. The two seemed to be in the middle of a heated conversation in English.
“NO, Dieyi, I’m telling you: You are wrong. It’s not Cece! It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Sorry to break it to you, but your theory about Wren being A is just as stupid!”
When they saw Yixing and Yifan, Dr. Lopez nudged the side of her colleague with her elbow.
“Talking about Pretty Little Liars during work?” Yifan asked and the doctor’s eyes grew wide.
“Aaaah, Sofia, we got caught,” the male doctor said with a playful smile.
“The day has finally come… Hello, I’m Sofia Lopez, nice to meet you!” the woman said and took Yifan’s hand to shake it.
After everyone had shaken everyone’s hand, Dr. Lopez started to talk in English, while Dr. Wang interpreted using CSL.
“It’s really nice to see you two. Let’s go to our office and have a talk there, shall we?”
Yixing linked arms with Yifan, holding tightly to his arm bed while they followed the duo into the elevator and they rode up to seventh floor. They stayed silent until the fifth floor and Dr. Lopez turned around.
“Okay, so you obviously know about Pretty Little Liars. Tell me: Is Cece or Wren A?”
“Sofia, that’s cheating! Don’t tell her!” Dr. Wang threw in.
“Well… I don’t watch it anymore but one of my best friends does and he told me he was kind of disappointed with the reveal of A’s identity,” the student tip toed around the answer.
“Ooooooh,” Dr. Lopez said and nodded, looking as if she was in deep thought, then she turned to her colleague, “Then I guess you’re right. Because Cece being A would be just really disappointing.”
“Pfff, my theory is amazing you just haven’t seen the light yet.”
The elevator doors opened and without any word, Dr. Lopez stepped out, leading the way. Down the hallway a lot of nurses greeted the two doctors and they greeted back, which gave Yifan the feeling that they weren’t stuck up and thought they were above everyone simply because of their degree. Dr. Lopez opened a door at the end of the hallway and said:
“Please come in and sit down.”
The office was neatly organized with one big table in the middle. A lot of books were placed on the shelves and besides medical recordings, encyclopedias and scientific journeys Yifan also spotted novels like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and books that titled ‘Easy Chinese Learning’. Dr. Lopez sat down in front of the computer, Dr. Wang grabbed another chair and sat down next to her. When he saw Yifan’s suspicious look, he said:
“My office is next door, it doesn’t matter where we do the discussion anyway.”
“Dr. Wang and I are a team and we are not doing this thing where one is the assistant and the other is the boss. That’s how we got through university together so we figured we could also pull that off while we’re practicing medicine,” the woman explained and opened a file on her desktop which looked like Yixing’s medical record they had set up before.
“So, do you have your audiogram with you, Mr. Zhang?” Dr. Wang asked in Chinese and Yixing fumbled the piece of paper out of his bag and handed it over the table.
The doctors scammed the diagram which showed Yixing’s hearing range. They looked at each other and nodded conjointly before Dr. Lopez started talking in English, while Dr. Wang interpreted once again so Yixing could follow too:
“Okay, your audiogram tells us that your hearing range starts at approximately 90 to 100 decibles, which means you’ve got a severe hearing loss. That’s important because the Esteem Implant only works for patients with moderate and severe hearing loss. So that is basically one third of the whole thing. Next is word recognition. The patient needs to recognize 40 percent and more of words in a spoken conversation.”
“That is no problem at all,” Yifan threw in, “He’s able to understand everything in spoken conversations.”
“We will still run some tests on that, just to be thorough,” Dr. Lopez said and continued, “The last thing to check is if there’s enough space in the middle ear to insert the Esteem sensor and the driver.”
She grabbed a piece of paper with a graphic printed on it that showed where the implant would be inserted if it came to an operation.
“If all three conditions are met, we can basically start with the operation. I can give you that infographic so you can take another look at it at home.”
She slipped the paper over the table and Yixing took it in his hands, studying the paper carefully. When his attention was back on the doctors, the woman said:
“Mr. Zhang has severe hearing loss on both sides. It’s no problem to get an implant on both ears, but we usually let six months pass until we proceed with the second implant. It is, however, possible to get both implants at once, but we don’t recommend it to be honest. The implant itself isn’t very big, but the surgical procedure is and the body needs time to recover. Our recommendation would be to wear a hearing aid in the ear with no implant to balance out the hearing during these six months. It’s not perfect but it’s only temporary.”
“But I really hate hearing aids…”
Dr. Wang laughed and said:
“Who doesn’t hate hearing aids?”
Dr. Lopez looked confused, raised an eyebrow and then proceeded:
“It’s your decision, if you want to get both implants at once, we’re happy to do so. We have performed such a surgery before and all went well. One week after the surgery, we’ll pull the stitches and three weeks later we should be ready to turn on the device.”
“And from that point on, he’s able to hear things?”
“Yes. After that, he’s required to visit special classes that help establishing his speech. This is mandatory if you join our program. Since there are not many people around that visit them, we’re only able to offer classes in the School for the Hearing Impaired in Haidian.”
After she handed over another piece of paper with all the important information on the classes a moment of silence followed and all eyes were set on Yixing who pouted and looked down at the inforgraphic. Then he looked back up and Dr. Wang said:
“But we should run the tests first before we talk about those further details. Do you have any questions so far?”
“I don’t think so…” Yixing said and the doctors exchanged a look with each other.
Dr. Lopez showed her thumb up and nodded and Dr. Wang stood up.
“Okay, Mr. Zhang, please come with me. I’ll run the tests with you. Don’t worry, they’ll take about thirty minutes and don’t hurt at all.”
Yixing nodded, still nervous and looked at Yifan. He squeezed his hand and said:
“I’ll be waiting here.”
“Okay.”
Dr. Wang led Yixing out of the room and when the door was closed, the female doctor printed out Yixing’s file. While the printer gave out the pages, she said:
“CSL is so different from ASL, I feel a little stupid when we talk to our patients.”
“So you’re from America?”
She nodded and grabbed the papers when the print was finished.
“We’ve got the chance to work here and train a group of young Chinese doctors to do our work. Dieyi knows CSL so we kind of seized the opportunity.”
“So you’ve exchanged America for China… how much money do they give you?!”
Dr. Lopez laughed and said:
“It’s not about money, it’s about helping people. But I have to admit; on days like today I miss the States very much.”
She pointed out of the window where the smog was so thick they couldn’t even see the building next to them.
“Yeah, the smog situation is horrible here,” Yifan admitted and Dr. Lopez took a pen out of one of the drawers.
“It really is, I’m glad we’ve got airfilters in the hospital. – I assume you’re going to be Zhang Yixing’s contact person?”
“Umm. I guess, yes.”
She smiled and handed him the pen and one of the papers.
“Then please fill out that form. We just need your contact info and stuff like this in case something happens. Which is not going to happen, but you’re always better safe than sorry.”
Yifan nodded and filled out the form which was written in Chinese and English. The last field asked for the relation between the contact person and the patient and Yifan hesitated.
“I’ve got a question,” he said.
“Yes, what is it?”
“This ‘Relation to patient’ thing… I’m not related to him.”
Dr. Lopez blinked and asked:
“Really? I thought you might be cousins or something, you seem so close.”
Dr. Lopez seemed to be an open minded person, so Yifan decided to confront her immediately:
“Well, yeah, no. I’m his boyfriend.”
“Oh, that explains it,” she said and after a moment of thinking she asked, “Where’s his family?”
“They live in Changsha. He’s living here in Beijing to study.”
The foreigner made a noise as if she had no idea what Yifan was talking about and turned around in her office chair to check the map of China on her wall.
“It’s in the South, more in the middle.”
It took her a moment to find it and then she went:
“Ooooh, that’s far away!”
“Kind of.”
She turned back to him and said:
“Well, ‘boyfriend’ does not have the legal status like ‘husband’ or ‘cousin’… but Dieyi always says that when in China, you can bend the rules a little. So… just write it down. It’s mainly for our files anyway.”
After that has been settled, Dr. Lopez engaged him in a conversation where Yifan found out that she had been growing up in the US while being raised by Columbian parents. After High School she went to study medicine and befriended Dieyi – they kind of shared the same fate, being young adults full of ideals with parents that clung to their countries’ traditions and values. After getting their PHDs they went on to work together and had specialized on the whole implant topic since Dieyi’s father was deaf too. Yifan on the other hand had to tell her how he knew CSL, how he met Yixing and why Yixing had decided to get an implant after such a long time. Just as Yifan had finished his story the office door opened and Dr. Wang came back with Yixing.
“There we are again. All set and done.”
Yixing got informed that the doctors would check the results as soon as possible and contact him to come in for another meeting where they’d discuss things like the date of operation. Before they finally got excused, Yixing asked:
“What if I don’t want the operation in the end?”
Dr. Wang looked at him and smiled.
“I know it seems intimidating right now. Go home, think it through, talk to your family and friends about it. If you’ve got questions, don’t hesitate to ask us. And if you’re still unsure about the surgery, we’ll just wait until you think you’re ready.”
“Yeah, what he said, even though I just undertood ‘go home’…” Dr. Lopez said and Yifan laughed.
“Heyyy, you’re slowly getting the hang of it!” her colleague said and nudged her shoulder.
“Thanks, I try my best.”
Yifan decided that he liked these two and he grabbed Yixing’s hand which was still a little sweaty from all the worrying before. After they had bid their goodbyes and the two sat in a taxi back to Wudaokou, Yifan asked:
“So, what do you think?”
“They’re nice,” Yixing responded after a moment.
“Well yeah, but I meant the whole implant thing.”
The smaller one sighed and admitted:
“I was very sure about this but now I’m… kind of taken aback.”
Yifan placed his hand on Yixing’s thigh. Yixing seemed to be not happy with these thoughts either, almost as if he was sorry he had dragged Yifan into this.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, first of all, Dr. Wang showed me a sample of the implant during the tests and the thought that this will be placed into my skull is scary.”
“Okay, but there are other people that have just this thing in their skulls and they are fine.”
“Do you know anyone who has gotten this before?”
When Yifan shook his head no, Yixing continued:
“See? You don’t. I don’t. I just read some blogs on the internet. And then there’s this thing with the second implant. I mean, you need about a month to recover from this and then you have to take part in these language classes. If I set the operation in the next weeks I’ll be missing a lot of classes at university and have to take a semester off. I can’t do this a second time.”
“You could still get both at once, Dr. Lopez said.”
“I could, but I’m not sure if I should. I know my body all too well. I don’t think getting both is such a good idea.”
“Okay I get your drift,” Yifan said and patted Yixing’s knee while the taxi driver sped up to get over a traffic light that was just switching from green to yellow, “If you ask me? I think you could check out the language class and maybe find someone who’s already participating in it to talk to them about the whole procedure. And about the implants – I can’t possibly imagie how this might feel to you, but I think if you’re willing to do it, you can endure it. And besides, you still got me. I’ll be there to nurse you back to health.”
“I can be very annoying when I’m sick.”
“I can take it. If not, I’ll send Suho over I bet he’d be happy to help out.”
“But you’re not very fond of him being with me.”
“I’m not fond of him being with you when I’m not there, there’s a difference. I’ll be watching every step he takes.”
Yixing shook his head but smiled. He intertwined the fingers of his hands with Yifan’s.
“I have to call my mom when we get home,” he mumbled and Yifan squeezed his hand to encourage him.

It was one week later when Yifan pushed his bike down the street, next to him was Suho who had just gotten the news about Yixing’s plan of getting an implant.
“So, that means he’s going to be able to hear stuff?” the Korean asked while they were walking over the green pedestrian light.
Yifan nodded and Suho gasped in excitement.
“He must be nervous, huh?”
“Nervous? He’s panicking every five minutes about it…”
“Well, understandable. I mean, someone’s going to cut his head open…”
“Dude, that was uncalled for.”
“Sorry!”
They passed some stores and cafés and Yifan explained Suho how the whole thing would be going down: Dr. Lopez had called him yesterday and announced that Yixing met all the criteria and even scored 95% of word recognition, something she had barely seen before. They had set up a date for another meeting where they’d be going through the details of the operation – and the next meeting would be getting the implant itself.
“Woaaaaar, so fast!” Suho said when they neared Zoo Coffee, some fancy Chinese café chain that tried to keep up with big Korean chains that had emerged all over the city.
Suho had the habit to check his looks in almost every display window and so it happened his head flinched once again. Yifan didn’t even care about it and was surprised when Suho made a surprised sound and said:
“Isn’t that Yixing in there?”
“Huh?”
Yifan turned his bike around and joined him, not caring that he basically blocked other pedestrians who started to curse at him. Suho was right – Yixing was sitting in one of the chairs next to the big window. He held onto a frappucino and chewed on the straw, while he looked at another guy who sat on the opposite side of the table. Yifan didn’t see his face, but judging from the clothes and the haircut, he must’ve been in about the same age as them… and he talked to Yixing using CSL.
“Who the is this?”
“I bet there’s an explanation…” Suho started but Yifan didn’t even listen.
He leaned his bike against one of the trees that had been planted to make the city at least look like the city council cared for its environment and banged against the window to get their attention. The guy turned around and Yixing looked up too. When he saw Yifan, he was startled for a second but then he waved and smiled at him.
“What are you doing here?” Yifan signed and Yixing told him to come in.
“Yeah, watch me get in there!”
“God you are such a drama queen,” Suho scoffed “At least try to control your jealousy a little, would you?”
“You shut up!” Yifan told him, making the Korean sigh and he said:
“Okay, I’ll get going. See you.”
When Suho had disappeared and Yifan had entered the room he saw Yixing signing:
“That’s my boyfriend, I told you about him.”
The stranger turned his head to Yifan and smiled. His hair was cut short on the sides while the rest of his hair fell over his right eye. A quick hairflip fixed that and a rather boyish and cute face appeared. Yifan wasn’t able to guess his age. He could’ve been also in his thirties already.
“Hey, I’m Luo Zhixiang, nice to meet you.”
“Wu Yifan.”
They shook hands and Yixing made space for Yifan to sit down next to him. When he had taken a seat, he asked:
“What’s exactly going on here?”
Yixing blinked innocently and said:
“Weren’t you the one who told me I should find someone who has already gotten an implant?”
“Yeah?”
Yixing opened his hands and pointed at Zhixiang, as if presenting him on a silver platter.
“Found one!”
The information finally made it to Yifan’s brain and all of a sudden he felt incredibly stupid.
“Ooooooooooh! You—oh! I get it, okay, you guys met here to talk about this implant stuff…”
Zhixiang nodded and asked:
“You thought I was hitting on your boyfriend, weren’t you?”
“I…”
The other one laughed and said:
“There’s no need to deny it, the way you looked at me did all the talking already.”
“… I got busted.”
Yixing shook his head and explained:
“Did you see that guy Yifan was with just now? He’s a friend of us but Yifan is always eyeing him suspiciously.”
“That is so not true!” he tried to defend himself but Zhixiang grinned.
“It’s okay, I think that shows that you care about him. I wouldn’t regard it as a bad thing.”
Zhixiang then proceeded to explain how this meet up came off. Yixing had written to the school asking some questions about the classes in general and the teacher had forwarded Yixing’s mail to Zhixiang. He had gotten the implant three months ago and was one of the ‘oldest’ students so he could give a lot of information based on his own experience. Zhixiang had contacted Yixing this morning and they set up a meeting right away which explained why Yixing hadn’t said anything – he hadn’t known he’d be meeting him either when he last had seen Yifan.
“So… you’re also one of Dr. Lopez’ and Dr. Wang’s patients?” Yifan asked.
The other one nodded.
“Yepp, I especially came to Beijing for the operation.”
“Huh? Where are you from then?”
“I’m from Fuzhou.”
“Woooow, but…”
“I know, it’s far,” Zhixiang admitted.
He had still some problems in getting the tones right but he was much better than Yixing. Yifan got excited when he thought about how Yixing would be talking in a few months from now.
“But these two are the only ones who perform the operation in the whole country.”
“What, really?!”
“Yes. There are a bunch of doctors doing this in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but that’s just too troublesome. So I decided to go to Beijing and stay on the mainland.”
Yifan was stunned and Zhixiang explained that three of the other four in his class weren’t from Beijing either. One came from Chongqing, the other one was actually from Harbin and the third one was from Kunming.
“And soon, we’ll be having another one!” he beamed and smiled at Yixing who smiled back.
“I first have to get past this operation.”
“Ah, believe me, it’s not that bad. I survived it, too!”
They spent another hour talking about Zhixiang’s experiences with the implant. It turned out the implant wasn’t perfect, and Zhixiang had needed two months to get used to the distorted sounds his implant sometimes caused, but when asked if he’d like to go back to how it was before he furiously shook his head.
“I’d never go back! The first time I could hear myself was so amazing, I still get goosebumps when I think about it. Trust me Yixing, this is the only right thing you could do.”
Yixing nodded and Zhixiang took a look at his wristwatch.
“Okay, I better get going now. I live in Chaoyang, I still need an hour to get home.”
“Sure!”
They all got up and walked to the intersection together, before Yifan (who was surprised his bike hadn’t gotten stolen) and Yixing had to go around the corner, Zhixiang needed to go straight on to the subway station. He turned around one last time:
“If you two have any question, just hit me up. Yixing’s got my number. And tell me when the date for your operation is, I’ll swing by to pay you a visit.”
“I’ll make sure to let you know. Bye!”
They watched Zhixiang disappearing into the station and Yifan started to giggle. Yixing noticed and asked:
“What?”
“I just realized you listened to me and my fabulous ideas for once!”
“You’re impossible, Wu Yifan!”
Yixing nudged his shoulder and turned around for his apartment. Yifan followed him, smiling from one ear to the other.

A/N: I know Show Luo is actually from Taiwan BUT Taiwanese Sign Language is a thing on its own so yeah here we go. (I'm a little go fighting-damaged, showxing is just my all time brotp, so I had to bring him into this thing yoooo).
OKAY guys this is the last update before I leave & I still have so many things to do (why is my luggage not packing itself WHYYYY) and I hope you liked this chapter and you'll be waiting for me. I promise to be back in October! :)
Have a great week! ♥