A full year had passed and even though YiXing still wasn’t the brightest at English, he knew enough to know that English-speaking people could not pronounce his real name nor were they interested in trying.

Does That Answer Your Question? (Y.O.U) Part 3

“YiXing, what are you doing, and answer me in English this time,” I asked him.

He looked up at me from his bent over position. He kept scribbling small English words in a little tablet that he had. His eyes stayed on me for a while before looking back down into his book of little words.

I should be grateful that he could even write English words now. It took A LOT of strenuous tutoring and constant repetition for him to even come to this point.

He still reads slowly, but at least he can read!

“YiXing, will you explain to me what you are doing?” again he looked up at me and pursed his lips together as if in thought before squeaking out in heavily accented English, “Chinese name no good for people here.”

“Excuse me?”

He sighed before turning his attention back to his little tablet and completely ignoring me. Even though a year had passed as me as his tutor, I still managed to become his friend.

Last year’s winter break is what sealed the deal.

I gave him my number and we met every day for the whole break. Since I had no reason to go and see my family seeing that they had already visited me a week prior and YiXing seemed to have no family to visit, we were each other’s companion for that time period.

I got to know a little more about him, I got to see more habits of his, and most importantly, I was able to see what being a true friend to him was.

“Are you content with just being able to speak to me every day?” I asked him.

“Yeah, why not? I don’t mind having you as my friend,” he smiled out.

“I am not your friend, I am your tutor. We will become friends when you prove yourself worthy.”

He began to laugh at me, “I am worthy right now. I can show you that.”

“Why don’t you give it a try then? How about counting up to one hundred?”

He smirked, “1, 2, 3, 4…,”

“NaNa, what do you want to do today?” YiXing asked me, snapping me out of my thoughts of the past.

“Not sure, but I was wondering if you would do me a favor,” I began.

“Why not? Anything for my friend right?”

“I think you like the fact that I finally agreed to be your friend,” I smiled. I like the fact that I finally decided to be his friend.

“My secret,” he teased.

“You don’t have somewhere to be? Any treatments today?” I watched him get a little stiff at that statement.

He always got stiff when I brought it up as if he was hiding something. I didn’t want to pry, but I did want to know, especially when they got in the way of our lessons.

“No, I am free, I just want to hang with my friend today,” I watched as his shoulders relaxed.

“Fine, let’s go to the movies, I want to see that new movie that came out.”

“The one with the horses?” he got giddy on me all of a sudden, “I want to see that too, it’s the closes thing this planet has to unicorns!”

Unicorns?

“YiXing, Unicorns?”

He stopped jumping and looked seriously at me. I felt a chill go down my spine since he is rarely ever serious.

“Yes, I like unicorns, though they are better than horses, they do have the same structure,” he explained.

I just blinked at him. I have known him for a whole year, but this is what I get for not befriending him earlier.

We never talked about personal matters while I was tutoring him.

Now that we do, it’s like I get a shock whenever he decides to share something with me.

“Well, then, ok,” I barely got out.

“Come on lets go buy the tickets, I want a good seat,” he grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

~~~~~

The whole time we were at the theater, I was distracted.

I kept looking at my hand that was interwoven into YiXing’s hand. The only time he let it go was when we had to separate on public transportation. As soon as we got the seat, his hand was searching for mine again.

I completely missed half of the movie because of him.

When I would forget we were even touching, a serious part in the movie would come up and he would squeeze my hand, reminding of the fact that we’re still connected.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” he asked me with excitement. I had to come up with a fake response just to have conversation.

“Yeah, it was great!”

“Really which part did you enjoy the most?”

Oh crap! What am I suppose to say? The only part I remember is how warm his hand felt wrapped around mine…

“He did look like his hands had a tight hold, huh?” he said out of the blue.

Did I say something about hands out loud? Just go with it NaNa…

“Yeah, I mean I wish he would have let go, you know?” I looked sideways at him trying to see if what I said made any sense.

“You wanted him to let go? If he would have done that, he could have died,” he looked right at me wide eyed and shocked.

I got wide eyed myself trying to think of a good response.

“Um, yeah, but you know, he look like he was making the horse uncomfortable,” I shot out.

“NaNa, the horse should be used to her owners hands holding on to its hair. Especially since he rides the horse , with no protection,” he explained seriously having no idea how I was taking this conversation.

“Yeah ok, well, um…” I kept trying to think of the appropriate words for this topic, “the horse needs a..Saddle? Yes a saddle and reins! He should not be touching the horse without its permission first!”

He just continued to look at me confused as we made our way home.

~~~~

“I have it!” YiXing shouted running to our table in the library.

I shushed him, as always.

“What do you have?”

“My name, I want to be called…Lay!” I practically squealed.

Lay? What does that even mean?

“Lay? Are you serious?”

“Yes! It is an English term; people should have no problem pronouncing it.”

“What does that mean?”

He stretched his lips into the biggest smile obviously letting me know that he is proud of himself.

“Remember when we were going over nouns? I really wanted to study nouns because they were so difficult for me, especially pronouns. But I also wanted a simple name that I can spell and people can pronounce! So I came up with Lay, it is also a noun which means ‘A short lyric or narrative poem that is sung.’”

 He started bouncing in his seat, “I sing! Music is like a poem, and it’s my major! The name is perfect!”

I didn’t even know that lay had another meaning, so I decided to look it up in the dictionary.

And there it was:

lay/lā/

“You see it right?” he asked me excitedly. I shook my head, not liking this new name so much.

“So is this what you were scribbling in that tablet of yours? And answer me in English and then elaborate,” I told him.

“Yes,” he started, but quickly stopped to think about his next choice of words, “People feel more relaxed with easy name.”

“Why do you think they will feel more relaxed?”

“Hard name they not like. Easy name they like. YiXing hard name,” he explained.

“If you are trying so hard to speak English, don’t you think the least a native English speaker can do is learn how to pronounce your real name?”

“No need, I change name so it easy for them.”

I am not going to use that name. People here are too selfish and they always want what is easy. YiXing is his name, and I am using sticking with that.

~~~~~

“When are you leaving YiXing?” I asked him. He was starting to irritate me with his constant need to disappear.

He scoffed at me as he usually did when I used his real name.

“I told you to call me Lay.”

“What 20 year old refers to himself as a bag of potato chips?” I barked back. 

He continued to pack up his things.

“I would like to meet other people, and I think a three letter English name is better than a six letter Chinese name,” he explained.

“I don’t want to call you an edible product!”

“Then don’t because I am not an edible product,” he said walking around to my side of the table then bending to face my sitting position, “besides, if I was, I would be delicious,” he smirked showing his dimple to me.

I could feel the heat rush to my face at his proximity. I don’t know what is getting into him and this new boldness he is showing, but it is putting me on edge.

“Yah! GeGe!” I screamed feeling fully flustered as I stood up, knocking him backwards.

He laughed once he caught his balance.

I pouted my lips and rolled my eyes at him before plopping back down into the chair with him looking at me, a smirk still adorned on his face.

“Do you want me to wipe that pout from your lips?” he asked in an innocent voice making my eyes grow big as my brain took what he said in a different way.

“Don’t you have treatments?” I covered.

“No, but I do have dance practice, do you want to come watch?”

Ok, I would only admit this to myself, but I did love watching YiXing dance. Gone would be the overly excited toddler I know and in would come a grown man.

His sharp movements would have my mouth hanging open and his serious, confident look would have my heart beating faster than normal.

I hated always watching quietly in shock as the sweat would build up on his forehead and his neck length hair would began to stick making me just want to dab the sweat for him.

Then my emotions would always get the best of me when watching him dance, that is, until the music stops and his face would contort into a zoned out stare again, one that I recognized as his default face.

Then and only then would I remember that this was the toddler-like YiXing that I was having these thoughts about.

“No thank you,” came my answer, I’d rather not go through that battle with my brain, again.

“Am I not entertaining enough?” he asked throwing me off guard.

Entertaining enough? More like too entertaining…

“No! You are great! I wish you were as good in English as you are in dancing,” I .

He laughed in return and assured me that one-day he would be. He would know the best English and eventually be able to speak it better than Chinese.

Not that I don’t want him to learn English, I mean that was my whole goal as his tutor!

But the thought of him changing his name to appease English speakers, and learning English as well, made me feel like I would somehow lose him.

He is really likable, so when people do give him a shot, where would that leave me?

“YiXing?” I asked him.

“Lay,” came his reply making me roll my eyes.

“Whatever, look I just want to ask if you are always going to be my friend?” I kind of whispered that last part.

“Umm, are you trying to get rid of me?” he asked unsurely.

“What? No! Why would I be?”

“Just checking, you know how hard I worked so you could acknowledge me as your friend, I would never stop being your friend even if my body broke!” he said adamantly.

“Is that a promise?”

A/N: Part Three finish! This was a weird one to write I have to say, but I do hope you guys enjoyed it or at least understood it. I do suggest everyone at least read the original oneshot ‘Does That Answer Your Question’ so you know what time frame I am in and what is being added to that oneshot.

For those who are keeping up with the different parts of the story and have read the original, if you saw anything in those stories that you would want to see elaborated on or more detailed and explained, don’t hesitate to ask me so I can put it in the next part…if you are content with my brain waves and what I am doing already then that is fine as well.

Stick with me! And COMMENT…even though I know most of you won’t….!!!