Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 51

to their voyage. Xuqiyue was much more sociable than Lize was, but with his presence, Lize found it possible to
engage. People even said “you’re the guy who Xuqiyue always sticks to, aren’t you?” to him. It had admittedly been
easy becoming closer to the man, after all.
“Yes,” Lize replied with a resigned toss of his head as he rolled out the map they had been given. Or rather,
the blank scroll. They were entering uncharted waters now. “Now you know why I was so…prickly back then, for lack
of a better word.” They were discussing how exactly Lize had ended up on board the treasure ship. It had been a full
four months since the voyage had begun, and Lize still wasn’t sure he was enjoying the whole ordeal, notwithstanding
the decent acquaintances – or friends – that he had made. The daily work was harsh, and he couldn’t help but think
about how his mother was doing. He hadn’t even gotten to properly say goodbye, not with the intention of leaving for
years. To look on the bright side, he wasn’t getting seasick every other day, which was an improvement if he said so
himself. In hindsight, he was infinitely glad that Xuqiyue hadn’t approached him earlier, when his pale skin had
appeared constantly sallow and green from the ship’s inconsistent swaying.
“Don’t get me wrong, I forgave that incompetent Zhouli a long time ago,” Lize exhaled, running his fingers
up the bridge of his sharp nose. “But I can’t help it, you know. Can’t help but be frustrated.”
When Xuqiyue didn’t respond, he looked up to find the younger man smiling at him with a tilted head,
completely disregarding their task at hand. Lize rolled his eyes before he continued, painstakingly etching down the
shape of a nearby island. When he finished, Xuqiyue caught his hand before he could start on the shoreline of a
peninsula that was approaching on the horizon.
“What is it?” Lize’s voice was as cool as always, but his undertone was more exasperated than aggravated.
“Tell me about your mother, Lize.”
“Now why would I ever?”
“I’m curious!”
“…Right.”
“Please? I’ll give you some of my dinner, alright?”
“Fine,” Lize relented, moving his attention back onto the teal and the blue of the ocean roaring around them.
“I’ll tell you about her when our shift ends here, alright? This requires my focus, and yours, if you want to hear about
my mother.” Lize cracked the tiniest bit, the side of his mouth quirking up when Xuqiyue let out a loud and accusing
yowl, complaining about his unfairness and sportsmanship. Yeah, right… What an idiot. Lize was just being smart,
which Xuqiyue seemed incapable of doing at times. Lize laughed mentally at the thought, subconsciously reaching over
to fix Xuqiyue’s sleeve. Oh well. He didn’t really mind sharing about his mother. She wasn’t dead or anything, nor
gone, and she was a wonderful woman. She was quick-witted, grounded, big on manners and strict, but she loved
nothing more than her own children and her late husband. She always wanted the best for them, he thought, suddenly
feeling a wave of guilt before he squashed it down. Haa… he missed her. Much more than he’d like to admit to
anyone, even himself. He was a grown man now.
“Now, Lize, your mother wouldn’t want you to sulk, would she?”
“S-sulk? When have I ever?” Lize retorted, glaring at Xuqiyue. Even though the man had never shied away
from Lize’s stink eyes, he had the horrifying feeling that they were doing the opposite of their intended effect.
“All the time! Whenever I leave you for a while, you have such a lonely-” Xuqiyue broke off into an undignified
squawk as Lize swatted at him, impatient. “Seriously,” he muttered under his breath as he stepped back, turning to
begin to work on cleaning the starboard, only for Xuqiyue to accidentally knock over a set of brooms in his hurry to
get to Lize. “I’m serious this time,” Xuqiyue coaxed soothingly as he was determined to break into Lize’s personal
space, headfast. “Get on with it,” Lize responded, cocking his head as if daring Xuqiyue to speak.
“You look like you don’t want to be here sometimes,” Xuqiyue started, his voice steady without any hint of a
taunt. For once, he seemed to be a little nervous: he wrung his hands together, though his eyes were still. “You always
tell us it’s nothing at all, but you really want to go home, don’t you?” he paused for a moment, trying to find the words
to put together of what he wanted to say. “But you know, your mom, she seems much more adaptable than you are,”
he joked, ducking when Lize swung at him. “Just kidding, Lize. I just meant… I think your mother would want you to
enjoy this.” Xuqiyue spread his arm, as if to indicate at everything around them: the sea foam swallowing up the hull of
their ship, the masses of crew members in throngs, the strong mast flipping in the wind, and more than anything, the
open sea. “It’s really not an opportunity you get every day, getting to go on such an important voyage for the emperor
himself,” he laughed, a high, clear sound, his hands coming to clutch at the jade pendant around his chest which Lize
knew belonged to the man’s late grandmother.
Lize couldn’t help but blink, surprised that Xuqiyue had become so incredibly perceptive…but maybe he
always had been. Maybe that’s why he even approached Lize in the first place, even though it entailed the most
awkward greeting in history. And now that Lize thought about it…he was right, too: upon hearing Xuqiyue’s words,
his mother’s face drifted out of the haze of his thoughts and jabbed a stick at him. “Get yourself together, young man,”
she chastised him in the recesses of his head, and he stifled a self-deprecating laugh in favor of looking up at the