After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang

Author:Cynthia Zhang
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781777091750
Publisher: Stelliform Press
Published: 2021-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

“I’m not your tour guide,” Kai says, shading his eyes against the sun, “You can’t keep asking me to skip work to take you around Beijing.”

“And yet you keep on accompanying me on these trips,” Eli says. In the blinding afternoon light, his skin is burnished bronze, his legs endless in a pair of green floral shorts. A pair of oversized sunglasses covers half his face, the sight somehow ridiculous and endearing at once. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“You keep buying me things,” Kai says, considering the two ice creams Eli is holding.

“It’s a hot day,” Eli says, handing one cone over. “Besides, I’m pulling you out of work, aren’t I? It’s the least I can do.”

Kai rolls his eyes, but he takes the ice cream. It’s sesame and already melting, and he licks cream off his fingers before it can drip further down his hand. Eli smiles at it, fond and amused, and hands Kai a napkin.

“Where to go, tour guide?”

Unlike the nearby Jingshan or Beiha parks, Ritan is one of the less ostentatious national parks, but that does not mean much in Beijing. Even less so on a day like this: still summer, but cool enough that there are a significant number of locals among the normal crowds of tourists, Beijing families cautiously venturing out into the heat for brief vacations of their own. Greying men wearing Cartier watches and T-shirts emblazoned with the names of American sports teams walk past, their powdered middle-aged wives following behind with Louis Vuitton face masks and flowered umbrellas. Once in a while, one of them glances at the sky, the clouds gathering there providing a brief reprieve from the heat.

Eli gathers their popsicle sticks when they finish, dropping them into a nearby trash bin. He’s smiling to himself. It’s different from the way he usually smiles out at the world, more reassurance of friendliness than a sign of actual emotion.

Eli catches Kai staring. His smile widens, and Kai looks away.

To distract from the flush he can feel rising, Kai asks, staring resolutely at his sneakers, “don’t you have a lab you need to work at or something?”

“There are other people at the lab.” Eli says. “I’ve taken over plenty of shifts for them before; now I’m giving them the chance to repay the favor. Besides, half of the program is about being a cultural ambassador, making connections. I’m making up for lost time.”

“And you’re doing that,” Kai says, “by walking around parks and buying overpriced ice cream from street vendors.”

“Someone has to do it,” Eli says, shrugging. “Besides, the rest of them are usually either on field trips to ‘important cultural sites’ or out getting drunk and dancing at clubs. And well, it’s not exactly like I’m into bad baijiu and girls anyways.”

“Because you don’t like girls.”

“No,” Eli says, thoughtful. “I wasn’t sure I liked anyone actually, not in the way we’re talking about at least, but it turned out I was wrong about that too. It’s been interesting, these past couple of weeks.

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