Everything seemed to scream that it was New Year’s time—the children in red woolen coats running around and setting off firecrackers, the acrid scent of smoke in the frosty air, the pedestrians hurrying home, the people crowding the markets to make their holiday purchases, the TV news reports on the holiday rush at train stations and traffic on the roads, and the same handful of holiday songs that played on every street corner every year without fail…
This was when Jiang Cheng finally realized, Ah, it’s New Year’s.
He didn’t have any special memories of past New Year’s holidays, which had mostly been spent eating, drinking, and visiting relatives, as well as going out every day with friends. The only thing he remembered was that there never seemed to be enough time to play as much as he wanted before school started again—he’d always wondered why summer break couldn’t lend some of its days to the winter break.
But now he felt a little lost.
It’s New Year’s.
How should I celebrate? Where should I go?
…Should I celebrate at all?
“We usually spend it at the store,” Gu Fei said on the way back from feasting on meat pies. “Er-Miao likes to celebrate at the store—it’s more convenient for her to go in and out with the firecrackers.”
“Isn’t she scared of the noise?” asked Jiang Cheng.
“Nope, she loves it. Whichever house was setting off firecrackers, she’d zoom through it on her skateboard.” Gu Fei smiled at the memory. “She even singed a tuft of her hair last year.”
Jiang Cheng found it amusing.
“Come spend it with us this year,” Gu Fei told him. “You can come by once dinner’s ready, and we’ll set off firecrackers together. You can go back to studying after that.”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “Sure.”
“And if you think that’s not lively enough, we can get Li Yan, Liu Fan, and the others,” added Gu Fei. “Those guys never want to stay at home after dinner anyway.”
“Do you like it to be livelier?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“I don’t mind either way,” Gu Fei said. “In the past…it was always just me and Er-Miao. My mom usually went out as soon as we were done eating.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng thought about it. “Call the guys here, then. Er-Miao will probably like to see lots of people around, right?”
“Fair warning, then…” Gu Fei looked at him with a smile. “If they’re coming by, you’ll have to go back and study on your own that night. I’ll definitely be dragged off for an all-nighter.”
“No problem.” Jiang Cheng steered his bike closer to Gu Fei and clapped him on the shoulder.
Gu Fei had hardly gone out with Li Yan and the guys at all this semester, since he spent all his time hovering around Jiang Cheng. If Pan Zhi suddenly disappeared when he got a girlfriend someday, Jiang Cheng thought, he’d be upset about it too.
Jiang Cheng only spent one night brooding over New Year’s. After that, he returned to his usual studying routine. Before he noticed, the beginning of the winter break arrived, and the extra classes along with it, picking up seamlessly where the semester left off. He was impressed by what a good, studious youth he had been.
Gu Fei was spending four or five days out of the week with him at his apartment. He usually went to sleep once he’d accompanied Jiang Cheng through his memorizations and his midnight snack, but for the last two days, he would stay up and sit at the head of the bed, messing around on his phone.
“Playing that stupid game?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Nah, who has time for that? Li Yan is already more than twenty levels ahead of me. He’s been throwing it in my face every day, sending me screenshots all the time.”
Jiang Cheng shot him a glance. “You sound quite busy.”
“Yeah.” Gu Fei nodded seriously. “I have to keep my boyfriend company while he studies every day. I shot up through the ranks by more than fifty spots in the final exams this past semester. Lao-Xu even pulled me aside the other day with tears in his eyes.”
“You can actually—” Jiang Cheng stopped himself. He put his head down again and continued his worksheet.
You can actually get pretty good grades if you put in a little effort. But if he said that out loud, Gu Fei might overthink it.
Jiang Cheng forced his words back down. “You can actually sleep first,” he said instead. “No need to wait for me.”
“I’m not waiting for you.” Gu Fei stuck the phone in front of Jiang Cheng’s face. “I’m looking up recipes.”
Jiang Cheng glanced at it. “For New Year’s Eve dinner?”
“Mm-hm.” Gu Fei returned his attention to his phone. “For previous New Years, my mom just threw together a pot of whatever we had, then wrapped some dumplings and called it a day. Sometimes if we were lazy we’d just take frozen dumplings from the store freezer. I wanna make it a little more proper this year, since it’s the first one we’re spending together.”
Jiang Cheng chuckled. “Will you be the head chef?”
“You don’t have faith in me?”
“Ah.” Jiang Cheng glanced at the empty bowl on his desk. They’d had Shandong gravied meatballs for a midnight snack—five of them, each the size of a fist. “Sure, it’s just…maybe you can look at some vegetarian recipes, too.”
“What good are vegetarian dishes?” said Gu Fei. “I thought you liked meat?”
“My esteemed Xiao-Gu,” Jiang Cheng sighed, “I’ve recently developed an appreciation for vegetables and leafy greens. It’s fine if they’re not green, though, white cabbage is okay too.”
“All right,” Gu Fei agreed. “I’ll braise some cabbage for tomorrow night.”
“…But I wouldn’t mind if you drop some hints of meat in there, either,” Jiang Cheng added, sighing.
“Didn’t you say you wanted vegetarian dishes?”
“Are your only offerings vegetarian or all meat?” Jiang Cheng said in exasperation. “I want meat-veggie combos!”
“It’s called a balanced plate,” Gu Fei corrected him.
Jiang Cheng pointed at him, but he couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. He put his head back down into his books.
✦ ✦ ✦
The extra classes for winter break lasted all the way until the twenty-eighth day of the last lunar month, leaving the senior students with only one day off before New Year’s Eve, when celebrations began. According to Lao-Xu, this was to give them time to go home, clean their rooms, and go holiday shopping with their parents.
Gu Fei woke Jiang Cheng up early in the morning.
“Where are we going?” Jiang Cheng asked blearily.
“Grocery shopping.” Gu Fei flung the covers off the bed as he got dressed.
“What?” Jiang Cheng pulled the covers back over himself. “Weren’t you running to the grocery store every free minute you had the past few days? I was afraid you’d clean the place out. Are you still missing stuff?”
“That’s different.” Gu Fei smiled as he leaned over the headboard. “Don’t you want the joyful experience of going New Year’s shopping with your boyfriend?”
“…You dork.” Jiang Cheng laughed. “Fine, I’m up.”
Two days before New Year’s Day, the holiday spirit was thick in the air. As Jiang Cheng washed up in the bathroom, he could hear the sounds of people talking and laughing outside…as well as sounds of people arguing. Those were also louder and livelier than usual, too.
He walked over to the window and looked down as he brushed his teeth.
There were several extremely ugly snowmen downstairs with rusty buckets over their heads. A bunch of little brats were running madly around and causing a ruckus. One kid howled and spewed insults at some unknown target; meanwhile, two people stood at the side of the road, shouting at each other with hands on their hips—a grandpa and a grandma.
Ah, it’s already been a year.
Jiang Cheng suddenly felt a little sentimental. He watched the chaotic scenes unfold downstairs, and for the first time, he didn’t feel annoyed at the disorder.
To his surprise, he found he was really looking forward to the tiresome activities of crowding at the supermarket, fighting other shoppers for loot, then standing shoulder to shoulder in the checkout line. It was the first time the holidays actually felt different from a normal day.