Your Distance

45 - Master of Inciting Rage

His return flight was supposed to be on Saturday night, but Bai Changyi changed it to Saturday morning.

The plane landed on time. Bai Changyi put down his magazine and glanced at his watch. He should be able to get home before 8am. If so, he could have breakfast with Ting Shuang, who probably hadn’t gotten up yet. The two of them could then have a good talk over breakfast. After eating breakfast and sending Ting Shuang off for work in the cafe, he would sit alone in his usual spot in the cafe, reading books and people-watching.

Thinking about it, there was a hint of a smile in Bai Changyi’s eyes as he opened the door.

But after opening the door, the sight that greeted him made that hint of a smile disappear.

The home was empty and tidy beyond words.

There weren’t any comic books left open and sprawled out on the sofa. There weren’t any bottles of beer left half-drunk on the coffee table, turned warm in the summer air. There weren’t any pillows thrown and left on the carpet. There weren’t any jeans or T-shirts waiting to be washed after being taken off and hung on the backs of the chairs.

Bai Changyi walked further in.

There was no decanter with flowers in it on the table. There was no watermelon that had had pieces of its flesh dug away with a spoon on the kitchen counter. The refrigerator was full of various ingredients, as if it had just been replenished. Not a single one of the ice cream in the freezer had been touched. Even the trash can was clean.

In the study, there weren’t any comics or various course notes on the shelves. There weren’t any messy foolscap papers on the desk, nor the laptop with various anime characters’ stickers pasted all over it.

Upstairs.

In the bedroom, the bed had been neatly made, as if no one had ever slept in it.

On the balcony, the cigarette ashes in the flowerpot had been cleaned up, and the cactus was thriving under the sun.

In the bathroom, there was only one toothbrush and cup on the sink, and only one set of white towels on the towel rack. There was nothing placed on the sides of the bathtub and the toilet cistern.

The toilet seat had been put down.

“Putting the toilet seat down is a bad habit. It’s a terrible habit, so quickly change it.” At dawn not long ago, Ting Shuang had turned his head away from him and whined.

Bai Changyi went to look at other bathrooms. It wasn’t an irregularity. Now the toilet seats in all the bathrooms had been put down.

Everything had returned to what it was like three months ago.

The whole house looked like a hotel.

The only thing that was slightly different from three months ago, was the glass cylinder, in which was money, on the bedside as well as the three-dimensional world map, on which was a small flag.

There were now ten more fifty euro notes in the glass cylinder.

Bai Changyi walked up to the map, picked up the small flag, and looked at it for a while.

“We’re here.” Not long ago, Ting Shuang had poked this small flag onto the map where Hanover was located. “Next time, just by looking at the map we’d be able to think of… where we’ve gone together.”

Bai Changyi poked the small flag back into its place.

The night before his business trip, whatever it was, Bai Changyi had thought that it wasn’t even worth quarrelling over. The kid was throwing a tantrum and was unwilling to communicate, and he couldn’t force it, so he planned to talk about it nicely when he came back from his business trip.