Chapter 23 Streetlight Kiss
Near home, the two of us got out of the car.
When we reached the dim streetlight downstairs, Tang Xiaomang suddenly stopped. He turned around and tipped his face up to look at me.
The light traced his soft outline. His eyes looked filmed with moisture, bright enough to startle.
"Brother Ye......"
His voice was very light. He looked at me with liquor on his breath.
My heart sank.
The thing I had feared most still happened.
Tang Xiaomang opened his mouth and said, "Brother Ye, I...... I like you.
"Not the way a little brother likes an older brother."
Buzz.
My mind went blank.
"Tang Xiaomang, you drank too much.
"Don't talk nonsense."
"I'm not talking nonsense!"
He got sharp. Tears rushed up at once and spun in his eyes.
"I know. I know you like men.
"Brother Ye, look at me, can't you?"
I shoved him away.
"Don't talk nonsense. You're my little brother."
Tang Xiaomang still wanted to speak.
I snapped at him and cut him off.
"You say another thing you shouldn't, and you don't get to call me brother. You move out of my place."
Tang Xiaomang froze where he stood. Tears fell in big drops.
In the end he shut his mouth.
Only later, like a kid begging for candy, he said to me, "Then Brother Ye, will you kiss me?
"Just once, okay?"
I looked at him like that. Irritation burned hard in me, and a sourness I couldn't name.
"No."
I refused clean. I tried to push him off.
"Get upstairs. Don't throw a drunken fit here!"
But he clung to my arm like he had made up his mind, crying and shaking his head, refusing to move.
We stayed locked there. The wind cut my face like a knife.
I looked at his cheeks, red from the cold, and the tears that kept falling. I hardened my heart, thinking I should just coax this little terror upstairs and be done.
"Once. Then you go upstairs with me right away."
I spoke through my teeth, voice low.
Tang Xiaomang stopped crying at once and nodded hard.
Then he closed his eyes and lifted his face. Tear drops still hung on his long lashes.
I drew in a mouthful of icy air. Extremely fast, almost perfunctory, I brushed his lips.
"Alright, go......"
The last word was not even out when a huge force slammed in from the side.
I had no guard up. That force threw me hard aside.
I had not even seen who it was when a hard fist came with a rush of wind and smashed into my cheekbone.