Wenhao opened his eyes because the light was still on and someone was moving around and the bed was too small and the pillow was too flat and he was not used to sleeping anywhere that didn't have blackout curtains and complete silence.
He turned his head and saw Shen Wei sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his homework spread out all around him like a messy carpet and his pencil was moving across the paper so fast it looked like it might catch on fire.
Wenhao sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes and his hair was messy and his face was puffy from sleep and he looked like a angry kitten that had been woken up from a very good nap.
"Weiwei," he said with a sleepy voice that was still sharp around the edges. "Hey. Sleep already. You're disturbing my sleep."
Shen Wei looked up from his homework and his eyes were tired but focused and he had a pencil mark on his cheek where he had been resting his hand. "I can't sleep yet. I have to finish this."
Wenhao squinted at the clock on the wall and the numbers were blurry but he could see it was past midnight. "It's midnight. What is there to finish at midnight."
Shen Wei went back to his writing and his pencil moved even faster. "I have a scholarship exam in four months. If I don't get the scholarship I can't go to medical school. Medical school is expensive Wenhao. Really expensive. Like I can't even think about that number without feeling sick expensive."
Wenhao stared at him and his sleepy brain slowly started to understand what Shen Wei was saying. "You want to be a doctor?"
"Yes."
"And you do this every night?"
Shen Wei shrugged and didn't look up from his paper. "Most nights. Sometimes I sleep earlier if I'm too tired to hold my pencil."
Wenhao had never seen anyone work this hard in his entire life. He had tutors at home who came and went and he did his homework when he felt like it and his father paid for everything and he had never once worried about money or school or the future because the future was already bought and paid for by the Liang family name.
But Shen Wei was sitting on the floor at midnight with a broken pencil and a single light bulb and he was fighting for something that Wenhao had never had to fight for in his whole life.
Wenhao was about to say something when he heard a small sound in the quiet room.
Grrrrrrr.
It was Shen Wei's stomach. Loud and empty and unhappy.
Shen Wei's face turned red and he put his hand over his stomach like he could hide the sound. "Sorry. Ignore that."
Wenhao looked at the empty pot on the table and remembered that he had eaten all of Shen Wei's noodles and all of Shen Wei's eggs and Shen Wei had not eaten anything at all because there was nothing left.
Wenhao giggled. He couldn't help it. It was a small sleepy giggle that turned into a bigger laugh and he covered his mouth with his hand. "Weiwei. You're hungry. I ate all your dinner and you didn't even say anything."
Shen Wei shrugged again but his ears were pink. "You were hungry. It's fine. I'll eat tomorrow."
"No," Wenhao said and he threw the blanket off his legs and stood up and his feet were cold on the floor. "No no no. Get up. Let's go buy something to eat. I'm hungry too actually. That eggs and tomato was hours ago."
Shen Wei looked up at him with wide eyes. "Go where. It's midnight. Nothing is open."
"7-Eleven is always open," Wenhao said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "There's a 7-Eleven everywhere. Come on. Put on your shoes."
Shen Wei didn't move. His face got serious and his eyebrows came together. "Wenhao. We can't go out. This area is not safe at night. Really. It's not safe. My neighbor got his phone stolen last month. Two streets over someone got robbed. We should just stay here and sleep."
"No," Wenhao said and he found his shoes and put them on without untying the laces. "But we can't use the front door. Is there another way out. A back door. A window. Anything."
Shen Wei thought for a long moment and his tired brain was working very slowly but then his face lit up. "The emergency exit. At the end of the hallway on the left. It goes down to the back alley. I've never used it but it's there."
Wenhao grinned and grabbed Shen Wei's arm. "Perfect. Let's go. We're going on an adventure."
Shen Wei caught the jacket and held it in his hands and he looked at Wenhao's excited face and he knew there was no point in arguing because when Wenhao decided something Wenhao did it and nothing could stop him.
He put on his jacket and his shoes and he grabbed his wallet from the table even though there was almost nothing inside and he followed Wenhao out of the apartment.
The hallway was dark and the lights on the second floor were still broken so they walked slowly with Wenhao holding onto Shen Wei's sleeve so he wouldn't trip.
"The emergency exit is here," Shen Wei whispered and he pushed open a heavy door that made a loud creaking sound.
They walked down the metal stairs and their footsteps echoed in the dark and Wenhao almost slipped twice but Shen Wei caught his arm both times.
They came out into a small alley behind the building and the air was cold and the street was empty and there was no one around.
Wenhao looked around and laughed quietly. "See. Easy. Now where's the 7-Eleven."
Shen Wei pointed to the end of the alley where a bright light was shining in the dark. "Two blocks that way. But Wenhao I really don't think we should—"
Wenhao was already walking.
Shen Wei sighed and followed him because that was his life now.
They walked through the empty streets and the city was quiet and the shops were closed and the only sound was their footsteps and the distant hum of traffic somewhere far away.
Wenhao looked up at the sky and there were no stars because the city lights were too bright but he felt free in a way he never felt at home.
"Weiwei."
"Yes."
"When I get my own apartment I want it to be near a 7-Eleven. So I can go buy snacks at midnight whenever I want."
Shen Wei walked next to him with his hands in his pockets. "Your father will never let you have your own apartment."
"My father doesn't know what I want," Wenhao said and his voice was quiet but sure. "But I'm going to get it anyway. Just like tonight."
They reached the 7-Eleven and the glass doors slid open and the light inside was bright and white and the store was empty except for the cashier who was watching a show on his phone and didn't even look up.
Wenhao grabbed a basket and started throwing things inside. Rice balls and sandwiches and chips and juice and pudding and a pack of strawberry milk.
Shen Wei watched the basket fill up and his heart started racing. "Wenhao. That's too much. I don't have enough money for all of that."
Wenhao didn't stop. He grabbed two more rice balls and put them in the basket. "I have money."
"You brought money?"
Wenhao looked at Shen Wei and smiled and pulled out his phone and took off it's cover to show the money. "I always keep emergency money in my mobile cover. My mother taught me that. She said a smart person always has backup money somewhere no one would look."
Shen Wei stared at the money and then at Wenhao's face and smiled slightly impressed.
Wenhao put more things in the basket. "Now come on. Help me carry the bags. I'm hungry and I want to eat pudding in bed."
They paid and the cashier finally looked up when he saw the big bill and he gave them their change and three plastic bags full of food.
They walked back through the empty streets with the bags swinging from their hands and Wenhao was eating a rice ball before they even got to the alley and Shen Wei was carrying everything else because Wenhao's hands were full of rice ball.
"Weiwei."
"Yes."
"Thank you for showing me the emergency exit."
Shen Wei looked at Wenhao's face in the dim street light and Wenhao looked happy and messy and strange and beautiful and Shen Wei's heart did something complicated in his chest.
"You're.... welcome," Shen Wei said quietly.
And they went back up the emergency exit stairs and through the dark hallway and into the small apartment where they ate while yapping then at one in the morning Wenhao fell asleep with his head on Shen Wei's shoulder and Shen Wei didn't move for a very long time.
NEXT MORNING
The sun was very bright and very loud and it came through the broken window like a rude guest who didn't care that people were sleeping.
Wenhao felt something hard under his head and something warm next to his face and something very very wrong about the way his neck was bent.
He opened his eyes and realized he had fallen asleep on Shen Wei's shoulder and Shen Wei had fallen asleep sitting up against the wall and they were both still on the floor surrounded by empty pudding cups and crumpled chip bags and a single strawberry milk carton that was somehow not empty yet.
Wenhao tried to move his head and his neck made a cracking sound like an old door opening. "Ow."
Shen Wei did not wake up. He was sleeping with his mouth open and his glasses crooked and his head tilted back against the wall and he looked like a baby bird that had fallen out of a tree.
Wenhao looked at the clock on the wall and his eyes went very very wide.
"WEIWEI."
Shen Wei jerked awake so fast his glasses flew off his face and landed in an empty pudding cup. "What? What happened? Is there a fire? Are we being robbed?"
Wenhao grabbed Shen Wei's face with both hands and turned it toward the clock. "Look. Look at the time."
Shen Wei looked at the clock and his face went from confused to sleepy to confused again to very very pale. "That's not right. The clock must be broken."
"The clock is not broken Weiwei. We are late. We are so late. We are the latest people who have ever been late in the history of being late."
Shen Wei jumped up and slipped on a chip bag and almost fell and grabbed the wall to save himself. "What time does school start. What time is it now?"
"School starts at eight," Wenhao said while running his hands through his messy hair like that would fix anything. "It is now nine fifteen. We have been asleep for an hour and fifteen minutes of school. We missed an entire class. Maybe two classes. I don't know how long classes are I never pay attention."
Shen Wei ran to the small bathroom and splashed water on his face and wiped it with his shirt and put his glasses back on even though they had pudding on one lens. "We have to go. We have to go now. Maybe if we run we can get there before second period ends."
Wenhao looked down at his uniform which was wrinkled and stained with strawberry milk and he looked at Shen Wei whose hair was pointing in seven different directions and he started laughing.
"What?" Shen Wei said with panic in his voice. "Why are you laughing? This is not funny. I have perfect attendance. I have never been late. Not once. Not even in kindergarten."
Wenhao laughed harder and held his stomach. "Weiwei look at yourself. You have pudding on your face. And your glasses are dirty. And your shirt is inside out."
Shen Wei looked down at his shirt and his face turned red because Wenhao was right. His shirt was inside out. The tag was sticking out at the back like a tiny flag.
He turned around and fixed it while Wenhao kept laughing and then he grabbed his bag and threw Wenhao's bag at him. "We have to go. Stop laughing. This is serious."
Wenhao caught his bag and wiped a tear from his eye. "Okay okay I'm coming. But we need to go through the emergency exit again or the bodyguards will see us."
They ran out of the apartment and through the dark hallway and down the emergency exit stairs and their footsteps were so loud that pigeons on the roof flew away.
They ran through the alley and onto the main street and Shen Wei was fast but Wenhao was faster and they ran side by side with their bags bouncing on their backs and their uniforms getting more wrinkled with every step.
"We should have taken the car," Wenhao said while breathing hard.
"The car is with your bodyguards at the front door," Shen Wei said while breathing even harder because he was not used to running. "We can't go back now."
They ran past a old woman who was walking her dog and the dog barked at them and Wenhao barked back and the dog got confused and stopped barking.
"Why did you bark at the dog," Shen Wei shouted.
"I don't know," Wenhao shouted back. "It felt like the right thing to do."
They turned the corner and the school gate came into view and Shen Wei felt a tiny bit of hope in his chest because maybe they could sneak in through the back gate and no one would notice.
But the back gate was locked.
And the front gate had the principal standing right there with his arms crossed and his eyes sharp and his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Shen Wei stopped running so fast that Wenhao crashed into him from behind and they both almost fell over.
"Weiwei why did you stop," Wenhao said while rubbing his nose.
Shen Wei pointed at the principal. "Because of him."
Wenhao looked at the principal and the principal looked at them and the whole world got very quiet for three seconds.
"Liang Wenhao. Shen Wei," the principal said in a voice that could freeze water. "You are late."
Shen Wei opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out because his brain was still full of panic and pudding.
Wenhao stepped forward and put on his sweetest smile. The one he used on his father when he wanted something. "Good morning principal. We are very sorry. There was a..... Situation."
"What kind of situation?"
Wenhao looked at Shen Wei and Shen Wei looked at Wenhao and Wenhao's brain worked very fast because he was good at lying when he needed to be.
"My friend here," Wenhao said and he put his arm around Shen Wei's shoulder, "he saved a cat last night. A little cat stuck in a tree. And he didn't sleep well because he was worried about the cat. And this morning his alarm didn't go off because his phone died. And I came to check on him because I'm a good friend and then we both lost track of time."
The principal looked at Wenhao. Then at Shen Wei. Then at Wenhao again. "A cat?"
"Yes sir. A very small cat. Very cute."
Shen Wei wanted to disappear into the ground because he had never lied to a teacher in his life and now Wenhao was making up cats and he didn't know what to do with his face.
The principal sighed because he had dealt with the Liang family before and he knew that fighting with them was like fighting with a wall. "Go to class. Be careful next time"
"Thank you sir," Wenhao said brightly. "You won't regret this. I promise to be a better student starting tomorrow."
The principal walked away and Wenhao pulled Shen Wei through the gate and toward the building.
Shen Wei's face was still red. "A cat? You said I saved a cat."
"It was the first thing that came to my mind."
"I don't even like cats. I'm allergic to cats."
"Then it's even more heroic," Wenhao said with a grin. "You saved an animal you're allergic to. That's true bravery Weiwei."
Shen Wei wanted to be angry but Wenhao was smiling and his eyes were bright and his hair was still a mess and he looked so ridiculous that Shen Wei couldn't help it.
He laughed.
Wenhao's grin got bigger. "There you go. See. Late isn't so bad."
"You're so annoying." And cute ... He thought