Stargazing with You

Promising my heart and soul to Bai Ying is by far the most idiotic thing I have ever done, no contest. Since then, I’ve become his faithful little follower, and an unknown side of him begun to unravel itself to me.

Somehow, Bai Ying is obsessed with getting first place in everything. However, sometimes the teacher has the final say, like for example, singing. After he sung his piece, our classmates and I, we all looked at him in total shock. He was still looking as proud as a little prince, thinking that the shiny little star would again fly towards his palm-sized chest. This time however, he did not even get the third place.

At first, the little prince felt that there was a conspiracy. He even got me to tail the one who got first place to see if there’s any bribery between her and the teacher. The girl lived in the same neighborhood with us, but Bai Ying couldn’t bring himself to do it himself, so he ordered me to do it in his stead. I tailed her every day and reported what I saw to him. It doesn’t look like there was any conspiracy, I said, and he refuted back, asking why he isn’t first place then.

I wanted to tell him that his singing is simply not as good as hers, that’s why. Worse part is, he isn’t even on tune, like at all, heck, even I can defeat him in singing! But no, I would never dare to tell him that. If I do, I bet he’ll find someone to tail me and investigate me behind my back! This is the very insidious person I’ve found him to be. Which is why I have never told him about him being tone deaf after so many years. Even during quarrels I would never bring it up, afraid that if I ever hurt his ever-important self-esteem, he’d do anything to ruin me!1 And so I just told him that I don’t know, maybe… maaybe the teacher has bad hearing, yes, that’s probably why. My cheeks were burning after I lied out of my pants. Bai Ying looked at my flushed red cheeks and then turned away, giving up on getting any more answers from me.

Several more times thereafter, he continued losing the stars to singing. As I claimed the teacher had bad hearing, he always sang at the top of his lungs, but it was still of no use except hurting my hearing. One weekend we sneaked into the kindergarten, and I squatted under the upright piano under his order to take apart the pedals of the piano.

“So you can get the first place with this?” I asked. He replied that just wait and I’ll see.

I thought I’m just helping him to get a first place, but I didn’t expect that with the pedal broken, we’d stopped having to sing that whole week. Whenever there’s a need for games or contests, we can only do something else. And so, the master-of-all-sans-singing Bai Ying went back to winning all the stars once more.

Wait, this isn’t right, I thought. How could he made me do all the dirty deeds. This is soo evil, a true villain, he is!

But when he received the stars, there’s no hesitation at all, he carefully stick them all onto me. That’s not all, when we’re with my mom he’ll even say good things about me in front of her, like how smart and able I am. He said the teacher asked the class who discovered Australia and I answered that it’s British explorer Captain Cook. I tried to stop him from further bluffs as I have only ever heard of Captain Jack! But looking at my mom’s proud look, as if I’m the reincarnation of Einstein or Newton.. I unashamedly let him continued bluffing..

But still, my innocent soul still suffered. I don’t know if Bai Ying noticed my hesitation, as he questioned me when he brought me more stars later. “You looked like you don’t like the stars anymore”

“After wearing it every day, I’m tired of them” I said. “How about this, just throw them away like you did before, I don’t want em’ anymore.”

I want to go back to being the pure and innocent Jiang He, and stop getting led astray by him!

“Alright then, but don’t forget the promise you made”

When I heard he said “the promise”, I panicked until I was about to cry as it sounded so serious. His face even looked soo cold! This is scarier than when my mom was about to spank me! I quickly said that I was just joking around when I made that promise.

Bai Ying said that he was very serious about it, and that if I went back on my word of giving my heard and soul to him, then he’ll tell my mom where I got all the stars and tell the teacher that I’m the one who broke the piano.

“You were there too!”

“But there’s only your fingerprints on the pedal”

I was stunned, so scared so that I simply started crying.

And then he just frozed. Thinking that it’s effective, I continued crying harder and harder. Just when I thought my earth-shaking crying could’ve scared him, at the climax of my crying, his tiny lips raised a little, and a pea-size teardrop came down, and he started crying too!

With my face full of tears, I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“You said you’ll be mine, I treated you so well.. Where did I go wrong..” He said as he rubbed his eyes while he cries, making his eyes red.

I panicked. “You… please don’t cry, I never said I won’t be yours, I just want you to stop making me do bad things!”

“When did I ever make you do bad things? Destroying the pedal was just so I can get first place, is that really a bad thing?”

When I thought about it like that, I guess it really wasn’t.

“But why are you so hung up on getting first place anyway?”

Bai Ying said that it’s the only way he can get the stars for me, since he promised me!

I never ever expected that he got those first place for me. Suddenly, I felt that I’m the worst and I was so overwhelmingly moved. I quickly said, “I don’t want the stars anymore, and if you stop making me mess with the pedals, I- I’ll still give you my heart and soul!”

Bai Ying sniffed and said it’s a done deal, don’t you dare go back on it in the future! We pinky promised after all.

Since he put it that way, I never brought it up again, from elementary up till high school.

Bai Ying has been in the first class since elementary, while I’m always in the bottom class. But we’re still in the same school, using the same field. I felt that the distance between us at that time is only the two flight of stairs between our two classes. I plagiarize his homework every day, follow him everywhere, and play together with whatever he plays, willingly becoming his follower.

One time, I was the last in class, and I was crampling the test papers, too afraid to go home. This is because the homeroom teacher needed parent signature as their acknowledgement of the test results. I’ve already made my mom plenty heartbroken, as I went from a genius in kindergarten to always flunking in elementary school. Usually I manage to get at least fifth place from the bottom, to think I hit the jackpot this time… I can already see how my mom will deal with me.

I knew Bai Ying have lots of tricks up his sleeve, so I gave him a call. After listening to my request, he ordered me to gather any papers that were signed in the past, as well as some spicy duck necks.

“Spicy duck necks? What for?” I asked, feeling curious. If the past papers are as reference for imitating the signature, what are the duck necks for?

“Think of them as what gasoline is to a car”

I still didn’t understand, but I prepared them either way. I waited for him at a shack in the neighborhood, with the things he requested in my hands, while acting fairly suspiciously. And then, an eleven-year-old princely Bai Ying appeared under a sea of blooming cherryblossoms.

“Have you prepared the things I asked for?” he asked as he glanced at me.

I presented to him the stacks of test papers on my left, and a bag of spicy duck necks on my right.

“Gimme me your bottom of the barrel test paper first, I’ve gotta see this”

Embarrassed, I passed it to him with awkward laughters. He skimmed through it and showed an expression akin to seeing a pile of poop under a cherryblossom. He then took over the spicy duck necks and said that I now owe him another one. Yes, yes, I said, I’ll do anything for you!

The two of us practiced repeatedly countless times that day. While he was learning my mom’s handwriting, I was feeding him duck necks with toothpick. And he actually managed to imitiate her signature up to like ninty percent similarity!

I gasped in excitement, saying that it looks exactly the same!

“Now call me daddy”, he said, after keeping the papers.

“Then I should call you mom, since you signed her name” I jest.

Holding the signed paper up high, I gave it a heartfelt smooch. Good riddance, now I can get the last place every single time and it’ll still be alright!

After finished eating the final duck neck, he stood up and said “Let’s go to the PC Cafe”

From the depths of my memory, I remember that the sky was particularly blue during those times, the sun was sunnier, even the moon was rounder. Of course, the games were especially fun too. With Bai Ying by my side, all my grave troubles can be dealt with by him, leaving only fun fun fun for me, those were truly a carefree time.

Translator's Notes
Do check out the comic for more crying scenes, as there’s only so much I can put here hah!

瑛毁赫亡 — It’s a wordplay on both of their names in a proverb, basically means Bai Ying destroys (瑛毁) and Jiang He perishes (赫亡). ↩