Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“He seemed like such a clean-cut, shy boy. I never imagined he would do something like this.”

“If I had known, I never would have arranged for them to be seatmates.”

“He’s a minor. Following a trend and liking boys is going to ruin his entire life.”

From the moment she said “boy,” my mind went blank.

As she spoke one sentence after another, the meaning slowly began to sink in.

An adolescent romance.

With a boy-his seatmate.

He had mentioned him to me before. He said his new seatmate had no father or mother, and that even though the boy studied very hard, he just couldn’t get the hang of it. He wanted to help him.

He had brought up this new seatmate often back when the semester first started.

I thought they were good friends, but things had developed into this state.

It was several times more serious than I had imagined.

It wasn’t because I was against homosexuality, but because I wondered how he could be so sure of who he was.

He was going through puberty.

If he was being led astray by someone else, my heart ached for him.

If he had doubted himself time and time again, only to finally and firmly realize that this was who he was, my heart ached even more.

But he had never shown any homosexual tendencies growing up. He had even seen a beautiful, talented older girl in our neighborhood and joked with me.

“Mom, I like that big sister.”

“Have you no shame? You’re too young to be thinking about such things.”

“These notes were all passed to him by that boy. I saw it clearly,” the teacher said.

“Whenever I ask him anything, he just stays silent. He won’t say a word.”

The teacher was clearly furious. I knew my son.

So, I spoke to him first. “Go back to the classroom for now. I’ll explain things to your teacher.”

But the moment my hand touched his shoulder, he shouted for the first time.

“I like boys! Is there something wrong with me?”

I suppressed my temper.

I couldn’t get angry. I couldn’t.

The moment I lost my temper, I would be cast in the role of the villain standing in their way.

They would think their soul-stirring love was being blocked by the entire world.

Even people who didn’t truly have feelings for each other would be bound together by that sense of defiance.

The teacher was even angrier than I was.

“Qi An, what kind of attitude is that?”

“This is a psychological disorder. If it really comes down to it, you should take him to a hospital.”

…

I covered my son’s ears and, for the first time, gave the teacher a cold look.

Qi An didn’t know why the teacher disliked him, but I did.

She had tested her way out of a small county town and worked her way up, step by step, to settle in the big city. In her eyes, anything could be accomplished as long as one worked hard, and one had to work hard at everything.

But Qi An was clearly not the “hard-working” type of child.

In his workbooks, he simply wouldn’t do the problems he already knew how to solve; he only did the ones that interested him or that he wasn’t proficient in yet.

During the first week of school, she had given me feedback on this.

“He’s opportunistic. He doesn’t put in the effort.”

But his grades, which improved time after time, were a slap in her face.

People have different perspectives, and I didn’t want to argue with her.

I could only say as politely as possible, “I’m taking him home first.”

I lowered my hands and led my son out of the office.

He didn’t say a word. It wasn’t until we were outside the school gates that I asked him, “Do you really like boys?”

He suddenly shook off my hand, his face filled with irritation.

“Yes! I just like boys!”

“Are you going to oppose it too? I’m sure of it. I like boys.”

“I’ve admitted it. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with a man.”

He stood at the school gate and screamed at me.

“Anan, that’s the second time.”

I had a difficult labor the year I gave birth to him and nearly lost my life. I had raised him alone all these years.

He had been sensitive and sensible since he was a child.

When he threw a tantrum as a little boy, he would always come to apologize and make up with me within half an hour.

As he grew up, very few things could cause his emotions to fluctuate, and the number of times we argued grew fewer and fewer.

But today, he had yelled at me. Twice.

He froze on the spot, his lips pressed tight in silence.

I walked over, showing no reproach or anger.

I knelt down and asked him softly, “Then how did you decide that you like him? Can you tell Mom about it?”

His face flushed red instantly, and he remained silent.

After a long while, he finally mumbled, “Let’s just go home first.”