No Other Choice

Yuan Su cleared away the fruit peels, then poured his mother a cup of warm water.

Lu Zhen cradled the cup, her fingertips gently rubbing its sides. Suddenly, she looked up, a flicker of anticipation in her eyes. "Su, that classmate named Pu Yu-I'd like to meet her and thank her for giving you those persimmons. Would that be all right?"

Her thoughts jumped around a little, but her reasoning was clear. "It's been so long since you brought a classmate home."

Yuan Su's hand froze halfway through wiping the table.

Outside the hospital room window, the plane tree leaves swirled in the wind.

He lowered his eyes to the damp cloth in his hand, a little dirty dust still clinging to it.

Bring her to the hospital?

Bring her to this place, steeped in the smell of medicine and gloom, to meet a mentally ill woman who drifted in and out of lucidity?

Yuan Su's instinct was to refuse.

Just as he refused to let any light into the wreckage of his life.

"She doesn't..."

"I know." Lu Zhen suddenly cut him off, speaking urgently. "I know this place isn't nice. I know I'm not well. But, Su..."

She reached out and gently took her son's hand, its knuckles sharply defined.

Years of repairing appliances had left thin calluses on his fingertips and tiny scars over his knuckles.

"I just want to know if there's really someone around you now who's willing to be good to you. I don't want you to always be alone..."

Yuan Su could feel the tremor in his mother's voice.

It traveled with her breath, all the way to the deepest part of his heart.

He slowly lifted his head, his gaze settling on her eyes, clouded somewhat by years of medication.

She was ill.

In a couple of days, she would forget what she had said.

In the end, Yuan Su sighed, as though yielding.

He nodded, his voice low and a little rough, carrying a soothing note.

"I'll ask her."

"But she works hard at school, so she might not have time."

Lu Zhen could be stubborn when she set her mind to something, but kindness was still at the core of who she was. The moment Yuan Su mentioned studying hard, she nodded.

"Studying is important. You need to work hard too, Su. You have to win awards!"

One moment, she had been pestering him to let her meet Pu Yu.

The next, she was shooing Yuan Su out of the room and telling him to go back and study.

Yuan Su stood at the doorway for a few seconds, listening to the faint rustle of his mother turning the pages of her photo album, before turning to leave.

As he passed the nurses' station, the nurse on duty stopped him.

"Yuan Su, wait a moment."

Nurse Yao was a woman in her forties who had worked at the town clinic for nearly twenty years. She was a good person, though the endless demands of the job had worn her patience thin.

"Your mother refused her medicine again today. She insisted it was poisoned, and when a nurse tried to talk her into taking it, she nearly pushed her over. She hasn't been sleeping properly at night, either. One minute she says someone's knocking outside, and the next she says there's a shadow outside the window. We checked several times, but there was nothing. We finally gave her half a tablet of Valium before she calmed down."

Yuan Su stopped in front of the nurses' station.

The cold white corridor lights stretched the slender boy's shadow out behind him.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble."

"It's not about trouble." Nurse Yao sighed. "We only have two nurses on duty on this floor. If anything happens, we can't take responsibility for it."

"I'll come often," Yuan Su said, his voice a little dry.

Looking at his thin school uniform jacket, Nurse Yao held back any further harsh words.

"Your mother's very cooperative when she's lucid. It's just..." She paused, seeming to search for the right word. "When she gets confused, she makes a terrible fuss about finding you, especially at night. She keeps saying, 'Why hasn't Su come yet?' and 'Has Su eaten?'"

As she spoke, she sounded helpless herself. "We tell her you have school during the day and repair things at night to earn money. She settles down for a while, but a few minutes later, she starts saying it all again."

Yuan Su listened in silence, his eyes lowered.

He knew he could neither argue nor promise anything more.

School, earning money, keeping the repair shop running, dealing with debts that could come knocking at any moment.

That was the full outline of his life. Reality packed every minute so tightly that he had nothing more to spare.

After weighing his options, keeping his mother in the hospital was the only way he could ensure her safety and keep going himself.

Beyond that.

He had no other choice.

Early the next morning.

Late-autumn mist blanketed Tingnan Middle School in white.

As usual, Pu Yu arrived in the classroom twenty minutes early. Only a few students were there.

She set down her schoolbag and was about to take out her English textbook to memorize vocabulary.

Then her gaze caught on the silver object on her desk.

It was an older-model Sony Walkman, its casing marked with a few shallow scratches. Beside it lay a neatly coiled pair of white earphones.

There was no box, nor even a note.

It had simply appeared there, unexpected and silent.

Pu Yu's heart skipped a beat.

Was it... Sui Sui?

That was the only possibility Pu Yu could think of.

When they had been in the county town, Sui Sui had kept insisting on buying her one. Yesterday, while they were sharing the persimmons, she had complained that she didn't have enough pocket money this month and couldn't even afford the latest romance magazine.

Was she short on money because she'd bought me the Walkman?

Pu Yu instinctively looked up. The seat in the front row was empty. Sui Sui hadn't been coming to school with her these past few days, saying she wanted to sleep in a little longer.

The bell rang for morning reading.

Xu Suiran rushed into the classroom just as it rang, still clutching half a savory pancake, and plopped down in her third-row seat.

They sat too far apart to pass notes conveniently.

Pu Yu could only suppress her questions and gently tuck the Walkman into her desk drawer. She was distracted throughout the entire morning study period.

At last, the period ended.

Walkman in hand, Pu Yu hurried to Xu Suiran's seat, pulled her to her feet, and headed out of the classroom with her.

"Hey, hey, hey! Slow down! I haven't finished my water!"

They stopped in a corner of the corridor, out of the stream of passing students.

Xu Suiran was wiping water from the corner of her mouth when she saw what Pu Yu held out. Her eyes went wide. "Wow! You finally decided to buy a Walkman! Let me see, let me see!"

She took it excitedly and examined it from every angle. "Which shop did you get this from? It looks way nicer than the one that fat, crooked shopkeeper was selling!"

Seeing how happy she was made Pu Yu even more certain of her guess.

She sighed a little helplessly. "Sui Sui, I can't accept this."

"Huh?" Xu Suiran froze. "Why not? Don't you really need it?"

"I know you're doing this for me, but this..."

"Wait, wait, wait." Xu Suiran finally caught on, her expression turning strange. "Yu, you don't think I bought this, do you?"

Pu Yu nodded. "Didn't you?"

"Of course not!" Xu Suiran didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I wanted to get you one, but I failed math on the monthly exam a while ago, so my mom cut most of my pocket money. Now I have to think twice before even buying spicy strips. How could I afford this?"

Pu Yu stood there, utterly bewildered.

Huh?

If it wasn't Sui Sui, who was it?