There are some stories that are bound to happen; they will inevitably go through this phase, when feelings reach that point there's no escaping it.

Actually, since then, Qin Fang had become the guide of their relationship, taking the lead with every step forward, and Xing Yan had completely handed over control to him.

Including when they finally got together, it was because Qin Fang took the initiative to kiss Xing Yan on the lips in the snow.

Talking about these processes was so delightful; the beginning of love is always joyful. If they only talked about these things, it would be too pleasant, but the story doesn't stop there, and their conversation wouldn't end there either.

Continuing the conversation further was not so enjoyable, but Qin Fang still had to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

But after all, there were so many happy things cushioning it before, so Qin Fang was still at ease when he asked.

"So why didn't you tell me you were going abroad? I want to know what you were thinking."

Xing Yan remained silent and didn't speak. Qin Fang continued, "Did you not intend to stay with me in the future? Just tell me the truth. Or let me guess first?"

Xing Yan nodded, "You guess."

Actually, Qin Fang had already thought about this matter between them for so many days, and had figured it out pretty well. When a person truly has feelings and is emotionally invested, it can't be hidden in their eyes; Xing Yan's feelings for him couldn't possibly be fake. How could it be?

"I guess you really did think that way at first, to have a relationship, give me a dream, and then go your own way. At that time, the feelings weren't deep, you thought you could extract yourself when you left, and even gave me a card, letting me decide our future path when you were about to leave."

Qin Fang bent one leg, resting his arm on his knee, and continued in a low voice, "Later, the feelings became too deep, you couldn't bear to let go, but you didn't dare to say it either; after all, you had already laid the foundation of not being honest before. If you said it later, I would get angry and we would break up; you lost the timing."

Xing Yan listened to him speak the whole time without making a sound. Qin Fang laughed and asked him, "Did I guess right?"

Xing Yan thought for a moment and said, "Half right."

Qin Fang raised his eyebrows. Xing Yan said, "Or rather, the opposite."

This answer was the only explanation Qin Fang could come up with after thinking about it for so many days, and now Xing Yan said it was only half right. Qin Fang looked at him, waiting for him to speak.

Xing Yan lowered his head and said, "At first, I didn't think it was a big deal at all, I didn't think much about it. Going abroad is going abroad, leaving is leaving, you could follow me anyway, or if you didn't go, you would stay here, long-distance relationships are not impossible. You could come find me, and I could come back to find you. At that time, I didn't even think that by this point you would still be with me, maybe after the novelty wore off, you would break up with me."

Qin Fang opened his mouth, but in the end didn't interrupt him. Xing Yan continued, "Later, the feelings indeed became too deep, once you have it, you fear losing it, fear going from having to not having. After you got together with me, I couldn't let go, but I didn't dare hold on either. You are a star, bright and beautiful. If I went abroad, you would definitely follow me immediately, you said this yourself before."

He had indeed said that before. Qin Fang nodded, "Just going abroad to study, one or two years? Three years? I never thought it was a big deal."

But Xing Yan shook his head, smiled faintly, cleared his throat, and said softly, "I just... didn't plan to come back."

Qin Fang blinked, his movements a bit stiff, silently looking at Xing Yan.

Xing Yan looked him in the eye and said, "I told you before, I've been trying to leave. Now I'm telling you that I left without planning to come back, that was my plan for myself, but I don't want to be apart from you, I can't bear to leave you. If I had told you this before, what would you have said?"

Qin Fang frowned and said, "You think I can't follow you? That we can't continue like this?"

Xing Yan said, "So your answer is?"

Qin Fang looked at him and said, "It doesn't matter, you go your way. When the time comes and you really don't come back, I can go, I have few attachments anyway."

After he said this, Xing Yan didn't speak for a long time, and Qin Fang didn't say anything more either. They both fell silent, if not for the wind, it seemed even the air had stilled.

They still had tacit understanding. With the conversation reaching this point, there was no need for Xing Yan to say anything more, as Qin Fang already understood.

"I don't dare change your whole life, what right do I have." Xing Yan rubbed the harmonica in his hands and said softly, "The better you are, the less I dare, I'm just a scumbag. The honeymoon period hasn't even passed, and if you impulsively follow me, what about your brother? Your dad? Your friends? What if later on you don't like it anymore, you find this kind of life tiring, then what? You'll have no way out."

Another long silence, Qin Fang couldn't speak, Xing Yan played a tune on the harmonica.

After he finished playing, Qin Fang's eyes were red, and he asked him, "So you've already sentenced this relationship to death on my behalf, right? You think you can't bear the weight of my life, so you made the decision to give up for me, is that right, Yan-ge?"

Xing Yan gently shook his head in his eyes but didn't deny it either. He only said, "I even thought about not leaving at all, just pretending this never happened, but you definitely wouldn't accept that result, letting you know that we have no path other than breaking up."

Just as Xing Yan couldn't bear the weight of Qin Fang's life, there was even less reason for Qin Fang to bear Xing Yan's life.

Qin Fang said, "It's good that you didn't."

Xing Yan smiled, "Do you remember that night watching the rain? The next morning, I refunded the plane tickets. I really didn't know what the next step should be, every path was wrong."

Xing Yan was indeed very conflicted; he overthought it. If he had continued like he was at the beginning, it would have been much more relaxed, taking it one step at a time, just letting Qin Fang follow him, letting Qin Fang become his follower, then everything would have been much easier.

Qin Fang subconsciously also positioned himself this way, wherever Xing Yan went, he could land there, if Xing Yan went abroad, he could also go, if Xing Yan came back, he would come back. This sounded pretty good, and at first Xing Yan also thought it was pretty good, but after being together for a long time, he couldn't accept it anymore.

The position Qin Fang gave himself was wrong, and unequal. No one should be another person's follower, and Xing Yan couldn't bear it either.

But Xing Yan couldn't figure out what an equal way between them would be.

Qin Fang later lay down on his back, lying flat and looking at the sky. The cloud overhead had thickened, blocking the sun, and the light no longer shone through. Xing Yan also lay down, lying beside him.

"Xingxing." Xing Yan called out to him.

Qin Fang responded, "Hm?"

Xing Yan said softly, "I got this question wrong, and I don't know the answer either. You answer it."

Qin Fang blinked, still lying flat and asked him, "Do you know where you went wrong?"

Xing Yan thought for a moment and said, "I don't know, no matter how I answer this question, it's wrong for me."

Qin Fang took out a small object from his pocket, held it up towards the sky, and flicked it lightly with his other hand. He said, "This is a question for two people. You insist on doing it yourself, answering your own part; you just have to replace me. You're a top student but it doesn't mean everything you do is right, you wrote the wrong answer yourself, and now you're asking me to answer it myself, how can you not understand, this question has one side for you and one side for me, one person can't answer it."

The thin little card in his hand was still very new, being taken out for the first time. He was still holding it up, turning it back and forth between his fingers.

"Xiao Gong said you don't know how to be in a relationship, I thought he was talking nonsense." Qin Fang took a deep breath, the air felt a bit cold in his lungs, he said, "Actually, it's not that you don't know how to be in a relationship, it's that you don't know how to love."

Xing Yan looked at him, Qin Fang said, "You're better at relationships than anyone else, like an old hand. But you're really terrible at handling feelings, so terrible that after hearing you say these things, I'm even angrier than before. You answered this question terribly, beyond saving."

Xing Yan nodded and said, "It's indeed terrible."

Qin Fang said, "If you say today that you were just playing around, that this relationship was designed by you from the beginning, then I have nothing to say, I'm not angry either. It's your choice, and I definitely respect you. No one can tie someone else to stay together forever. But if you say you weren't playing, that you were serious, but you let things turn out like this today, let us become like this today, then you're endlessly wrong."

"You said you respected me, respected the relationship, told me not to be sad." Qin Fang put both hands down, hitting the ground with a soft thud, he said somewhat helplessly, "It's not respect just because you put in effort, if you were really a player I wouldn't be so sad instead. The scariest thing is now, you didn't respect me, nor the relationship. It's not that we have no future, it's that you didn't give it, in your heart you never believed this relationship had a future at all."

"You don't want to change my path, you want to let me be myself. You can't bear to lose me either, you're so desperate that you even said you love me. You can't change your path either, because this is the most foolish answer, answering like this is certain death. So this is a dead end, right." After Qin Fang finished speaking, he turned his head to look at him.

Xing Yan looked at the thick gray clouds and answered yes.

Qin Fang closed his eyes for a moment and slapped the card into Xing Yan's hand. Xing Yan instinctively grabbed it. Qin Fang's hand lingered in his palm for a moment, a hard paper separating their palms.

"I've handed in the answer sheet, since you've already imagined the ending in your heart, then let's write the ending you gave." Qin Fang said hoarsely, "Have you ever thought that when you struggled to see it as a dead end, it was equivalent to throwing me away."

Xing Yan's eyelashes trembled, shaking a bit frantically. His beautiful eyes looked a bit red at this moment, also revealing some of the panic in his heart.

"You go finish your studies, I won't follow you, I'll do as you wish, I'll go my way, we'll each go our own way." Qin Fang grabbed Xing Yan's fingers and said to him, "You know you're wrong without me saying it, I can't forgive you for this mistake, I didn't plan to forgive you today anyway, but I'm even angrier now than before I came."

Xing Yan clasped his fingers, and they crossed them with that card in between; both their fingertips were ice cold, both shaking.

Qin Fang said, "You really don't know how to love, if you can't learn then in the future you'll still give us countless dead ends. I can't just keep waiting for you to sentence me to death."

Xing Yan said, "Is it useless for me to say anything now?"

"Yes, it's useless. You understand better than me what this card is for, this is what you gave me." Qin Fang sat up and looked back at Xing Yan, "As for us..."

Xing Yan held his hand tightly without letting go, his fingers turning white, Qin Fang raised his other hand, bent his knuckles and rubbed his eye, saying, "Let's leave it to fate. If you've learned, know what love is and what respect is, then say something.

"In the meantime, if you like someone else and get together with them, it's your freedom - and mine too. Now there are no ties between us, the dead end was given by you, you try and see if you can find a way out on your own, see if you can answer the two-person question by yourself, and see if fate will give us another chance."

Qin Fang pulled his hand out of Xing Yan's, looked deeply into Xing Yan's eyes, sniffed and said, "Good luck."

Xing Yan lay there without moving.

Qin Fang took one last look at him.

Afterwards, Qin Fang jumped down to the rain platform on the door, then propped his hands and jumped directly to the ground. He often jumped like this when he was a child, two very smooth movements. He was covered in dust from lying on the roof just now. Qin Fang looked up, but he couldn't see Xing Yan.

He didn't linger there any longer and drove away.

Everything behind him was getting farther and farther away. Qin Fang suddenly remembered the first time he brought Xing Yan here. It was Xing Yan's birthday that day, Qin Fang was drunk, lying dazedly on the chair, saying to Xing Yan - I want to give you many things, I want to give you happiness, I want to make you happy, I want to give you all the good things.

He wanted to give too much. Xing Yan couldn't catch it; he didn't know how to face these things. He grew up too lonely, he had never been loved, and he didn't know how to love either.

Qin Fang glanced in the rearview mirror.

The courtyard gate was open. Everything in that courtyard was very old, but new things were added to the old things, and it contained a half-new, half-old dream of his youth.