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“Do you ever wish we were normal?” Báiqǐ asks, the words slipping from his mouth before he could stop them.
Xiǎo Yuán turns her face to him, a disbelieving eyebrow arched. “What are you talking about?”
Báiqǐ sighs, rotating his cane between his hands as he tries to figure out how to verbalize his thoughts. The two of them were at the park, sitting on the low brick wall that followed the park’s borders. Róng'ér, Xuān’ér, Jìn'ér, and Píng'ér were playing catch with Píng'ér’s dog, Jú Huā and Jìn'ér’s dog, Xiǎo Guǐ. He and Xiǎo Yuán sat out after a few minutes. His leg had started to falter, and Xiǎo Yuán joined him, looking paler than she normally does and a little green around the gills. But if anyone could understand where he was coming from, the constant battle in his mind that never fully stops, Xiǎo Yuán could. She would.
Tapping the sides of his cane, he stared at where the feet meet the packed dirt beneath them. “You know what happened to me,” he starts quietly, only loud enough for the two of them to hear. “With my father and the archery… accident and all.”
Xiǎo Yuán nods, angling herself better to hear him. She says nothing, waiting patiently.
“I hate what he took from me,” Báiqǐ can feel the old and familiar anger in his chest at the thought. “I hate that I can’t walk as fast nor as far as they can, not without having to sit down for several minutes at a time. Or I’m just there, standing off to the side and waiting for the pain to subside enough that I can start moving again. I hate that I have to know if there’s a wheelchair-accessible entrance to every single place I go to, regardless of how well my leg is feeling the night before, because I can wake up the next morning and–” He cuts himself off, pressing his trembling lips together. The sounds of barking and Róng'ér teasing everyone faintly comes in from across the field.
“I hate him,” Báiqǐ whispers, and it isn’t the first time he’s said it aloud, far from the first time he’s thought it, but it still feels like he’s prodding a fresh wound every time.
“I wish that I didn’t have to have Píng'ér drive every time we’re in a car together because I don’t know if I’m suddenly going to lose feeling in my hands and feet,” Xiǎo Yuán confesses. “I hate that sometimes I can’t eat during normal times with everyone else because my jaw locks into place and I can’t open it.” She huffs out a wry laugh. “Sometimes when I’m doing absolutely nothing, just watching a show or reading, my lungs just. Don’t feel like they work.”
She sees Báiqǐ swallow and puts her hand on his arm. “But I wouldn’t…” She pauses, trying to find the right words. “Do I wish I was like this? Not always. But the friends I’ve made, the family in community I’ve discovered while trying to find support groups and fighting for answers from doctors, I wouldn’t change that. I would never want to leave that. It’s because of everything that’s going on with me that I was able to become the woman I am today. I’m not alone,” she shakes Báiqǐ’s arm gently to emphasize her next words. “I’m not alone, and neither are you.”
Báiqǐ looks away from her, and she pretends not to see his watery eyes. Her hand stays on his arm, a comfort and a reminder.
“You may not see it in this moment, Bái-gē, but I think that you’re fine the way you are. We both are.”
After a few minutes of quiet, Báiqǐ lifts his head, a faint smile resting somewhere on his face. “Xiǎo Yuán, thank you.” She felt the weight of his words, and smiles back.
“One of us has got to be sensible when Xuān-jiě isn’t here,” she says, breaking the heavy air around them. The two of them were not well suited to extended time in a serious atmosphere.
“I never said you were sensible!” He squawks defensively, sitting up properly now.
“Well, clearly it wasn’t you!”
“You take that back!”
“Excuse me, your honor, if we could have the court reporter read back the transcript?”
“There is no judge here. There isn’t even another person near us right now.”
“The court reporter in my mind is reading back the transcript as we speak, and what do you know? She said I’m right.”
The two devolved into bickering and when the dogs were finally tired out, that’s how the other four members of their group found them. Báiqǐ leaning away from Yuán as she tries to grab his cane to hit him with. Píng and Xuān and Jìn share exasperated looks while Róng stands there laughing at all of them.