Saturday morning came in through Shen Wei's broken window like a lazy cat and Shen Wei was standing in front of the small bathroom mirror with a toothbrush in his mouth and toothpaste foam on his chin and his hair sticking up in seventeen different directions.
He was wearing an old shirt with a hole in the collar and his pajama pants had a stain from last week's instant noodles and he looked like a person who had given up on looking like a person.
He was half asleep and half brushing and half thinking about whether he should study first or eat first when the door shook like someone had punched it.
Bang bang bang bang bang.
Not a normal knock. A knock that meant business. A knock that said open this door right now or I will break it down and I will enjoy breaking it down.
Shen Wei choked on his toothpaste and swallowed some of it and coughed and ran to the door with his toothbrush still in his hand and foam still on his face because he didn't have time to do anything else.
He looked through the tiny hole and his heart stopped because Wenhao was standing there with his arms crossed and behind him there were two men in black suits holding things.
One man was holding a big suitcase and a duffel bag and a backpack and a shopping bag.
The other man was holding three bags of groceries that looked like they could feed a small army.
Shen Wei opened the door and before he could say anything Wenhao pushed past him and walked into the apartment like he was a general entering a battlefield.
"Put the bags on the bed," Wenhao said to the first man. "The groceries go on the table. The suitcases go next to the wall. Be careful with the blue bag"
The two men walked into the small apartment and the apartment had never felt smaller because three extra people and bags and groceries and suitcases filled up every inch of space like water filling a cup.
Shen Wei stood by the door with his toothbrush still in his hand and his mouth still full of foam and his eyes wide like a deer that had just seen headlights.
"Wenhao?" Shen Wei said but his voice came out weird because of the toothbrush.
Wenhao turned around and looked at Shen Wei's face and his messy hair and his stained shirt and his toothpaste foam and he made a face like he had just seen something both disgusting and funny at the same time.
"Weiwei. You look terrible. Finish brushing your teeth. You have foam on your chin and it's dripping on your shirt."
Shen Wei touched his chin and his fingers came back white and he ran back to the bathroom and spit and rinsed and wiped his face and when he came back the two men were gone and Wenhao was standing in the middle of the apartment with his hands on his hips looking around like he was measuring the space with his eyes.
"Where did your men go," Shen Wei asked.
"I sent them to the car. They'll come back when I call them. I have more things but I wanted to see the space first."
Shen Wei looked at the bed which was now covered with suitcases and bags and the table which was now covered with groceries and his small apartment looked like a storage room that had exploded.
"You have more things?" Shen Wei said and his voice was high and squeaky because he was panicking.
Wenhao nodded and walked to the corner near the window and pointed at the empty wall. "I need a wardrobe. There's no space for my clothes in your closet because your closet is basically a hole in the wall. So I'm going to buy a wardrobe and put it here. Right here. In this corner."
Shen Wei followed Wenhao to the corner and looked at the empty wall and then at Wenhao and then at the empty wall again. "Wenhao. This apartment is tiny. A wardrobe will take up half the room."
"Good," Wenhao said. "Then we'll have less floor space to clean."
"I know I'll be the one sweeping the floor."
"Exactly. Less floor to sweep. You should be thanking me."
Shen Wei put his face in his hands and took a deep breath because he could feel a headache coming on and it was the kind of headache that had Wenhao's name written all over it.
"I thought you said sometimes," Shen Wei said through his fingers. "You said you would stay over sometimes. This looks like you're moving in."
Wenhao walked to the table and started pulling things out of the grocery bags.
"Sometimes means different things to different people," Wenhao said while arranging the groceries on the table. "To me sometimes means whenever I want. And right now I want to be here. So I'm here."
Shen Wei lowered his hands and looked at Wenhao's back and Wenhao was wearing a soft white sweater and clean jeans and his hair was freshly washed and he looked like a rich boy playing poor in a rich boy's version of what poor looked like.
"You can't just move into someone's apartment without asking," Shen Wei said and he tried to sound firm but his voice came out tired because arguing with Wenhao was like arguing with a river.
Wenhao turned around and looked at Shen Wei with his big dark eyes and his face was serious for a moment. "I'm asking now. Can I stay here? Not just tonight. But lots of nights. Enough nights that I need my own wardrobe and my own groceries and my own spot in the fridge."
Shen Wei opened his mouth to say no because he should say no because this was his space and his alone and he had never shared it with anyone and he liked being alone.
But then he looked at Wenhao's face and he saw something underneath the confidence and the bossiness and the rich boy attitude. He saw someone who was lonely. Someone who didn't want to go home.
"Fine," Shen Wei said and he didn't even try to sound angry because he wasn't angry. He was scared.
Wenhao's face lit up like someone had turned on a light inside him. "Fine? Just like that? No arguing? No begging? I was prepared to beg Weiwei. I had a whole speech ready."
Shen Wei walked to the table and picked up a box of instant noodles and looked at it like it held the answers to all of life's questions. "You wouldn't have left even if I said no. So why waste my energy arguing."
Wenhao grinned and grabbed Shen Wei in a hug that was too tight and too fast and too much and Shen Wei stood there stiff as a board with his arms at his sides because he didn't know what to do with his hands.
"Thank you Weiwei," Wenhao said into Shen Wei's shoulder. "You're my favorite person."
Shen Wei's heart did something very loud and very complicated and he hoped Wenhao couldn't hear it.
"You're my only friend," Shen Wei said quietly. "So you win by default."
Wenhao pulled back and slapped Shen Wei's arm. "Don't say default. It ruins the moment. Just say thank you and hug me back like a normal person."
Shen Wei patted Wenhao's back twice like he was burping a baby and then stepped away because his face was getting hot and he didn't want Wenhao to see.
Wenhao laughed and pulled out his phone and called his men. "Bring the rest. And tell the furniture store to deliver the wardrobe today. Yes today. I don't care if it's closed. Pay them extra."
Shen Wei watched Wenhao pace around the small apartment giving orders and moving things and complaining about the lighting and the space.
The door opened again and the two men came back with more bags and a box that looked heavy and a small lamp and a rug and a pillow that was clearly more expensive than Shen Wei's entire bed.
Wenhao directed them like a conductor leading an orchestra. "The lamp goes on the table. The rug goes next to the bed. The pillow goes on the bed. Take the old pillow and put it on the floor for Weiwei."
"The floor?" Shen Wei said. "You're putting your pillow on my bed and my pillow on the floor?"
"You said guests get the bed. I'm the guest. You're the host. Hosts sleep on the floor. That's the rule."
"I made that rule up."
"It's still a rule."
The men finished putting everything away and left and the apartment was even fuller than before and Shen Wei stood in the middle of it all and turned around slowly like a planet spinning in space.
There was a wardrobe in the corner now. A real wooden wardrobe that looked like it belonged in a magazine not in this tiny apartment with the peeling paint and the broken window.
Wenhao opened the wardrobe and started hanging his clothes inside and his clothes were all soft and expensive and they smelled like lavender and they made Shen Wei's old shirts look even older and even sadder.
"Weiwei," Wenhao said while hanging up a sweater. "We need to buy you new clothes. Your shirts are crying."
"My shirts are fine."
"Your shirts have holes."
"Those are design choices."
"Design choices don't happen under the armpit Weiwei."
Shen Wei sat down on the bed which was now covered in Wenhao's things and he watched Wenhao arrange his shoes in a row at the bottom of the wardrobe and he felt like he was watching his life change in real time and he didn't know if it was changing for better or worse.
But Wenhao was smiling and the apartment felt less empty and the sun was coming through the broken window and everything looked different than it did yesterday.
"Wenhao?"
Wenhao turned around with a pair of socks in his hand. "Yes."
"Thank you for picking me. That day. When the bullies pushed me into you. Thank you for not just walking away."
Wenhao looked at Shen Wei for a long moment and his face was soft and open and honest in a way that Shen Wei had never seen before.
"I didn't pick you Weiwei," Wenhao said quietly. "You picked me. You bought me that ice cream with your last coins. You kept your promise."
Shen Wei looked down at his hands and his eyes felt wet but he didn't wipe them because he didn't want Wenhao to notice.
Wenhao threw a pair of socks at Shen Wei's face and Shen Wei caught them just before they hit his nose.
"Now help me unpack," Wenhao said and his bossy voice was back. "I have more shirts and I'm hungry and I want you to make me eggs even though they're terrible because your terrible eggs are starting to taste good to me and I don't know what that says about our friendship."
Shen Wei laughed and stood up and helped Wenhao unpack and the small room felt less like a prison and more like a home and neither of them said it out loud but they both felt the same thing.