Sui Zhou knows he has lost the latest ambush of attrition when he finds Tang Fan watching a playlist of rotating sandwiches he's screen shared to their television.
"Sui Zhou?" he calls out from the hall. "Are you home?" Even if he can see his dependable black workboots set in the rack by the door, well-worn soles beginning to peel back from the toes, well, who could be sure? These are extenuatingly unordinary circumstances, after all.
"Tang da-ge," she presses, trying to reel him back for a final snatch of constructive conversation before he sets off into the wilderness of his own head again, "who was that handsome gentleman?"
"So familiar." Tang Fan's preening at her address persists as far as them both toeing over the threshold before the smug smile falls flat from his face. Then, "Wait," he starts, craning so far to toss a look over his shoulder that he ends up twisting himself around in a circle. "What— what han…
"Tang da-ge," she presses, trying to reel him back for a final snatch of constructive conversation before he sets off into the wilderness of his own head again, "who was that handsome gentleman?"
"So familiar." Tang Fan's preening at her address persists as far as them both toeing over the threshold before the smug smile falls flat from his face. Then, "Wait," he starts, craning so far to toss a look over his shoulder that he ends up twisting himself around in a circle. "What— what handsome gentleman?"
Beginning a life in Montreal.
Tang Fan finds a grey hair.