By the time Ruoqing got home, Ranhua was already done waiting.
She kicked off her flip-flops, crossed her legs on the bed, propped the new phone on her knees, and opened PUBG. The loading screen cycled through and she gave a satisfied nod. "Smooth as butter. Zero lag."
"Congrats." Ruoqing dropped her keys on the coffee table and went to the fridge for a beer.
"You said you'd play with me."
"I said we'd talk about it when we got back."
"We're back."
Ruoqing looked at her. Ranhua pressed her palms together and mouthed *please* with exaggerated desperation.
Ruoqing sighed, picked up her own phone, and sat down on the couch.
"Make a room."
Ranhua let out a shriek loud enough that Ruoqing half expected the neighbors to start knocking.
They queued up for duos and dropped into Erangel.
Ranhua was the kind of player who sprinted toward gunfire the second she landed, completely fearless, convinced a shotgun made her unstoppable. Ruoqing was the opposite. She liked finding a quiet building, looting methodically, then lying in wait behind a window for someone to walk past.
"Why are you camping again!" Ranhua's voice crackled through the phone speaker over in-game gunshots and footsteps. "Get over here, someone's shooting me!"
"You ran over there yourself."
"I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying—"
Ruoqing sighed, dropped her character off the second floor, circled around to where Ranhua was getting lit up, and picked off the enemy with two shots from the sniper rifle. The guy went down.
"You're so good!" Ranhua yelled.
"Can you keep it down."
"No, you're supposed to be loud when you play."
Ruoqing took a sip of beer and didn't answer. On screen, Ranhua's character was hopping around next to the downed enemy like she was doing a victory dance.
They played three rounds. In the first, Ranhua pushed too hard and got knocked out with a frying pan, furious enough to slam her phone on the mattress. In the second, they hunkered down behind a hillside and made it to the top five before the zone forced them out and a single grenade took them both. The third round they got the chicken dinner, and Ranhua rolled across the bed in celebration.
"I told you the new phone needed to be broken in right! First day and we already won!"
"I carried that. You spent the whole round looting."
"Looting is a contribution, okay! I grabbed three med kits for you!"
Ruoqing didn't argue. She set her phone down and leaned back into the couch. The beer can was empty. Ranhua was still flopped around on the bed, holding her phone above her face, probably screenshotting something to post to her Stories.
Quiet settled over the room.
Ranhua put her phone down, rolled onto her stomach, and draped herself over the edge of the bed with her chin resting on her arms, watching Ruoqing on the couch.
"Ruoqing."
"Yeah."
"Do you ever feel like… some things are just completely different before you get married versus after?"
Ruoqing turned to look at her. The brightness that had been on Ranhua's face during the game was gone. There was something very still in her eyes now, like she'd been sitting with this for a long time before deciding to say it.
"Like what."
Ranhua buried her face in her arms and said, muffled: "He wasn't like this when we were dating."
She paused, then lifted her head.
"Back then he was funny. He'd say all kinds of nonsense, had tons of friends. Being with him felt easy. I didn't have to think too hard. And then… I got pregnant."
Ruoqing didn't say anything. Just watched her.
"I actually thought about not keeping it." Ranhua's voice dropped. "But he said it was fine, we'd just get married. His parents said to hurry up and do it, have the baby and everything would be fine. Everyone kept saying 'it'll be fine,' like once the baby was born everything would just fix itself automatically."
She gave a tired smile.
"Then after the wedding I realized nothing was the same. He started thinking I should be taking care of the house, that I shouldn't be gaming all the time. I wasn't spending that much of his money—what's wrong with playing games? And he'd say, look at other guys' wives, then look at you."
Ranhua dropped her voice into a flat, worn-out impression of her husband: "*Look at other guys' wives. They cook, they clean, they take the kid out. What do you do? You just play games.*"
Ruoqing's fingers tightened around the empty beer can. It made a soft crinkle.
"So I said, fine, I'll get a job. Then he said what about the kid, who's going to watch him? I said you do it, he said he has work." Ranhua spread her hands open. "So what exactly am I supposed to do? If I don't work I'm wasting his money. If I want to work there's no one for the kid. Nothing I do is right."
She finished and dropped face-down onto the bed, voice swallowed by the blanket: "Sometimes I really think if I hadn't gotten pregnant, we never would've gotten married."
The room stayed quiet for a long time.
Ruoqing set the empty can on the coffee table, stood up, and walked to the fridge. She came back with two beers, walked to the bed, and set one down next to Ranhua.
"Sit up. Drink."
Ranhua rolled over. Her eyes were a little red, but she wasn't crying. She sat up, took the beer, pulled the tab—pop—and drank a long swallow.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" she asked.
"No."
"Really?"
"Really." Ruoqing sat on the edge of the bed and opened her own can. "You just made a twenty-year-old decision when you were twenty."
Ranhua went still for a moment, then looked down at the beads of condensation on the can.
"…You actually say the right thing sometimes."
"I'm just being honest."
Ranhua leaned into her, shoulder to shoulder. They sat on the edge of the bed with their feet hanging off, each holding a beer, not talking.
Outside, a motorcycle engine droned somewhere far off. The automatic doors of the convenience store downstairs slid open and shut.
"Ruoqing."
"Yeah."
"Thanks for not saying 'I told you so.'"
Ruoqing drank.
"I never said anything."
"But your face did." Ranhua nudged her with an elbow. "You looked so sour at my wedding. Even worse than usual."
"This is just my face."
"No it's not, that day was extra sour."
Ruoqing didn't deny it.
She did remember that day. Ranhua in a white dress, heavy makeup, smiling too hard. Ruoqing had stood at the back of the room and watched her walk down the aisle on the arm of a man she didn't think was good enough, and she'd thought—
Never mind. Those thoughts didn't go anywhere.
"Why didn't you stop me back then?" Ranhua asked suddenly.
Ruoqing looked straight ahead. Her expression didn't change.
"Because you'd already decided."
Ranhua was quiet for a few seconds.
"…Yeah. I wasn't listening to anyone back then."
"Still aren't, really."
"Hey!"
The corner of Ruoqing's mouth moved.
Ranhua caught it and pointed at her face. "You smiled! Lin Ruoqing, you just smiled!"
"No I didn't."
"You did! I saw it!"
"You imagined it."
Ranhua pushed in closer, relentless. Ruoqing turned her head away. They jostled each other on the edge of the bed until the beer almost sloshed out. Finally Ranhua laughed too hard to keep going and fell backward onto the mattress, hair splayed across her face.
Ruoqing stayed where she was, holding her beer steady, and looked at her.
"You're so loud."
"I know." Ranhua lay there staring at the ceiling, the smile still on her lips. "But you still let me stay here."
Ruoqing didn't answer.
She got up, dropped the empty cans in the trash bag, and walked to the window. She pushed it open. Night air drifted in, thick with summer heat and the smell of frying oil from the night market somewhere below.
She pulled the cigarette pack from her pocket, shook one out, and lit it. Click.
She took a drag. The smoke scattered in the wind.
Behind her, Ranhua's voice came soft with sleep: "Ruoqing… can we play one more round tomorrow…"
"Go to sleep."
"Mm…"
Ruoqing leaned against the window frame and finished the cigarette alone.
She thought about what Ranhua had said—*if I hadn't gotten pregnant, we never would've gotten married.*
A twenty-year-old decision.
She'd made one too. Just a different kind—don't choose anything, don't want anything, just get through life on your own.
She wasn't sure which was dumber.
She tucked the cigarette butt into the little tin and closed the window.
Ranhua was already asleep. The new phone was still lit up, screen frozen on the PUBG main menu. Ruoqing picked it up, pressed the screen off, and set it on the pillow beside her.
Then she pulled a thin blanket over Ranhua.
Gently. Like she was afraid of waking something.