A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 108 – Trimming

“I’m Not Seeking Your Opinion, I’m Just Letting You Know.”

Jiang Ou held the paper cup he gave her in her hands and took a sip; the temperature was just right. She swallowed the water, and suddenly realised that her son had always been like this throughout so many years: he didn’t talk much, but always took care of people very well. It was precisely because he took care of people too well, and was too mature, to the point that sometimes even she forgot that he was barely any older.

“Did you take your medicine?” asked Jiang Tian in a low voice. He sat with her for a while.
Jiang Ou nodded. “I especially took one pill before coming here.”

Interactions between this mother and son seemed to always be like this. Jiang Tian was no good at casual chitchat, he was no good at helping someone cope with their issues, and was even worse at finding topics that could cheer people up. Every time, he would quietly stay within where she could reach him, like a steady but quiet shadow.

Jiang Ou stared at the shadow he casted beneath his feet for quite a while, and suddenly heard him ask, “Did you have fun?”
She paused, and was a little surprised. She thought Jiang Tian would cut straight to the point, ask about what she and Ji Huanyu said. She did not expect that after so many years, Jiang Tian had actually learnt to be tactful.
“It was pretty good. Not too tiring, it’s very relaxing,” Jiang Ou gave a very small laugh. When her brows relaxed, she was still genial and mild, just that the many years of emotional suffering had made her look more weary than she was at the start. “The old man liked it quite a lot too. He found two chess buddies, and even got to know an old lady that knows how to play the piano.”

Jiang Tian let out a “Mn”, and tilted his head in the direction of the ward, saying, “Then why did you bother responding to him?”
The mirth on Jiang Ou’s face dropped, and much longer later, she let out a soft sigh. She knew it — tactfulness is only temporary, her son still had the cold and stubborn temper which didn’t do things in a more roundabout manner.

“Just wanted to try,” Jiang Ou said.
“Try what?”
“Try the doctor’s advice, see if I can truly get better.”
“Why did you suddenly want to try?”

Jiang Ou opened her mouth, wanting to say because I know how tired the people around me are, and also how tired you are. But with the reality of the five-six years of living in a foreign land right before their eyes, this line seemed especially useless — she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Furthermore, she would still get stressed out for no reason due to a couple of lines, she wasn’t that completely recovered yet.

She had nothing to say in response to his question, and was about to crack a joke, saying, who even interrogates their mom that intently like this? But she suddenly recalled what the doctor once mentioned, saying that in this mother-son relationship, her role was more like the junior; more often than not, she was relying on and not taking care of the other person. It had been exactly this before, just that she did not consciously realise it, only classifying this as Jiang Tian being more independent — even if she wanted to take care of him, she couldn’t find anywhere to start.
Later on, she became paranoid and terrified due to Ji Huanyu and Du Cheng, feeling like nobody could be trusted and was worth pouring her feelings into. The only exception was Jiang Tian.
Therefore, not even she herself realised that she had treated her son as the straw she clutched at, her survival instincts pushed at her to hold onto him with a death grip. She feared that the moment she turned around, even this sole exception would disappear too.

Seeing the way she was in a trance and did not know how to reply for a long time, Jiang Tian pursed his lips and lowered his eyes. His wrists rested on his kneecap, his ten digits loosely intertwined. A moment later, he asked another question. “How was your chat with him?”

“Who?” Jiang Ou’s mind went blank for a while before she realised that he’s talking about Ji Huanyu. Therefore, she zoned out a little, and answered, “It’s different from what I’d imagined it would be.”
Jiang Tian turned to look at her. Her brows were lightly knitted as she deliberated, “I thought I would feel very uncomfortable, break out into cold sweat and all, but I didn’t. He changed quite a lot, I nearly couldn’t recognise him. Maybe it’s because he isn’t doing so well either, I actually don’t have anything to be angry about instead.”

This time Jiang Tian did not speak. He was silent for a long while, so long that even Jiang Ou couldn’t sit quite still anymore, and snuck two glances at him.
“Xiao-Tian?” Jiang Ou called out to him.
“Mn.”
“Don’t you think mom is being quite ridiculous?”

A corner of Jiang Tian’s lips quirked; it could not be counted as a laugh at all. He said, “No, I just couldn’t figure something out, that’s all.”
“What couldn’t you figure out?” Jiang Ou asked warmly.

Jiang Tian did not even look up. He said plainly, “You can say ‘whatever’ even to Ji Huanyu, so why couldn’t you do it for me too?”
Jiang Ou’s heart was abruptly jerked, like someone had used the sharpest fingernail to pinch the bit of flesh on the mouth of her heart.

Although he may be direct with his words, he had never asked her something like this before, out of the fear that she would get insomnia from anxiety, or have another emotional meltdown. He held down his own temper, and after so many roundabout poking about all these years, today was the first time he was unable to hold back.

“Am I more unacceptable than Ji Huanyu?”
His tone was actually calm, like he was genuinely perplexed by this. The more he was like this, the more Jiang Ou felt the jerk in her heart, the more it ached.

Once bitten, twice shy. After thinking herself into a corner all these years, all she was scared of was just that she didn’t take care of him properly, terrified that Jiang Tian had walked onto the same wrong path that Ji Huanyu did…….All it came down to was that she did not want Jiang Tian to be any similar to Ji Huanyu at all.

However, she never would have thought, after going through so many twists and turns, Jiang Tian actually placed himself on the same scale as Ji Huanyu. And as for her, she was tongue tied, and actually had no idea how to refute at all.

She wanted to say of course not, how could it be? You and Ji Huanyu are as different as heaven and earth.
But after blindly looking around, she discovered to her horror: throughout these years, every single thing she did seemed to be the exact opposite of that stand. Every reaction of hers seemed to be screaming “you will accidentally become that scumbag at any moment”.

The most terrifying of all, was that if it wasn’t for Jiang Tian asking this directly, she would have never realised this at all.
But……
“I really didn’t mean it that way, Xiao-Tian.” Jiang Ou took a sip of water, and slowly held down her feelings while holding the cup. The process of facing Ji Huanyu just now gave her experience; she consciously recalled that instant just now, doing her best to reimagine herself as a bystander. The one sitting opposite her wasn’t her son, but an unfamiliar youth who was attempting to have a heart to heart talk with her.

She wasn’t that easily prone to anxiousness anymore, and was much older than a few years ago. She was just devastated……

All these years, in order to avoid any extreme changes in emotions, and also due to medication, she had not sorted out her thoughts for a long time. Or rather, it had been eons since she even carried out the action of ‘thinking’, to the point that at this moment, too many words came forth to the edges of her tongue, but she did not know how to speak them.

Much silence later, she finally found a start. “I did try before.”
Jiang Tian looked up.
This seemed like encouragement. She pinched the cup, continuing, “Mom really did try to understand before. For this one period of time, I was doing okay and didn’t need to take medication, I spent many days thinking about it. Why do parents all wish for their kids to properly get married and properly have children? My mom — your grandma — had told me why before. She said she thought of what if I get too old, and she wouldn’t be around, what would become of me when I’m all lonesome? Having someone by me is good enough, having someone reliable to take care of me is all she needed to stop worrying. Actually, I’m not that different too, I was just thinking……”

She paused, the rims of her eyes reddened a little. She lowered her head for another sip of water before continuing, “My son was all alone as a kid, there was always nobody around to take care of him. In reality, blaming this all on Ji Huanyu was useless too; I’m not one to speak, I’m not even as close to you as an old man with zero blood relations. But the old man is old already, his body isn’t as good as before. Including me, everyone will have to go at one point or another. If you’re not married by then, you will be all alone. Sure, it doesn’t matter if nothing goes wrong, but what if you fall sick? What if you run into trouble? What happens if you get older later?”

Jiang Tian moved, “Marriage doesn’t promise these things either.”
“I know.” Jiang Ou spoke slowly, her voice constantly nasal at this point. “See, mom did try to think this through before. Later on, I told myself, marriage doesn’t represent much actually, it’s possible you’ll get divorced eventually. I myself am a walking example. But I have you — who else do you have in the future? Back then, I just kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and spiralled into that train of thought for several days — I couldn’t leave.”

Jiang Tian was deep in thought for a long while, and then turned to face Jiang Ou. “At the start, when you came to fetch me at Wu Tong Wai, were you thinking about having someone to take care of you when you’re seventy-eighty years old?”
“Of course not,” Jiang Ou said.
“Then why do you want me to think about that?” Jiang Tian said.

He wasn’t interrogating her, his tone wasn’t harsh either; the same old cold and plain, with a few degrees of resignation and defiance. But Jiang Ou was stumped by that anyway.
“The Old Man didn’t get married and didn’t have kids, now he still has someone taking care of him. Ji Huanyu only has a nurse next to him,” Jiang Tian’s thumb rubbed at his joints, and said, as though he was in a trance, “Who knows what will happen in the future? Is there any point in planning so many years ahead?”

“How would you know if you didn’t try?” Jiang Ou said.
“I did, when I was eighteen.” Jiang Tian said.
Jiang Ou was suddenly unable to speak anymore.

His eighteenth birthday was a disastrous turning point. From then onwards, Jiang Tian never celebrated his birthday. No matter who tried to prepare one for him, be it her, Old Man Ding, the professor, his classmates or his neighbours, they would always be rejected. He seemed to be scared of that day — loathing it, even.
Every time she thought about this, Jiang Ou’s heart would ache so much that she couldn’t breathe.

She hurriedly lowered her head, and took a few sips of water.
The corridor wasn’t actually that warm, the water cooled rather quickly. Jiang Tian reached out to take her paper cup, and turned to head to the water refill room.

These few years, Jiang Ou had watched the his silhouette many times. Maybe it was because this floor was overly spacious, but it made his silhouette even more quiet and lonely. The corridor was long, the water room was at the other end.
For that one instant, Jiang Ou had an illusion. Like that lonesome view of his back would walk on a narrow path for eons; no matter how he walked, he would not reach an end.

She gripped her fingers, and then suddenly got up, following after him.

Jiang Tian was mixing water into warm water in the water refill room, the steam rose above the rim of the cup, forming a cloud of mist over the stainless steel water cooler. Out of his peripherals, Jiang Ou followed over, and stood next to him.
A few seconds later, he heard the other person softly ask, “Does it have to be Xiao-Wang?”

Jiang Tian stilled, and his pointer finger nearly got scalded by the hot water.
His gaze lowered, and he rushed to turn off the tap. He held the slightly scalding water cup, and stood there for quite a while before he spoke, “Why couldn’t it be him?”
Why could she treat Ji Huanyu with composure, but was always so sensitive whenever she heard of Sheng Wang’s name?

There was barely any colour left on Jiang Ou’s face, making her look a little pale. “Because I really did treat Xiao-Wang as my own son.”
She knew Sheng Mingyang had the heart of a businessman; he would be good to Jiang Tian, but it would be too much for him to treat him like one of his own. But she wasn’t one — for a very long period of time, she really did treat Sheng Wang as a second son, one that she personally gave birth to. It wasn’t because of the depths of her feelings for Sheng Mingyang, but it was because she had treated Sheng Wang as the Jiang Tian in another space and time.

“I’ve told you before, right? I’ve heard many, many stories of Sheng Wang as a kid, and thought that he was very similar to the way you were as a kid. Only, he grew up like that under his care, you grew up like this under my care. I would often think: if I’m a better mother, if I’d accompanied you more, spoilt you a little, would you have become like Xiao-Wang? Would you laugh, throw little tantrums, and get mad? I’m not saying that his personality is better than yours, I’m just thinking……if so, would you have not mature so early, would you have less concerns, and would you be able to smile a little more?” Jiang Ou said.

She really did treat Sheng Wang as her son — how was she supposed to accept the truth that her two sons were together?

Jiang Tian didn’t speak after hearing that from her, standing in only silence. He stared at the slightly swaying lines in the cup, zoning out. Much longer later, he suddenly spoke, “Have you seen him before this?”
Jiang Ou didn’t get what he was saying at first. “See who?”
“Sheng Wang.”
“……I have not.”

“You should take a look at him,” Jiang Tian said.
“Why?’
“When I saw him a month ago, he already couldn’t smile, couldn’t throw little tantrums, and couldn’t get mad anymore.” The corner of his lips jerked, self-mockery laced his smile. “You spent five-six years, only to raise yet another Jiang Tian.”

Jiang Ou stopped breathing; her heart was might as well scratched wide open, leaving a gaping wound, blood seeping out drop by drop. She was in utter anguish; maybe it was because of Jiang Tian who said something like this, or because of Sheng Wang who had become “Jiang Tian”. Or maybe……it was because of her, the one who wore everyone down into “Jiang Tian” after all these twists and turns for so many years.

She suddenly recalled the young person she saw outside the hospital, and opened her mouth in a daze, asking, “Did Xiao-Wang come here?”
“He did, I didn’t let him come up here,” Jiang Tian said.

She wanted to ask why on instinct, but fortunately managed to put a stop to that before those words escaped her mouth — she would just be increasing the awkwardness otherwise. She still wanted to ask “are you two together again”, but didn’t manage to bring herself to ask that. Because she said “whatever” to even Ji Huanyu, she didn’t know what ground she had to ask this question at all.
It was as though the moment she asked, she would be putting the two and Ji Huanyu on the same line, and this ought to be what she wanted to see happening the least.

She did not find the ground to ask this on, but Jiang Tian volunteered to speak. “I probably can’t find anybody else.”
Jiang Ou stilled,
“I want to be with him for a long time, I don’t want to miss a single year,” Jiang Tian looked at her. “If you can’t accept this, I will still visit you on my own, nothing will change. If you can, then we will visit you together.”

He paused. “I’m not seeking your opinion, I’m just letting you know.”

TO BE CONTINUED.