Short, Light, Free

Chapter 144: Seven Friends: Brother Si

 

I’ll try not to make this story hard to comprehend, but life is not something that can be explained with just words.

I remember a saying that goes: It takes three years to learn something good, but just three days to learn something bad.

But how can a thoroughly evil person become good?

My answer? Seven friends.

They walked in front of me, falling into the depths of the unfathomable abyss on my behalf in order to put me back on the right path and to make me cherish everything that I have.

If not for these seven friends, I might’ve turned out to be a complete bad egg.

…

When did I meet Whitey, you ask?

I would have to start from my best buddy because Brother Si is his brother.

Yang is my best buddy’s surname, and that’s all you’re going to get because I would not reveal his first name.

A few days ago, I told him that I was going to write about his brother and I asked what name I should use in place of his real one.

“Just call me Yang Dalong,” he answered with a smile.

Yang Dalong got his name from his grandfather.

His grandfather had served the army and fought in the war.

He was stationed at an island for over ten years and he became a political party member upon returning.

He worked as an official for the masses within the neighborhood committee.

People those days had little education.

Yang Dalong’s grandfather was drafted when he was only about 15-16 years old. Being illiterate was his life’s biggest regret.

It was a tradition for the older generation to name a newborn child.

Naturally, Yang Dalong’s grandfather was the most qualified to name him.

He wanted a simple name.

I tried putting myself in Grandfather Yang’s shoes as Dalong narrated the process.

It was definitely difficult for Grandfather Yang to come up with a good name since he was illiterate.

It was good enough that Yang Yi and Yang Er did not come up.

Surnames could not be changed, and Yang Dalong’s birth fell under the year of the Dragon.

Two characters down.

He then flipped through the directory for half a day and finally settled on the last – Da.

“What if it wasn’t the year of the Dragon?” Dalong thought to himself when his grandfather first relayed the story.

Was his name going to be Yang Daji instead?

Or Yang Dagou?

Or Yang Dazhu?

Compared to Dalong’s Chinese zodiac, mine sounded much worse.

After explaining how he had obtained his name, Dalong went on to talk about his brother.

Brother Si wasn’t Dalong’s biological brother, which explained why his family name wasn’t Yang.

I don’t really know his name, but I have a lot of respect for him.

I would not be saying so much if Brother Si was just like any average person.

That year, when Dalong and I were in our first year of high school, Brother Si turned 25 and opened a video game shop in the city area.

There were all kinds of game consoles, handheld or not.

I stopped going to the arcades and shifted my attention to those handheld game consoles.

My dream at that time was to be like Brother Si; I wanted a gaming shop of my own so I could sell and play games at the same time.

I could purchase the latest gadgets and games without thinking twice. I could play games at home, through the night, without being shamed.

Brother Si’s shop was situated in the city center.

I considered how my friendship with Dalong was driven mostly by the fact that I could freeload off of it in Brother Si’s gaming shop.

The most successful I had been was when I introduced myself as Dalong’s best friend.

I got a cassette tape for a cheap price, a free soda, and I even managed to hog the game console on display.

It became my routine during summer break.

It was also then that I got to learn of Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox.

Before moving on, I must mention that Brother Si had long, luscious black hair.

He had trouble moving about and he seldom traveled elsewhere apart from his shop and apartment.

That was how he grew his hair out.

Truth be told, before I met him for the first time, Dalong warned me repeatedly, “Don’t be surprised by his appearance. His hair is a little long and his legs aren’t great. Don’t stare.”

I did not think too much of that back then since I, too, had plans of growing my hair out. I wanted to go for a look that could fully express the artistic part of me.

I changed my mind, of course, upon seeing Brother Si’s hair.

It swept over his shoulders down to his buttocks.

How’s that a little long, Dalong?

Brother Si had a medium build although he had a masculine face. Well, masculine if we disregard his long shiny hair. He looked pretty darn attractive from the back.

Yeah, I know.

The term ‘sexy back’ brings me bad memories up till now.

Because of Dalong’s prior warning, however, I kept my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself.

I just believed that a man without personality is no different from a salted fish.

Whenever I was about to meet Brother Si, Dalong would remind me not to bring up his hair and legs.

Of course, the more forbidden, the more curious.

One day, Dalong finally shared that Brother Si was plagued by a disease when he was very young.

Hemophilia: A rare disorder in which blood doesn’t clot normally, causing the patient to bleed longer than usual and bruise easily.

I wasn’t aware of the link between that illness and Brother Si’s legs at that time. It was only a long time later that I realized the effects of the disease include disability and muscle contraction. Movements would become more challenging especially for those above 30 years old.

At that time, whenever we were gamed in Brother Si’s shop, I would see him stretching his left leg.

I observed how he had to use a lot of effort just to get up or even change position. He would also be in charge of accepting parcels, and carrying those heavier ones made his legs limp.

I feel pretty embarrassed to say this, but I’ve taken quite a bit of advantage of that shop. I was really poor and simply had no money for games. I remembered feeling remorseful over the fact that I wasn’t able to render Brother Si any assistance in exchange for my freeloading.

Although I was not sure if Brother Si really liked us, he would always greet us kindly when he saw us. I also tried my best not to point out his health problem or even look straight at his long black hair.

Dalong and I would usually game until five or six, or until Brother Si had to close his shop. We always had a hard time leaving.

Brother Si wasn’t the one to set the closing time in the beginning; it was his father, also the husband of Dalong’s aunt, who would drive over to pick Brother Si up.

We would watch him close up the shop and enter the car before taking the public bus home.

We were neighbors, but Brother Si’s house was on the other side of the city.

I heard that Brother Si’s parents, also Dalong’s aunt and uncle, absolutely abhorred his hair.

They had tried many ways to get rid of it but to no avail. They were even on the verge of disowning their son because of it!

“When did he start growing it out?” I asked Dalong.

He shook his head, saying that he’d only seen Brother Si with long hair.

His aunt and uncle often urged him to persuade Brother Si to get it chopped off. After all, long hair looked good on a woman and not a man.

I remembered us spending most of our first year of high school in Brother Si’s shop.

Brother Si was a very meticulous person. During the PS2 era, the advertisement posters on his wall were those of Sony’s 50inch monitors.

Those cost tens of thousands of yuan, completely unimaginable for us at that time.

He told us things that I could still remember today. Things like how Sony’s PS3 would complement his screen monitors well.

To me, Sony had the best monitors. In fact, until today, I would still recommend Sony without hesitation.

Later on, though, Brother Si bought a new toy.

Logitech’s car racing game controller.

It was called a controller but it felt more like a simulator.

Brother Si would use it to play GT car racing while Dalong and I watched from the sides.

I had a poor impression of GT car racing because it was sold as a game based off real racing cars that could drift at full speed. Yet, the actual controller had no such controls. The player would have to break, steer the trembling wheel, and then accelerate again. It was overall a joke and the computer could easily crush the player.

Having played Mario Kart when I was growing up, I’ve always found games that simulated reality dumb.

Clearly, I was wrong.

Initially, Brother Si had started gaming to escape reality.

Later on, he played because he had no alternatives.

Back then, I never knew why Brother Si did not get tired of GT car racing.

Year three was exceptionally busy for Dalong and me, so we dropped by his shop less.

In fact, even Dalong and I rarely met up during that year.

We got busy on our own, all the way until the first year of university.

It felt good to be a university student.

I remembered the president’s welcome speech.

“How do you say University in English? Uni-ver-si-ty –– Play all you want for four years.”

He wasn’t bluffing at all.

When I realized that my university was located near Brother Si’s shop, I went over there to have a look and saw that Brother Si had chopped his long locks off.

The sight looked absolutely foreign to me that before I entered the shop, I had to call Dalong first to ask what was going on.

What he told me shocked me beyond belief.

How do you force a man to chop off the hair that he’d grown for many years?

Answer: Down payment for a car.

It was only until I hung up that I noticed a Toyota parked outside his shop.

I could immediately tell that it was Brother Si’s car because there were a lot of stickers on it.

Yes, all kinds of brightly colored stickers, all over the car.

My first thought was Brother Si could actually drive a car.

I did not enter his shop that day and chose a weekend to visit him together with Dalong instead.

More like freeload, actually, but that’s beside the point.

Coincidentally, that weekend was Brother Si’s birthday but neither Dalong nor I was aware.

We sat on the sofa as usual and played Street Fighter 4 on the 50-inch Sony screen.

We only realized it was his birthday when a delivery guy sent a cake over to the shop in the evening.

Yes, that was the generation where deliveries started becoming popular, along with Taobao.

The cake had been ordered by Brother Si himself, but Dalong and I ate it, too.

I, being utterly shameless, took two slices.

As Dalong ate his slice, I had the amazing opportunity of competing with Brother Si in a few matches of Street Fighter.

It was a humbling experience that proved that there will always be a higher mountain elsewhere.

Although I was new at Street Fighter, I had played quite a lot of King of Fighters previously.

Still, I lost all three matches against Brother Si that day.

I gave it my all while he only played with his right hand.

His sensitive and stable control left my character cut and bruised all over.

I remembered how he picked up the video game software and said, “This video game magazine is the final edition. It seems that the company is about to collapse.”

Ignorant of most things, Dalong asked cheerfully,” Let me read it, Brother Si.”

Brother Si acceded to his request.

Dalong finished the magazine in the bus on the way home.

The magazine eventually fell into my hands.

All I remembered during that visit was the magazine and Brother Si’s birthday.

What Dalong and I did not expect, however, was for Brother Si to close his shop down after that day.

Please don’t think that this was a tragedy. The story was much more encouraging.

Half a month passed from that day before I discovered that the game shop was permanently closed.

My first reaction was to call Dalong.

Over the phone, he told me, “The shop was doomed to fail since he sold only authentic Japanese games and tapes. Having faith is one thing, but no matter how good Sony and Nintendo are, they’re not going to be as hot-selling as the pirated versions.”

Brother Si must’ve said those profound words.

When I questioned him about Brother Si’s whereabouts, he answered flatly, “He drove off to Tibet.”

….

I hoped everyone would be able to connect the words that I’m about to say.

Otaku, half-crippled, itasha, journey to Tibet.

Brother Si was already on his way to Tibet when I called Dalong.

That’s right. He sold off all his consoles and games to get cash and necessities.

He went westward, to Tibet.

I found it hard to believe when Dalong broke the news.

Brother Si had left us… left the fictitious world of games.

He had matured and found a hobby of his own.

I never saw him again after his birthday.

The latest news I’ve received of him was from Dalong, half a year ago.

“Do you know rally?” he asked.

According to Dalong, Brother Si has become a rally driver in China Rally Championship (CRC).