His tail was alive and warm. It wasn’t too gross. In fact, it was strangely comforting to hold. An elongated Tribble. I rubbed the soft, silky fur into criss-cross patterns with my thumb.
I must have squeezed too hard at some point because Quentin made a strangled noise from deep in his larynx. At the exact same time his mother entered my room.
“Quentin,” Mrs. Sun said. “It’s getting late. We should be lea—”
We scrambled to our knees. Quentin wrapped up his tail again, quick as a whip. But the lingering image was still him with part of his shirt undone, and me pulling my hands away from his lap. Not the most innocent diorama.
“QUENTIN! NI ZAI GAN MA?!?” Mrs. Sun shouted.
“What has he done now?” roared Mr. Sun from downstairs. “You’re dead once we get home, you hear? Dead!”
“Whatever it is, it’s okay,” Mom called out.
Quentin’s mother stormed in and hauled him downstairs like a milk crate while apologizing to me all the while. She was stronger than her delicate build suggested.
The Suns gave their hurried, mortified thanks to my mother and left, yelling at Quentin all the way. Only the slamming of their car doors silenced the smacks, slaps, and scoldings heaped upon his head. It made me smile to hear such familiar sounds, to the extent that it wasn’t until after they were long gone that I remembered Mr. and Mrs. Sun weren’t real.
Quentin’s trick must have endowed them with some kind of independent AI, to better serve the illusion. If there was a flaw in their behavior, it was that they hadn’t blamed me for the compromising situation and accused me of corrupting their precious little emperor, like actual Asian parents would have. Or Western ones, for that matter.
My mother stood next to me in the doorway, looking out into the street.
“I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” she said quietly. “I was so worried they’d look down on us. But they’re lovely people. Some folks are just good in everything. Luck, character, everything.”
She looked so relieved that I thought she might cry. I was struck by the fact that she hadn’t talked to anyone besides me in a meaningful way for a very long time. She had no family in California, and her adult connections had been mostly Dad’s friends.
I put my arm around her shoulders, and we went back inside.
12
“So have you tapped that sweet ass yet or what?” Yunie asked me the next day in the school library.
“Oh come on! We could be talking about literally anything else. Didn’t you win your concours? Doesn’t that make you the best violinist in the state now?”
“It was only a qualification round,” my best friend said as she doodled over my oxidation-reduction equations. “But yes, I crushed everyone so hard even the woodwinds went home crying. And as my victory prize, I want a full report on whether you’re getting any.”
“First of all, there is nothing between us. Nothing. Second of all, do you know how ridiculous Quentin and I would look as a couple? It’d be like Boris and Natasha chasing moose and squirrel.”
A massive grin spread across Yunie’s face. “So he’s bite-size. Doesn’t mean he’s not tasty. Rachel made a run at him. So did Charlotte, Nita, Hyejeong, both Vivians, and Other Eugenia. Greg and Philip, just to touch all the bases. Even Maxine, though that was probably an attempt to screw with you. That girl is a psycho, by the way.”
“And you?”
I wasn’t asking her seriously, but she totally took it seriously, putting her hands up. “Sister Code,” she said. “I don’t have dibs. You should have seen the way the two of you looked at each other the first day you met. I could swear you were both glowing like a pair of heat lamps.”
Yunie got up to go to her next class. I was the only one of us who was supposed to be in the library for study hall; she was just habitually late for everything.
“By the way,” she whispered into my ear. “I was talking about Androu at first. You’re the one who brought up Quentin.”
I pushed the lead in on my mechanical pencil so it was less pointy. Then I hurled it at her as she retreated through the door, laughing all the way down the hall.
As much as I loved her, I was glad to be alone. I needed the peace and quiet to continue my study-bender.
Tearing through my homework put me at ease like nothing else. It got me ready—or at least readier—to think about what I’d seen recently. By crushing my assignments, it felt like I was putting deposits into the First National Bank of Sanity. Confronting Quentin’s craziness was going to require one gigantic withdrawal.
I pushed aside my chem papers once I was finished and pulled out a book from my bag without stopping for a break. It was the one from my room. The continued legend of Sun Wukong.
It felt safer to read it here, in the light of day, away from my home. Just to be sure, though, I moved to the table in the back alcove, near the last row of shelves. The library may have already been empty, but I still wanted to isolate myself like a responsible bomb technician.
I was able to get the book all the way open this time. There had to be something in it that would make my life fall back into place . . .
The Tang Emperor of China, as emperors are wont to do, looked around him one day and decided that everything sucked. His lands were filled with greed, hedonism, and sin. What he needed, he reasoned, was for an ambassador to travel to the West and retrieve the holy scriptures that would bring his people back to right-mindedness.
The man he found for the task was a pure-hearted monk named Xuanzang. Xuanzang was a learned and earnest man, beautiful and dignified of appearance, talented in both preaching and the arts. He was eager for the monumental task. Unfortunately he was also weak and hopelessly na?ve.
Xuanzang needed a bodyguard. Someone who could handle the vicious bandits and flesh-eating demons that lay in wait on his journey. Someone who needed a difficult quest to atone for defying Heaven.
It wasn’t a difficult search. The gods had the perfect candidate lying under a rock.
The Bodhisattva Guanyin made the introductions. She freed Sun Wukong from his mountain prison and ordered him to serve Xuanzang on his trip. The Monkey King refused, forcing Guanyin to place a magic band around his head that would tighten whenever Xuanzang said the words Om Mani Padme Om. If Sun Wukong didn’t want to suffer excruciating pain, he would have to obey his new master to the letter.
Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their—
“Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten.
“How far did you get?” Quentin said.
He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment.