"The Number You Have Dialled Is Not in Use"

Xu Mushen let out a soft, regretful sigh.

"I don't know what to tell you," he said. "Wen Rui, we haven't spoken in almost a year. I'll try and help you with your questions but I can't guarantee I'll have all the answers."

Wen Rui swallowed past the lump in his throat. His heart ached with a bittersweet pang. He mourned the loss of his friendship. But he was also so grateful that his best friend was still trying to be here for him despite the distance that had grown between them.

The first question that popped into his head was actually 'Did you know I'm married?' but he didn't dare to ask that. Because he wasn't sure what Xu Mushen would think. Or worse, whether he could be fully trusted anymore, after years of becoming distant. It was this realisation, that he doubted Xu Mushen's loyalty to their friendship, that made things clear to Wen Rui. They truly weren't the same anymore. At some point that he couldn't remember, their lives had taken different paths. They were no longer each other's closest confidantes without any secrets between them.

Curling up into a ball, he cradled the phone close to his ear like Xu Mushen's voice was a lifeline that he wanted to cling on to. 21 year old him might be resigned to the loss but 18 year old him wanted his best friend back.

"Did you know that I'm an idol?" he asked hoarsely, starting with the safest question.

"Yes. I know you quit school to train."

"Why would I do that?" Even till now, it made no sense to Wen Rui. But after seeing how far his bank account had dwindled, how no one had called him to admonish him about his latest scandal, he had begun to form an ugly suspicion.

Sure enough, Xu Mushen's voice turned uncomfortable as he muttered, "You mentioned wanting to be financially independent...that you needed money. You know what this means right?"

Wen Rui knew. Either his parents didn't love him anymore or something had happened to them. The fear that gripped him at the thought of this was nearly enough to make him pass out.

"Are they—" he had to force the words out. "Are they still around?"

He didn't specify who he was referring to, but Xu Mushen could infer anyway.

"…your father is."

Wen Rui's mind went blank.

Mama was gone?

He couldn't accept it. The image of the woman who had raised him from birth was imprinted firmly in his mind like a photograph. His mother was a stunning beauty, whose eyes and smile he had inherited. Wen Rui would never forget her soft hands gently smoothing out his blankets every night when she had tucked him into bed. Nor would he forget the cooling breeze of air whenever she blew onto the lumps and bumps he'd collected during outdoor play in their gardens. The swish of her long skirts down the corridor and her light floral perfume used to herald her arrival outside his bedroom. And Wen Rui would put down whatever toys or books were in his hand and rush to greet her.

It had happened gradually, but maybe because of the teasing of his friends, Wen Rui had tried to be less dependent on his mother in high school. When was the last time he had hugged her and acted childish around her for her attention? He couldn't even remember. He had been so busy trying to be a tough grown-up that he had left her behind.

Still, when this whole mess with the amnesia first happened, the thing he had wanted to do most was to run back to her so that she could shelter him in his arms again. Because deep inside he knew that her love was unconditional. She may scold him and express her disappointment in him, but she would also always be his biggest supporter. He'd always boasted to Xu Mushen that she loved him best of all, but in actuality, wasn't that the case for him as well?

And now, he would never see her again.

Wen Rui hadn't stopped crying ever since Xu Mushen picked up the phone, but his sobbing now grew progressively louder as he grieved for his mother.

"I'm sorry,' Xu Mushen said mutely, with a strange thickness to his voice too. He had also grown up under Auntie's watchful eye, and thinking about her hurt. But he'd already had time to balm his wounds. Wen Rui's amnesia made it such that he was experiencing the shock of losing her all over again. "I'm sorry."

Wen Rui gulped for air and struggled to speak. "What happened?" His words came out in a shuddery breath. He felt like he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"She—she'd been sick for a while but she didn't tell anyone."

"How long?"

"I'm not sure when it started but you told me about it right before we left for university."

Wen Rui squeezed his eyes shut. They were so swollen that his eyelids felt tender.

Right before university. So in his third year of high school. When had it begun? Was it right at the end after the exams or before, when he was still having classes? Had he been so hung up over his school life, Su Jiali, and his ridiculous rivalry with Zhou Ye that he hadn't even noticed that she'd been unwell?

"When did she—" He still couldn't bring himself to say it.

"End of first-year uni."

One year. From the time she'd let them know that she was sick to her passing, he'd only had a few hundred days with her.

Did she go peacefully? Had she been in a lot of pain? These were all questions that he didn't have the courage to ask. The guilt was too overwhelming at the moment and Wen Rui didn't like to admit it but he was too much of a coward to confront the fact that he had lost his mother for good.

"How about my father?" he asked instead.

He was expecting Xu Mushen to tell him a story about a prodigal son going down the wrong track, whose father had tried and failed to redeem before eventually giving up. However, Xu Mushen said something strange instead.

"Don't go back home and don't try and rely on him." Xu Mushen's sounded dead serious and the warning in his voice shook Wen Rui.

"What do you mean?"

Xu Mushen's words were laced with a poorly contained anger. "It's cruel to tell you this when you're going through so much right now. But you need to know. Wen Rui, he cheated on Auntie. He'd been disloyal to their marriage since the year you were born, maybe even before that."

After hearing about his mother, Wen Rui hadn't believed that anything could shock him anymore but it seemed that life was full of nasty surprises.

"No," he said, the denial slipping past his lips subconsciously. His father wouldn't.

Because Wen Guoyan spent most of his day working in the company and away from home, Wen Rui had seldom seen him. As such, he wasn't as close to his father as he was to his mother, but that didn't mean he didn't love or respect Wen Guoyan. His father was the person that Wen Rui looked up to the most. He was strict with Wen Rui and had high expectations, but also had been the stern teacher who had educated Wen Rui on how to behave as a good person.

And now Xu Mushen was telling him that his role model had cheated on his wife?

Wen Rui didn't want to believe it but he couldn't convince himself that Xu Mushen would make up something like that either. Wen Rui knew that Xu Mushen saw his mother as a godmother figure. He wouldn't disgrace her memory.

"I know it's hard to accept." Xu Mushen still struggled too, whenever he allowed himself to think about the injustice of it all. "But he brought home the other woman just a month after the funeral and she had a boy with her. A son. He's our age. Wen Rui. He's. Our. Age."

Their age. 18 to Wen Rui, 21 in reality. If his father—if this were true, he wasn't going to call him that anymore—had an illegitimate son their age, then all those times they'd spent together as the three of them. All those rare but fond memories Wen Rui had of his childhood, where Wen Guoyan would take them on holidays or bring them out to fancy restaurants.

They were all a lie?

"I'm tired," Wen Rui said numbly. "Ah Shen ah, I'll call you back another time."

"Wait! Wen Rui, don't do anything rash—"

He disconnected the call. Ignored the phone when it rang repeatedly again and again. He would apologise to Xu Mushen later when he was feeling up to it. But for now, all he wanted to do was to be alone.

[But you are alone.]

A minute later, he opened his contacts list and scrolled back to the 'M' section. He closed his eyes and pressed down.

"The number you have dialled is not in use."

He cried himself to sleep.