Roger asked Luke again, “What about you?”

Luke is a lively guy. He’s not satisfied with just Q&A-style conversations, so his lines had a lot more words than the previous people: “Don’t you already know where I am? Except for Warren and you, none of us are actually in Chengdu.”

Then everyone fell silent.

The atmosphere became a bit heavy. In the past, the one responsible for livening things up in our group was mainly Fire. That guy is a real live wire, always ready with a bunch of jokes, both clean and dirty. Painting him this way helps downplay my own foolishness, though I’m not much better than him. We used to be known as the “earth-shattering double trouble,” and even called ourselves Team Rocket traveling through the galaxy.

Unfortunately, Fire isn’t here today, so the job of lightening the mood fell to me. After four years without practice, I was clearly a bit rusty. I mulled it over for a while before blurting out a little curse: “Luke, I hate you.”

As soon as I said it, everyone looked at me.

In situations like this, it’s a bit like performing a comedy sketch—one person cracks the joke, another plays along.

I’d already set up the punchline, but I still needed Luke to play along, or else things would get really awkward.

Luckily, Luke truly deserves his reputation as the year’s best straight man—he picked up the cue: “What are you trying to pull?”

I launched into a long speech: “What are you trying to pull? Just now I was waiting for Roger to ask me ‘Where are you?’ so I could answer ‘I used to be in Zhejiang, this morning I was in Tibet.’ That way, I’d have more lines than Ben and the others, and I’d seem like an important character. But you interrupted, so Roger never even asked me, and I didn’t get a single line. Do you realize that what you did made me look like a background extra? I became the only one out of the seven of us here without a single line. I haven’t had much presence these past two years as it is—could you at least consider my feelings a little?”

Ben was the first to stand up and support me, helping me go after Luke, and then everyone laughed.

After that, we ate and drank, but the atmosphere at the table was still a bit strange. We were all watching Roger’s expression. He said he’d only talk business when everyone was here, but it was obvious not everyone would make it tonight. We didn’t know if he’d still bring it up.

Roger said one thing but meant another. He claimed he wouldn’t wait, but he still wanted to—he kept glancing at the private room’s door. And it wasn’t just him; all of us kept sneaking looks at the door, consciously or not. Personally, I really wanted to see all thirteen of us gathered together, but I didn’t know if I’d ever see that in my lifetime.

Chapter 013 Roger

“Really not waiting anymore!”

At eight-thirty, Roger slapped the table. After a few drinks, his face was red and his neck thick, and he directly stopped Tyler, who was about to speak. He spoke quickly, his voice burning with anger: “I know what you want to say. Distance isn’t an excuse. You guys are even farther away than the others!”

After saying that, Roger started taking off his clothes, revealing his bandaged upper body.

We were moved, unsure whether he’d been injured at work or slashed by someone.

“Who did this?”

Ben stood up, which was just like him. Back when we got into group fights, he was always the first to charge in.

“Sit down.” Shirtless and catching a chill, Roger was much calmer than before he took off his clothes. His speech returned to a normal pace, and his tone was much more composed: “This morning I took Dora to school and ran head-on into a van. Don’t worry, Dora is fine. I just got a little hurt.”

The more he told us not to worry, the more worried we became.

Roger caught the first train of the eighties, born on January 1, 1980, making him the oldest of us post-80s kids. He was held back a grade in elementary school, again in middle school, and once more in high school, so after all those twists and turns, he ended up as our classmate.

He was the first among us to get married, and also the first to get divorced.

Of course, he was also the first to have a child.

Dora is seven this year, Roger’s son, and the apple of his eye.

“When the crash happened, I wasn’t scared. On the way to the hospital, I wasn’t scared either. It was only when the doctor took Dora for a checkup that I really got scared. If you don’t think about these things, it’s fine, but the more you think, the scarier it gets.” Roger shared his lingering fear, then suddenly changed the subject: “The first person I called was Fire, but he didn’t believe me at all and told me not to joke about that kind of thing so early in the morning.”

That made us fall even more silent. I put myself in his shoes—if Roger called to tell me he’d been in a car accident, my first reaction would probably be “Really?” instead of worrying about his injuries.

“When we were in school, we’d believe any rumor. In our second year of high school, someone said Tyler got beaten up in the gym, and the twelve of us grabbed steel pipes and rushed over. Ben even lost a shoe on the way. When we got there, it turned out it was all just a rumor—Tyler was totally fine. We’d never do something like that now. That’s the price of growing up. I don’t blame Fire; if the roles were reversed, I’d probably react the same way.”

Roger poured himself a drink and muttered to himself, “This morning, lying in the hospital, I thought, if I’d died in that crash, there are some things you guys would never know. I’ve been holding these things in for five years, always wanting to tell you, but never knowing how. Today I finally got the courage, so I called you all out. I’m afraid if I don’t say it today, I’ll never be able to tell you.”