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Everyone else is a person.
He is not.
When Hong Lu sees the other sinners, he sees human beings. They have their own hopes and dreams, full of shades and hues. Their outlines are hidden, taking the form of veins.
Hong Lu has no veins. He has no skin, bones, or blood. He’s only outlines drawn in blue crayon, a smile permanently on his face, detached from the world he’s been placed in. While everyone else is alive and moving, he will eternally be stuck on paper.
It wasn’t even that bad.
He was never left out in the cold like Heathcliff, nor was he treated as an experiment like Gregor. He had a home to live in. He lived a pleasant life.
So why is everything inside of him so empty?
There’s a constant voice in his head that begs for attention. The little voice laments about how life has been so incredibly unfair. Disregarding its cries, Hong Lu has learned to accept it as part of his daily life. No distress matters. No pain matters.
Because he’s nobody. He’s a bunch of scribbles on a page, completely and utterly meaningless.
Similar to how meaningless each visit to the Xianren became.
He’s not sure how old he was when the lumpy male, the elder in trimmed robes, noticed him. Was he 14? 12? 10? Hong Lu can’t be certain since where it begins and ends is so fuzzy. He has an idea of a broad spell of his young life and not much else. He just remembers that he realized what was happening at 15.
At that time, he had already been betrothed to Baochai. His whole life was already taken from him. To be simply observed and talked to was nothing to worry about. His skin crawled at the flirtation disguised as jokes about how young the robed one enjoyed his lovers.
Young Baoyu forced himself to chuckle and joke along. Or maybe it wasn’t forced. Maybe he had gotten to such a point to where he actually did find it funny. There’s a black cloak laid over those pitiful memories, already unstable biographically, with the added bonus of the moment’s emotions being entirely axed.
Still, regardless of how he felt, the older man would still poke and prod. Despite the fact he refrained from ever laying a hand on Baoyu (yet to be fair, being physically barred from moving an inch probably played a role), snide comments from him about Hong Lu’s youthful appearance were commonplace.
The other Xianren laughed.
A majority of what was said to him is entirely blocked out. Perhaps it’s best kept that way. The last memory he has about the whole affair is him talking to Grandmother about it.
“You’re being a hypocrite.”
Discomfort, too, is meaningless.
Now, in the present day, he’s sitting in his bus seat. He had witnessed Ishmael gain her compass and truly smile. He hasn’t had much time to talk to her alone, so he decided to move over to where she is. It’s early in the morning and Mephistopheles is gently rocking.
The topic shifts from the boat, to the sunrise, to lovers, to family, and then finally to family friends. Ishmael’s expressions change in lively fashion while Hong Lu keeps a grin on his face. She’s full and unique.
Ishmael is a human being. Hong Lu is not.
As Ishmael grows, the crayon strokes that make Hong Lu up stay uniform. They’re forever locked in time. It only makes sense; why should a drawing ever try to be human?
“We had a lot of family friends.” His stomach twists. His smile stays. He’s well aware that the Xianren are watching, so he doesn’t want to go too far into detail. That would be rude. “One of them took a liking to me.”
“In what way?” Ishmael furrows her brow.
“Oh, the usual.” Hong Lu stretches. His muscles are still tense. They’re always tense. Children’s drawings don’t move. They don’t change. They stay beautiful in simplicity, forever a symbol of youth. “I can’t exactly recall when it began, but I was quite young. I want to say… 13?”
Ishmael freezes. She scans Hong Lu up and down with her eyes as if she’s trying to find any hint of emotion. They rest on Hong Lu’s hands, which are shaking to a degree he’s not aware of. “Wait. How old was this person?”
“He was among the elders I had to see sometimes.”
As Hong Lu gazes at Ishmael’s face, it’s as though all of the liveliness he saw in her was sucked out at once. This wasn’t the tearful, grieving expression she had upon seeing her comrades die, nor the look of anger that flashed through her face when she fought Ahab, nor the annoyance that was so common.
She’s in shock.
Hong Lu doesn’t understand that.
“There’s no reason to be so pale. Nothing happened.” He tucks his hands into his pockets to hide their trembling. “It’s not nearly as bad as others had it. If anything, I deserved it.” Grandmother’s words return to him. “Because I was a hypocrite.”
“You were 13.”
“I may have been older. I may have been younger. I don’t remember when it began, Ishmael. It’s in the past, and I wasn’t hurt. He didn’t have the means to lay his hands on me.”
“That’s not — that’s —,” Ishmael stammers over her words, “that’s not the point. Just because it could have been worse doesn’t mean that… Hong Lu.” She takes a long breath, then sighs. Hong Lu is happy to hear that, because with that trademark sigh it means she’s still in there, at least.
The boat sways back and forth. Hong Lu is trying his best to not let Ishmael’s words drift into the air, but it’s difficult since his brain is starting to feel fuzzy. He knows this sensation by now, though he easily forgets it whenever he’s not experiencing it — soon, his soul will become untethered to his body, and he won’t know where he is. Logically he will know, but he can’t process the fact he’s in a new location and not Daguanyuan. That young voice is chattering again, crying, squealing for help or something, and he doesn’t want to allow himself to be taken over by it.
Hong Lu needs an anchor.
So he acts on impulse.
“Ishmael.”
“What?”
“Can I hold you?”
There’s a pause before Ishmael nods. “If that’s what you need.”
With slight hesitation, Hong Lu leans in and wraps his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder, inhaling heavily. Lightly squeezing her body, he thinks he’s coming to his senses. It pacifies the weak child inside of him, and he takes his own deep sigh as Ishmael returns the hug. She’s whole. Beautiful. Full of multitudes. A person.
A tiny fragment of him wants to cry.
He forces it back.
“Ishmael.” Millions of thoughts cloud Hong Lu’s mind. He can’t describe any of them. “Thank you.”
The sun rises further, orange and blue melting together in the sky. It’s pretty. Hong Lu likes it. He wishes he could be filled with that much color.
Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be human someday.