Chapter 11 - Fatty Fu’s Farewell
Fu Jun and I ended up at a cheap café a few streets away from the gym, mostly because neither of us felt like heading straight home after getting our muscles pumped with blood.
The place was small and cramped.
Half the chairs were mismatched, the table between us wobbled if you leaned on it too hard.
And the coffee was so bitter that it made you question your life choices.
In other words, perfect.
Fatty wrapped both hands around his cup and took a long sip before making a face.
Then he sighed like a man burdened by the weight of his own tragic destiny.
For a while, we just sat there in silence, listening to the low murmur of the café and the occasional hiss from the espresso machine behind the counter.
Then I glanced at him.
"Hey, Fatty."
"What?"
"Do you remember when we first met?"
The effect was immediate.
His shoulders stiffened, and he nearly choked on his coffee.
"Why would you bring that up now?"
"So you do remember." I grinned.
"Of course I remember," he said, looking offended.
"That’s not the kind of thing a man forgets."
I leaned back in my chair, laughter already threatening to escape.
It had been one of the most embarrassing moments of both our lives.
Back then, Fu Jun had been trying very hard to look cool.
His English pronunciation was atrocious, and in his heroic attempt to impress everyone around him, he’d been reading some random article online about a Hero who got tetanus from a rusty wound.
Unfortunately, when he tried to say it out loud.
He pronounced it as "tight anus."
The room had gone silent for exactly two seconds before exploding.
Even now, years later, Fu Jun still looked like he wanted to dig a hole and bury that memory forever.
I laughed hard.
"You were so proud of yourself, too."
"Don’t say another word."
"You said it like a villain introducing a cursed technique."
"Stop."
"And then you repeated it three times because you thought everyone else had misheard you."
Fu Jun buried his face in one hand.
He groaned, then took another stubborn sip of coffee like bitterness was easier to handle than embarrassment.
For a few moments, the old rhythm returned.
It was easy to fall back into that familiar flow with him – mockery, denial, mockery again.
That was usually how our conversations went.
Then, after another sip, Fu Jun set his cup down and said.
"My time to return to the Dragon Empire is coming."
"...Are you serious?"
"I never said I was joking."
He shrugged, though his expression was quieter than usual.
I stared at him for a second, trying to decide whether he was being dramatic again or actually telling the truth.
With Fatty, it was always fifty-fifty.
He’d spent years telling me he was a spy for the Dragon Empire.
At first I thought it was one of his bizarre running jokes, but he had a habit of saying it with just enough conviction that it eventually stopped being funny and started being suspicious.
"This is a bad time for farewell," I muttered.
"You’re actually considering it, aren’t you?"
Fu Jun gave me a long look.
"Maybe."
That made him cough so violently he nearly spilled coffee over the table.
I leaned back with a grin.
"What? If you’re really a Dragon Empire spy, I could turn you in and get rewarded."
He stared at me like I had personally insulted his ancestors.
"Are you discriminating against me because I’m from the Dragon Empire?"
"Not at all, I don’t discriminate, I fuck them all equally, Hahahaha!"
Fu Jun’s expression darkened.
"You’re beyond saving."
My laughter abruptly stopped.
There was a different feeling in the air now.
Less joking, more serious weight.
Fu Jun wasn’t laughing the way he usually did, which told me he wasn’t making this up.
I glanced at him again.
"...You’re really going?"
He nodded.
And for a moment, neither of us said anything.
If he went back to the Dragon Empire, we could still message each other.
We could still exchange insults, send stupid links from which I had graduated and pretend nothing had changed.
But that wasn’t the same.
Talking face-to-face was different.
Sitting across from each other in some cheap café and pretending our lives weren’t about to split apart felt very different from tapping technology through a screen.
And the truth was, aside from asking each other for favors or sending suspicious memes, we barely texted at all anymore.
I looked down at my coffee.
"Okk..."
Fu Jun raised an eyebrow.
"That’s it?"
"What, you wanted a speech?"
"I expected at least mild emotional damage."
"There is no emotional damage for men." I said this philosophically.
That finally got a small laugh out of him.
I stood up and stretched my shoulders.
Maybe this was the last time I’d see Fatty Fu for a while.
Maybe not.
Maybe he’d come back after some time, or maybe I will visit the Dragon Empire someday.
Or we would meet again somewhere with pure coincidence and immediately start insulting each other like no time had passed.
That sounded more like us.
Before I could head toward the door, I paused and looked back at him.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"You don’t have a fiancée or something back in your country, right?"
Fu Jun went still, but I could see him look shocked.
And that split second was enough for me to deduce many things.
"This fucker..."
"Shut up."
"You never told that."
"Why would I tell you that?"
"Because now I have to worry, the next time we meet you will be Father Fu."
His face twisted in horror.
"Never say that again."
He looked like he was seriously considering throwing the coffee at me.
Instead, I grinned and lifted a hand in lazy farewell.
"Let’s meet often."
Fu Jun stared at me for a moment, then exhaled and looked away, pretending the words hadn’t hit him at all.
But he nodded.
I took that as enough.
As I turned to leave, he called after me.
"Oi."
I looked back.
"The coffee’s on you next time."
I stared at him for one long second.
Today, I wasn’t going to pay for the coffee.