---

The Black Eye

“Tao, what happened to you?” I asked as I stepped back to inspect him.

“Tell me!”

His expression was a blank canvas, except for the black blotch around his eye. Against his pale skin it made him look like a panda, though there was nothing playful about it. That bruise hadn’t been an accident. It was the mark of something deliberate — precise, cruel.

He motioned for me to keep my voice down, jittery, as though the cracked walls and tall factory shadows were eavesdropping. Above us, the industrial steel roof seemed to press lower, its ribs and beams stark against the clerestory light. The weight of it bore down on the space, amplifying the silence between us, until even my own voice felt too loud beneath its span.

“Let’s talk about it later, ge men.” He slid his goggles back on and turned to his candle stand again, shutting the door of his broad back against me.

---

Shadows and Candles

I wasn’t having it. My footsteps echoed sharp against the concrete floor as I marched around, inserting myself into his periphery. His sweat shone under the flickering bulbs, rolling down his rounded nose as he coaxed wax into near-liquid state. The hiss of the kettle filled the air like a whispering warning.

“Mingze, you know what I love about candles?” he said suddenly, still bent over his craft. He taped the wicks carefully, like suturing wounds.

I sighed and pressed a hand to my face. It was going to be another cryptic detour. That was Tao. In the short time I had known Ichika’s father, this was what gnawed at me most — his evasions. Words to deflect instead of reveal, a dance around the truth.

“Candles don’t fight the darkness,” he continued, voice low and steady. “They just shine.” He paused, as though the room itself were listening. The shadows on the walls shifted faintly, as if the factory were drawing in a breath, waiting to see if I understood. Above, the steel ribs and beams of the roof held the silence tight, clerestory windows spilling tired ribbons of light that only deepened the sense of expectation.

My glance drifted around the factory again — towers of candle molds like silent guards, dripping wax forming ghostly stalactites. So what the fuck does that have to do with my question, old man? I muttered inwardly. Still, respect bound my tongue. In his presence, the weight of xiao — filial piety — pressed down, a cultural inheritance I dared not betray.

“Tao, I don’t mean to be rude, but your daughter ran away from home just a week ago,” I paused and swallowed, my heart fluttering as the thought of you flashed into my consciousness — the nervous way you had twisted your hair when you first stepped through my door, the warmth of your voice filling the silence of my apartment, the subtle fragrance you left behind even after you’d gone. Desire stirred, unbidden, as though my body still remembered her nearness. “You begged me to accommodate her for a month because of your family issues! And now I see you here with a black eye at work today. I think I have some right to know what’s going on. Don’t you think?”

He turned to me, his eyes catching on my hand for a moment — the one I had burned at the candle stand a month ago, the one I’d scorched while daydreaming about you, Ichika. Though the bandage was off, the scar was still there, red and raw. I quickly tucked it behind me, afraid he might see too much.

“There is a lot of darkness in the world, Mingze,” he said finally, standing straighter. For a moment, I thought I saw a glisten in his eyes, the same kind I’d seen in my mother’s before she passed. “And not enough candles.”

His hand fell on my shoulder, heavy, paternal, the way my own father’s once had — before he abandoned us for a new life in South Africa. “But you are a candle, Mingze.”

A sudden panic seized me. The cryptic words twisted together until only one conclusion made sense. He’d sent his daughter to me because he was planning to take his own life.

“Please don’t kill yourself, Tao!” I blurted out, my voice breaking. “No matter what you’re going through, there is always hope.”

He chuckled, low and amused. “Mingze, I’m not killing myself. Not anytime soon anyway.”

---

The Confession

“Help me out then, Tao. Give it to me straight. What’s going on?”

He sighed, turning back to his station, his silhouette swallowed by the amber glow of molten wax. The architecture seemed to sigh with him — beams groaning, walls pressing in, the roof above stretching tight with silence, as though the factory itself was holding its breath.

“I’m in with a bad crowd, Mingze. Please… take care of my daughter.”

The words ripped something open inside me. Before I could stop myself, it spilled out: “Tao, I kissed her yesterday.” My hand shot up to cover my mouth, as though I could trap the confession inside. But the dam had broken, and with it, every truth trembling inside my chest.

And even as I said it, I could still feel it — the faint press of your lips against mine, softer than wax warmed by flame, yet searing enough to brand me from the inside out. The memory shuddered through me, leaving me unsteady, my pulse burning in my ears.

“It’s hard, Tao. This arrangement doesn’t work. I find myself drawn to her. I know I shouldn’t—she’s so young and I…” My voice faltered, words fumbling in the dark. My eyes darted to his, afraid to face the wrath I expected.

Instead, I found him watching me with a slow, knowing smile. Not disgust, not anger — just recognition.

“I knew you liked her,” Tao said.

And the factory seemed to breathe at last. The walls exhaled, the weight above me lifted, and for a fleeting moment even the industrial steel roof — its ribs and beams rigid in their geometry — felt almost weightless. But the relief was laced with bewilderment — as though the candlelit room had shifted, reality and fantasy grinding against each other in the shadows. I stood suspended between brick and flame, between Tao’s words and my own reckless heart, unsure which world I was truly in.