The walk of shame.

Xiao Yi had often heard of this term through social media, movies, shows, and past friends yet he had never truly experienced the feeling. That was until he rolled over and heard a crunch.

Crunch.

He tilted his body slightly again and there was another crunch, along with a slight pinch against his cheek.

‘What the?’

Xiao Yi groggily lifted his head yet didn’t open his eyes. Not because he didn’t want to, but it felt as if there was a weight holding them closed.

He stayed in this position for a few moments, completely still aside from what seemed to be a rain of small objects falling around him, making small sounds as they collided with what must have been the ground.

There was a bellowing laughter to the left of him, not belonging to V, and the sound of someone else trying to hold it in on the right of him. He attempted to open his eyes just to snap them shut again with his hand pointing down. “Shhhh.”

V’s muffled whisper came from his right. “Sorry sorry.”

He wasn’t sorry at all. While one hand covered his mouth to keep himself from laughing, his other hand was holding a phone recording Xiao Yi.

Xiao Yi’s head hurt as a memory passed through his mind. He was sitting by the pool table on a stool watching V and Wei Leng play against each other when suddenly, his hands appeared in front of his face.

Instead of watching the two men, he sat in stunned silence with a tilted head thinking about just how big his hands were. Really big. Too big to be human-sized.

“Am I a giant?”

V and Wei Leng paused and glanced over. Xiao Yi’s fingers were just a few centimeters in front of his face at that time.

Xiao Yi’s eyes burst open and met the gaze of Wei Leng who sat across from him with a large smile. “Good morning, sleeping beauty!”

‘I thought I was a giant.’

‘They know that I thought I was a giant.’

Xiao Yi hadn’t blushed in what must have been years, but at this moment even his ears were red as he glanced between Wei Leng, and V, who’d already hidden his phone.

Xiao Yi batted his hand again in an attempt to get him to quiet down and glanced at the sunlight coming in from the windows and murmured. “Bright.”

V chuckled. “Well, we can’t stop the sun sadly.”

‘It can’t get worse than this…’ His thoughts were interrupted as he glanced down and saw the reason why he’d heard a crunch.

Chips.

There was a bowl of unassuming chips right in front of him.

As he turned, a piece of a chip fell from his hair, passing right in front of his eyes as it dropped to the table. His eyes followed its descent in horror and he shook his head, only for another chip to descend.

‘Oh my god.’

Xiao Yi’s gaze turned from the table to V with a pleading expression as if to tell him he hadn’t embarrassed himself too much, but at the sight of this appearance, both men glanced at each other and chuckled awkwardly.

V nodded towards Xiao Yi’s phone, which had been faced down in the middle of the table. “You made quite a statement last night.”

Xiao Yi glanced at his phone, then at V who was trying to hide a grin, and finally landed on Wei Leng who wasn’t even attempting to hide his amusement.

“Kiddo, you danced for us last night. You have great moves, by the way.”

V chimed in. “Your singing voice is really handsome.”

The owner hit the table with. “You’re great at storytelling.”

“Right? Brother, why didn’t you tell me you had a stuffed toy named ‘Nini’ before tonight?”

“What about him getting lost in his neighborhood at seventeen and having to ask a foreign couple where he lived?”

“Ah, what about the time you went outside in just your underwear because of a dream? You still didn’t tell us the pattern…”

Xiao Yi’s face went white, and then red, and he shoved the chair back as he got up and started to scurry out of the bar before retracing his steps, grabbing his sweater with one hand, his phone with the other, and running out.

He was so embarrassed.

He was never drinking again.

Did he sing when he was drunk? What did he sing? What did he dance to?

V had the answers on his phone and laughed alongside Wei Leng, letting Xiao Yi walk home dejectedly as he hit play. Xiao Yi stood on the table to dance, nearly causing Wei Leng to faint when thinking of Xiao Yi possibly breaking his handmade table. There was no specific end to his moves, and he only stopped when the song stopped.

He sang the national anthem. Three times! The first time was in the correct pitch, and although the two of them had long grown tired of hearing the song played they could put up with it.

The next two times? One was in the lowest tone Xiao Yi’s voice could go, and the other in the highest. He was competing with himself!

Xiao Yi however did remember the two stories that were told by him. Nini was a stuffed bear he’d gotten from his father on his second birthday and he used to carry it around to show everyone.

He was going to the grocery store? He’d hold it up and introduce it in front of every person they saw. The old grandmother at the grocery store, the cashiers, the teenage boys walking home, eventually he’d showed the neighbors the toy so much that they’d start saying ‘hello Xiao Yi and Nini!’.

A few months after moving to Xiao Qiu’s apartment when he’d come home from the hospital, he’d gone to get groceries and couldn’t remember his apartment building so he tried asking an American couple where it was… Xiao Qiu saw him on his way back from his and brought him home, since then he had never forgotten his phone.

And the time with his underwear… He was wearing boxers. That’s all he had to say about that.

Xiao Yi swiftly exited the alley with a bright red face. Random passersby seemed to know about his night, taking another glance at him as he nearly ran through the streets.

He soon found out that he really looked like he was doing the walk of shame as a breeze passed by him and seemed to hit his stomach. He glanced down and swiftly threw on the sweater.

Somehow, he’d ripped his shirt throughout the night and it was practically falling off his shoulders making it look as if he’d had a wild night out.

He held his head down while swearing. “I’m never drinking again.”

He’d soon find that he’d done much more damage while he was drunk.