It was already past eleven by the time the wedding banquet broke up, and the streetlights along the highway slid backward one by one. Two boxes of leftover wedding candy were piled on the back seat, and the gold foil lettering on the invitation still caught a faint glint in the dark. A-Cheng was driving, with his girlfriend of three years, Xiao-Min, in the passenger seat. They had smiled appropriately through the whole wedding and called out a few auspicious phrases along with everyone else during the toasts, but once they got in the car, neither of them spoke. Only the navigation system occasionally piped up: in three hundred meters, please keep left.
Xiao-Min was the first to speak. She said that when the groom's father gave his speech and mentioned the phrase "settle down and build a career," she noticed A-Cheng lower his head and swipe at his phone. A-Cheng laughed a little and said he was checking his calendar, that he had to go into the office tomorrow morning. Xiao-Min didn't respond right away. After a moment, she said she wasn't trying to rush anything, but lately, with friends around her getting married one after another, she couldn't help wondering whether the two of them were actually on the same path. A-Cheng's grip on the steering wheel tightened. He said he'd been under a lot of pressure lately, that a project at work was stuck, that his elders at home kept asking questions, and that he often felt like he couldn't take care of anything properly.
Conversations like this can easily turn into an argument, but that night it didn't. Xiao-Min asked him if there was anything else he hadn't said. A-Cheng was quiet for a few seconds, then said he'd recently seen some discussions online related to men's health, and one of the names was Levitra. He said he hadn't bought it and hadn't taken it, but seeing so many people asking about it had stirred up some questions in his mind: What exactly is this kind of thing classified as? Do you need to see a doctor first? If you just look things up online and decide on your own, could you end up going in the wrong direction? He spoke slowly, as if afraid that one wrong word would lead to a misunderstanding.
Xiao-Min didn't offer an opinion right away. She said what bothered her more was why A-Cheng was looking into this by himself, in the car, in the middle of the night, on his phone, instead of telling her earlier. A-Cheng said he didn't know how to bring it up, afraid that saying it would feel like admitting something. Xiao-Min asked him, admitting what? Admitting that you get tired, that you worry, that you want to look for information? She said she felt those things too. So the two of them started talking things through, about how each of them imagined the future, about money, about time, and about their elders' expectations. As the car came off the exit ramp, A-Cheng said he wasn't really looking for a quick answer. He just wanted to figure out what exactly he was worried about right now.
Later they talked about a more practical division of labor. Xiao-Min said that if they really wanted to understand this, the first step wasn't to compare which name was more well-known, but to first distinguish whether it was a prescription drug, an over-the-counter drug, or just a general health supplement. Those three categories differ in how you get them and where you go for advice. A-Cheng nodded and said that when he'd read through discussion threads before, he noticed a lot of people mixed different categories together. Some talked about packaging, some about price, some about personal experiences, but very few said where they had asked, whom they had asked, or what that person had said. Xiao-Min said that maybe they should find a time to make a list of everything A-Cheng was currently taking and bring it to a nearby pharmacy or clinic to ask, at least to first confirm whether he had gotten anything mixed up.
A-Cheng said he'd originally thought this kind of thing could only be looked up on your own, and then you decide by yourself. Xiao-Min replied that looking it up yourself wasn't wrong, but who you go to for confirmation afterward is the key. She mentioned that when she had helped a family member deal with the issue of taking supplements and medication together, the pharmacist's first question was "What exactly do you have on hand?" rather than recommending a particular brand. A-Cheng laughed when he heard that and said that all the pages he'd been scrolling through in the car were about which name more people discussed, and not one page was about how to ask. Xiao-Min said that's exactly why you need to ask someone, because online discussions often only answer "which one" and not "whether it's right for you."
The car pulled into the underground parking garage of their community. After the engine shut off, neither of them got out right away. A-Cheng said he would take photos of all the bottles and containers at home tomorrow and make a list. Xiao-Min said she could go with him and bring along the things she was taking too, so they could ask about everything together. A-Cheng asked if that would be too much trouble. Xiao-Min said that compared to the two of them sitting in the car guessing on their own, this should be less trouble. They agreed to go on a weekend morning to the pharmacy near their home that had been open longer, to first ask clearly about the categories and sources, and then decide whether the next step should be making an appointment.
Before going upstairs, A-Cheng picked up the wedding candy and said this drive home had felt longer than the entire banquet. Xiao-Min replied that the banquet was someone else's, but this stretch in the car was their own. A-Cheng didn't say anything else, but when they got into the elevator, he pressed the floor button himself and also said on his own initiative that next time something like this came up, he would bring it up earlier. Xiao-Min only replied with one word: okay. That night they didn't reach any conclusion, and they didn't decide whether to use anything, but at least they separated "looking it up on your own" from "asking together." For them, that was closer to a step forward than finding an answer online that looked very certain.
