At the age of seventeen, Xu Xingzhe knew nothing. His understanding of bedroom matters was limited to romantic and aesthetic gay movies. He was oblivious to the scenes that weren’t filmed in the movies. He thought that after doing it like this with Lu Zhaoshen, he was no longer a virgin.
He didn’t regret it, but one thing puzzled him.
Why was Lu Zhaoshen so calm?
After thinking about it for a long time, he attributed it to Lu Zhaoshen not liking him. He cleaned up in the bathroom and came out. He climbed onto the bed feeling wronged and asked with a disappointed expression, “Are you so indifferent because I’m a guy, or because it’s me?”
Lu Zhaoshen was lying flat on the bed, his forearm pressed to his forehead as he stared motionlessly at the ceiling. Upon hearing Xu Xingzhe’s question, he turned his head with an inscrutable expression and looked at Xu Xingzhe, “What?”
Xu Xingzhe’s mind was still immersed in the recent intense activity. When he saw Lu Zhaoshen look impatient, he assumed he was upset without a second thought. To him, being upset was equivalent to not liking him, and not answering was a combination of the two. Everything that happened twenty minutes ago was a mistake, and couldn’t even be counted as infatuation.
As Xu Xingzhe’s straightforward reasoning extended further, he made himself feel embarrassed and sad.
He pulled up the covers and lay down with his back to Lu Zhaoshen. He sniffed on purpose, not hiding his emotions at all.
Lu Zhaoshen tapped him, but he ignored it.
*
At the age of nineteen, Xu Xingzhe understood everything, but he was still upset because Lu Zhaoshen had not explicitly expressed his liking. The word was like a curse. The more Xu Xingzhe said it, the deeper Lu Zhaoshen buried himself. There was no solution.
Yan Xiao came out of the bathroom after taking a shower and dried his hair with a towel. He walked over to Xu Xingzhe’s bed and saw Xu Xingzhe lying on his back, staring blankly at the empty chat box on his phone.
His “super kissy baobei” still hadn’t sent him a message.
“Don’t be so cheap, okay?”
Xu Xingzhe glared at Yan Xiao with red eyes, “It’s none of your business.”
“I really didn’t want to meddle, but you seem to be beyond help now, Xu Xingzhe. There are plenty of interesting things in this world besides dating.”
“I’m not lovestruck!”
“How can you prove it? I bet you can’t call him right now and tell him that you don’t like him anymore starting today. Do you dare?”
Cheng Yuanqing, who was lying on his bed watching a movie, butted in when he heard Yan Xiao’s words, “Who does Xingxing like?”
Yan Xiao raised an eyebrow, “Me.”
Cheng Yuanqing scoffed and advised Xu Xingzhe, “Xing, don’t listen to him. What good advice can a player give you?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Xu Xingzhe was on the verge of tears as he looked at the screen of his phone. He wasn’t that sad at first. Over the past two years, Lu Zhaoshen had given him countless cold shoulders, and he had gotten used to it. But he couldn’t let others see it. A single mocking remark from an outsider could instantly tear apart Xu Xingzhe’s fragile facade and reopen the wounds that had just scabbed over. He had ridiculously wasted two years only to receive silence from Lu Zhaoshen.
Driven by an unknown impulse, he opened the voice call toolbar and his finger hovered over it.
Yan Xiao sneered, and Xu Xingzhe clicked it.
After a dozen seconds, Lu Zhaoshen answered. His voice was a little low, probably because his roommates were studying or sleeping.
“What’s up?” he asked.
When Xu Xingzhe heard Lu Zhaoshen’s voice, he choked up. Then his mind went blank and he forgot what he wanted to say.
Yan Xiao impatiently snatched the phone and lifted it high so Xu Xingzhe couldn’t grab it. After that, he said flirtatiously, “Xingxing, don’t call while taking a shower. Your phone will get wet.”
Xu Xingzhe was frightened and jumped off the bed to grab the phone back, but Yan Xiao had already hung up, and the screen displayed “Call ended.”
“Are you crazy?! How am I going to explain to him?”
“Why do you have to explain?” Yan Xiao shrugged his shoulders and said matter-of-factly, “You see, you like him, so you can call the shots.”
Yan Xiao finished and went into the bathroom to blow-dry his hair for a minute. When he came out, Xu Xingzhe was still sitting on the edge of the bed in a daze.
Kids couldn’t be taught and Yan Xiao couldn’t be bothered. He lay down and took out his phone to chat with his new boyfriend. He had been acting cold to him for two days; it was time to reel him back in.
Xu Xingzhe didn’t check his phone. Logically, he should be looking at Lu Zhaoshen’s response right now, or thinking about how to phrase his explanation. But suddenly, he didn’t feel like doing that.
He turned off his phone, stuffed it under his pillow, put on an eye mask, and went to sleep.
In his dream, he revisited his first time with Lu Zhaoshen and the several subsequent times. In the moment of passion, Lu Zhaoshen even called him “Xingxing.” Xu Xingzhe felt in the dream that Lu Zhaoshen wasn’t entirely devoid of affection for him. They seemed to have come very close to love once, but for some reason, Lu Zhaoshen backed off and gave up.
When he woke up, it was already the next day. Cheng Yuanqing was shaking him at his bedside, urging him to get up for class. Xu Xingzhe groggily opened his eyes, picked up his phone, and pressed it for a long time before remembering how to turn it on.
The little red dot on WeChat popped up too late. The person pinned at the top had sent three messages.
– Xu Xingzhe
– Come down
– I’m waiting for you downstairs
The time stamp was from last night, 11:10 pm.
All those years of studying Chinese were for nothing. Xu Xingzhe read the three lines sent by Lu Zhaoshen over and over again dozens of times as if he didn’t recognize the characters, until he finally understood their meaning.
Last night at 11:10, Lu Zhaoshen had sent him a message to come down, shortly after he heard Yan Xiao’s words.
His heart suddenly started pounding violently, as if something was about to burst out. He could almost imagine what Lu Zhaoshen had looked like when he typed those words. His face should be expressionless, but those few words had already revealed his emotions.
Sometimes, Xu Xingzhe felt like he understood Lu Zhaoshen. He knew what Lu Zhaoshen liked to eat, what he liked to do, and all of his little habits. But at other times, he felt like Lu Zhaoshen was a complete stranger.
He jumped out of bed and slipped on his slippers, ready to dash downstairs. But Cheng Yuanqing grabbed him, “What are you doing? You haven’t even changed yet.”
Xu Xingzhe was completely dazed, still in his pajamas with his hair in a mess. But he clutched his phone panic-stricken and mumbled, “He couldn’t have waited all night, right? No, he wouldn’t have. How could he like me that much? No, he wouldn’t.”
Cheng Yuanqing looked at him puzzled, grabbed Xu Xingzhe’s hoodie from the bed, and shoved it to him. “Put on some clothes first. Don’t catch a cold.”
But Xu Xingzhe just tucked the hoodie under his arm. His soul had long since flown out of the dormitory door. As soon as Cheng Yuanqing let go, Xu Xingzhe rushed out despite Cheng Yuanqing’s continuous yells.
The instigator of evil, Yan Xiao, was still sleeping soundly. As if dissatisfied with the morning light, he turned to face the wall and pulled the blanket over his head.
The dormitory was still relatively quiet at seven in the morning. Most of the students were still catching some Zs. There were only faint voices coming from the rooms on the sides of the hallway, but hardly anyone was moving around. The cleaning auntie was washing mops in the washroom, and the gushing water drowned out the taps of Xu Xingzhe’s slippers.
He couldn’t tell whether he was feeling anticipation or fear at this moment.
As Xu Xingzhe reached downstairs and turned the corner, his steps slowed down.
Lu Zhaoshen was sitting on the steps, slightly hunched over, his elbows on his knees, looking a little lonely.
Suddenly, Xu Xingzhe felt like crying. He couldn’t look at Lu Zhaoshen like this, even though this person had bullied him in his dreams last night.
Every step Xu Xingzhe took felt like a struggle. The short distance of a few meters felt like crossing mountains and seas. Luckily, Lu Zhaoshen heard his footsteps, turned his head, and their eyes met. Xu Xingzhe stopped in his tracks, the hoodie he was holding hung down with the sleeve almost touching the ground.
Lu Zhaoshen was stunned for a few seconds before he reacted. He stood up and was about to step onto the stairs, but then he stepped back, leaving three or four meters and a flight of stairs between him and Xu Xingzhe.
“You—”
“I—”
They blurted out at the same time and then stopped at the same time. Lu Zhaoshen let Xu Xingzhe speak first.
“I fell asleep early last night and didn’t see your messages,” Xu Xingzhe said, only realizing afterward that he hadn’t given the most important explanation yet. But the atmosphere wasn’t right, Lu Zhaoshen’s expression didn’t look like he was waiting for an apology.
After half a minute, Lu Zhaoshen finally spoke, “What’s on your neck?”
Xu Xingzhe lowered his head upon hearing the question, but he couldn’t see anything. He had to take out his phone to take a picture. Then he noticed that there was a red mark on his neck, about the size of a fingernail. The color was so light that he hadn’t noticed it. Furrowing his brow, he tried to recall last night, rewinding his memories scene by scene.
Roller skating club, dinner gathering, small grove.
“Didn’t you suck this yourself?” He reached out to touch it, then pouted at Lu Zhaoshen, “Have you forgotten?”
Lu Zhaoshen froze, “What?”
“Otherwise? What do you think it is? Yan Xiao’s kiss? Is that what you think? So you came to catch us in the act?” Xu Xingzhe felt like he had heard the biggest joke. He felt a stifling sensation in his chest, unable to express it, he just wanted to vent it out, “Even if, even if I did something with him, what right do you have to catch us? Who are you to me? Boyfriend? You’ve never acknowledged that.”
Lu Zhaoshen’s eyes looked like they had been stabbed. His lips trembled like he wanted to say something, but Xu Xingzhe cut him off.
“Liking you was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I thought I could endure until you turned back to look at me, but I can’t hold on any longer. I’m so sad, Lu Zhaoshen. I wasn’t like this before I met you.”
“You don’t like me anymore?” Lu Zhaoshen asked.
Xu Xingzhe couldn’t answer, nor could he bear to shake his head.
Lu Zhaoshen looked fragile now as if he had become a different person. He walked over, didn’t say anything, just took the hoodie out of Xu Xingzhe’s hand and pulled the hem to put it on Xu Xingzhe. When Xu Xingzhe’s head finally popped out of the neckline, he hid in the hood and looked at him with resentful eyes, “You’ve been waiting all night?”
Lu Zhaoshen nodded and repeated, “I waited all night.”
“So what? I won’t feel sorry for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to feel sorry for me,” Lu Zhaoshen’s eyes slid from Xu Xingzhe’s neck to his lips, “I’m here to catch you cheating.”
This time, Xu Xingzhe was the one who was stunned. He suspected that he was hallucinating. What did Lu Zhaoshen just say?
“You agreed to be my reserve boyfriend. Why did you give up so quickly?”
Footsteps echoed down from upstairs, getting louder and closer. Lu Zhaoshen suddenly lowered his head and planted a kiss on Xu Xingzhe’s lips. He cupped Xu Xingzhe’s face through the hoodie and whispered in a voice only they could hear, “Don’t give up, okay?”
Tears welled up in Xu Xingzhe’s eyes and truly turned into stars under the morning light.
Someone walked out around the corner. Lu Zhaoshen released his hand, “Hurry back and wash up. Don’t be late for class.”
Xu Xingzhe reflexively took a few steps after hearing the instructions. After walking three or four meters, he remembered to turn around and say, “No!”
“Lu Zhaoshen, I’m not easily coaxed. Don’t think this will make me change my mind.”
Oh what a mess
Thank You for the new chapter (灬♥ω♥灬)
It’s not like I can’t empathise with lu zhaoshen and his past trauma but seriously dude, xingxing is right to feel frustrated and feel like giving up on you. Dude’s been waiting for years for you to confirm your relationship and you two are still in this push and pull relationship. How long will it be until then… 😩 So frustrating, it’s like they’re never on the same wavelength but they’re almost are