52

He had the manga in his hands — not as convenient as holding his phone, he needed both hands free, so obviously no room to take the soap.

Fei Bolin, calm as still water: 'Stand up.'

Wen Fu stood up, his head crowned with the shampoo suds Fei Bolin had just worked into his hair.

And flipped a page of his manga while he was at it.

Fei Bolin started rubbing soap on him from the neck down.

Wen Fu tipped his head back, held the book up to the ceiling, and flipped pages one by one.

'Turn around,' Fei Bolin said.

Wen Fu flipped himself around.

In the motion he accidentally bumped Fei Bolin's shoulder. Wen Fu glanced over — sure enough, there was a streak of foam on it.

Fei Bolin was sitting on the plastic stool, head down, working soap onto him. Wen Fu stared at that streak of foam, thinking.

Suddenly he reached down, scooped some foam off himself, and quickly smeared it onto Fei Bolin's jeans.

Fei Bolin: ?

'What are you doing?'

Wen Fu tilted his head: 'Aren't you gonna take your pants off?'

He'd already gotten them dirty.

'After I finish washing you I'll take them off — sit down, your hair isn't done.'

Wen Fu sat back down between his legs.

Thought about it, then propped both arms on Fei Bolin's knees.

Soon the denim over Fei Bolin's knees was soaked through, the sticky soap seeping against his skin — had to be uncomfortable.

But Fei Bolin didn't seem to mind, just let Wen Fu lean on him.

Wen Fu held the manga, not turning the page, eyes on the book, something brewing in his head.

Fei Bolin sniffed at the top of his head, still thought he smelled off, reached over and squeezed another pump of shampoo onto him. He was just about to tell Wen Fu he wasn't allowed to sneak off to watch anime by the drain on the first floor anymore when his whole body went rigid.

'What are you doing?' he asked, staring at Wen Fu.

— Wen Fu, for no reason, leaned his back into Fei Bolin's chest, and while he leaned, he rubbed against Fei Bolin's pants.

But given their current position, all Wen Fu kept rubbing against was Fei Bolin's crotch.

The moment he asked, Wen Fu quietly sat back up.

And snuck a glance back — Fei Bolin's pants were a little wet, but not soaked.

A moment later, Wen Fu leaned back and rubbed again.

Fei Bolin leaned back slightly, but couldn't dodge: 'Stop moving around.'

'Oh.'

Then sat back up again.

A few seconds later, back to rubbing against Fei Bolin's pants.

Fei Bolin pushed him forward with a finger: 'Sit properly.'

'...Oh.'

Then flopped back down and rubbed against Fei Bolin's pants again.

Fei Bolin suddenly went stiff.

Wen Fu noticed, and rubbed harder.

Maybe Bo ge would take his pants off and shower together soon.

So he rubbed, rubbed, rubbed.

Rubbed some more.

The bathroom fell into a brief silence.

Wen Fu felt something was off.

Kitten confused.

Kitten stopped moving.

Wen Fu was just about to turn and see what happened when someone grabbed him under both armpits and tossed him out the door.

Kitten was thrown out of the bathroom.

The door slammed shut.

The sound of the shower running came from inside, but the water heater didn't kick on.

'...'

Wen Fu stood at the door, completely naked, dumb as a post standing in timeout, covered head to toe in white foam, hadn't even gotten rinsed before Fei Bolin hauled him out and left him there.

The floor tiles at home were clean — Fei Bolin mopped every night. Wen Fu looked down at his foam-covered bare feet, curled his toes against the other foot, still wondering how on earth he was going to sleep like this, when the door in front of him opened again.

Fei Bolin, water dripping from his jaw and hair, a towel wrapped around his lower half, radiating cold air, his face dark as thunder: 'Get in here and shower.'

Wen Fu scrambled in.

The steam from before had mostly cleared. Wen Fu peeked at Fei Bolin, started to say something, then stopped: 'Bo ge?'

Fei Bolin had his back to him, silently running the hot water: 'Talk.'

'Were you just taking a cold shower?'

'...'

'Bo ge?'

'...'

Wen Fu leaned in under Fei Bolin's eyes: 'Bo ge?'

'...'

'Bo ge?'

'No.'

'But the water on the stool is cold.'

'...'

'Bo ge?'

'...'

'Bo ge?'

'...'

'Bo—'

'Are you going to shower or not?' Fei Bolin cut him off, impatient.

He'd just turned around when he ran into Wen Fu holding a towel up high, trying to drape it over his head.

Wen Fu held the pose, blinked slowly: 'Your hair is dripping, Bo ge.'

Little kitty was just worried he'd catch cold. What did little kitty do wrong?

The breath stuck in Fei Bolin's chest got pushed back down by Wen Fu. After a second of silence, he dropped his voice: 'Come here and get rinsed.'

'Oh.'

Wen Fu obediently stepped over.

After finally rinsing him clean, Fei Bolin pulled a pair of pajamas onto Wen Fu. The two of them stood in front of the mirror, one in front of the other. Fei Bolin picked up the hair dryer, ready to blow-dry Wen Fu's hair, and glanced down — saw the manga sitting on the sink.

Wen Fu noticed too.

The thing had fallen to the floor when Fei Bolin grabbed him up and tossed him out. Wen Fu flipped the book over — sure enough, several pages were soaked through.

He looked up and met Fei Bolin's eyes in the mirror — Fei Bolin had noticed the wet book too. They stared at each other in silence.

'...'

'...'

'...'

Why did it feel like he was the one being called out?

Fei Bolin cleared his throat lightly: 'Later I'll take it out to the balcony and let it dry.'

Wen Fu nodded.

After ten-odd minutes of blow-drying, Wen Fu was finally back to the clean, sweet-smelling version Fei Bolin had personally put together.

Just as Fei Bolin was about to blow-dry his own hair, Wen Fu was beside him again, looking at him: 'Bo ge?'

Fei Bolin, holding the dryer, completely unguarded: 'What?'

'Why did you take a cold shower?'

'...'

'Bo ge?'

'...'

A kitten was once again tossed out of the bathroom.

-

The Silver Soul manga Qi Yichuan had given Wen Fu spent the whole night drying on the balcony. The next morning, when Fei Bolin picked it up and felt it, the pages were dry, but the parts that had gotten wet had gone stiff and brittle.

Even if the book hadn't been soaked on purpose, it was still someone else's property.

Someone else's stuff — if you break it, you make it right. A simple sorry wouldn't cut it.

He carried the book back to the living room. Wen Fu was slurping the noodles Fei Bolin had made that morning.

'When are you returning the manga?' Fei Bolin asked.

'No idea.' Wen Fu's face was buried in the bowl, shoveling the meat sauce into his mouth, voice muffled by the soup. 'When I finish it.'

Fei Bolin thought for a moment: 'In a few days.'

He planned to buy a new copy online and have Wen Fu return that. A single volume wasn't that expensive — twenty-something bucks. If he couldn't find it in a physical store, he'd order it online.

'You wanna read it too?' Wen Fu asked.

Fei Bolin flipped to the dried-out pages: 'It's in this state. I'll buy a new one to give back.'

Wen Fu ran his fingertips over the page a few times, didn't say anything.

The next day was Monday. Fei Bolin didn't have time to run to the Xinhua Bookstore downtown — too far, over an hour round trip. He checked the bookstores near home and School, couldn't find Silver Soul, so he ordered one online.

He told Wen Fu about it Monday night, while he was handing Wen Fu the meal card he'd just topped up with a hundred and fifty yuan. Wen Fu took the card, head down, silent. After a while he looked up: 'Bo ge?'

'What's up?'

'Can I eat breakfast outside tomorrow?'

Fei Bolin figured he was just sick of breakfast at home: 'What do you want to eat?'

Wen Fu thought about it, picked the most expensive one: 'A rice ball.'

Outside School, a bowl of plain noodles was three-fifty; a rice ball without sausage was six, and with chicken fillet or grilled sausage it'd run seven or eight.

Fei Bolin pulled a ten-yuan note from his bag: 'So I shouldn't make you noodles tomorrow?'

Wen Fu took the money, and hearing Fei Bolin say he wouldn't cook noodles sounded a little disappointed: 'Oh.'

Fei Bolin watched his reaction, suddenly got it: 'You want money, don't you?'

Just didn't know how to ask, so he used buying a rice ball as an excuse.

Fei Bolin didn't usually keep cash on Wen Fu. For one, he covered all their daily needs himself, and any money Wen Fu got he'd hand right back to Fei Bolin. If he wanted something to eat, he'd just tell Fei Bolin directly — no sign he had any use for pocket money. For another, School had Lin's Convenience Store and a bookshop, you could buy almost anything you needed day-to-day. Fei Bolin topped up Wen Fu's meal card with a hundred and fifty every week so Wen Fu could spend directly at School, and anything he couldn't get there, he'd naturally come to Fei Bolin for.

Wen Fu shook his head immediately: 'No.'

Fei Bolin was about to ask more when Wen Fu climbed onto the bed and burrowed into the covers: 'I'm sleeping, Bo ge.'

'...'

Wen Fu never announced he was going to sleep when he actually was — when he deliberately said he was going to sleep, something was definitely up.

The last time he'd said that was yesterday, when Fei Bolin wanted to ask him how the snacks he'd given Qi Yichuan had gotten eaten up.

When someone's guilty, they cover too hard.

Fei Bolin's eyes narrowed slightly.

Something was off.

Twelve parts out of ten off.

Early the next morning, Wen Fu went to the School cafeteria. Faced with the huge breakfast window, he hesitated between the cheap meat buns and the plain mantou — in the end he went with two meat buns. He didn't need to pinch pennies anymore, picking the worst of everything. At least between mantou and buns, he could now pick what he actually liked without a second thought.

After buying the buns, Wen Fu took advantage of Fei Bolin still being off-campus buying breakfast for someone else, and went to the classroom first.

Xie Yining and Lu Yuqiu were slumped lifelessly over their textbooks, fighting off sleep.

Wen Fu poked Xie Yining.

Xie Yining was in her morning grumpies — every day before breakfast during morning study hall she was half-dead. Even when poked she just turned around lazily: 'What is it, Duolaimi?'

Wen Fu, drinking the Jule Milk he'd brought from home, took a bite of meat bun, and asked very seriously: 'Can I go buy fruit for you guys at lunch?'

Xie Yining and Lu Yuqiu had a habit of buying fruit at Lin's Convenience Store every day after their afternoon nap — called it 'waking up,' really they just had a sweet tooth. Though eating something cool and refreshing after waking up in the afternoon did perk you up a bit.

'Why?' Xie Yining didn't get it. 'You need me to do something for you?'

Wen Fu shook his head: 'I buy you fruit, you give me money. Deal?'

Xie Yining tried to understand: '...You want to trade for cash?'

Wen Fu nodded.

'Mmm... you should've said so earlier.' Xie Yining dug around in her bag as she asked, 'How much do you want to trade?'

'Twenty,' Wen Fu had just said, then took it back. 'No, thirty.'

Xie Yining pulled thirty out of her wallet: 'Here. Forget the fruit, let me think... I've run out of pens for my journal. Run to the stationery store for me, buy whatever's in my pencil case — comes out to exactly thirty.'

She took out the pencil case she kept her journal pens in and handed it to Wen Fu.

Wen Fu took the meal card and pencil case, flew down the stairs, and was back in five minutes with the goods.

The new Silver Soul Fei Bolin had ordered arrived on Thursday. Saturday morning, Qi Yichuan came to pick Wen Fu up to go to his place. Fei Bolin, as usual, stuffed a backpack full of snacks and two hundred yuan into Wen Fu, and had him take the new manga to return to Qi Yichuan.

While Fei Bolin wasn't looking, Wen Fu quietly stuffed the old one into the backpack too.

At Qi Yichuan's place, Wen Fu first pulled Qi Yichuan to the living room: 'I have something for you.'

The two sat down by the coffee table. Wen Fu took out the old manga, the thirty yuan, and the new manga, one by one, and laid them on the table.

Qi Yichuan pointed at the manga, amused: 'Why are there two of the same one?'

Wen Fu slowly flipped open the pages of the original — the ones that had gotten wet and dried all crinkly — and explained, using the words Fei Bolin had taught him: 'I accidentally got it wet during a bath that night.'

He finished, paused, pressed his lips together like he was psyching himself up, then said the three words Fei Bolin had told him to say: 'I'm sorry.'

Qi Yichuan went 'pfft,' laughed: 'No big deal, I thought it was gonna be some—'

Before he could finish, Wen Fu pushed the old manga and the thirty yuan toward Qi Yichuan.

Qi Yichuan looked at him, baffled.

What came next wasn't something Fei Bolin had taught him.

So when Wen Fu said it, he seemed a little guilty, his eyes fixed on the money, not looking at Qi Yichuan.

He said: 'This is your book, this is the money for the manga, to make it up to you. You can go buy a new one.'

A manga was twenty-seven yuan. Wen Fu gave him thirty, quietly telling himself the extra three was for Qi Yichuan's trouble going to buy a new one himself.

What Wen Fu gave Qi Yichuan was the thirty he'd traded from Xie Yining. He'd originally planned to use the ten yuan breakfast money he'd tricked out of Fei Bolin, but couldn't bring himself to spend it.

Now Qi Yichuan really didn't get it. He pointed at the new manga on the table — clearly bought to replace his: 'Isn't this one right here? Just give me this one, no need to pay.'

Wen Fu silently tucked that book into his arms.

'Bo ge bought this one,' Wen Fu said. 'I don't want to give it to you.'