Strawberry

The buildings in the Rundown Neighborhood were spaced very close together. Afraid of being seen by people in the opposite building, the first thing Yu Fan did when he entered the room was turn off the light and pull the curtains. The room was left with only a desk lamp on warm light mode and a sliver of moonlight coming through the gap in the not-quite-closed curtains.

Yu Fan had originally been leaning back against the headboard, but somehow ended up lying on his own pillow. They didn't talk much. Occasionally, when they paused for a bit, Yu Fan would subconsciously find something to do, like picking up his constantly ringing Mobile Phone and setting it to silent, then opening the group chat to take a look. He seemed to recognize the words in the chat history, but when they were put together, he inexplicably couldn't take them in. So he lost patience, locked the screen, and looked up at Chen Jingshen.

Chen Jingshen would then silently kiss him again.

Shyness, novelty, and restlessness all merged into the silence, into the sweltering summer night.

That sharp tooth was rubbed repeatedly for a while. Yu Fan raised his hand and pressed it against Chen Jingshen's face, saying in a hoarse voice, 'Chen Jingshen, if you lick my tooth again, I'll bite your tongue off, believe me.'

The messy hair on Yu Fan's forehead had already been brushed back by Chen Jingshen, his entire face exposed to the air. His words were fierce, but his expression showed the lazy exhaustion of slight oxygen deprivation, with red under his eyes and wet lips — no threat at all.

Chen Jingshen looked down at him for a moment, reached his hand to the back of Yu Fan's neck, casually wiped away a thin layer of sweat, and said he understood.

Yu Fan felt a sudden, inexplicable tingle, and suddenly felt that something wasn't quite right.

He moved his leg very slightly, his mind went blank, and his whole body instantly stiffened. After a long moment, he found his voice. 'Chen Jingshen, let's stop kissing.'

The hand pressed against his neck withdrew, leaving a cool patch. Chen Jingshen hummed in acknowledgment, got up from the bed, his tall figure standing by the headboard. 'Bathroom,' he said.

In the light and shadow, Yu Fan saw that the back of his ears was red, his jawline taut into a tight, attractive line, and he was even sweating a little, which was rare.

Chen Jingshen pushed the door open and went out, followed by the sound of the bathroom door closing.

Yu Fan stared at the ceiling in a daze for a while, then reached out and pulled the blanket over himself carelessly, his whole head burning hot.

He seemed to understand why he couldn't do homework after kissing.

Yu Fan pulled the pillow out from under his head and slammed it over his face. The pillow seemed like it might catch fire from his heat.

Yu Fan just smothered himself like that for who knows how long. Once he'd calmed down a bit, he got up, turned on the light, set the fan to the highest setting, and slowly reached for his Mobile Phone, trying to distract himself.

His mind had cooled down a little, and this time he could actually take in the group chat content.

[Zuo Kuan: I swear, I can barely find Yu Fan at night anymore. What the hell is he doing?]

[Zhang Xianjing: Busy, I guess. Didn't he get a tutor?]

[Zuo Kuan: A tutor stays at his place until midnight? Look at Zhu Xu — the guy's in a relationship, talks to his girlfriend on the phone for two hours every night, and he still finds time to reply to me. Yu Fan hasn't replied to me in four fucking hours.]

[Zhu Xu: Hehe... hehehe [heart bubbles jpg].]

[Zhu Xu: Maybe Yu Fan's in a relationship too?]

[Zuo Kuan: No way.]

[Zuo Kuan: With his temper, who could he even date?]

Yu Fan paused here before continuing to scroll.

[Wang Luan'an: Hey, what do you mean? There are plenty of people chasing my bro, okay?]

[Zuo Kuan: I know, there's one in my class.]

[Zuo Kuan: That's not what I mean. Let me put it this way — look at Zhu Xu. When he's in a relationship, he's all sweet talk and clingy and gross, hugging and kissing and cuddling every day. Can you fucking imagine Yu Fan hugging and kissing and cuddling with someone??]

With a click, the bathroom door opened, and Yu Fan instantly threw his Mobile Phone aside.

Chen Jingshen's cheeks were wet with water, and a few dark drops stained his collar. After entering the room, he glanced at the blanket Yu Fan had just pulled over himself.

Yu Fan immediately, in a transparent attempt to cover up, pulled the blanket off and sat up.

Chen Jingshen quickly averted his gaze, bent down to pick up his schoolbag and slung it over his shoulder. 'I'm heading back.'

Yu Fan hummed in acknowledgment, lowered his head, got out of bed to put on his shoes, and followed Chen Jingshen to the front door.

Chen Jingshen turned back to look at him. 'Want to carry me out in a sedan chair?'

'...As if. Hurry up and get out, I need to lock the door.'

After shooing him away, Yu Fan went back to the Balcony and waited for a while. Soon he saw Chen Jingshen exiting the building.

After watching Chen Jingshen get into the car and leave, Yu Fan sat down on the Balcony. He casually reached for the Cigarette Pack he always kept by the balcony, pulled out a cigarette, and was just about to put it in his mouth when a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

If he smoked too much, would his mouth always smell like smoke?

It's not like he could run off to brush his teeth every time before they kissed...

And Chen Jingshen was a weakling who coughed at the slightest hint of smoke.

Besides, hadn't the little girl upstairs said that smoking too much turns your lungs black?

Yu Fan stuffed the cigarette back into the Cigarette Pack and sat dryly on the Balcony, staring at the moon for a while. After a moment, he picked up his Mobile Phone, opened a local shopping app, typed in "Smoke Cessation Candy," randomly picked a few and placed an order without even checking the brand, setting delivery for 7 AM the next morning.

After buying, Yu Fan switched back to WeChat and idly scrolled through the chat history again. There was nothing substantial, so after flipping a few pages, he ended up back at the conversation he'd been reading earlier.

The late night was quiet. All the lights in the opposite building had gone out, giving a sense of security that no matter what you did, you wouldn't be discovered.

Yu Fan closed WeChat and, in a daze, opened the browser's search page. When he came back to himself, a line of text had already appeared in the search bar—

'How to date someone?'

-

The next morning, Chen Jingshen watched as his deskmate slept through two classes.

It wasn't until PE class that Yu Fan slowly woke up, squinting as he went downstairs to line up. The PE teacher called his name twice during roll call before Yu Fan lazily responded.

Wang Luan'an, standing next to him, couldn't help asking, 'Didn't you go to bed at eight yesterday? Why are you still so sleepy?'

Yu Fan stood there slouching. 'Who said I went to bed at eight?'

'Zuo Kuan did. Said you didn't reply to his messages after eight.'

'...'

The person standing on his other side seemed to glance down at him.

Yu Fan's heart jumped. He unconsciously straightened up a bit, and after a long moment, he let out a vague hum.

PE class routine was to do morning exercises. The morning sun was warm. Yu Fan slowly walked a lap around the School Playground, and the sleepiness that had just dissipated gradually gathered again.

Last night, on a whim, after Chen Jingshen left, he had searched for all kinds of random stuff... and stayed up until 3 AM. By the time he got to the Classroom this morning, he could barely keep his eyes open.

'Zuo Kuan and the others are smoking in the Experimental Building classroom. Let's sneak over there and ditch? They probably won't call roll after the run.' Wang Luan'an put down his phone and said.

'Mm.'

The two of them reached that fork in the road and were just about to make a run for it while the PE teacher wasn't looking, when a calm voice came from behind: 'Where are you going?'

Yu Fan was about to turn around, but Wang Luan'an had already responded first.

'Experimental Building. This,' Wang Luan'an made a smoking gesture at Chen Jingshen and smiled. 'Top student, if they call roll later, do us a favor and tell the PE teacher we went to the School Infirmary.'

In the past, PE classes were all about rushing to grab the court, but now that summer had arrived, the Basketball court was suddenly half empty.

Nobody wanted to go back to the Classroom drenched in sweat, so during PE class they all went to the Experimental Building classroom to smoke and play cards.

Wang Luan'an threw down a card. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the person sitting next to him playing on his phone with something that looked like a cigarette in his mouth. He casually said, 'Yu Fan, give me one too... What the hell is that??'

'Smoke Cessation Candy.' Yu Fan shifted the candy in his mouth and said indistinctly.

The Smoke Cessation Candy Yu Fan bought looked a bit unusual — it was shaped like a lollipop, but the stick was designed to look like a cigarette. At first glance, Wang Luan'an thought it was a cigarette.

'What a shitty design...' Wang Luan'an asked. 'Why are you suddenly quitting smoking?'

'I quit because I don't want to smoke anymore.' Yu Fan controlled the Snake Game, saying lazily.

'Don't worry, you won't last a few days before you can't take it,' Zuo Kuan said, looking at his cards. Then he suddenly thought of something. 'Oh yeah, Yu Fan, after you returned that love letter yesterday, the girl in our class almost cried.'

Yu Fan swiped on his phone, saying nothing.

Zuo Kuan continued, 'Then another girl went to comfort her. You know what she said?'

Yu Fan was uninterested, but Wang Luan'an asked curiously, 'What did she say?'

'She said,' Zuo Kuan let out a snicker first, then cleared his throat. 'Don't cry. It's good that Yu Fan didn't agree. He looks so fierce and gets into fights every day. Maybe he'll even hit his girlfriend in the future.'

'...'

'HAHAHAHA!!!'

Yu Fan kicked the leg of Wang Luan'an's chair. Wang Luan'an immediately restrained himself, holding back laughter and shaking his head. 'That's complete bullshit! Yu Fan has never hit a girl, and there's no way he'd hit his girlfriend.'

Is that the fucking point?

Yu Fan wanted to argue but didn't know how to say it, so he just put on a cold face and said, 'Get lost. Talk about something else. Don't drag me into it.'

'Forget it. Sleepy people have bad tempers. Don't mess with him.' Zhu Xu chewed his gum. 'Hey, did you guys know? A senior girl dropped out of school.'

Wang Luan'an gave him a puzzled look. 'How the fuck do you even know about senior stuff?'

'I heard it from a senior athlete. This thing was pretty big news among the seniors.' Zhu Xu said. 'Apparently, this girl liked a guy, but the guy neither rejected nor accepted her — just strung her along. But he didn't hold back on kissing and hugging and all that, and he told everyone he was just messing around with her... The girl got so depressed because of him that she dropped out.'

Yu Fan was idly moving the candy from side to side in his mouth. Hearing this, he nearly bit his tongue.

'Holy shit!' Wang Luan'an slapped his thigh. 'Isn't that guy a textbook scumbag? He's a fucking disgrace to all guys!'

'Right!' Zhu Xu said. 'I heard the guy even yelled at the girl a lot. What a jerk!'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah!'

Not rejecting, not accepting, stringing someone along, kissing and hugging, and occasionally yelling at the other person—

Yu Fan, who fit all four criteria, suddenly froze in place. The candy in his mouth stopped moving.

'So the girl dropped out and the guy got off scot-free? That's too easy...'

With a bang, the back door of the Classroom was pushed open. Yu Fan, biting the candy stick, instinctively looked over, then paused slightly.

Chen Jingshen stood at the door, breathing slightly heavily, and immediately scanned to where he was.

The others were also startled by the noise, but relaxed when they saw it was Chen Jingshen.

'Top student, you scared me to death. I thought—'

'Dean Hu is coming.' Chen Jingshen said.

The next moment, several hurried footsteps and a familiar roar came from the hallway: 'You up ahead! Who is it! Tipping them off makes it worse! None of you inside are getting away! I can smell the smoke from all the way down the hall!'

'Holy shit!'

The guys immediately threw their cards into the air and scattered like birds and beasts, cigarettes still in their mouths — as long as they weren't caught red-handed by Hu Pang, it didn't matter if the classroom reeked of smoke. They just had to deny it to the death.

They all ran toward the windows in unison, bumping into desks and chairs. The violent commotion made the empty Experimental Building feel like an earthquake.

Yu Fan stood up to make room for them to escape. He turned around, about to say something, when his wrist was suddenly grabbed. The next second, he was being pulled toward the wide-open window—

Yu Fan stared blankly at Chen Jingshen's back, calling out indistinctly with the candy in his mouth, 'Chen Jingshen!'

Chen Jingshen didn't look back. 'Jump.'

'...'

From behind came Hu Pang's shout: 'Yu Fan!'

What the fuck?!

Yu Fan gritted his teeth and, in a daze, jumped out the window with Chen Jingshen.

Seven or eight guys scattered, running in all directions across the campus. Hu Pang and the security guards climbed over the window and gave chase. Seeing the guys ahead split up, a guard asked Hu Pang who to chase.

'Chase the leader!' Hu Pang's tie fluttered in the wind as he ran. 'Chase Yu Fan!'

The wind howled in their ears. The running laps they'd just escaped from PE class were now being returned to the PE teacher.

Chen Jingshen clearly had no experience being chased by teachers at school. Yu Fan was dragged by him along the school path behind the Experimental Building for a while, and really wanted to say that this road was empty — they needed to run to the School Playground, blend into the crowd, and just deny everything.

Yu Fan turned his head to look. The wind messed up Chen Jingshen's hair. His brows were slightly furrowed, the collar of his white school uniform fluttering back. Occasionally he looked back at the school security guards chasing them.

A bit of sunlight flickered into Chen Jingshen's clear dark eyes, like the moon he had stared at for so long on the Balcony last night.

Yu Fan smelled that cool, familiar minty scent. An unknown emotion slowly covered his heart like creeping ivy, transmitting a tingling sensation to his brain. For no reason at all, he became purely and intensely excited.

'Chen Jingshen.' Yu Fan spoke amid the violent pounding of his heart.

Chen Jingshen briefly responded, 'Mm.'

'Open your mouth.'

Chen Jingshen frowned slightly, looking at him with some confusion, and then saw Yu Fan take the "cigarette" out of his mouth and shove it toward him.

He instinctively opened his mouth and took it.

A faint sweetness spread in his mouth.

'Let's date.' Yu Fan's voice mixed with the wind.

Chen Jingshen unconsciously slowed down. Holding the nearly melted candy in his mouth, he stared at Yu Fan in silent shock.

The tips of Yu Fan's ears were a little red. He turned to look at him, then quickly looked away, adding stiffly in a low voice, 'I won't be abusive to you.'