Chapter 59

Can't wear the black pants anymore. Chen Jingshen gave him a pair of his own shorts. Yu Fan tugged at the loose waistband, kind of wanting to put the thing over Chen Jingshen's head.

Chen Jingshen was showering in the bathroom, so he couldn't cover him yet. Yu Fan sat cross-legged, half-lying on Chen Jingshen's bed, the same pillow from earlier behind his head, his posture as casual as if he'd just conquered a mountain.

He was sitting here, but his soul was still back in the last ten minutes. His head was full of Chen Jingshen's voice, his hands, his scent.

The window was cracked open, and the faint, restless scent of what they'd done was slowly dissipating.

The AC was finally kicking in, Yu Fan's brain slowly cooling down. He didn't feel like moving, just lazily let his eyes wander around the room.

Chen Jingshen's closet wasn't fully closed. Every piece of clothing hanging inside looked perfectly pressed.

Yu Fan suddenly remembered when Chen Jingshen had gotten up earlier — his white T-shirt was wrinkled all over from where Yu Fan had grabbed him.

Yu Fan's fingers curled. He looked away like he'd been shocked, then spotted the tissues in the trash can.

Fuck. Yu Fan grabbed a piece of gum, popped it in his mouth, got up, and sat back down at the desk, deciding to find something to distract himself.

【-：?】

【-：You @'d me 32 times in one night, are you sick?】

Those two messages, and the group chat that had been dead from failed summons suddenly exploded.

【Wang Luan'an: Holy shit holy shit! Yu Fan, you fucking ignored my DMs! You're really in a relationship?! @-】

【Zuo Kuan: Heard you even know how to coax people??? @-】

【-：@Zhu Xu?】

【Zhu Xu: Heh... hehe... hehehe. Let me explain, I was in the middle of a team fight, and because I replied to you I was late, they asked what I was doing, and I couldn't just not tell them, right?】

【Wang Luan'an: Hey, what's that supposed to mean? We're all brothers, you're being distant. You're gonna bring them to meet us eventually anyway.】

【Zuo Kuan: Yeah. But have you been coaxing her this whole time? Your girlfriend is way too fucking high-maintenance.】

【Zhang Xianjing: I'd watch what you say. His girlfriend might be with him right now.】

Zuo Kuan immediately recalled that message.

【Zuo Kuan: So who's your girlfriend anyway?】

Yu Fan sat cross-legged, leaning back in the chair, lazily typing.

【-：No one. We broke up. Don't ask.】

The group immediately flooded with question marks.

【Zhu Xu: What happened? Couldn't coax her?】

【Zuo Kuan: So when exactly did you start dating?】

【Wang Luan'an: Fuck, why??】

【-：Too hard to coax, total dumbass, too much trouble, not dating anymore.】

When Chen Jingshen came out of the bathroom, his Mobile Phone rang. Wang Luan'an @ed him in the group chat, asking if he knew who Yu Fan's girlfriend was.

He opened the group, skimmed a few messages, and found Yu Fan's last line.

Chen Jingshen replied "don't know" in the group, then walked over to the person hunched over the phone typing, and said, "Yu Fan."

Yu Fan instinctively remembered the last time Chen Jingshen called his name, and what a punch-worthy bastard thing he'd said. His ears tingled, his expression instantly cooled, and he kept typing without looking up.

【Wang Luan'an: ...So who is it? What grade? What class? I'll go check out how good-looking they are on Monday.】

【Zhu Xu: Could be in your class.】

【Wang Luan'an: No way. In our class, besides Zhang Xianjing and Ke Ting, no girl has spoken more than ten sentences to Yu Fan.】

【Zuo Kuan: Isn't that obvious? She must be good-looking, or Yu Fan wouldn't date her??】

【-：Ugly, clingy, unreasonable. I was blind.】

【Zhu Xu: Huh? Isn't it bad to talk about your ex like that...】

【Zuo Kuan: Fuck, you're such a jerk.】

【s：T-T】

【Zhang Xianjing: ?】

【Wang Luan'an: ?】

"..."

Yu Fan's fingers, mid-typing a curse, stopped. He couldn't take it anymore and looked up at the person standing right in front of him. "Chen Jingshen, who told you to say in the group—"

Chen Jingshen pulled off the towel, bent down, and kissed him. Yu Fan's voice instantly died.

Yu Fan sat there stunned for a few seconds before asking, "What the fuck... are you doing?"

"Coaxing you," Chen Jingshen said. "Can we not break up?"

"..."

Coaxing my ass? Weren't you just being all tough?

Yu Fan wanted to kick him away, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a neat row of red marks on the side of his neck.

He'd bitten them himself at the end, unable to hold back.

So he put his raised leg back down and asked flatly, "Does your neck hurt?"

"It hurts," Chen Jingshen said.

"Serves you right." Yu Fan said coldly, then looked around. "Where's the band-aid you took out earlier?"

"In the drawer."

Yu Fan pulled open the desk drawer and, as he took out the band-aid, glanced inside casually. Chen Jingshen's drawer was also very tidy, stationery sorted by category, easy to see everything at a glance.

Yu Fan's gaze lingered on the black notebook at the very back.

It looked pretty old, nothing special. What caught his eye was that something was sticking out of it, not tucked in properly — half of it visible, looked like a rectangular note. He could vaguely make out two characters.

What characters?

Yu Fan squinted at it for a long time but couldn't tell. Fuck, it was even uglier than his own handwriting.

"What's wrong?" Chen Jingshen had hung the towel on the balcony and came back.

"Nothing." Yu Fan wasn't into snooping. He closed the drawer and tore open the band-aid. "Come here quick. Once I put this on, I'm going home."

Chen Jingshen's house had a sunken entryway. On the shoe cabinet were flowers Yu Fan couldn't name, their fragrance faint.

Yu Fan bent down to put on his shoes, tugged at the pants, and frowned. "Chen Jingshen, your pants are too big."

Chen Jingshen looked at his waist at the sound, suddenly remembering the scene from earlier. His eyes flickered. "Actually, you don't have to go home."

"Shut up."

"Then does what you said today still count?" Chen Jingshen said. "Movie tomorrow."

Yu Fan paused, then remembered he'd agreed to it during the fight, in between.

"It counts." Yu Fan hesitated. "I'll buy the tickets this time."

Chen Jingshen said okay.

Yu Fan finished putting on his shoes, looked up, rubbed his nose, and said, "I won't be late."

Chen Jingshen had been half-leaning against the wall. At that, he blinked, couldn't help tilting his face toward him.

Just as he was about to make contact, a sharp "beep—" came from the door. Both of them froze.

Yu Fan's mind went blank. On instinct, he reached out and pushed Chen Jingshen's face away.

The door swung open. Ji Lianyi, half-turned, was instructing the driver behind her. "Just leave the luggage here. Pick me up at nine tomorrow evening to take me to the airport. Don't be late, and..."

She turned around as she spoke, and when she saw them, her voice stopped for a few seconds. "Jingshen? Why are you standing here? Is this... Yu Fan?"