CH 32

Chapter 32: Unpredictable Changes

Yue Zhishi heard Song Yu’s voice for the first time after so many days of the training camp. He was very happy, and even though he’d said the phone call would last only one minute, the call was twelve minutes and three seconds long when he hung up.

From childhood, as long as he was separated from Song Yu, Yue Zhishi would feel a large sense of anxiety and often cried because of it when he was younger. When he’d been in kindergarten, he understood there was no point in crying because Song Yu was studying at a different place, but it was different once he started elementary school — Yue Zhishi knew Song Yu was on the fourth year students’ floor and yet he wasn’t able to casually look for him. Little children who’d just started their schooling weren’t really able to follow the rules, and Yue Zhishi was also a late bloomer, tears frequently rolling down his face as he missed his gege while in class.

Because Song Yu had once said he couldn’t cry loudly while outside, the Yue Zhishi who’d just started elementary school constantly sat in class while large drops of tears silently fell from his eyes. Even now, his first year school books were still wrinkled.

The teachers had been busily directing the lessons and had occasionally looked up to see Yue Zhishi crying. He hadn’t dared to release any noise while he cried and had even obediently crossed his arms on his desk like his fellow classmates — except his whole face was completely wet. His class advisor once found him too pitiful and had allowed him to listen in Song Yu’s class, so he took a small chair upstairs to class 4-8’s room and sat in the aisle next to Song Yu’s seat.

He’d stopped crying and peacefully sat there for the entire lesson. When the English teacher got the year four students to stand up and recite vocabulary, Yue Zhishi had also obediently followed along, his two hands tucked behind his back.

But Song Yu scolded him that night once they’d returned home.

“You’re not allowed to come over anymore. What are you crying for, you’re already an elementary school student.”

Yue Zhishi had felt very wronged. “I cried because I really missed you.”

Song Yu didn’t know what to say after hearing Yue Zhishi’s words. He was also only just an elementary year four student and had yet to be able to say any deep or profound principles. He also knew Yue Zhishi, as a stubborn child, wouldn’t be able to understand any normal reasoning.

“If… if you miss me, you should focus on studying well. I’ll also be studying seriously.”

“And then…” Yue Zhishi had been puzzled.

“And then I’ll know you miss me, because we’ll be doing the exact same thing. Do you get it?” Song Yu had left his room after awkwardly saying some final words. “You’ll affect me if you come to my class. I won’t be able to receive your signal.” 

Those words sufficiently tricked Yue Zhishi for at least a year and a half and successfully created the habit of independently going to class.

He had been like that at three years old, and he had still been like that at seven years old — so to Yue Zhishi, it wasn’t anything embarrassing to express how much he missed Song Yu. He’d done it often enough since he was a child.

Before he hung up his phone call with Song Yu, he once again repeated, he really missed him.

Song Yu didn’t give him a reply, only pausing for a few seconds before he said he would bring home some Beijing pastry specialities for Yue Zhishi. 

But he very quickly corrected himself and said never mind, Yue Zhishi might be allergic and wouldn’t be able to try them. 

Song Yu very rarely forgot Yue Zhishi’s allergy, so he was particularly flustered at this rudimentary error. Yue Zhishi didn’t mind, however, and happily started planning how he would pick Song Yu up the day the training camp finished.

They spoke on the phone every night for the next two, three days. The calls were all within a fifteen minute timeframe, and Xia Zhixu initially teased Song Yu about it before he got used to it. Besides, he was the one who could squat in the corridor and speak on the phone until the early hours of the morning. One day, he came back particularly early, and Song Yu mocked him, asking why he had nothing to say today — Xia Zhixu only shrugged and said Xu Qichen had fallen asleep as they talked.

Song Yu caught a glimpse of the phone Xia Zhixu left on his bedside table. He’d yet to hang up, and he lightly, carefully moved about, lifting the phone to his ear for a little while after he finished showering. He didn’t say a single word the entire time, listening only to his phone.

Song Yu woke up once in the middle of the night and felt there was a slight glow in the room. He got up to look around.

Xia Zhixu was sleeping very deeply, but his phone still remained on the call screen interface.

Song Yu initially wanted to bring it up and mock him that night when they were both going to their phone calls, but Xia Zhixu’s phone was stolen that day. He hurriedly borrowed Song Yu’s phone to call his parents and to contact Xu Qichen.

But Xu Qichen didn’t pick up his phone calls.

“He doesn’t know my contact details,” Song Yu said. “Maybe he doesn’t pick up calls from unknown numbers.” 

Xia Zhixu then went onto WeChat and sent Xu Qichen many, many messages, but he yet again didn’t receive a reply. Xu Qichen replied with only one message the next day: okay, I understand.

Keeping in touch turned troublesome now that he didn’t have a phone. Even though Song Yu told him he could borrow his phone, Xia Zhixu didn’t want to bother him — he occasionally logged onto WeChat, but he wasn’t really able to contact Xu Qichen. 

“We’ll be back in a few days. I’ll sneak out tomorrow to buy a phone if I can’t handle it.”

He wasn’t able to implement his plan though, as the pressure of the training camp’s latter stages reached its highest peak. He had no way to go outside and also had no time to even use a phone. The camp held many mock competitions, and everyone performed quite well so the teachers specifically brought the students out to eat a nice dinner. They even broke their own rules and allowed the students to go back to their dormitory for an early rest.

Xia Zhixu bought two bottles of orange-flavoured Bei Bing Yang soda before heading upstairs to the dorm. Coincidentally, just as the two of them were waiting for the lift, the dormitory building lost electricity. There was nothing to do in the building so everyone ran outside, and Song Yu and Xia Zhixu decided to wait outside as well, sitting on the edge of a flower bed.

It was very hard to see stars in this city. Xia Zhixu tilted his head up and searched for a while before he lowered his head back down. “Time went by so quickly. Only three days left.”

Song Yu didn’t speak, taking a sip of the soda and finding it a bit too sweet.

“It’s college entrance exams soon.” Xia Zhixu bumped into his shoulder. “Nervous?”

Song Yu shook his head. “I’m okay.” 

“That’s true.” Xia Zhixu spread his legs wide open, very relaxed. “I feel like you’re never nervous no matter what you do. Always effortlessly and easily doing the things you need to do.”

Song Yu glanced at him. “Aren’t you the same?”

Xia Zhixu also shook his head. “I’m just pretending most of the time.” He bent his right leg and wrapped an arm around it. “Isn’t it strange? I always look like I’m a positive person, but actually I’m running away from reality every day. Sometimes I’ll be with a group of people, laughing about this or chatting about that, but secretly, I’m thinking I’m so tired or I’m so bored or I want to go home. And yet, I’ll continue to fake it because only this way will things be less troublesome.”

Even if Xia Zhixu hadn’t said it out loud, Song Yu had long felt this about him.

He thought about something and hesitated, wondering if he should bring it up. He watched as the air bubbles in his glass bottle popped, one by one.

“If you don’t like troublesome things so much, then in the future… What are you going to do?”

Xia Zhixu looked at him and asked in confusion, “In the future?”

Song Yu gazed at his eyes. “Stop pretending.” He said further, “I can already tell.”

Xia Zhixu finally understood.

He buried his head in his knees and released a long, long sigh. He remained silent for a while, and then he placed the glass bottle in his hands onto the edge of the flower bed. “I just want to take each day as it comes.” He stared at the ground. “Haven’t you felt like that before? When you’re about to do something you’re really unsure about, you just want everything to remain the same.”

It was clearly Xia Zhixu who said those words, but for Song Yu, it felt like those words were cut directly from his heart.

Seeing Song Yu didn’t reply, Xia Zhixu raised his head, sniffing. He looked like he suddenly thought of something and asked, laughing, “Hey, did you go to Zhongshan Park when you were a kid?”

“What a stupid question,” Song Yu said.

“Have you fed pigeons before?”

Song Yu speechlessly stared at him.

Xia Zhixu grinned at him with his tiger teeth. “Of course you have. I used to really love feeding pigeons when I was younger. I’d buy a little pouch of bird food, pour a bit into the palm of my hand and crouch down. They’d all come flying to me. You’d think they’d be scared of people, but they were so friendly when they came close and would happily eat the food. But if you said they weren’t scared of people… As soon as I reached out a hand to touch them, they would flutter their wings and fly away. And once they flew away, they never came back.”

“I feel like that right now. Do you get it?” Xia Zhixu asked, smile hanging on his lips. 

Song Yu’s hand was frozen by the soda.

Of course he did. It was just that compared to Xia Zhixu, their situations weren’t quite the same. His pigeon might always follow behind him, unable to be driven away, but in order to prevent anything dangerous from happening, not only did he need to pull his hand back, he needed to push him away.

After a silent moment, Song Yu opened his mouth. “Then you plan on continuing on like you’ve always had?”

“I don’t know…” Xia Zhixu looked at the lights not too far away. “Sometimes I imagine — both of us going to the same university, taking the same general education courses. He’d watch as I played in basketball competitions. We’d join the same university society and go to dinner parties together. We might even rent an apartment together during our internship years and become flatmates. I think being like that would be enough.” 

Song Yu softly laughed once. “You ask for so little.”

Xia Zhixu shook his head in self mockery. “What I ask for is directly proportionate to the probability of it happening. The world is so large. Being able to meet someone you really like, someone the same gender as you, and to have that someone like you back — that’s definitely something with a low probability of actually coming true.” 

What he said was reasonable. Song Yu subconsciously calculated his own probability — it might be even lower.

Even movies wouldn’t dare show something so coincidental. 

“Being able to be friends and stay together every day is already good enough.” After a momentary pause, Xia Zhixu slapped his thigh, seemingly in a very generous manner. “As to whether he’ll have a girlfriend in the future or not, as long as I don’t imagine it, then he won’t.” 

That kind of self-deceptive, escapist mindset could really only make Xia Zhixu himself laugh. Song Yu couldn’t. 

The dormitory building’s electricity finally came back, and the training camp teachers all ushered them inside. Xia Zhixu stood up and gave a large stretch. “Let’s go.”

“Mn.”

He thought — maybe it was because they didn’t see each other often even though his relationship with Song Yu was quite good, or maybe it was because Song Yu was someone naturally quite tightlipped that he was able to say such utter nonsense without worrying about it.

He’ll just pretend he shared his secrets with an unresponsive tree hole.

Since tree holes wouldn’t have their own secrets anyway.

Song Yu also stood up. He didn’t have a habit of comforting others, and he also knew comfort was useless in this case. But as he spoke with Xia Zhixu, he couldn’t help but occasionally remember the lunch together under the rain and Xu Qichen’s red ear. 

The two hands briefly touching before falling away.

His mind cleared in a flash, as if an example showing him how to solve the question finally arrived in front of his eyes. He wasn’t an exam marker, only a student on the sidelines who didn’t know the right answers from the wrong ones — and yet he still wanted to take part in this particular test. 

Compared to him, Xia Zhixu clearly had a chance to keep the pigeon by his side.

“You should give it a try.”

Xia Zhixu froze. He didn’t expect the tree hole to respond, let alone to respond with such a suggestion.

Song Yu spoke calmly and yet full of certainty. “After you go back this time, just try once. The result might be better than what you can imagine.” 

He didn’t know how this question would be marked.

But he really hoped his answer was correct.

The one month high pressure training camp finally ended, and the flight from the training camp back to school was scheduled for noon. Xia Zhixu dragged Song Yu from the dormitory in the early morning hours, saying he needed to buy something when he was actually going to look for gifts.

They went to a local famous bookstore, Xia Zhixu needing to pick up a book he reserved a long time ago. Song Yu listened by the sidelines, and only then learned that the book was actually really hard to buy — it was a limited edition run of the original English publication with the author’s signature. It was only because the author had once held a fan signing in this bookstore that Xia Zhixu was able to buy it.

“What are you going to buy? I’ll go with you.” With his newly purchased book, Xia Zhixu was in a very good mood.

Song Yu shook his head, expressing he didn’t need to bring gifts back home. But Xia Zhixu didn’t believe him at all and kept trying to pull him there and pull him here, before finally discovering a store offering handmade notebooks behind the original bookstore. Xia Zhixu refused to leave once he went inside and spent two hours making a small motivational notebook, the outside leather covering also personally sewn by Xia Zhixu himself. 

As for Song Yu, he created a sketchbook filled with 16K paper. The leather cover was steely gray, and after the store owner said he could manually engrave either some characters or personal design onto it, Song Yu wavered for a moment before drawing a triangular block of cheese with holes. He carefully etched it onto the leather.

Despite having quick brains for answering questions, the two of them turned particularly clumsy at doing handiwork. They weren’t satisfied no matter what they did and ended up being almost late for the assembly to go to the airport. 

The flight was landing after taking a nap, and they once again got onto the same coach that had initially taken them away. Song Yu really detested flights — he wasn’t able to sleep well on the flight, so he continued to nap after getting on the bus. He put on his earphones as the coach kept rocking and swaying, his senses all blurred and fuzzy. 

The complicated anxiety of finally being close to home after a long absence gave birth to a dream.  He couldn’t see anything concrete in his dream, only fainting hearing Yue Zhishi’s voice as it transmitted to him through a radio wave. Yue Zhishi pretended to not understand how to answer a question despite knowing exactly what to do. A girl in the row behind him swept open the curtains on the windows, the light stinging his eyes, and he was finally able to clearly see his dimly lit dream. Yue Zhishi was standing in the light not too far away, staying exactly in place.

Song Yu walked towards him, hand holding a sketchbook he may never again make in his lifetime. 

At least in his dream, he was unable to stay where he was.  

As they were about to reach Jingjian High, his surroundings abruptly became noisy, and the music in his earphones could no longer block the chatter. Song Yu frowned and heard Xia Zhixu’s voice.

“Class 4? What happened to class 4?”

“I don’t know if it’s real, but this forum post really writes like it is. And it’s been circulated all over QQ…”

Song Yu opened his eyes and saw Xia Zhixu next to him not looking quite right. He held onto someone else’s phone and browsed online, but his hand was slightly shaky, his eyebrows tightly knit together.

“What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

Xia Zhixu didn’t give him a single shred of response. Song Yu felt even more strongly that there was a problem, so he took off his earphones. “Hey, what happened.”

Xia Zhixu reached out a hand just as he finished speaking and held onto the seat in front of him, his eyes lost and confused. He blinked multiple times. Song Yu very rarely saw him like this — no matter where and when, Xia Zhixu always displayed a sunlit warmth different from ordinary people. And yet at this moment, he looked as if he’d collapsed. 

Song Yu noticed that the boy sitting behind him looked worried. The phone was most likely his, so he leaned over and asked what happened.

He was a younger student in Jingjian, and even he was a bit perplexed. “There’s a really popular forum post in our school today, it’s been spread everywhere in QQ. I only gave it to senior to have a look, I also don’t know what happened.” He was a bit worried and went up to pat Xia Zhixu’s shoulder. “Senior, what’s wrong, are you okay?”

Forum post?

The bus stopped while Song Yu was confused, and their lead teacher reminded all the Jingjian students that they’d already arrived. Xia Zhixu, without taking his bag, rushed off the bus as everyone looked on with uncertain eyes.

“Xia Zhixu!” Song Yu followed behind him with his bag. In just this short amount of time, Xia Zhixu had already ran past the school entrance, but Song Yu was stopped outside.

“Student, you’re not wearing our school’s uniform, are you?” 

Song Yu stood outside the entrance and yelled Xia Zhixu’s name once again — but it was like he didn’t hear him at all, running desperately towards the teaching building. 

“Senior Song Yu.” The junior who was just sitting behind Xia Zhixu rushed over. “Let me bring senior’s bag.” 

With a lowered head, Song Yu looked at Xia Zhixu’s bag. It was very heavy, the book he’d anxiously wanted to gift and the notebook he’d made by hand resting inside — and yet he’d forgotten to take even these away with him.

The coach didn’t wait for him. Song Yu stood in front of Jingjian’s entrance by himself, lost in his thoughts.

He thought about the forum post the junior had mentioned, so he took out his phone and tentatively explored an online space he’d never really seen before. Quite a lot of his junior high classmates had entered Jingjian for high school, and the two high schools’ social circles actually overlapped quite substantially. He kept scrolling downwards in a hurry until he finally saw an reposted article. Song Yu’s fingers paused and no longer moved.

He was frozen for a second.

The article’s headline was as eye-catching as if it’d come straight from a gossip tabloid. If he’d seen it on a normal day, Song Yu would’ve ignored it — but the protagonist of this particular article was Xu Qichen.

[High school class 3-4’s class adviser and male student is in a romantic relationship, complete with photos and the truth. Is the school not going to care about this?]

There was only one photo in the article, and it wasn’t strong proof by any means. It only showed Xu Qichen getting into a car, and it looked like his young male class adviser was also inside. Other than that, the article listed a bunch of things as evidence that had yet to be proved, such as unusual meetings outside of class or even awards obtained through improper methods.

Replies to the article have already been shared, rumours spreading like wild fire. Every single person hotly and vividly debated this issue, as if everyone had seen the two of them do something in person.

Watching as all these people turned the cool and calm Xu Qichen into a ruthless character who knew how to seduce an adult man for his own personal gain, Song Yu felt this was an absurd situation — and yet he also felt it was very realistic. He had always viewed the world negatively and was never too surprised when something unpleasant happened.

Talent brought glory and achievements in exchange, but they could always be distorted into illicit, dirty results. It was the inevitable evil of humans constantly chasing after excitement and stimulation.

In the eyes of the public, how could the truth be more important than the dramatic ups and downs of life?

Even though he’d always admitted to being detached and indifferent, Song Yu suddenly saw the article and the sarcastic, mocking replies from Xia Zhixu’s perspective, as if he’d entered his body for a moment.

The students in the replies viewed the article only as gossip, and not many people actually suspected if the article’s claim was true. Song Yu’s junior high classmate who’d reposted it had included only one sentence in his post.

[Oh my god, a homosexual teacher/student pair — even TV wouldn’t film something so stimulating, that student’s finished]

Song Yu stared at that sentence, mood very complicated. It felt like something was forcefully peeled off of him, exposing a not very honest and forthright heart. His imagination replaced a few words in that sentence — and then the sentence became a coldly shining knife that gouged out his heart and threw it under the sun. 

The bell for the afternoon’s final class rang, and students came out one after another. Many of them stayed by the entrance to pick up their food deliveries. Song Yu, with his uniform from another school, was as conspicuous as if he was an alien. 

He wanted to message Xia Zhixu and say something, but he abruptly remembered Xia Zhixu was so pitiful he had nothing left — not even a cell phone.

There was an endless stream of traffic on the road. Song Yu went and caught a taxi back to Peiya, and the driver kept up his friendly chatter the entire way. Song Yu couldn’t utter a single word, so the embarrassed driver stopped his one-sided conversation. Song Yu paid, a single apology leaving his mouth as he got out of the car. After he turned around, he stopped in his tracks.

There weren’t many people at the school entrance. The junior high students had already left the school at noon for their monthly break, and only high school students remained to complete an extra half day of lessons. Just outside the school, Yue Zhishi sat on a little stool in front of the newsstand in a cream-coloured sweater and read a newly bought magazine, his head drooped.

He looked very absorbed in what he was reading. Song Yu knew, no matter what Yue Zhishi did, he would always focus his all to it.

But Song Yu had forgotten a long time ago — such a good habit was actually taught by himself.

Separated by ten metres, Song Yu quietly gazed at him, like a stranger. Sometimes he really did wish he could be a stranger.

Maybe it was telepathy, but Yue Zhishi lifted his head as he turned a page, and his eyes matched up with Song Yu’s as he stood in the distance.

“Song Yu gege?” Yue Zhishi immediately stood up, a smile very quickly diffusing across his face. His hair, facial expression, clothes, even the way he ran over to Song Yu — they were all especially soft and filled with joy like a little puppy who had waited for his master for a very, very long time. Every single action played in slow motion in Song Yu’s heart, full of pleasing little details. 

But at that moment, Song Yu’s mind was still flooded with those unkind taunts, the violence that was camouflaged by curiosity.

As he stood in the wind, Song Yu hoped those dark things would stay behind him. He hoped Yue Zhishi would forever stay brilliant.

Yue Zhishi ran over and stopped in front of his gege, not even taking the time to take a breath before he said, “The training bus was just here. I thought you’d come out, but only one person came down after waiting for a long time. I asked the driver, and he said you got off earlier. I even thought you wouldn’t come back to school.” 

I thought you’d forgotten I would come pick you up.

Song Yu could imagine how Yue Zhishi looked like as he waited in front of the bus door, peering inside. He managed to move the corners of his mouth with difficulty. “Then why are you still waiting here.”

Yue Zhishi smiled at him. “I thought you’d come back. And…”

His eyelashes fluttered down, and a harmless innocence that begged to be protected spread across his face. “You told me before to stay where I was and wait for you.”

Yue Zhishi tugged at his hair before he realised what he’d just said was a bit strange. “I mean, if I went to look for you… I didn’t know where you were, and you didn’t reply to my messages…” 

“Le Le.” 

Song Yu interrupted him with the name Yue Zhishi had rarely heard from him after growing up.

He was stunned and looked at him in confusion. “Hm?”

“I’m so tired.” His voice was a bit hoarse, and a vulnerability inconsistent from the usual Song Yu exhaled from all over his body, making Yue Zhishi feel disorientated and worried. After so many years, he’d never once seen Song Yu so directly express his own uncomfortable and negative feelings.

As a child, Yue Zhishi felt that his heart was actually grown on Song Yu’s body. Even if Song Yu injured his knee and let out a lot of blood while playing soccer, his face had remained expressionless as his injury was treated. It was only Yue Zhishi who would cry. 

Wildly and luxuriously green Chinese parasol trees shielded Peiya’s empty school entrance. They stood on both sides of the street and grew, flourishing, until they almost gobbled up the blue sky. A southern magnolia flower fell noiselessly onto the soil. Large, roaring trucks passed behind them, carrying heavy cargo almost about to exceed their weight load.

The earth was trembling.

Yue Zhishi took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Song Yu.

He put his chin on Song Yu’s shoulder, his soft palm slowly caressing up and down his back. “Gege, lean on me.”

“Let me charge your battery, okay?”

The author has something to say:

PS: the side ship isn’t BE, they’ll be together after a few years. They’ll occasionally appear later in order to prompt changes in gege’s emotions. This ship actually isn’t too angsty — the saddest part has been witnessed by Song Yu.

Let me just say one more time, there are no big knives in Song Yu and Le Le’s relationship development (such as a break up and then reunite together later like some readers are imagining), but there has to be small setbacks. This particular matter was a type of awakening for gege — it has definitely affected him.

Lovely Allergen’s couple can be considered as fauxcest with an older gong. There’s no way they can start understanding their feelings, confirm their relationship and get married without any worries. There has to be some emotional changes and struggles as they go through their journey (all of my books are like this). But really, there are no big knives like breaking up and then getting back together later (of course, I plan on writing a book with that tag later, I already have the initial characters x)