HS Chapter 11

Ye Wenyu: “…”

Ye Wenyu: “It’s mine.”

Chi Dongting: “For real? I’ve never seen you wear black clothes before. When did you buy it?”

Ye Wenyu: “A while ago.”

Chi Dongting: “Oh really? But it’s clearly too big and doesn’t fit you at all. And before class just now, you weren’t wearing this, were you?”

Ye Wenyu: “…”

Ye Wenyu couldn’t take it anymore and stood up. “I’m going to wash my face.”

Chi Dongting still wanted to chase after him to confirm if his memory had failed him.

Fortunately, someone from the neighboring dormitory came by and knocked on the door just in time, enthusiastically inviting Chi Dongting to bring his laptop over and play a few rounds, saving Ye Wenyu from water and fire.

Once the door closed, the dorm instantly quieted down.

Ye Wenyu let out a breath, turned on the faucet, and when he placed his hand under the stream, a few droplets splashed onto his face.

He originally raised his hand to wipe them off, but halfway through the motion, he thought of something and froze, raising his head to look into the mirror on the wall.

A droplet of water on his upper lip, not wiped in time, seeped into the gaps between his lips, and he subconsciously pressed them together.

The cold temperature brought him back to his senses. He suddenly lowered his head and lifted the back of his hand to cover his eyes.

——

Sports Department dormitories.

Dong Xi was on sick leave from training due to a cold, and Yang Liang had brought back a packed meal for him.

Dong Xi was lying in bed playing with his phone, and when he smelled the aroma, he got up from the bed. “Thanks. But why are you guys back so late? Was there extra training again?”

Yang Liang responded vaguely and only after confirming that Yan Chen had taken his clothes to the bathroom did he quickly pull over his chair and sit beside Dong Xi. “Do you remember what you told me last time?”

Dong Xi thought for a moment. “You had a little hole in your underwear?”

“…No!” Yang Liang glared at him. “I mean last time when Yan-ge came back from the library, you said he seemed his vibe was a bit strange!”

Dong Xi: “Oh, that, yeah, I remember. What about it?”

Yang Liang leaned in closer, lowering his voice even more. “I know why.”

Dong Xi stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth. “Why?”

Yang Liang: “Yan-ge’s aversion to physical touch seems to be cured!”

He briefly explained what he saw during class today, and Dong Xi listened in shock. “Seriously?”

You had to know, Yan Chen’s aversion to physical touch was no joke. They had been his roommates for more than two years, and even now, they couldn’t manage a shoulder tap or neck hug.

And now he held hands with someone?

“It’s true.” Yang Liang was very sure. “I saw it with my own eyes. Yan-ge finished a 100-meter sprint and took the initiative to ask someone to pull him up, and just held on like that!”

As he spoke, he used his own hands to mimic a tight interlocking grip, vivid and descriptive.

Dong Xi imagined the scene Yang Liang described and felt it was unbelievable.

“Yan-ge needed someone to pull him out of the water?” He then asked, “Who pulled him?”

Yang Liang scratched his head. “It was a bit far, I didn’t see clearly. And you know I have a bit of face blindness… even if I saw them I might not remember…”

Dong Xi bit his chopsticks thoughtfully.

After showering, Yan Chen hung his dark-colored clothes to the side and tossed Ye Wenyu’s white shirt into the washing machine separately, pressing start.

After tidying up and leaving the bathroom, he had just returned to the dorm when a hand suddenly stretched out across in front of him.

Yan Chen stopped in his tracks and looked up at the owner of the hand. “What are you doing?”

Dong Xi was sitting backwards on his chair, one hand gripping the back of the chair, the other waving in front of him. “Yan-ge, come on, arm wrestle?”

Yan Chen looked down at him from above. “You don’t want your hand anymore?”

“No, no, just kidding.” Dong Xi grinned, then very sensibly retracted his hand.

After Yan Chen returned to his seat, Dong Xi gave Yang Liang, who was secretly watching nearby, a helpless look that said, “See for yourself.”

Yang Liang: “…”

What the hell?

Could he really have been seeing things?

—-

“Page 225 and 226 of the textbook are this weekend’s translation assignment. Those who didn’t finish last week’s classic literature translation, make it up and submit everything together next Monday.”

“Alright, that’s it for today. Have a great weekend, everyone.”

As the translation teacher’s graceful figure disappeared through the door, the students in the classroom wearily took off their headphones, groaning in complaint.

It was Friday. The students selected for the dubbing competition were all heading to the Art Building at Teaching Building Seven.

Ye Wenyu picked up his laptop and the bag containing the clothes, and took a short leave from An Xue. “I have something to do. I’ll come later, no need to wait for me.”

It was the break after the second period in the afternoon, peak time for students heading back to the dorms or changing classrooms.

Ye Wenyu went against the flow of people toward the South Gate sports field. When he was close enough to see his destination, he slowed down and, after thinking for a bit, turned right toward a nearby vending machine.

Twenty minutes earlier, in the sports department dormitories.

Dong Xi came out of the bathroom and saw Yan Chen taking a white short-sleeved shirt from the balcony.

Dong Xi: “Yan-ge, is that your shirt? Isn’t it a bit small?”

“No, it’s someone else’s.” Yan Chen hadn’t even closed the closet door yet, and as he passed by, he smoothly tossed the white shirt in as well, clearly not intending to return it today.

Dong Xi felt it was strange that Yan Chen would bring someone else’s clothes back to the dorm and even wash and dry them.

He wanted to ask more, but was interrupted by a sharp cry from Yang Liang.

“How come there’s only a little over ten minutes left!”

After writing a message, Yang Liang glanced at the time and suddenly panicked, quickly closing his laptop and starting to change shoes.

Dong Xi: “We’ve been waiting for you. Hurry up.”

“Okay okay, let me go to the bathroom first!”

Yang Liang rushed into the bathroom and rushed back out, water from washing his hands splashing everywhere. “I’m ready, let’s go, let’s go.”

Dong Xi followed behind, laughing at him for being like a monkey with its butt on fire.

Yan Chen was the last to leave. As he pushed his chair under the desk, he happened to glance at the fruit candy Dong Xi had given him that morning beside the laptop.

Yang Liang shouted from the hallway: “Where’s Yan-ge? Hurry up!”

Yan Chen: “Coming, stop yelling.”

The dormitory door was soon closed from the outside, and the once noisy dormitory instantly quieted down.

The desk by the door was clean and tidy. The closed laptop was still in its original place, only the candy beside it had mysteriously disappeared.

“Last 50 meters! If you’re a man, charge forward!”

“Fuck, 3 minutes and 2 seconds, Yan-ge is about to cross the finish line!”

“3 minutes and 6 seconds, 07, 08, 09!”

“I’m convinced. It’s one second faster than last time. Yan-ge, have you considered switching directly to track and field?”

“And then the track and field department finds out Yan-ge is amazing at swimming and asks if he wants to switch to the swimming department? Are you playing nesting dolls here, huh?”

“That makes sense hahaha.”

Under the blazing sun, a group of tall and strong boys were laughing and joking over a childish topic.

Swimmers had great lung capacity. Even after running two and a half laps, they wouldn’t be as exhausted as normal people. At most, their breathing would be heavier, they’d pant more, or sweat a bit more.

Yan Chen was too lazy to pay attention to them. He lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his forehead, swept his gaze over the field, then raised his wrist to check the time.

15:55. It had been 5 minutes since the start of the third period class in the afternoon.

He put down his hand to grab a bottle of water, but halfway there, Dong Xi suddenly appeared from somewhere and gestured toward the entrance across the field: “Hey, Yan-ge, look over there.”

Facing the direction of the sunlight, Yan Chen turned his head and squinted his eyes to look.

Dong Xi: “The rumored treasured flower of the Foreign Languages Department? That kind of distinct appearance, I probably didn’t mistake him. He’s the one from the photo we saw…eh? Yan-ge, where are you going?”

“Oh~ he looks familiar.”

Yang Liang strolled over with a half full bottle of water, leisurely replacing Yan Chen at Dong Xi’s side.

Dong Xi watched Yan Chen walking toward Ye Wenyu’s back and after hearing Yang Liang’s words, squinted at him: “For real? You actually recognize someone?”

Yang Liang: “There aren’t many people this fair and bright-looking.”

Dong Xi: “Hmm, you’re making rapid progress. You only saw a photo once and still remember it. It looks like your face blindness might be curable.”

“Not just the photo.” Yang Liang said honestly, “I saw him in person yesterday too. He’s the one who held Yan-ge’s hand.”

Dong Xi: “Oh really~.”

Dong Xi: “…”

Dong Xi: “?”

Dong Xi: “Wait, what did you just say?”

There were many students training at this time. The track had runners everywhere, and a few people were kicking a ball on the lawn.

Ye Wenyu saw Yan Chen from a distance and, to avoid stopping in the middle of the field, stood in place and waited for him to come over. He handed over the bag with the shirt inside: “I already washed it. You can wear it directly.”

The boy’s skin was so white, like scallion whites stretched long. Standing under the sun, he almost glowed.

Yan Chen looked at him and suddenly felt that this scene seemed very familiar. He tried to recall it carefully but couldn’t remember when he had seen it before.

He took the bag and casually asked, “You just got out of class?”

A very common and polite greeting, but for some reason, coming from his mouth, it sounded subtly familiar.

“Yeah, just finished.”

While the other looked down, Ye Wenyu’s gaze swept over his lips and his brows furrowed slightly.

Probably because he had just done intense exercise under the scorching sun, Yan Chen’s lips looked clearly dry from dehydration, even a little pale.

And it seemed that Yan Chen just then remembered something else and said with a frank attitude, “Sorry, I left in a hurry this afternoon and forgot to bring your clothes.”

Ye Wenyu had already guessed that outcome the moment he saw Yan Chen walking over empty-handed.

He hid the slight satisfaction of his small scheme working out as expected: “It’s fine, next time is the same.”

Yan Chen lazily replied from his nose, “Next time I’ll bring it to you.”

As for when that “next time” would be, the two of them tacitly left it unspoken.

Every now and then, students training on the track ran past them, panting. On the other side of the field, a few idle guys from Class 1 gathered together, craning their necks and peeking this way.

Ye Wenyu didn’t notice because Yan Chen blocked his entire view.

“I bought this on the way, it hasn’t been opened.” He handed over the bottle of room-temperature mineral water.

Yan Chen didn’t act polite. He took the water without any hesitation, twisted the cap off and gulped down a couple of mouthfuls.

Ye Wenyu’s attention naturally found its landing point.

He stared without blinking as Yan Chen’s Adam’s apple moved as he drank water, then wiped away the water stains on his lips. After confirming that the previously chapped lips had returned to normal color after being moisturized, his brows relaxed silently.

His gaze lingered for a moment, then withdrew contentedly. When he looked down, he saw a piece of candy laid flat in a palm and held up in front of him.

Yan Chen’s forehead was covered with a thin layer of sweat that was about to evaporate. Facing the direction where the sun was strongest, he silently exuded a kind of quiet warmth: “Courtesy demands reciprocity.”

The tall boy naturally had big hands, with defined knuckles. His skin tone was different from Ye Wenyu’s white, it was the healthy, sun-kissed tone unique to athletes.

The exquisitely wrapped fruit candy lay in such a hand, and for some reason, the visible contrast was unexpectedly cute.

The scene overlapped, and Ye Wenyu suddenly remembered the last time they met in the supermarket and that bunny-shaped eraser.

He seemed to always be taking things from Yan Chen’s hand.

But the feeling wasn’t bad.

Not forgetting that the other party still had training, Ye Wenyu didn’t want to delay him. He accepted the candy and quickly left.

But Yan Chen, who was left standing in place, had a displeasure in his eyes so intense it almost climbed up to his brows.

It wasn’t the same as last time.

Just now, when Ye Wenyu took that piece of candy from his hand, his fingers moved lightly and quickly, withdrawing in an instant without even touching him.

“Tsk.” He switched the water bottle from his left hand to his right irritably, shook his wrist, and turned to head back.

Dong Xi stood next to the water dispenser. As soon as Yan Chen walked closer, he keenly noticed the extra shopping bag in his hand.

It was a semi-transparent bag so it wasn’t hard to recognize the black training uniform they wore during practice inside.

Then thinking about that slightly smaller white shirt in the dormitory, Dong Xi’s brain spun and suddenly, he had a flash of realization.

“Yan-ge.” He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Didn’t you say last time that you didn’t know anyone at the main campus?”

Yan Chen tore off the plastic wrapper on the mineral water bottle as usual, expressionless. “What’s the matter?”

Dong Xi: “Isn’t Ye Wenyu someone you know?”

Yan Chen: “No.”

Dong Xi: “Then… you met yesterday?”

Yan Chen: “Yeah.”

Dong Xi raised his eyebrows, clearly not buying it.

They had been dormmates for more than two years. Even if he didn’t understand Yan Chen completely, he at least had a good grasp of about seventy or eighty percent of him.

As a peer, Yan Chen was calm, strong, and seemingly omnipotent. He had a natural ability to make people admire, respect, and even willingly follow him.

But at the same time, he was indifferent, emotionally distant, the best example of someone who was cold-faced and cold-hearted. He might seem casual, but in reality, it was just that nothing caught his eye, and he couldn’t be bothered to care about anything.

On top of that, he had a serious aversion to physical touch and an overwhelming sense of personal space.

Dong Xi never doubted the possibility that when graduation day came, and everyone else was crying their eyes out because they didn’t want to part, Yan Chen could still calmly say goodbye without a flicker of emotion and turn around, never to be seen again.

It was like he didn’t have a heart…or if he did, he hid it so deep that others would need either incredible luck or an incredibly long time to reach it.

How could someone like that hold hands and lend clothes so openly to someone he’d only met for one day?

Just because they were both on the candidate list for school grass?

So Dong Xi really couldn’t figure it out. “Only one day, and you two are already…”

“Your candy is too big,” Yan Chen suddenly interrupted him.

Dong Xi: “Huh?”

Yan Chen, who was holding a half full bottle of mineral water, looked a little upset. “Next time, buy smaller ones.”