The high school student was quick, and when he came back, he was carrying two bags, and he placed them on the shou’s table.
The shou was still running a low fever, and his brain was sluggish. So he couldn’t keep up with the gong’s[footnote]top’s[/footnote] swift and decisive pace, or maybe he was caught off guard by the gong’s outward kindness, and he became even more sluggish.
The shou was inherently sensitive, timid, and not good at socialising.
“Porridge[footnote][/footnote], soup[footnote][/footnote], wonton noodles[footnote][/footnote]……” The high school student bent over and took out the food in the bag, all of which he had packed, “You pick what you want to eat.”
Feeling uneasy about the situation, the shou murmured, “Why did you buy so much……”
The high school student had no expression on his face and said, “I don’t know what you like to eat.”
“This is medicine,” The high school student pointed to another bag. He bought something to eat. Then, when he passed by the pharmacy, he took two steps past it and then went back. He took a bag of cough medicine, fever-reducing cold medicine, and other various things before he felt at ease.
The shou stared at the bag of medicine, dumbfounded, and said, “There is medicine at home.”
The high school student, seeing Shou’s reaction, seemed to realise he’d overdone it. He frowned slightly and mumbled, “Just leave it there.” He reached out and touched the shou’s forehead again, asking, “Are you still feeling uncomfortable?”
The shou stiffened up. The high school student was wearing a school uniform today, with the school badge on his chest. The clothes were half dry and half wet, outlining the boy’s solid and strong chest. The shou’s ears gradually became hot, and he whispered, “I’m not feeling uncomfortable anymore.”
The high school student said, “You haven’t eaten for a day?”
The shou blinked, glanced at the high school student, and then looked away, a little at a loss. The high school student said, “Eat something first; it will be cold later.”
The congee was meticulously prepared with lily bulbs and lean meat, a few red goji berries floating on top, soft and appealing. The soup was black-boned chicken broth, and the wonton noodles had bright red shrimp. Everything looked and smelt delicious.
The shou had slept all day without drinking a drop of water. So when he smelt the aroma of food, he felt a little hungry. He hesitated for a moment and looked at the porridge twice. The high school student kept staring at the shou and pushed the porridge directly in front of him.
The shou was taken aback. After a long time, he picked up the spoon. He looked at the spoon again and said softly, “Have you had dinner yet?”
The high school student said, “No.”
The shou pursed his lips and said, “You should sit down and eat too. There is so much.”
The high school student stared at his embarrassed look and was not polite at all. He directly dragged a chair and sat opposite the shou.
The two sat face-to-face. The porridge was warm and slid down their throats. And every part of their bodies was filled with a sense of satisfaction.
This was in the shou’s home. The light was warm yellow. The rain outside had not stopped knocking on the windows, but there was a different kind of tranquillity. The shou used to live cautiously, not even daring to get sick. When a person gets sick, he becomes fragile, and the loneliness and fear hidden in the dark would get ready to move, as if to devour him.
This was the first time that the shou felt at ease.
The shou can’t help but look at the boy in front of him. He was eating wonton noodles, and his posture was relaxed. The shou also relaxed unconsciously. For a moment, the shou actually felt a kind of intimacy that even he himself felt surprised by.
The shou drank two more mouthfuls of porridge uncomfortably and asked the gong, “Why don’t you go to class?”
The high school student glanced at him and said, “I don’t want to go.”
The high school student studied in the affiliated middle school. The shou had heard Qiu Qiu say that it was a top private school. The shou left school in his first year of high school, but he vaguely remembered that high school students were busy, not as casual as the person in front of him.
The shou was choked and kept silent. The high school student seemed to feel that what he said was too cold and hard. He wanted to say something. But no matter what he thought of to say, it felt like it would only make him seem particularly overbearing.
Most people always wanted to show their best side in front of the person they like, especially teenagers of the high school student’s age.
The high school student thought about it and said, “I can not go. The teacher said so.”
The shou’s eyes widened. In his grey and gloomy student days, this special treatment seemed to belong to geniuses.
The shou couldn’t help but praise, “Then your grades must be very good.”
“……” The high school student paused, recalling the school’s tacit approval. That stemmed from his junior high days, when he had been a notorious, extremely unruly bully, full of aggression, constantly fighting and skipping classes, so much so that all teachers had a headache when they saw him and could only turn a blind eye.
The high school student asked stiffly, “Do you like people with good grades?”
The shou looked at him blankly and said hesitantly, “I…… It’s okay — —”
The high school student pursed his lips and didn’t say anything, but the shou keenly noticed that he seemed a little unhappy. But he didn’t know why he was unhappy, so he could only clumsily coax him, “You’re very good. They must all like you……”
The high school student looked at him and said lightly, “Why do I want them to like me?”
The shou was speechless.
The high school student’s mood suddenly improved, and he said, “Drink porridge.”
Shou said “oh,” thinking to himself: Why are these kids nowadays so unpredictable and impossible to figure out? But that initial bit of fear he had felt towards the high school student had completely vanished.
After the two finished eating, it was the high school student who cleaned up. He didn’t let the shou move, and threw the mess on the table into the trash can.
The high school student also watched the shou taking the medicine attentively and told him to call him if he felt uncomfortable.
The shou was still dizzy until the high school student left. His fever had subsided, but somehow, the temperature of his cheeks had not dropped. He curled himself into the quilt, touched his cheek with the back of his hand, turned over, and looked at the snow-white ceiling.
The structure of this building was the same. Was the high school student’s bedroom upstairs from him? The shou thought about it endlessly, but when this thought came up, he felt ashamed. How old was the high school student? He was in the second year of high school, a minor — — He can’t think about him at all; he shouldn’t think about him.
The shou’s eyes suddenly stopped at the closet. There were skirts hanging in the closet, as if they were looking at him silently, just like the sneering looks in the past.
The shou’s face turned pale, and the sparks in his heart were immediately extinguished.
Translator’s corner
Thank you so much for reading the chapter. If you liked my translation and wanna support me, you can comment down your thoughts or send me a Kofi.
KO-FI
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