The C1 exam was approaching, and Ye Wenyu had been spending almost all his non-class time in the graduate exam prep classroom.
Yan Chen and his team had also intensified their training as closed training neared. The two of them barely saw each other during the day, except for a short moment before lights-out in the dorm at night.
The exam prep classroom was on its own floor and seats were always in high demand. Desks and even the floor were piled with study materials. If you didn’t arrive early to claim a spot, you couldn’t even find a temporary seat.
By lunchtime, people in the classroom gradually trickled out to eat. The room got emptier and quieter, and the sound of pens against paper and pages turning faded away.
When Ye Wenyu finally finished the practice test in his hands and looked up, only he and another couple remained.
The couple was sitting in front of him. It seemed like only the girl was studying for the exam, while the boy was just there to keep her company…passing her books, pens, or snacks, like a devoted little assistant.
Watching them reminded Ye Wenyu of how Yan Chen acted whenever he accompanied him to class or the library. He handled everything meticulously, even checking the weather in advance and making sure to bring him an umbrella or jacket.
But most of the time, Ye Wenyu didn’t really need help studying. During those moments, Yan Chen would find a random book to read or rest quietly with his head down on the desk.
It was like…even if there was nothing to do, he still wanted to stay close by.
The habit formed quickly. So quickly that now, when he turned and saw the empty seat beside him, he felt a hollow emptiness in his chest, like something was missing.
It was lunchtime, so Yan Chen was probably eating too.
He put down his pen and pulled out his phone to send Yan Chen a message. Just then, a message from Dong Xi popped up, asking if he was busy.
Ye Wenyu: [Not right now. What’s up?]
Dong Xi: [If you’re not busy, great! Do you want to come over to the swimming pool for a bit?]
Ye Wenyu: [What for?]
Dong Xi: [Yan-ge says he can’t swim fast anymore. He says there’s no audience, so he can’t swim faster. Audience, please hurry up and come.]
‘Can’t swim faster because there’s no audience?’
Ye Wenyu thought that didn’t sound like something Yan Chen would say. But Dong Xi wouldn’t ask him to come for no reason, so he quickly packed up and left the classroom.
Whatever the reason, going to see Yan Chen wasn’t a bad thing.
When he got to the swimming pool, five people were doing time-based training in the pool. Their speed and turnarounds were all fairly similar.
Ye Wenyu looked around on the poolside but didn’t see Yan Chen. Only Dong Xi gestured toward the pool, so he naturally assumed the one in front was Yan Chen.
But when he waited at the end of the lane for the swimmer to finish, the person who surfaced was a familiar-looking but unfamiliar male student. It wasn’t Yan Chen.
Ye Wenyu was stunned. Afraid that the other party might think he was looking for him, he quickly stepped back with some embarrassment. After looking around, he quickly spotted Yan Chen and walked over.
Facing Yan Chen’s questioning look, he explained in a low voice, “He was in first place, so I thought it was you.”
“You see that, Yan-ge?” Dong Xi said cheerfully. “You’re not in first place, and poor Wenyu mistook someone else for you.”
Yan Chen didn’t reply to that. He just asked Ye Wenyu, “What brings you here? Have you finished your practice questions for today?”
Ye Wenyu certainly wasn’t going to say Dong Xi asked him to come be the audience. “Almost. I’ve been stuck in the classroom all day and wanted to get out for a bit.”
Yan Chen: “Have you eaten?”
Ye Wenyu shook his head. “Not yet.”
Yan Chen frowned. “It’s getting late, you should quickly go and…”
“Hey, Wenyu, do you know him?” Dong Xi suddenly motioned toward the boy behind them. Ye Wenyu turned and saw it was the same person he had just mistaken for Yan Chen.
Ye Wenyu: “No. Who is he?”
Dong Xi: “He’s the champion from the last group selection match. He’s a very fast swimmer. The Little Black Dragon in the Waves!”
“Champion?” Ye Wenyu praised genuinely, “That’s amazing.”
Dong Xi: “Isn’t it?”
“It’s getting late,” Yan Chen put down his towel. “Watch for a bit longer, then go eat and take a proper nap, or you’ll get drowsy reading in the afternoon.”
Knowing he was talking about him, Ye Wenyu nodded obediently. “Okay.”
“Now” suddenly became “a bit longer”. Classmate Dong Xi grinned, seeing right through it but saying nothing.
The second round of training began. At the sound of the whistle, the five team members dove into the water at once.
This time, Yan Chen’s speed was clearly much faster than what Ye Wenyu had seen during the last race. He had already left all his group members behind, including the group selection champion, and was already halfway the one-way swimming course.
“How was that?” Dong Xi leaned over next to his ear. “Didn’t I tell you, Yan-ge can’t swim faster without an audience? I wasn’t lying, right?”
“It’s true, he’s much faster than before.” Ye Wenyu turned his head. “So, the last time in the group match, did Yan-ge make a mistake?”
Dong Xi said cheerfully, “You’re trying to ask why Yan-ge didn’t win the championship?”
Ye Wenyu nodded. “Yeah.”
Dong Xi replied easily, “Because that was just an entertainment match. Yan-ge didn’t participate, he was the referee, hahaha.”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
After the turn and reaching the finish line, Yan Chen was of course in first place, nearly three seconds faster than the second-place ‘champion’.
Ye Wenyu handed him a towel. Just then, the runner-up also crawled up from the water, dripping wet. As Ye Wenyu’s gaze swept over, it landed on the man’s waist and abdomen.
He had caught a glimpse earlier out of the corner of his eye and thought something was accidentally stuck there. But now that the swim was over and it was still there, he took a closer look. It turned out to be a small rabbit tattoo.
The placement and the content of this rabbit had a striking resemblance to Yan Chen’s tattoo from last time, which made Ye Wenyu glance at it twice more.
After finding that no one took the towel he handed out for a long time, Ye Wenyu retracted his gaze and looked up, only to find that Yan Chen was silently looking at him, his expression flat and the corners of his mouth tightly drawn.
“Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking at anything else. I just saw he had a tattoo on his stomach that looks a lot like yours from last time…”
His explanation was purely instinctive and as the words trailed off, a wave of heat suddenly rushed to Ye Wenyu’s face.
‘Why… why does this feel so weird?’
“It’s fine. If you want to look, just look.” Yan Chen lowered his eyes and took the towel from his hand. “I’m just your pursuer now. I have no right to tell you what to do.”
He was very clear about his own position and placed himself accordingly. But Ye Wenyu didn’t find this comfortable to hear.
He could fuss over all kinds of trivial things…so why not this?
But asking, “Why don’t you care?” would sound even weirder.
“Let’s go eat.” Yan Chen wiped the water from his hands and ruffled his hair. “Go back to the dorm for a nap after eating. The classroom’s too cold…don’t catch another cold.”
Ye Wenyu could only nod. “You too, go eat early.”
Dong Xi didn’t join the training, he just sat on the side watching the drama. Seeing the “audience” leave, he smiled and called out to Yan Chen, “Yan-ge, didn’t you say you’re too lazy to move during normal training? That swim just now broke your previous record again.”
Yan Chen ignored him.
The boy with the rabbit tattoo rubbed his hair a couple of times and ran over. “Yan-ge, Yan-ge, is today’s training over? I’m starving, can we go eat?”
Yan Chen: “Extra 500.”
The boy: “Huh?”
Yan Chen threw down the towel. “If your time isn’t within 2 seconds of mine in those 500, add another round.”
The boy: “Ah?!”
–
Ye Wenyu returned to the dormitory in the evening. Lights-out was approaching, and Yan Chen still hadn’t come back.
“He might not come back tonight,” Dong Xi said. “Tomorrow the backup candidates for the Universiade are going to the provincial stadium in the next city for a one-day trial. He’s probably still at the pool listening to instructions and might end up staying outside overnight.”
Ye Wenyu asked, “You guys don’t need to go?”
Right after he said that, he saw Yang Liang clutch his chest and make a dramatic expression as though stabbed in the heart.
Yang Liang: “Why don’t we need to go? Because we don’t want to? No, it’s because we didn’t get selected…wuuuuu.”
Ye Wenyu: “…Sorry.”
Yang Liang was right. That night, Yan Chen indeed didn’t return. Probably because it ended too late, and he didn’t want to come back just to shower and clean up, and risk waking them.
Ye Wenyu didn’t have class the next morning. He guessed that the sports students weren’t allowed to check their phones during training, so he specially set an alarm to wake up early and send Yan Chen a message.
But the next morning, before the alarm even rang, he vaguely heard the sound of the door opening and soft rustling noises around his bed.
He dozed off for a while in a half asleep state before suddenly realizing something. His head jerked up and he forced his sleepy eyes open. His vision wasn’t focused yet, but he still recognized the person in front of him was Yan Chen.
Not expecting him to wake at that moment, Yan Chen paused briefly, then continued tucking the blanket around him, speaking in a low voice: “Did I wake you?”
Ye Wenyu shook his head with heavy eyelids. His voice was still hoarse with sleep, “Why are you back? Don’t you have training?”
Yan Chen: “I’m heading out soon. I left breakfast on your desk. Eat it when you wake up.”
Ye Wenyu let out a weak “mm” through his nose and asked again, “Can you check your phone during training?”
Yan Chen: “Not during the day. At night, yes.”
Ye Wenyu’s eyelids were too heavy to keep open. “Then I’ll message you during the day. Make sure you reply at night.”
Yan Chen: “Okay.”
As his vision finally blurred shut, the figure before him also disappeared. Ye Wenyu felt something brush against his face, followed by a faint fragrance wafting into his nose.
He lifted his hand unconsciously and happened to grab Yan Chen’s. The message he had planned to send early no longer needed to be sent, and he mumbled with the last sliver of awareness: “Yan Chen, good luck with training…”
What answered him was a low, short chuckle.
Looking at the person who fell back asleep in under half a minute, Yan Chen gently withdrew his hand from Ye Wenyu’s grasp and placed a small osmanthus twig he’d picked on the way back next to his pillow:
“Thank you.”
