Yan Chen was straightforward and casual, he said he wouldn’t go, so he wouldn’t go. But Ye Wenyu wasn’t the same. He kept thinking, what if Yan Chen’s uncle and aunt found out? Would they think he was impolite?
News traveled fast in families. Would it end up with the entire Yan family thinking he was impolite?
He hadn’t even formally met the parents yet, and the first impression was already bad.
The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. He couldn’t help but ask Yan Chen during the meal, “Are we really not going to Uncle’s house?”
Yan Chen raised an eyebrow slightly, and looked at him with a hint of amusement in his eyes.
Ye Wenyu was puzzled. “What?”
Yan Chen: “Nothing. You want to go to my uncle’s house?”
To be honest, he didn’t want to go. He wasn’t ready to meet the parents yet. “I just feel like… since we’re already here, it’d seem kind of rude not to pass by.”
Yan Chen: “There’s nothing rude about it. Have you ever seen a date that involves visiting relatives?”
Fair enough. That did make some sense.
Yan Chen added, “Don’t worry, there’ll be many chances to meet them later.”
Ye Wenyu nodded reluctantly, then asked, “What does registering at the city hall mean? Is it something all tourists have to do when they enter the country, or is it just for Paris?”
Yan Chen: “It’s not that kind of registration.”
Ye Wenyu asked again, “Didn’t your cousin say we have to register at city hall first?”
Yan Chen curled his lips. “The registration he meant…you can think of Paris city hall as the Civil Affairs Bureau in China.”
“…”
Ye Wenyu fell silent. Suddenly he understood the look Yan Chen gave him earlier.
He had blurted out “Uncle” instead of “your uncle”.
How did he say that so naturally…
The more he thought about it, the more embarrassed he felt, and his face started to get hot.
His thoughts were written all over his face. In order to spare him from further embarrassment, Yan Chen held back his laughter and pretended not to notice. “Foreigners think simply. Don’t worry about him. Let’s eat.”
Ye Wenyu lowered his head and didn’t want to lift it again.
Pretending to be focused on eating, he worked hard to find a topic to show how calm he was. “By the way, why was your cousin selling balloons at the square?”
Yan Chen: “School requirement. It’s something like our social practice.”
Ye Wenyu: “But can selling balloons actually get a practice certificate with an official stamp?”
Yan Chen: “Usually the parents just sign it. That’s our uncle’s business.”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
He decided he should just shut up and eat.
After the meal, their next stop was the Eiffel Tower.
During the day, the Eiffel Tower didn’t have its light show and its towering iron structure evoked more of a solemn awe in those who looked up at it.
Fortunately, their hotel wasn’t far, and the room had been specially chosen by Yan Chen. When looking out from the balcony at night, they had a perfect view of the entire tower.
There were 1,711 steps. With every viewing platform they reached, the horizon expanded a little more, and the scenery became broader and more beautiful.
Standing at the third platform, Ye Wenyu leaned on the railing, looking down at the whole of Paris. The wind gently lifted his hair, and behind him stretched blue skies and white clouds, the vast city laid out below.
For a moment, it was hard to tell whether the person had become part of the scene, or the scenery made the person stand out.
Yan Chen casually leaned next to him, the corners of his mouth tilted up. He had never taken his camera lens off Ye Wenyu.
Among a crowd of mostly white tourists, the two attractive Oriental faces formed a captivating sight of their own. Many people passing by would subconsciously glance at them.
People in love naturally gave off a special kind of magnetic field. Without doing anything overly intimate, the two of them seemed to be surrounded by an invisible barrier, creating a world where only they existed, leaving no space for others to interrupt.
The January wind carried a chill, sweeping across them from above. Yan Chen reached out and adjusted Ye Wenyu’s scarf to block the wind from slipping into his collar. “Are you cold?”
Ye Wenyu shook his head and held his hand, letting him feel his body warmth. “I’m warm.”
Waves of tourists came and went one after another. Just as they were about to leave, Yang Liang made a video call to Ye Wenyu at the right moment.
“I really don’t want to interrupt your date,” Yang Liang’s pitiful face appeared on the screen, “but I’m just too bored at home. Dong Xi went back to his girlfriend’s hometown, and the internet there is so bad it turns video calls into a PPT.”
He was sitting cross-legged on a carpet, and from the projected image on the wall behind him, he seemed to be in a living room. “Wait, I said that wrong…I’m not even home. I’m squatting at my sister’s place helping her babysit. Family, this is a pain mask moment!”
Just as he finished speaking, a pair of chubby hands reached out from behind him and ruffled his hair into a mess. A child who looked about four or five popped their head out, giggling nonstop.
Yang Liang cried out in exaggerated pain, “Be gentle! Be gentle! I don’t have that much hair to begin with! You’re going to scratch me bald! You better start saving money to buy me a wig!”
The child didn’t understand and just kept doing whatever made them happy, practically climbing on top of his head.
He looked so miserable, it was really a mask of pain.
Ye Wenyu leaned back against the railing, and Yan Chen tilted his head to watch the screen with him. “Didn’t he say he was helping his cousin babysit? How did it become his sister now?”
“Don’t pull my ears. If you don’t behave I’m going to smack you.”
After warning his niece, Yang Liang took a moment to answer them, “My cousin used his vacation days to take the child on a trip. My sister and her husband originally planned to go abroad too, and even made a shopping list, but something urgent came up at work, so the list was scrapped and the kid got dumped on me.”
Ye Wenyu praised him, “You’re really good with kids.”
Yang Liang pointed to his own nose in disbelief. “Me? Wenyu, that compliment is too fake. I’m not babysitting, I’m just being unilaterally bullied as a playmate! But where are you guys, anyway? I’ve never seen this place.”
As he fended off his niece’s hand trying to dig in his nose, he leaned closer to the phone to get a better look. “Wenyu, the river and that building behind you look really nice!”
Ye Wenyu glanced back and told him, “That’s the Seine River.”
Yan Chen added, “And the Palais de Chaillot.”
The name Palais de Chaillot was still a bit too obscure for Yang Liang. He’d never even heard of it. But the Seine River rang a bell. It sounded very familiar.
Yang Liang asked, “Where exactly is the Seine River? Did you guys leave the province?”
Yan Chen: “Yeah.”
Yang Liang: “That’s so nice, I want to go out too. Next time you go, can you bring…hey! I give up! You’re going to grab my phone too? Can’t you go play with your bubble machine?”
The video jolted, and Yang Liang’s face disappeared. In its place was a soft, fair little girl with pigtails and big round eyes, as cute as a porcelain doll.
Ye Wenyu liked kids, especially such well-behaved ones. He subconsciously smiled at her. “Hello, little one.”
After speaking, he turned to look at Yan Chen. The other party caught the signal from his boyfriend’s eyes and obediently followed, also saying to the video, “Hello.”
The little niece held the phone in both hands and looked at them curiously with her big watery eyes.
Yang Liang squeezed half his head back into the frame. “Her name’s Xiao Longbao.”
Just as he finished speaking, the chubby hands behind him gave him a strong shove.
Xiao Longbao wrinkled her nose and glared at him, her baby voice still sticky and soft. “Go play with your bubble machine. Don’t bother me while I’m talking to gege.”
“Gege?” Yang Liang’s voice rose to a pitch that almost cracked, sounding like a chicken cry. “You silly kid, you’ve got the generation wrong! You should call them Uncle.”
Xiao Longbao insisted. “They’re gege!”
Yang Liang tried to explain what generational hierarchy meant. “They’re your uncle’s classmates, the same age as me. Calling them gege isn’t right.”
“Same age?” Xiao Longbao glanced back and forth between the phone and Yang Liang. “But they look younger than you. I don’t care, I’m calling them gege. Gege, gege, gege!”
Yang Liang: “…”
Kids are really too cute. Ye Wenyu couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s fine, gege is okay. Xiao Longbao can call us whatever she likes.”
“Are you sure?” Yan Chen reminded him with a good-natured smile, “If she calls you gege, then you’ll have to call Lao Yang “Uncle”. Are you okay with that?”
Yang Liang caught it with his sharp ears and his eyes lit up. ‘Hey, that’s actually not bad…’
Ye Wenyu: “…”
Ye Wenyu immediately frowned and corrected her seriously. “Be good, Xiao Longbao, call us Uncle.”
Yan Chen leaned on his shoulder, stifling his laughter.
Yang Liang was worn out mentally and physically from his niece’s torment, and was more than happy to let her keep chatting with Ye Wenyu and Yan Chen. Preferably, they could chat all day so that he could lie down and finally have a good sleep.
Unfortunately, beautiful wishes are often shattered. Yan Chen had Ye Wenyu’s date still had to go on, and his suffering would resume right after this break.
A one-day holiday is short, but as they walked and made occasional stops, they somehow stretched it into something wondrously long.
They toured the classics, had dinner while basking in the French night view, and took a slow stroll along the Seine River back to the hotel. The river reflected the dazzling lights on both sides of the river. In the distance, the glowing tip of the Eiffel Tower pierced the sky.
Back in the room, a staff member brought up a basket of nice-looking grapes. Yan Chen tasted one first to confirm it was sweet, then took the basket away to wash them again before giving them to Ye Wenyu.
The Eiffel Tower was now fully lit up. It looked more modern, dazzling and eye-catching compared to daytime. The searchlights cast a golden glow over the entire square, and the bulbs on the tower twinkled, looking radiant.
Ye Wenyu stood on the balcony admiring the view for a while. He planned to grab the camera for a few souvenir shots, but before he could find it, another video call from Yang Liang came in.
“Fuck, it just hit me! The Seine River!” Old Yang’s vocal cords trembled with excitement, his voice nearly breaking, “You didn’t just leave the province, you went abroad! It’s only three days for New Year’s! You really went abroad!”
Ye Wenyu had no idea how to respond to this roundabout brain circuit and simply asked, “Do you want to see the tower?”
Yang Liang was confused. “What tower?”
Ye Wenyu flipped the camera.
Yang Liang gasped, “Ahhh, the Eiffel Tower. So beautiful.”
Yang Liang: “You guys really went to France!”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
Ye Wenyu really wasn’t good at dealing with overexcited friends, so he just took the phone and went to find Yan Chen.
“What’s wrong?” Yan Chen casually popped a grape into Ye Wenyu’s mouth.
Ye Wenyu bit into the grape, then raised the phone to show him.
Yan Chen looked at Yang Liang and asked calmly, “What do you want?”
Yang Liang exclaimed, “You guys actually went to France! On a holiday that’s shorter than a fart! Didn’t you need to transfer after flying here and there? Isn’t it exhausting?”
“Private jet goes direct,” Yan Chen said, feeding Ye Wenyu another grape. “Is it sweet?”
Ye Wenyu nodded repeatedly.
Yang Liang: “?”
Yang Liang: “You guys are rich and in love, and still asking me if it’s sweet on video-call? Are you even human?”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Yan Chen replied, taking the phone from Ye Wenyu and handing him the fruit basket. Once Ye Wenyu had a grip on it, his feet suddenly left the floor, and his vision rose.
Startled, he reflexively wrapped his arms around Yan Chen. Then he heard Yang Liang shouting, “I…what the heck you two…hey? Why is the screen black now? Don’t just cut to voice! I’m not afraid of eating dog food, okay? At least let me look at the tower while you guys make out!”
Ye Wenyu knew Yan Chen was strong, but he hadn’t expected him to be this strong. He was an adult young man after all, weighing over a hundred pounds, and yet Yan Chen could lift him with one arm.
After the initial shock, he quietly popped a grape into his mouth. He had to admit, sitting in his boyfriend’s arms like this… was an unexpected kind of experience.
“Nope,” Yan Chen carried Ye Wenyu toward the balcony and addressed the phone, “If it’s important, speak. If not, I’m hanging up.”
Yang Liang hurriedly said, “Wait, wait, it’s important!”
Yang Liang: “It’s about my aunt…you know, the one I mentioned earlier. She originally planned to go to France too and even made a shopping list, but work ruined it. Now that she heard I have classmates in France, she wants them to help bring some stuff back.”
Once they reached the balcony, Yan Chen set Ye Wenyu down. “Let me see the list.”
Yang Liang quickly sent the list to Ye Wenyu’s phone. Yan Chen opened it, and Ye Wenyu leaned in to look. The list was so long the screen couldn’t fit it all and had to be scrolled.
Yan Chen didn’t even look carefully before turning off the image. “We’re going back early tomorrow. There’s too much on the list, we can’t buy it all.”
“Right? I said the same! Auntie! Auntie, hey!”
Yang Liang ran off to relay the message to his aunt. Ye Wenyu fed Yan Chen a grape, and Yan Chen bit down, smoothly kissing his fingertip as a sign of thanks.
Ye Wenyu raised his head and stared at him until Yang Liang’s shouting voice came closer. Suddenly, Ye Wenyu hooked his arm around Yan Chen’s neck and pulled him down, clumsily planting a kiss on his lips.
He tried to retreat after the kiss, but was caught by the back of his neck and had his teeth pried open for a deeper one.
Yang Liang: “I told my aunt we can only buy three things. I told her to pick three, and nothing bulky…definitely nothing that would need to be checked in. Is that okay?”
Yang Liang: “Hello? Is three still too many? How about just two then?”
Yang Liang: “Why aren’t you talking? Hello? Hey? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” Yan Chen’s lazy voice finally came from the other end. “What did you say? I wasn’t listening. Say it again.”
Yang Liang: “What were you doing? I just said bring two bottles of perfume for my aunt…”
Facing Yan Chen’s teasing gaze, Ye Wenyu’s head felt like it was about to steam. He didn’t say anything, just hugged the basket of grapes and quietly retreated behind Yan Chen, resting his forehead against his back.
Even eating grapes looked so good on him. His old habit flared up again and he just couldn’t help it.
