Yang Liang was the only shining single dog comrade left in dorm 508.
Normally, he didn’t feel too much about it. After all, Dong Xi couldn’t bring his girlfriend into the dorm, and Yan Chen and Ye Wenyu weren’t the type to publicly show affection. Plus, they had moved out after finals, so he barely saw them anymore.
But tonight was different. Everyone sat around the same dinner table, two couples, plus Xiao Chi, who was busy texting his mom and was often mistaken for being in a long-distance relationship. Pink bubbles were gurgling up everywhere, about to drown him.
He put a piece of meat into his mouth and glanced now and then at Dong Xi doting on his girlfriend, and then at Yan Chen and Ye Wenyu whispering with their heads together. Suddenly, he put down his chopsticks and let out a long sigh.
Chi Dongting happened to look up and caught it. Half-suspicious, he took the same dish: “It’s not bad. Why’re you sighing? Did you get splashed with oil?”
Yang Liang: “No, I got splashed with dryness.”
Dong Xi scooped a bowl of soup for Lianlian, and looked up at that: “What the hell?”
“I need a bit of the nourishment of love.” He waved at Dong Xi. “Give me a bowl too.”
Dong Xi frowned. “Brother, I have a girlfriend. A big, real one, sitting right here. Can’t you see?”
Yang Liang: “I can see. What… no! What are you thinking! I said I need the nourishment of love, not that I want to date you. I’m not that undiscerning, okay?!”
Dong Xi: “Huh? Don’t drag down my reputation. I’m a perfectly decent boyfriend.”
Yang Liang: “Even if you’re decent, I still don’t want you.”
Dong Xi: “Funny. Like I wanted you or something.”
Chi Dongting frowned: “What are you two even talking about?”
Lianlian covered her mouth and giggled on the side: “Old Yang wants to fall in love, huh?”
Old Yang was hit right on the nose, and instantly became embarrassed. He went quiet.
Dong Xi looked around the table, then understood and teased, “Wasn’t someone always saying love’s a waste of time? Now you can’t sit still anymore?”
Yang Liang pouted: “Who says I can’t sit still? I’m not that young anymore. At this age, of course I need to start thinking about what people my age should be thinking about…”
Teasing looks came from all directions. Dong Xi’s eyes practically had big flashing words on them: “Nice story, say whatever, we’ll believe anything.”
Yang Liang: “…”
He deflated. “Okay fine, I just want to be in a relationship. Can’t I?”
A one-track-minded guy wanting to fall in love…big news.
Ye Wenyu and Yan Chen exchanged a glance, then both looked at the main character.
Dong Xi: “You should’ve said so earlier. Lianlian has a few single friends. Do you want us to introduce you sometime?”
“Really?! Then I…no, wait, wait, wait.”
Yang Liang stopped himself halfway, hesitating. “That feels so unnatural, like a blind date. So weird.”
Ye Wenyu wanted to laugh, but he pursed his lips to hold it back and pretended to organize Yan Chen’s collar.
Chi Dongting: “Then what kind of natural do you want?”
Yang Liang racked his brain. “Like… like something that just happens naturally, water flows and a channel forms, you know… Like you, Old Dong, how did you and your wife meet?”
Dong Xi: “We were middle school classmates.”
Yang Liang: “Middle school? You two got together that early?”
“Not exactly,” Lianlian said. “In middle school, he gave me a love letter tucked inside an Oxford dictionary. I never flipped through it until high school. So technically, we only started dating in high school.”
Chi Dongting laughed. “Seriously? Who would flip through something as thick as a dictionary and find that?”
Dong Xi looked helpless. “I blank out when I get nervous. I snuck back into the classroom during PE, didn’t want to get caught, and her desk only had that dictionary.”
“You were dating early, impressive,” Yang Liang gave a token nod of approval, then slumped again. “But it’s too late for me to do that now. We don’t even have girls in our class… Hey Yan-ge, Wenyu, what about you two? How did you meet?”
He thought of something and said: “You must’ve met in college, right? That would be more useful as reference for me. Come on, tell me?”
Ye Wenyu: “We…”
Yan Chen: “Who told you we met in college?”
“?” Ye Wenyu looked at Yan Chen in confusion.
The latter remained calm: “We’ve known each other since we were kids. We lived in the same compound before elementary school.”
Ye Wenyu: “?”
That happened? How come he didn’t know about this?
Even he, the actual party, didn’t know. So obviously, no one else at the table knew either.
Yang Liang was dumbfounded. “For real? I never heard you say that before.”
Dong Xi was confused too, turning to look at Chi Dongting, only to find Chi Dongting looked even more lost.
Yan Chen: “It’s a long story. I was just too lazy to bring it up before.”
Yang Liang: “Wow! So you’re childhood sweethearts, the kind that grew up together?”
Yan Chen lazily gave an “mm”: “Yeah, childhood sweethearts, but we didn’t grow up together. After elementary school started, Wenyu moved abroad with his family.”
Ye “born and raised in Wucheng” Wenyu: “…”
Chi Dongting: “Wenyu, you went to elementary school abroad? Where?”
Ye Wenyu didn’t even know where he supposedly went. He silently looked at Yan Chen.
Yan Chen: “America.”
Chi Dongting: “I heard American school lunches taste terrible, is that true?”
Ye Wenyu: “…Probably.”
Yang Liang: “So? You two got separated in elementary school and never saw each other again?”
“Not until middle school.” Yan Chen: “After starting middle school, I took a trip to the U.S. alone during summer break. I searched through several states before finally finding him in Nevada.”
Lianlian looked dazed. “Wow.”
Dong Xi bit his cheek, looking conflicted.
Chi Dongting, Yang Liang: “Fuck, that’s hardcore! In middle school, I was still competing with classmates to see who could roll an iron hoop faster, and you, Yan-ge, had already traveled across half of America on your own!”
Ye Wenyu picked up a piece of smashed cucumber and popped it in his mouth like a snack to go with a storytelling session…it was quite delicious.
Lianlian: “And then? Did you two get together?”
Yan Chen: “No.”
Yang Liang: “Why not?”
Yan Chen: “Because Wenyu had already forgotten me back then.”
Yang Liang: “Huh?!”
“Plop!”…the piece of cucumber Xiao Ye had just picked up fell back into the bowl.
“What?” Lianlian clutched Dong Xi’s sleeve nervously. “Wenyu lost his memory?”
Chi Dongting whipped his head around to look at Wenyu. “Did something happen?”
“…Probably not?” Ye Wenyu turned back to Yan Chen to confirm. “It must’ve just been too long, so I forgot, right?”
Yan Chen raised an eyebrow: “Or maybe you were angry at me for not coming to find you for so long and pretended not to recognize me?”
What could Ye Wenyu say? He was completely speechless.
Chi Dongting let out a breath: “As long as there was no accident.”
Lianlian: “So then, did you return to China together?”
Yan Chen: “No. Wenyu ignored me, so after I came back, I wrote him over ten letters every week and mailed them to him. Every school break, I’d go visit. It wasn’t until we graduated middle school that I barely managed to coax him into softening up.”
Lianlian: “Wow.”
Yang Liang: “Wow.”
Dong Xi’s brow furrowed…something about this story felt increasingly off.
Chi Dongting: “Wenyu, you were really hard to coax as a kid.”
Ye Wenyu stayed silent for a moment, then simply asked Yan Chen, “And after starting high school?”
Yan Chen: “Didn’t I run away from home to find you?”
Ye Wenyu: “You did?”
Yan Chen: “Didn’t we meet in Las Vegas?”
Lianlian: “Las Vegas?”
Yang Liang: “How did you end up there?”
Yan Chen: “I ran away from home and spent all my money, so I found a temporary job there.”
Chi Dongting: “What kind of job?”
Yan Chen: “Dealer.”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
Yan Chen: “Wenyu came to play with his friends, and I was assigned to deal cards for them.”
Ye Wenyu: “…”
A 20-degree cocktail wouldn’t get someone so drunk they couldn’t tell east from west, but drink too much and it would still go to your head.
After dinner, it was already quite late. The sky had darkened, and the group walked together for a while, escorting Chi Dongting to the gate of his apartment complex before parting ways.
Yang Liang wholeheartedly believed in Yan Chen and Ye Wenyu’s story. As they left, he even praised their relationship as solid as gold and insisted they must stay together, even promising that he’d give a big red envelope for their wedding someday.
Ye Wenyu was speechless.
There weren’t many people on the road. and they slowly walked back home under the street lights.
After they passed through the community gate, there was no one around at all. Dense greenery covered the streetlights, casting scattered shadows on the ground. When the wind blew, they swayed and flickered.
Ye Wenyu suddenly stopped, turned, and leaned against Yan Chen’s arm.
Yan Chen rubbed his head. “What’s wrong?”
Ye Wenyu let out a faint sigh. “Your guaiguai can’t walk anymore.”
Yan Chen couldn’t help laughing. He knew the two bottles of cocktails someone drank wouldn’t be in vain.
Yan Chen: “Do you want to be carried on my back or in my arms?”
Ye Wenyu hugged him, then said, “Whatever.”
Yan Chen curled his lips, and with that hug, he scooped him up face to face like carrying a child, supporting his back. “Be good and hold on tight. If you fall and someone else picks you up, I’m not taking responsibility.”
Ye Wenyu mumbled something in dissatisfaction and tightened his arms around him.
Yan Chen carried a lazy little sloth, strolling unhurriedly back home. Ye Wenyu rested on his shoulder, watching the overlapping shadows of the two of them on the ground, and suddenly asked, “What about your real childhood sweetheart?”
Yan Chen: “What?”
Ye Wenyu turned his face, his cheek pressing against Yan Chen’s shoulder. “Who is Maoqiu? I’ve never known.”
Maoqiu…the name was familiar yet unfamiliar. Yan Chen took about two minutes to recall before chuckling. “Take a guess?”
Ye Wenyu guessed several girls from their class in one go, and Yan Chen denied each one: “Why do you think Maoqiu must be a girl?”
Ye Wenyu said, “Because Maoqiu sounds really cute.”
Yan Chen felt another laugh coming.
The half-drunk Classmate Xiao Ye was just too cute…quiet, clingy, and loved to act spoiled, but even like this, he was so well-behaved.
Yan Chen: “Maoqiu is the chinchilla my aunt raised.”
Ye Wenyu lifted his head. “Chinchilla?”
Yan Chen nodded. “When they returned to China before, they brought it along for a while.”
Ye Wenyu still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “Foreign chinchillas have QQ accounts too?”
This time Yan Chen couldn’t hold it in at all. He lowered his head and laughed so hard his shoulders shook.
It took the whole walk home from the fountain to explain to Ye Wenyu that it wasn’t the chinchilla that had a QQ account, but that his cousin had applied for the account, and he just commandeered it. Maoqiu wasn’t a little girl, but a tough guy in a cute disguise.
Ye Wenyu stared at him. “You infiltrated our class group.”
Yan Chen admitted openly, “Yes.”
Ye Wenyu: “Pretended to be a classmate.”
Yan Chen: “Right.”
Ye Wenyu: “Added me and acted like a girl.”
Yan Chen: “That’s one way to put it.”
Ye Wenyu: “Why?”
Yan Chen pressed his fingerprint on the lock: “Because I wanted to talk to you.”
Ye Wenyu leaned his forehead against his: “Wanted to talk to me?”
Yan Chen pushed open the door, turned on the light, and carried him inside: “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you but couldn’t find a chance, so I had to sneak into your class group chat.”
Ye Wenyu: “So that’s why you gave us the swimming lane so easily, and even let me be the one to talk to you.”
Yan Chen: “Exactly. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a chance to see you.”
He was about to set Ye Wenyu down, but was suddenly kissed by the latter.
Ye Wenyu rubbed his nose tip: “Then do you know what I was thinking at that time?”
Yan Chen’s voice carried a smile: “What were you thinking?”
Ye Wenyu: “I was thinking, what can I do to see you all the time?”
Yan Chen curved his lips, and his smile deepened: “Now you can. Do you want me to carry you to shower?”
Ye Wenyu didn’t answer right away. After a moment of silence, he looked into Yan Chen’s eyes and whispered, “I’ve finished my exams.”
Yan Chen: “Mm, congratulations on the start of your holiday.”
Ye Wenyu: “No need to congratulate me for that.”
Yan Chen: “Then what should I congratulate you for?”
“Nothing,” Ye Wenyu hugged him tighter and buried his head again: “Boyfriend, do you want to take a shower together?”
