Ye Xi clutched the boxes of chocolate and fled back to his dorm in a fluster.
His dorm was on the third floor, but he didn’t even wait for the elevator—just sprinted up the stairs.
Even after getting inside, he still felt dazed. His heart was pounding from the rush up the stairs, his face flushed pink, and his eyes slightly watery. It was hard to tell if it was from the heat or the restless storm inside him.
He leaned against the door. The plain, tidy dorm room gave him a sense of safety—helping him momentarily escape the nerve-wracking atmosphere Bai Yue had created. His back slowly slumped, his legs weakened a bit, no longer as straight and stiff as a tree branch. Only his breathing remained faster than usual.
His roommate, who was also his deskmate, heard the noise and peeked down from his bunk.
He instantly noticed something was off—Ye Xi was still leaning against the door, arms full of what looked like snacks, chest rising and falling, face and lips flushed red.
“What the hell were you doing? You look like a dog’s been chasing you,” his roommate asked curiously from the top bunk. But he quickly spotted the bandage on Ye Xi’s forehead and freaked out. “What happened to your head? Who hit you? Did you get into a fight again?”
Ye Xi’s heartbeat gradually returned to normal. Hearing his roommate’s questions, he chuckled quietly and shook his head. “No. Some underclassmen were flying a drone on school grounds and it hit me.”
“Damn, what the hell is wrong with those guys?” The roommate got even angrier. He rolled up his sleeves and climbed down from the bed. “Did you get back at them? This isn’t over. I’m gonna report them to the dean…”
He was halfway down the ladder when Ye Xi said,
“It’s fine. Bai Yue happened to be there and had them dragged to the dean’s office. The teachers will handle it. The wound isn’t serious—he took me to the hospital. The doctor said it’s nothing, just disinfected it…”
His voice grew softer and more awkward toward the end.
His roommate nearly slipped off the ladder.
Barely managing to land on the floor, he whipped his head around to look at Ye Xi.
“Wait, who? Bai Yue?” His eyes widened. “Didn’t he already graduate?”
Ye Xi rubbed his nose. He knew exactly why his roommate was reacting this way.
His roommate’s name was Li Rui. They had been classmates from middle school through high school, desk partners for three of those six years. You could almost call them childhood friends.
Both were terrible students—skipping class, gaming in internet cafes, copying each other’s homework, covering for each other when they dozed off in class. True ride-or-die brothers.
What’s more, they had another thing in common.
When they hit puberty, both of these good, proper boys realized they liked men.
Li Rui came out first—shyly—and assured Ye Xi he would never have feelings for his own bro.
Ye Xi casually responded with an “oh” and, with his expressionless face, calmly revealed that he was gay too.
From that moment on, their bond was unbreakable.
They leveled up from bros to soulmates, even swapping game time for flipping through magazines filled with muscle-bound men.
So while others might not know what was going on beneath Ye Xi’s poker face, Li Rui could see through him completely.
He knew exactly how hopelessly smitten Ye Xi was with Bai Yue—and how deeply unrequited it was.
Now looking at Ye Xi, who had buried his head again, face taut but still radiating a spring-like glow, Li Rui got excited.
“Hey hey hey, come on, tell me everything,” he slid over to the desk, even pulled out Ye Xi’s chair for him, and patted the table enthusiastically, waiting for Ye Xi to sit down. “Why did Bai Yue go to the hospital with you? What did you two do?”
Ye Xi pressed his lips together.
He found Li Rui extremely annoying in this gossip-hungry state—it made him embarrassed to speak. But Li Rui was the only person he was this close with, someone he could literally share a pair of pants with. Besides him, there really was no one else he could confide in.
Ye Xi slowly walked over to the desk and placed the chocolates down.
“Actually, nothing really happened,” he tried to sound calm and concise. “Bai Yue was back at school playing basketball with my brother. I got hit by a drone at the court, so he happened to see it. You know what Bai Yue’s like—always helpful. So he took me to the hospital right away…”
At this point, Ye Xi almost sighed.
That’s just the kind of person Bai Yue was—gentle, kind, elegant. He’d even show pity to stray cats and dogs, let alone a schoolmate he was slightly acquainted with.
Seeing the eager sparkle in Li Rui’s eyes, Ye Xi knew exactly what he was expecting.
But unfortunately, he couldn’t satisfy Li Rui’s thirst for gossip. He calmly looked back at him. “Don’t look at me like that. Nothing happened. We didn’t lose our minds and kiss, and there wasn’t any dramatic accident that made Bai Yue impulsively hug me. After my checkup turned out fine, he bought me dinner, and that was it.”
They were all scenarios he and Li Rui had joked about in the dorm, but sadly, not a single one came true.
“Ugh…” Li Rui groaned in disappointment.
He knew that with Ye Xi’s uptight nature, even if he had fantasized about Bai Yue in a hundred steamy scenarios in his head and practiced all kinds of moves from adult novels, the moment he faced the real Bai Yue, he’d chicken out like a snail.
But still, hearing Ye Xi’s flat and uneventful report, Li Rui dramatically leaned back like his soul had left his body.
“You really let me down. A golden opportunity like that and you just let it go?” Li Rui shouted, sounding like an obsessed fan who just watched their favorite couple crash and burn. “Come on! Seduce him! Kiss him! Corner him and say, ‘You’re not leaving unless you take your clothes off!’”
Ye Xi: “…”
He looked at Li Rui like he was a complete idiot. He wanted to—but probably the moment he moved, Bai Yue would pin him down.
Li Rui let out an even louder sigh. He knew what he said was ridiculous.
He was just talking big.
But he couldn’t help being disappointed with how timid Ye Xi was, and gave his best bro the middle finger.
“Not to criticize, but you’re really too much of a coward. Sure, ignore what I just said, that was nonsense—but you had a perfect chance and just let it go. You were already out with Bai Yue. You could’ve used the excuse of thanking him for the hospital visit to ask him out to a movie or shopping. You’re not strangers. He probably wouldn’t have refused. Why do you always avoid him like this?”
Ye Xi had been looking calm, but froze when he heard that.
Right.
He totally could’ve used the excuse of thanking Bai Yue to ask him to hang out a little longer.
But he’d been too nervous, eating like he was in prison, and the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Li Rui could read Ye Xi’s face and knew exactly what he was thinking.
He sighed like a disappointed parent. “Dating requires action. If you’re not the one taking the first step, nothing will happen. You can’t just wait for Bai Yue to suddenly have an epiphany and realize you like him.”
As he spoke, Li Rui climbed onto a chair to pull out a cup of instant noodles from his locker.
He hummed, “Don’t wait until Bai Yue sends you a wedding invitation while you’re still here crying over your crush. That would be way too tragic.”
That last line hit Ye Xi right where it hurt. His lips moved, wanting to argue.
How was he not making any effort?
When Bai Yue—who rarely posted—updated his Moments, Ye Xi would time his likes carefully, hiding among the crowd—not too early, not too late.
He saved every one of Bai Yue’s photos, and had printed so many that they could fill an entire photo album—the kind that, if discovered, would get him labeled a creep.
He knew everything about Bai Yue: his preferences, favorite flavors, awards. He even watched the same movie as Bai Yue—just from the last row in the theater, where Bai Yue wouldn’t see him.
He even cooked for Bai Yue once…
After hearing Zheng Yang tell the housekeeper that Bai Yue liked apple pie, Ye Xi practiced for a week and forced himself to choose the least burnt one to secretly place in Bai Yue’s desk on a Monday.
The next day, rumors spread through school that someone jealous of Bai Yue had tried to poison him.
Ye Xi searched through his memories and couldn’t find a single piece of evidence to defend himself against Li Rui’s words.
His expression grew solemn as he silently lowered his head and stared at the corner of the desk.
Actually, that apple pie incident was the bravest thing he’d ever done. He had even carved his birthday into the pie crust using a mold.
Late at night, he’d snuck into the school building alone and placed it on Bai Yue’s desk. He wanted Bai Yue to discover the secret—but was also terrified he would.
But he had done such a bad job that people thought it was a prank, and someone threw it in the trash before Bai Yue even saw it.
Thinking of this, Ye Xi’s confidence deflated again. The fluttery mood he had when returning to the dorm completely disappeared.
He knew Li Rui was right. Secret crushes go nowhere. No one could guess the layers of feelings behind his stoic face.
But he was just a coward—silent, stupid, only daring to look at someone’s back.
While Li Rui poured hot water into his noodles, he kept muttering, “I’m telling you, these days people don’t care about inner beauty or hidden depths. You’ve gotta make the first move…”
“You’re right,” Ye Xi softly agreed.
He really hadn’t made any bold moves. He had let Bai Yue slip right through his fingers—graduated, grown more distant.
Even earlier, alone with Bai Yue, he couldn’t come up with a single topic. All he could do was stare silently at the cherries on his plate.
Maybe his disappointment was too obvious, because Li Rui, who had still been muttering, suddenly fell silent.
He picked up his noodles and took a bite, glancing sideways at Ye Xi.
But Ye Xi looked completely calm—unreadable. He simply pulled out his backpack from the chair and took out the unfinished homework inside.
