At the end of August in H City, the sun was still blazing hot.
When school let out, the sunlight hadn’t yet faded, outlining the handsome boy with a fuzzy golden edge. The youth lowered his eyes and snapped shut the notebook in his hand. His bone-china-cold voice made a low sound: “What did you say?”
“I said—” The buzz-cut boy in the front seat made his chair work like a unicycle, swaying back and forth as he spoke, “A new arcade opened on the ninth floor of Yintai. Are you going or not?”
The boy’s indifferent eyes half-closed, then opened again, stating matter-of-factly: “Do I look like someone who would enjoy arcades?”
“Not really, but today’s the last day. It’s the last chance to relax.” The front seat’s gaze glanced toward other parts of the classroom. “Besides, they all hope you’ll go.”
In the center of the classroom, four or five young girls were huddled together. Although they were talking, they kept glancing over at their corner because of the commotion, clearly expecting something.
The boy tossed his notebook into his backpack, leaned forward, then stood up.
His oversized short-sleeved school uniform swayed with the movement, vaguely revealing his somewhat slender waistline. Fu Yuhan slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked toward the exit without looking back: “Not going. I have plans.”
“It’s the last day of August—what could you possibly have planned!” The front seat boy still wouldn’t give up.
In the time it took to say that sentence, the boy had already used his long legs to reach the back door.
“I have a date.”
The air carried his indifferent words as the fluttering hem of his short sleeves disappeared around the back door corner.
Those four or five girls all showed disappointed expressions.
“Fu Yuhan never joins group activities…”
“What do you mean he has a date? Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Sun Wenrui, didn’t you say if you asked him he’d definitely come?!”
Sun Wenrui slammed his chair back into place with a “bang” and stood up abruptly: “When Brother Fu gets moody, who can talk him out of it? I’m not a god, okay? But he definitely doesn’t have a girlfriend—you can rest assured about that. I’m guessing he’s probably going to meet up with his old classmates.”
“What old classmates? That bunch from First High?”
“Yeah, look at Brother Fu’s personality—could ordinary people be considered his friends?” Sun Wenrui nodded, his voice carrying a hint of pride. “Only those few from First High—and me—can be considered his friends.”
“Always hanging out with that First High crowd, never paying attention to us,” the girls complained discontentedly. “We’re supposed to be his classmates…”
Fu Yuhan walked to the intersection, squinted at the setting sun, then took out his phone to check the time.
16:45.
He heard First High got out at five o’clock.
This semester they were entering their senior year. To deal with inspections from above, both Third High and First High had found separate locations for senior year supplementary classes, which happened to be surprisingly close to each other.
This was actually a good thing. During regular classes, the two schools were on opposite sides of the city—one in the east, one in the west—with no time to meet. Taking advantage of the summer supplementary classes being close together, Chu Lei had invited Fu Yuhan along with Yang Fan and several others to come to his house for dinner.
When they were young, Fu Yuhan and Yang Fan were neighbors who had known each other early on. Later they attended the same middle school and met Chu Lei and several other people. The group had a good relationship, and during the high school entrance exams, everyone agreed to test into First High and be classmates for another three years.
But due to a twist of fate, Fu Yuhan ended up at Third High.
Both First High and Third High were provincial key schools that had been competing for the city’s top spot for many years. There wasn’t much difference between them, but they were indeed far apart.
Only at times like this could Fu Yuhan meet up with them once.
It was somewhat embarrassing to admit, but he had been looking forward to today’s meeting since three days ago.
The sun gradually slanted westward, time slowly approaching 17:00.
The clean, neat white school uniform on the boy was dyed golden yellow by the setting sun. When he lowered his gaze to watch the road, his usually indifferent brows and eyes actually showed a hint of tenderness.
“Hello, Brother Fu!”
“Eh, Brother Fu isn’t going home yet?”
“Something good happening today? Brother Fu looks like he’s in a good mood.”
Fu Yuhan was quite famous at Third High. Standing at the intersection, passing students all had to look back at him a few times. Within 15 minutes, he had already been greeted by twelve different people.
All calling him “Brother Fu”—it made his ears feel callused from hearing it.
At first Fu Yuhan would respond with an “mm,” but later he simply lowered his head, ignoring them completely, pretending to be deaf.
It was only to wait for Yang Fan that he was willing to stand here like a monkey in a zoo.
At three minutes past five, his phone finally vibrated, but it wasn’t good news.
Yang Fan: Teacher is dragging out class, might have to trouble you to wait a bit longer.
Fu Yuhan was about to reply when someone suddenly patted his back. He turned around and saw Ge Ran standing behind him.
Ge Ran was their class monitor, a girl with a very good personality. Although Fu Yuhan often gave people the cold shoulder, he still had to give the class monitor some face.
“What’s up?” he asked while typing on his phone.
Fu Yuhan: No problem, I’m at the intersection.
“School officially starts tomorrow, and we need to change the bulletin board to a new one. Could I ask you to help draw a picture?” Ge Ran said. “I already asked—Teacher Zhou said after this issue is done, senior year students won’t need to do it anymore. Students who participate in the bulletin board can move around freely in the classroom during evening self-study in the first week of school. That’s a pretty good benefit, right?”
It might be good for others, but not for Fu Yuhan. His cold brows lowered as he stated calmly: “Even when I’m not allowed to move around, I’ve never sat properly anyway.”
“…”
Ge Ran was momentarily speechless. But having been classmates for over two years, she knew how to handle him. She immediately put her hands together and bowed three times like praying to Buddha: “Last time, never again. Please be magnanimous and give me some face, okay? If you don’t participate, our Class Six will lose to Class Two in the bulletin board competition again!”
Class Two was a sore spot for everyone in Class Six.
Sure enough, Fu Yuhan relented: “…What am I drawing?”
Ge Ran smiled with her eyes crinkled.
Senior year bulletin boards naturally had content related to exam preparation sprints, so the illustrations should naturally be about that too. She already had ideas and briefly mentioned a few points, saying she’d bring some reference pictures for Fu Yuhan the next morning.
“Alright,” Fu Yuhan finally said.
After he finished speaking, he took out his phone to check again.
Yang Fan: I heard from Wen Yu that a new arcade opened upstairs at Yintai? How about we change plans and go play there instead?
Fu Yuhan frowned.
His features were cold, and when he frowned, it looked like someone owed him three million. Ge Ran suddenly felt a bit awkward and asked quietly: “Are you really unwilling?”
Fu Yuhan’s frown relaxed, his expression momentarily dazed.
“No,” he said, “I’m waiting for someone.”
“I was wondering why you hadn’t left yet after school ended so long ago,” Ge Ran realized. “I thought you were going to play arcade games with Sun Wenrui and the others.”
“Aren’t you going?” Fu Yuhan asked. “I saw Xu Qianyi and the others all said they were going.”
“I am going. If I wasn’t looking for you, I would have left already. After all, today is the last day of summer vacation.” Ge Ran winked at him. “We need to have a sense of ceremony.”
Sense of ceremony.
His sense of ceremony was supposed to be going to Chu Lei’s house with Yang Fan and the others for dinner, homework, and video games—
But Wen Yu said…
“Wen Yu said” again.
After starting high school, Fu Yuhan’s life requirements had dropped to the level of “any day Yang Fan doesn’t mention Wen Yu is a good day.”
Wen Yu, Yang Fan’s new bro he met after starting high school.
In Yang Fan’s mouth, he was a “perfect male god” with “good grades, good looks, good physique, good temper”—completely without flaws.
But how could a person possibly have no flaws?
Fu Yuhan scoffed at this—he had seen Wen Yu, and while he didn’t know about other things, at least in Fu Yuhan’s view, this person had an extremely bad personality.
For example, at times like this, Student Wen Yu would send him a private message, with a casual tone but every word dripping with showing off.
Wen Yu: Sorry, I’m stealing away your Yang Fan.
Straight guy Yang Fan didn’t know that his two best bros—Fu Yuhan and Wen Yu—were both bent, and moreover, were love rivals who couldn’t stand each other.
The arrow’s center happened to be him.
This private message from Wen Yu was equivalent to stepping on Fu Yuhan’s face.
And he even stepped on it a second time.
Wen Yu: Oh right, since you already made plans with them, want to come along?
Ge Ran waved and left. Fu Yuhan took a deep breath, his well-defined fingers moving rapidly on the screen keyboard. Suppressing his anger, he switched to the chat with Yang Fan to reply.
Fu Yuhan: I’m not going. You go with Wen Yu. I’ll go directly to Chu Lei’s house.
He locked the screen and was about to leave directly.
However, this time Yang Fan’s reply came very quickly.
Yang Fan: Chu Lei is coming with us too. We’ll eat dinner outside later, which saves his mom from having to busy herself for our whole group.
Fu Yuhan: Then I’m going home.
Yang Fan: Don’t~ Come on~ It’ll be boring without you~~
Yang Fan: I miss you~
“…”
Fu Yuhan closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
He and Yang Fan had grown up together since childhood—he could even imagine the other’s expression, movements, and tone when saying this. Words of refusal rolled around his fingertips twice before he finally just typed out “okay.”
Yang Fan: Then wait at the intersection. We’re coming right away. Class is already over.
Fu Yuhan didn’t reply again, reluctantly stuffing his phone into his pocket.
This intersection was the only way from both schools’ supplementary class locations to Yintai City. Fu Yuhan hadn’t been waiting under the tree for long when he saw five or six students in First High uniforms walking over in a grand procession.
The two tall guys leading had long arms and legs, strikingly handsome. One was pushing a bicycle, the other stood to his right, chatting and laughing all the way.
The one pushing the bike was Yang Fan, and the one beside him was naturally Wen Yu. Even Chu Lei and the others were squeezed to the back.
Fu Yuhan squinted, his tongue pressing against the soft flesh inside his mouth as unpleasant emotions churned in his heart.
He suspected Wen Yu was doing it on purpose.
Whenever their group gathered together, Wen Yu would always casually walk to Yang Fan’s side the moment after Fu Yuhan appeared.
Sometimes it was coincidentally changing seats, sometimes there were problems to discuss, sometimes it was purely just to say a few words.
And then he wouldn’t leave.
If Fu Yuhan raised any objections, those eyes would look over mischievously, with a hint of an almost imperceptible smile at the corner of his mouth, asking softly: “Can’t Yang Fan and I sit together?”
Fu Yuhan had no reason to say no.
He was sulking but couldn’t let Yang Fan notice anything unusual. It was suffocating, and over time, as long as Wen Yu was around, he became reluctant to appear.
But Third High and First High were too far apart. Throughout the whole year, he only had a few chances to see Yang Fan, to the point where he could discover new changes in the other person every time they met. Fu Yuhan was even more unwilling to give up coming to see Yang Fan.
“Hey, Brother Han!”
When the group approached, Chu Lei spotted him first and stretched out his arms to wave left and right.
This action looked too silly. Fu Yuhan refused to cooperate—he stuck his hands in his pockets and quietly waited for them to come over.
“Xiao Han!” Yang Fan had apparently just heard something funny, his eyes and brows still carrying traces of unfinished laughter. “Holy shit, your hair grows so fast! Didn’t we get haircuts together?”
Wen Yu turned his head to look over.
Fu Yuhan instinctively straightened up a bit, his gaze falling on Yang Fan’s face: “Mm, last month.”
Yang Fan naturally reached out and brushed a strand of bangs from his forehead. The hair tips poked at his eyelashes, making Fu Yuhan instinctively squint slightly: “What?”
“In one month, your hair grew—” Yang Fan gestured, his face full of shock, “more than a centimeter?!”
“Isn’t one month enough?” At this moment, Wen Yu also shook his own hair, pulling Yang Fan’s hand away from Fu Yuhan’s forehead and making him touch his own bangs instead. “Mine was also cut last month.”
Fu Yuhan: “…”
He saw Wen Yu’s slender, strong hand gripping Yang Fan’s thin wrist bone—the image was somewhat jarring. And Yang Fan, completely oblivious to this, was still touching the other’s bangs with an envious expression.
Wen Yu’s gaze imperceptibly glanced toward Fu Yuhan, then quickly withdrew.
“I’m done for. Compared to you two, I’m the exemplary figure of contemporary young baldness. I even doubt whether my hair is still growing.” Yang Fan made a crying face.
The three people following behind were also young talents who closely followed the trend on the topic of “baldness.” Hearing this, they all touched the tops of their heads and stood together with him in shared sympathy.
Under Fu Yuhan’s cold gaze, Wen Yu chuckled softly, released Yang Fan, and patted his forehead with his other hand: “Then eat more walnuts.”
“Can eating walnuts promote hair growth?” The four bald heads asked in unison.
“It’s better than not eating any,” Wen Yu said.
“Don’t listen to his nonsense. If walnuts worked, why is Prince William still bald?” Fu Yuhan couldn’t stand it anymore. He pressed down on Yang Fan’s bike handlebars and pulled him forward. “You’re not even bald. Growing slowly doesn’t mean you have no hair… Don’t overthink it. Let’s go.”
“Where to?” Yang Fan followed him forward in a daze.
“Aren’t we going to the arcade?”
“You’re planning to walk there?”
“Otherwise?” Fu Yuhan turned back. “Are you planning to carry your mountain bike on the bus?”
At this moment, Wen Yu suddenly stepped forward, lifted his long leg, and straddled Yang Fan’s bicycle rear seat. His teasing gaze swept across Fu Yuhan’s face as he casually tugged at his collar, his smile lazy: “Are you stupid? Of course we ride the bike when there’s one available.”
Author’s Note: Starting a new story~
About the updates for this book, let me explain.
As you can see, I don’t have much advance notice. Before going premium, due to ranking reasons, there might occasionally be every-other-day updates. (If every-other-day updates are needed) I’ll try to notify the update time in advance.
If nothing is said, it means normal daily updates the next day.
After going premium, there will be daily updates.
Thank you all for understanding =w=
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