It wasn’t because of any romantic thoughts that he wanted to stay at Yang Fan’s house—it was just because he was familiar with it. Fu Yuhan didn’t have many friends, and Yang Fan might be the only one he was close enough with to ask for a place to stay.
But actually, thinking about it carefully, he just wanted to find a place to sleep. It didn’t matter where.
However, when it came to “spending the night at Wen Yu’s house,” it was as if someone had scattered thin ice into the hot evening breeze of late summer and early autumn. When it blew over, his arms felt like they’d been electrified, inexplicably getting goosebumps.
He couldn’t tell if it was awkwardness or disgust. Fu Yuhan immediately showed a look of revulsion. However, the person standing in front of him wouldn’t sympathize with his aversion, and instead was enthusiastic about his rare emotional fluctuation.
“If you don’t speak, I’ll take it as you choosing the first option.” Wen Yu’s mouth corners regained a hint of a barely-there smile. His free hand reached into his pants pocket to get his phone. “I’ll call Yang Fan…”
In the last half of that sentence, his voice lowered, and his nasal tone became more obvious. Fu Yuhan heard a trace of drunkenness in it, frowned, and pressed down his hand before the call could be made: “Yang Fan isn’t out of class yet… you’re really drunk, aren’t you?”
“Out of class?” Wen Yu’s voice was very soft as he looked down at the hand Fu Yuhan was pressing on his.
“Evening self-study.” Fu Yuhan paused and withdrew his hand. “Don’t you know when Third High gets out?”
Wen Yu was silent for a while, then pinched his temples and sighed softly: “I know. I forgot today wasn’t the weekend.”
“Then you’re pretty drunk.”
“No, they called me… forget it.” Wen Yu closed his eyes and rubbed his swollen head a few more times before opening his eyes. “Are you coming or not?”
“…” Fu Yuhan really hadn’t expected this topic to still be ongoing. “Are you serious?”
“Serious.” Wen Yu looked at him. “Yang Fan lives in the east part of the city, right? What time are you planning to get up tomorrow morning for school?”
Fu Yuhan really hadn’t thought about this problem. First, he didn’t care about being late, and second, he didn’t have a choice.
“The place I live is right behind the school. You’ve seen me go home.” Wen Yu said. “You can sleep until 6:45.”
First High’s morning self-study started at 7 o’clock. This sounded very tempting.
Wen Yu seemed more sober than he had a few minutes ago, which made his suggestion seem more serious.
Fu Yuhan started to hesitate.
Going to Yang Fan’s house would actually be quite bothersome. To avoid being late, he’d have to leave early, and Yang Fan’s enthusiastic mother would get up early to prepare breakfast for him.
It had always been like this.
For Fu Yuhan, the biggest obstacle to going to Yang Fan’s house wasn’t anything else—it was actually this.
Wen Yu suddenly clicked his tongue and opened his phone: “I called a car.”
Fu Yuhan: “?”
“Since you can’t choose, I’ll choose for you.” Wen Yu said. “My place.”
“…” Fu Yuhan was speechless. “Is this how you ‘eliminate’ all y
our love rivals? From what I know, there are quite a few girls who like Yang Fan.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Wen Yu said. He looked down at his phone, a trace of indifference hanging at the corners of his eyes and brows.
Fu Yuhan suddenly felt a bit strange—even he had secretly felt sour about girls, envying them for being able to openly like that person and openly pursue him.
Unlike him, who could only quietly watch from places where others didn’t know.
But Wen Yu looked as if he had never been troubled by Yang Fan’s popularity with the opposite sex.
The car came quickly. Wen Yu waited by the roadside, watching the black Roewe stop in front of him. He opened the car door and turned back: “Get in.”
“…” Unable to find a reason to object, Fu Yuhan closed his sketchbook, hugged the book and his bag, and got into the back seat.
Wen Yu followed and got in, closing the car door.
The car had air conditioning running, cooler than outside. Fu Yuhan’s mood inexplicably improved a bit. He turned to look at Wen Yu: “Hey.”
Wen Yu gave him a look.
“No matter what… thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” Wen Yu turned his head toward the window, his right elbow propped on the car door, supporting his chin. “I’m doing this for myself too.”
His left hand rested on his leg. Fu Yuhan looked down and saw he was still clutching that broken model and a pile of fragments.
This pile of things wasn’t easy to hold. Fu Yuhan hesitated: “Should I put this in my bag for now?”
“No,” Wen Yu didn’t turn back. “Once you gave it to me, it’s mine.”
After getting in the car, he suddenly seemed to become less talkative. Although Fu Yuhan thanked him for taking him in, he didn’t want to endlessly put his warm face against a cold butt, so he pursed his lips and withdrew his gaze.
They rode in silence.
Midway, Yang Fan called back asking what was wrong. Fu Yuhan thought about it and just said he had already resolved it.
If he told him about needing a place to stay, he’d have to explain why he wasn’t going home, which would make the conversation long… besides, Wen Yu was right there. Even though that person looked like he didn’t want to deal with him, he still had ears.
Fu Yuhan didn’t really want to tell anyone about his family’s messy affairs again.
His third aunt’s house was some distance from Third High. When the car stopped at the residential complex entrance, Fu Yuhan suddenly remembered something strange.
Outside the small road he had wandered to was a main road lined with plane trees and ginkgos, famous throughout the city for its many street-side bars. At first, Fu Yuhan subconsciously thought Wen Yu had gone to a bar with people, but… although he’d never been to a bar, he knew there was no bar in the world that opened in the evening and kicked customers out by eight or nine o’clock.
The itinerary was somewhat mysterious.
“What are you looking at me for?” Wen Yu suddenly turned back.
“…Nothing.” Fu Yuhan looked away. “Which building is yours?”
“Inside.”
After 10 PM, the residential complex was very quiet. Wen Yu led him deeper inside and into a certain apartment building.
“Did you eat dinner?” Entering the elevator, Wen Yu suddenly asked.
Fu Yuhan lifted his eyelids: “I did.” Although it was only two meat pies.
“I didn’t.” Wen Yu frowned and rubbed his stomach. “Keep me company for a meal later.”
“…Huh?”
What would they eat this late at night, takeout barbecue?
Fu Yuhan soon discovered he had misunderstood, because after entering the apartment, Wen Yu found a pile of cold dishes from the refrigerator and put them in the microwave in batches.
Those dishes looked untouched, as if someone had specially prepared them.
Perhaps because he was in a good mood after drinking, Wen Yu actually had the inclination to explain to Fu Yuhan while heating the food: “Every evening an auntie comes to cook for me. If I’m not here like today, she’ll put the food in the refrigerator after cooking.”
“…Your real aunt?”
“Housekeeper.”
“Oh, no wonder.” Fu Yuhan relaxed. “I was wondering how you still get beaten by an auntie.”
Wen Yu lowered his head and laughed a few times: “Because I paid her.”
“Young master.” Fu Yuhan leaned his head against the wall next to the kitchen, looking casual.
Wen Yu went with the flow: “Yes?”
“…”
Fu Yuhan was certain he was drunk.
The microwave heated food quickly. Fu Yuhan didn’t like being idle, so he actively helped carry the dishes to the living room.
Although it was a one-person residence, this place was actually quite large. The living room connected to two rooms—one was open, the other tightly closed.
After all the dishes were set out, Wen Yu picked up that broken Dismantler RX-93 and walked toward the tightly closed room: “You eat first.”
Fu Yuhan was surprised to see him take out a key to open the room.
Not only did he lock room doors at home, but when he went in, he kept the door gap very small, as if he didn’t intend to let Fu Yuhan see what was inside.
Fu Yuhan… Fu Yuhan didn’t want to look.
The food on the table was more tempting than Wen Yu’s secrets, to him.
Wen Yu came back after a while and sat down properly across from Fu Yuhan.
Fu Yuhan didn’t turn back, but heard him lock that room again when he came out. The RX-93 was gone, probably left inside.
A model collection room?
Whatever, it had nothing to do with him.
“This auntie you hired is quite skilled.” Fu Yuhan scooped up a spoonful of tofu and looked at it first. “Her knife work could match restaurant chefs.”
“Really?” Wen Yu ate with his head down. “I never noticed.”
“Tsk,” Fu Yuhan shook his head. “You’re really wasting good things… anyway, it’s better than the one we used to have at—”
His voice cut off abruptly. Wen Yu looked up: “What?”
“Nothing.” Fu Yuhan said.
There was no point in bringing up old matters. Besides, he couldn’t eat that auntie’s cooking anymore anyway.
The two ate face to face in silence at the table. Those two meat pies had saved Fu Yuhan, so he couldn’t eat much now and put down his chopsticks after eating little.
Only then did he have time to observe Wen Yu’s movements—spine straight, left hand holding the bowl, right hand mechanically repeating motions, chopsticks never making a sound when touching the bowl.
Very proper, so proper it didn’t seem like a normal person.
It was as if invisible strings were attached to Wen Yu, performing some mysterious act.
Fu Yuhan propped his head up and inadvertently saw the moon outside the window behind him.
It was approaching Mid-Autumn Festival, so the moon was very round and bright. He couldn’t say which aspect of this scene touched him, but he was inexplicably moved to speak: “Aren’t you tired eating like this?”
Wen Yu was stunned, then lowered his eyes: “I’m used to it.”
“I think I asked you a similar question before.” Fu Yuhan propped his head up. “‘Isn’t it tiring to act like this all the time?’ You also told me it was fine.”
“Because it really isn’t tiring.” Wen Yu said. “Do you find walking tiring? But no one knows how to walk from the beginning.”
An action repeated thousands of times becomes habit, and then it won’t be tiring.
Fu Yuhan understood what he meant: “But that’s exactly why I think you’re tired. I can see that you’re tired.”
“That’s exactly why I find you particularly interesting.” Wen Yu looked up and smiled at him. “You’ve fallen to the point of sitting by the roadside spacing out, yet you still have the heart to sympathize with others.”
“…”
Damn.
Fu Yuhan ignored him.
This was Wen Yu’s home after all, so Fu Yuhan couldn’t wander around freely and could only look around.
The house was decorated very simply. Apart from necessary furnishings, there were no other extra decorations. It was so refined it looked like a model home copy-pasted from a home decoration company’s sales brochure.
Relative to the bedroom area, the living room seemed very large.
The room with the open door had no lights on, but at a glance it was just walls, floor, room, bed—neat and tidy.
Fu Yuhan’s own bedroom was decorated in a cozy style according to his mother’s preferences, plus his pile of small toys and ornaments from childhood, making it look extremely lived-in. Yang Fan had been there once and laughed that his room’s style was completely inconsistent with his personality.
Wen Yu was exactly the opposite of him.
Usually he seemed like a very kind person, only treating Fu Yuhan badly, but his room was arranged to keep people at a distance.
Fu Yuhan had a momentary illusion that this house was where he should live, while Wen Yu should move to his place.
##
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
