CFHE Chapter 31

This job sounded even less proper than the previous one.

 

But environment-wise, photography was at least quieter than a bar. Fu Yuhan didn’t drink, though he felt he could.

 

A gust of wind carried fallen leaves over, and the leaves hit the iron legs of the bench with hollow “knock knock” sounds. Fu Yuhan suddenly came to his senses and pulled Wen Yu’s hand down: “I thought when you said ‘ask around for other opportunities’ this morning, you were just brushing me off.”

 

“Then I would have directly told you ‘don’t even think about it.'” Wen Yu rubbed his fingertips and withdrew his hand.

 

Fu Yuhan’s hair was getting a bit long. Touching his nape was half smooth skin, half soft hair—a somewhat magical sensation. Wen Yu was pondering this when he suddenly heard the other ask: “But why are you helping me?”

 

“Mm,” Wen Yu thought for a moment, “don’t know. I just wanted to help. Maybe I think… if everyone goes to the capital next year, it would be boring without an opponent.”

 

Fu Yuhan looked at him for a while: “Honestly, I thought you’d choose to study abroad.”

 

“When you can go anytime, you don’t want to go anymore.” Wen Yu lowered his eyes and chuckled softly. “Studying abroad isn’t that interesting either.”

 

“…You find nothing interesting.”

 

“Living is inherently boring.” Wen Yu lifted his eyelids and smiled at him. “Otherwise, why do you think I’m helping you? Isn’t it because I’m bored?”

 

Fu Yuhan was speechless.

 

But some things weren’t his concern. He lowered his head to think, then looked up: “Anyway, thank you.”

 

“Then I’ll take that as you agreeing. Come find me early Saturday morning, and I’ll take you there.” Wen Yu stood up and patted him. “Are you going home today or coming to my place?”

 

“Going home.”

 

“Figured it out?” Wen Yu’s mouth carried some mockery. “Reconciled with your mom pretty quickly.”

 

“…Who said I was reconciling?” Fu Yuhan clasped his hands together, cracking his knuckles, and said quietly, “I just have nowhere else to go. When I get to college… I can move out in college.”

 

Wen Yu raised an eyebrow: “Good luck. You should go then. I’m heading back.”

 

Fu Yuhan turned his head to watch his departing figure for a few seconds.

 

There was no one on the road now. Wen Yu walked with his hands in his pockets, chin slightly raised just like that night Fu Yuhan encountered him on the street. Without looking, Fu Yuhan could imagine his gaze naturally looking down due to his height, viewing people and things with three parts disdain.

 

Clearly being such a person, yet insisting on forcing himself into the mold of a proper “honor student” at school—that must be exhausting.

 

“Hey, Wen Yu.” His thoughts suddenly stirred, and Fu Yuhan called out to him.

 

Across several dozen meters, Wen Yu casually turned back.

 

“We’ll see each other again during evening self-study anyway.” Fu Yuhan asked, “Did you wait here on purpose just to tell me about this?”

 

Rather, it was because he heard some fragments and wanted to see if anything would happen to him. Wen Yu smirked, lowered his head and chuckled twice, then raised his voice to answer: “Are you not awake yet?”

 

Questions aside, Wen Yu felt like he was the one who wasn’t awake.

 

These past few days, Fu Yuhan’s condition was visibly poor. He felt a bit… how to put it, maybe he really was “lonely at the top,” not wanting to see this rare “opponent” become dejected.

 

Fu Yuhan didn’t answer again, perhaps feeling that shouting loudly was too embarrassing. He sent Wen Yu two messages.

 

Wen Yu only saw them when he got home.

 

The first one was “Being too competitive is a disease”—this was what Wen Yu had said to Fu Yuhan on the bench a few minutes ago. The next one was “Being duplicitous is also a disease.”

 

Wen Yu chuckled.

 

He put down his phone and stared blankly for a while, suspecting he really was sick.

 

After hesitating for only three seconds, he put down his bag and walked to that tightly locked door.

 

–

 

Fu Yuhan was still somewhat anxious when going home, but discovered no one was there when he arrived.

 

Oh wait, Qin Xiaolu was home—she was always home because her health didn’t allow her to go to school, but she was sleeping.

 

The entire house was very quiet.

 

Actually, this state was normal. Whether it was Uncle Qin or his mom, they were both very busy. When he was little, he never understood why Fu Xuecheng never came home. When his parents divorced, he went with his mother, but afterward he discovered that once people needed to concentrate on making money, they really didn’t have much energy to spend at home.

 

But.

 

Although he understood what “different positions” meant the moment he heard his mother’s words—he and He Yan had their respective perspectives and positions—he wasn’t planning to let it go.

 

Fu Yuhan sat in the empty living room thinking for five minutes, then went out to find a locksmith and spent fifty yuan to change the lock on his bedroom.

 

He didn’t even eat dinner for this.

 

Young people could handle missing one meal, but by around nine at night, it became particularly unbearable. During evening self-study, everyone was absorbed in homework. The classroom was filled only with the “rustling” sound of pens on paper. When his stomach rumbled, Wen Yu beside him immediately heard it.

 

He turned to glance at him, changed his pencil, and wrote four words in the blank space near Fu Yuhan’s paper: Didn’t eat dinner?

 

Fu Yuhan nodded.

 

Wen Yu seemed somewhat speechless, shook his head, used an eraser to wipe away those words, and went back to working on his paper with his head down.

 

After finishing one paper, he took a notebook and stood up, walked to the podium to say something to the supervising teacher, then left the classroom.

 

Initially, Fu Yuhan didn’t pay attention to his actions. During evening self-study, many students would leave the classroom midway to go to the office or other classes to ask teachers questions. Admittedly, Wen Yu’s grades were heaven-defying, but he hadn’t reached the level of perfect scores in every subject. Having questions to ask was normal.

 

However, what he didn’t expect was that more than ten minutes later, Wen Yu returned from outside, pulled a cup of instant noodles from the large pocket of his long-sleeved school uniform jacket and tossed it onto Fu Yuhan’s lap, then wrote a few more words on the blank paper with his pencil: There’s hot water in the water dispenser.

 

Fu Yuhan: “…”

 

This bowl was small and easy to stuff into a pocket.

 

But, Wen Yu brought this for him???

 

He looked at Wen Yu with a bewildered expression, mouthing: “Did you take the wrong medicine?”

 

Wen Yu glanced at him and reached out: “Then give it back.”

 

“No.” Fu Yuhan silently replied, then crouched down and slipped out from under the desk.

 

The water dispenser was at the very back of the classroom. Simply getting water wouldn’t attract the supervising teacher’s attention.

 

The water heated by the dispenser at one time was just enough to make one bowl of cup noodles. He prepared the noodles and slipped back to his seat the same way, eating the entire bowl under his desk.

 

“Thanks.” After eating, he wiped his mouth and said to Wen Yu.

 

Wen Yu was busy with his papers and didn’t respond, not knowing if he heard.

 

Fu Yuhan thought about it and decided not to mind that he ignored him.

 

Actually, in this regard, Fu Yuhan was someone with very simple thinking.

 

For him, Wen Yu helping him find part-time work was nothing special, but specifically going out to bring him back a bowl of instant noodles—this person could be considered a “friend”—of course, setting aside the matter with Yang Fan.

 

But as he’d said before, if Wen Yu wanted to make a move on Yang Fan, he’d had opportunities every day for two years. Subconsciously, Fu Yuhan didn’t think Wen Yu would do something as immoral as using friendship to turn a straight person gay.

 

He had a good temper with “friends” and decided to unilaterally call a truce with Wen Yu from this moment on.

 

That night, Fu Yuhan went home to spend the night.

 

He Yan encountered him briefly but said nothing. Fu Yuhan tried his best to fill in the test papers that had been distributed, washed up early, locked his door, and went to sleep.

 

His mom would eventually discover he had changed the door lock.

 

But Fu Yuhan actually didn’t expect it to be so soon.

 

The next morning, after changing clothes and coming out, he found 200 yuan and a note on the living room table. The note simply read: This week’s meal money that you didn’t take the day before yesterday. The door is locked, Mom can’t get in.

 

Fu Yuhan lowered his gaze and thought, then went back to his room to find a pen and added a line on the back of the note: Thank you, no need.

 

His thinking on this matter was also very simple.

 

From the moment he decided to earn his own money and leave home, he didn’t want to take another penny from his mother.

 

–

 

A week passed quickly. Early Saturday morning, Wen Yu was woken by his phone ringing.

 

His ringtone and alarm clock weren’t the same song, so he was momentarily confused when he woke up.

 

The caller ID showed “Wild Cat.” Wen Yu took a deep breath and answered: “Amazing, your call came earlier than my alarm clock.”

 

He yawned as he spoke, his voice lazy.

 

“Didn’t you tell me to come early?” Fu Yuhan looked at the sky outside. “I’m at your front door.”

 

“…Isn’t this a bit too early?”

 

“Yu-ge—” Fu Yuhan helplessly drew out the sound, “It’s almost 8 o’clock now.”

 

“Who gets up before 10 AM on a Saturday?” Wen Yu shuffled over in slippers to open the door, hung up the phone, and said irritably to the person standing at the entrance, “Artists have even more day-night reversed biological clocks. If we go now, they won’t be awake either.”

 

“But you didn’t tell me what time.”

 

Fu Yuhan entered the house, casually closed the door behind him, and familiarly found slippers to change into.

 

Wen Yu walked over and pulled the living room floor-to-ceiling curtains shut with a “whoosh,” leaving almost no light in the entire house. Fu Yuhan was briefly blinded and took a while to adjust to the darkness inside.

 

Only then did he notice that the curtains in Wen Yu’s bedroom were also tightly drawn.

 

“Promise me, sleep a bit more.” Wen Yu said as he walked inside, yawning as he went, “The blankets are in the cabinet, you saw where I put them last time.”

 

Out of politeness, Fu Yuhan normally wouldn’t enter someone’s bedroom when visiting their home, but Wen Yu’s attitude was so natural that he had to follow.

 

That tall, thin person walked to the bed like a zombie, threw himself straight into the soft bedding, rolled over and curled up inside.

 

The room was as quiet as if it were haunted.

 

Fu Yuhan stood there watching him, somewhat helpless: “What did you do last night to make yourself so tired?”

 

“Nothing…” Wen Yu mumbled, turning his face to the other side, “You sleep a bit more too… I’ll call you when it’s time to get up…”

 

In this state, who would call whom?

 

Fu Yuhan shook his head and went out.

 

He didn’t really want to sleep, so he didn’t go open the cabinet to get blankets.

 

He didn’t know if it was because he had come, but Wen Yu didn’t close the bedroom door, making Fu Yuhan unconsciously glance inside whenever he wanted to go to the kitchen for water.

 

It was actually somewhat awkward, psychologically.

 

After all, rationally knowing they had the same sexual orientation, Wen Yu was being rather unguarded.

 

The other person was sleeping deeply. Fu Yuhan looked twice, and that bulge of bedding hadn’t changed even a wrinkle.

 

He quietly finished getting water and walked back from the kitchen, unable to help glancing over there again.

 

The bedding still hadn’t changed, but Fu Yuhan noticed a very… particular detail.

 

The tightly locked door of the adjacent room wasn’t locked today and had been blown open by the wind, creating a gap.

 

His eyelid suddenly twitched.

 

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 (advanced chapters available on kofi)