“So, what is liking someone?…”
Jiang Nan’an couldn’t remember how he had felt a minute ago.
He only remembered someone screaming in his headphones, calling Spring’s name, shouting “awesome.” He only remembered the red-haired champion in the screen executing every move perfectly, delaying time, attacking towers… When the game character fell, Jiang Nan’an’s soaring heart suddenly plummeted with a sense of weightlessness. But before he could taste even a hint of regret at victory slipping through his fingers, the screen lit up, the big words “Victory” appeared, and Jiang Nan’an, stunned for half a second, instinctively looked toward Yan Jie beside him.
Something swelled in his chest that he couldn’t express. He didn’t know what it was, but unfamiliar emotions overflowed within him. It was as if he had been thrown into the sky, as if he had never been so excited or happy before.
In that moment, he became a bit unlike himself. Before his brain could react and judge right from wrong or reasonableness, he had already stood up from his chair, looked at the equally smiling Yan Jie, and opened his arms to embrace him.
Except for script requirements during filming and formal social occasions, or rather, when Jiang Nan’an was being “Jiang Nan’an,” he had never had such intimate physical contact with anyone.
So, when he smelled that faint rose scent from Yan Jie, felt the temperature and heartbeat of another person, he suddenly extracted a thread of clarity from the overflowing joy-
How could he make such a gesture? It didn’t seem very reasonable.
Was this kind of sudden physical contact acceptable?
He hadn’t asked for Yan Jie’s consent beforehand. Would he mind?
However, before Jiang Nan’an could find answers to these questions or become clearer and hesitantly let go, someone suddenly pounced on him from behind.
North Star’s repeated “We won” carried a faint hint of tears in her voice. She embraced them both, just as he had hugged Yan Jie. Soon inBlue and Jiang Shanshan also joined them, and all five team members hugged together. The excited shouts of teammates and the cheers and screams from the venue blended together, with the excitement remaining at a boiling point for a long time before finally subsiding.
Afterward, Makeshift Troupe, as the winners, went to shake hands with the five members of Very Nice before returning to the center of the stage, standing together with the bright silver trophy.
This trophy wasn’t exactly the same as the S tournament championship trophy Jiang Nan’an had seen before, and its significance wasn’t quite the same, but it carried similar pride and expectations.
Last time, that dazzling trophy was on the broadcast screen; this time, it was right in front of him. He saw himself in the trophy’s reflection, reached out to touch it, and felt its cool surface.
Five people, ten hands held the base of the trophy, and together they lifted it high. The stage spotlights were a bit blinding, and the confetti falling from above was like a golden rain, transforming the audience seats into a blur of light points along with the stage lighting.
The FMVP of the finals undoubtedly went to Spring. By the time the award ceremony, acceptance speeches, and a series of other events were over and the championship night broadcast officially ended, it was already very late.
Jiang Shanshan hugged the large trophy, unwilling to let go, insisting on carrying it back to the rest room herself with puffing breaths.
But it was really heavy, and when she reached the rest room door, her hand slipped, and she nearly dropped the hard-earned championship trophy. Jiang Nan’an was closest to her and quickly reached out to steady it, preventing the fruits of Makeshift Troupe’s labor from falling to the ground.
“Thank you, Teacher Jiang… My goodness, I still feel like I’m dreaming. Did we really win? Someone pinch me-after more than three months of struggle, did we really win the championship?”
Jiang Shanshan touched the surface of the trophy, adjusted her posture, and cradled the trophy in her arms like a baby.
“Don’t trouble others. Just bang your head against the trophy to see if it hurts, then you’ll know,” inBlue offered unhelpfully from the side.
“That won’t work,” Jiang Shanshan pouted. “What if the trophy gets damaged?”
She stroked the emblem on the trophy again with appreciation:
“This was earned by Old Spring’s trident thrusts at the crystal’s edge! Really, when we lost that team fight, I felt like the sky was falling, but something seemed off. I wondered why there was no team wipe announcement. Then I looked up and Spring was already attacking the inhibitor towers! My emotions were like a bungee jump.”
“I know, right? I was wondering why we had no chance to fight back in that team fight. I thought, we’re just missing a support, it shouldn’t be this bad,” inBlue said, finding it amusing now.
“It turns out we were fighting three versus five because someone had secretly circled around to do something big.”
“Well, the strong silently contribute without leaving their names,” Yan Jie wagged his finger.
“Of course, we must also thank our teammates for fighting a battle brutal enough to delay the enemy’s steps. This championship is well-deserved! Let’s all go for a late-night snack later, a celebration feast, my treat!”
The teammates cheered as they entered the rest room.
The show had officially ended. The contestants would play and have fun tonight, return to the hotel to rest for the night, and then go their separate ways tomorrow morning, returning to their normal lives.
Jiang Nan’an didn’t have much to pack, so he sat at the bar counter in the rest room, holding a cup of hot tea, drinking and watching the others in a daze. Yan Jie stood beside him, looking down at his phone.
After a while, inBlue went out to take a call. When he returned, he poked his head in at the door and whistled at Yan Jie:
“Old Spring!”
“What’s up?” Yan Jie looked up at him.
“Is it okay to bring a plus-one to the celebration tonight?”
“Since you’re asking like that, how can I refuse? Come in, come in, it’s not like we haven’t met before.”
Yan Jie agreed with a smile. Hearing this, Jiang Nan’an looked up and saw inBlue bringing a young man into the rest room.
Seeing the young man, Jiang Shanshan also seemed very happy, waving her hand and running over to say “long time no see” to him.
“Be at ease, teacher, make yourself at home, we’re all family here!” Yan Jie called out to the young man. Looking down, he saw Jiang Nan’an seemed a bit out of the loop, so he teased:
“Guess who he is?”
“?”
Jiang Nan’an raised an eyebrow slightly and took another look at the young man.
The young man stood beside inBlue. He was tall with monolids, had a cool and distant demeanor, and was quite handsome, but Jiang Nan’an truly had no impression of this face.
So he glanced at Yan Jie, his words cold:
“What makes you think I can precisely name a stranger out of 1.4 billion people?”
“Hey, he’s not a stranger. You’ve played games with him before, remember?” Yan Jie smiled, curving his lips as he looked at him.
“?” Jiang Nan’an thought for a moment but really couldn’t recall. “What?”
“‘Little Sheep Baa Baa,’ remember? When we were training in custom rooms before, Blue was always bringing him along-that really skilled support. Blue’s significant other.”
Hearing Yan Jie’s explanation, Jiang Nan’an was a bit dazed.
“Little Sheep Baa Baa”?
He did have an impression of this ID. When the five of them were training and bringing people in for internal scrims, they often saw this account. But he didn’t have much memory of Little Sheep as a person, only remembering that Little Sheep was indeed very skilled at support and coordinated well with inBlue. Jiang Shanshan’s improvement as a support to her current level owed much to Little Sheep’s one-on-one guidance.
inBlue had introduced him at the beginning, saying Little Sheep was his partner.
But…
Jiang Nan’an stared again and again, confirming several times that the person standing beside inBlue was indeed a young man.
Probably seeing his confusion and bewilderment, Yan Jie added:
“That is, Blue’s boyfriend.”
…Boyfriend.
Jiang Nan’an’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at the two of them, then turned to look at Yan Jie, feeling a bit dazed.
“Remember what I told you before?”
Yan Jie lowered his gaze to look at Jiang Nan’an, unconsciously scanning his lips with his eyes:
“Not only can heterosexual people establish intimate romantic relationships, same-sex people can too.”
Jiang Nan’an tried to understand his words but couldn’t quite make sense of it: “It’s not reasonable.”
“What’s not reasonable about it?”
“Men and women fall in love, get married, and start families to reproduce. All animals in nature, including humans, do this. It’s a natural law.”
“Hmm?”
“But same-sex couples can’t do that. Same-sex couples can’t reproduce, so what’s the purpose of same-sex romantic relationships?”
“Purpose?” Yan Jie raised an eyebrow slightly:
“The purpose is that two people together can become happy because they like each other, love each other, want to become more intimate, want to be part of each other’s lives. That’s the purpose.”
“…” Hearing this, Jiang Nan’an shook his head, clearly not agreeing:
“Doesn’t purpose need to be something that truly exists, something you can see and touch, something you can hold in your hand? What you’re describing is too abstract.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Yan Jie never dreamed he’d one day be standing here discussing these things with someone:
“Although you indeed can’t see or touch them, aren’t happiness, liking, and love things you can feel? Mental satisfaction, emotional value, you know.”
“…” Jiang Nan’an looked up into his eyes, staring steadily for a while before shifting his gaze.
Seeing this, Yan Jie knew Jiang Nan’an definitely didn’t understand. After all, he hadn’t forgotten that Jiang Nan’an was someone who couldn’t even wrap his head around the concept of “friendship” after much explanation:
“Don’t understand?”
“Mm.”
“It’s okay, some things don’t need to be thoroughly understood. When you truly feel it someday, you’ll naturally understand.”
As he spoke, Yan Jie noticed that the back collar of Jiang Nan’an’s team uniform jacket was messy, so he casually helped straighten it.
Jiang Nan’an noticed his movement and was slightly startled, as if wanting to dodge, but realizing what he was doing, relaxed a bit and allowed him to adjust it.
Yan Jie noticed this subtle reaction, his fingertips pausing momentarily, but quickly returned to normal as he fixed Jiang Nan’an’s collar. However, as he withdrew his hand, the corner of his lips unconsciously turned upward in a curve he himself didn’t notice.
“Then…”
Jiang Nan’an watched Jiang Shanshan and inBlue in the rest room, playfully fighting over the trophy. “Little Sheep” was watching from the side. Later, inBlue snatched a candy from Jiang Shanshan and tossed it to Little Sheep without a word. Little Sheep caught the candy and smiled slightly, pressing his lips together.
“Hmm?” Yan Jie noticed his hesitation.
Jiang Nan’an paused, then completed his question:
“You mean two people can be together as long as they like each other, without considering rules or reasonableness. Then, what is ‘liking’ someone?”
“Liking… liking,” Yan Jie habitually chuckled, about to explain, but his voice halted on that delicate word.
“Liking…”
Yan Jie rarely hesitated on a topic, like an electronic device experiencing a calculation error, all data encountering a bug and being cleared to a blank slate, unable to proceed to the next step of computation.
If someone else had asked this question to Yan Jie, he would have answered without hesitation: Do you even need to ask? Liking someone is wanting to hold them like a treasure, afraid they might break, always putting them first, being happy just seeing them, and wanting to keep looking at them when happy. It’s when their every glance and movement makes your heart flutter, wanting to be with them every day, talking to them for no reason, thinking everything about them is good, not bearing to see them suffer even a little, wanting to give them the best of everything in the world.
But the person asking this question was Jiang Nan’an.
That feeling of being bewitched, of being possessed, came over him again.
“Liking is…”
Yan Jie looked into Jiang Nan’an’s eyes and for a moment seemed to lose himself. So he somewhat unnaturally shifted his gaze, cleared his throat, and mumbled:
“…just liking, you know.”
#
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
