Song Yu's reason disappeared for a few seconds before it briefly returned.
Yue Zhishi's eyes were very bright, and his cheeks and the tip of his nose were flushed from the cold wind. He looked very innocent as he gazed at him with his face upturned. When Song Yu didn't reply, he once again reached out a hand and held onto Song Yu's sleeve.
"Mn." Song Yu nodded.
The leads in the movie kissed, and waves of whistles and cheers sounded in the outdoor sports ground. Everyone watching the movie was at the height of their youth, and they were all either bashful or excited at the sight.
Hearing the noise, Yue Zhishi turned his head over to look before he turned back around. His ears slightly reddened.
Song Yu used to hate places with crowds of people, and he also used to hate it when other people followed along and made an uproar. But now, he unexpectedly felt a scene like this was very glorious; his sole regret was that he was unable to kiss Yue Zhishi here.
"You have to do what you promised me. You can't just say you'll do it." Yue Zhishi was very close to him. As the people around them continued to make a commotion, he rose on his tiptoes and said to Song Yu, "Anything you need me to do for you, I'll do."
Song Yu nodded. He knew Yue Zhishi wasn't someone who would say things he didn't mean, so he couldn't help but tease, "Anything?"
Yue Zhishi quickly nodded without even thinking, but he still added off one condition in the extremely low limits he held towards Song Yu. "As long as it's not illegal."
Song Yu was amused. "You sure do live up to your studies."
"Do you remember the sticker sheets I gave you when we were kids? You only used one." Yue Zhishi clutched his arm.
Song Yu asked in return, "I've used them before?"
"Yes! I was in your room asking you to play video games with me during the summer of your sixth year of elementary school." Yue Zhishi replied very rapidly, but he didn't look too happy when he next said, "You used one sheet in order to get me to be quiet for half an hour."
But Song Yu at that time hadn't even brought out them for Yue Zhishi to double check. After he said he'd use them, Yue Zhishi had gloomily left his room, silently believing he'd used one.
He honestly was capable of doing something like that. Song Yu thought about it for a little while, the memory floating into his mind.
He looked at Yue Zhishi's face again, and seeing him with his head lowered in dejection, he stroked the top of his hair. "So you remember things like that."
"I can't just remember the good things about you." With his head lowered, Yue Zhishi used a voice only he himself could hear and muttered, "Or else I would be even more hopeless."
Song Yu stood for a bit, and then he said the later half of the movie wasn't interesting to watch. He pulled Yue Zhishi's arm, taking him away from the huge crowds.
They instinctively walked forward, the unlit campus littered with all different kinds of undisturbed, secret places like a dash cam filled with easter egg videos. They opened one of them at random, sneaking inside, and shared a lingering kiss that belonged only to those in love. And then, under their identities as brothers, they exited and reentered the light of day.
One kiss was far from enough, but Yue Zhishi had no way of asking for more.
Yue Zhishi sunk into a slight sense of loss as he restrained his desire to ask for more. But he convinced himself — this was something he must learn to do in his journey towards growing up.
As they walked, he asked if Song Yu's advisor had done something to make Song Yu unhappy, but since Song Yu glossed over an answer, Yue Zhishi stopped asking.
"The cheesecake was really delicious. We should buy another slice again next time."
Song Yu said, sure.
It was 8:30pm, and Song Yu dropped him off at his dorm. Even though he was very reluctant to leave, Yue Zhishi thought about how Song Yu hadn't had time to eat lunch; he didn't have the heart to wilfully request for him to spend more time with him.
He stood in front of his building and waved to Song Yu, a smile hanging on his face. When he entered the dorm building, he stood once again at a window on the stairs and wistfully searched for Song Yu's receding figure.
Jiang Yufan was scrolling through a restaurant review app as he entered his dorm room, and he discussed with Yue Zhishi which restaurant they should try tomorrow. Yue Zhishi also received many, many messages from Lin Rong, Shen Mi and other senior brothers and sisters. He replied to each and all of them, but the only thing he could think about was the look on Song Yu's face as he said, standing on the sports ground, there will be a lot of people tomorrow.
He didn't know if something had happened to Song Yu before he'd come and looked for him. Even though Song Yu was very good at masking his emotions, Yue Zhishi was extremely sensitive in his perception of them.
But Song Yu had come to see him when he wasn't happy, had come to talk to him and then had requested to celebrate Yue Zhishi's birthday early with just the two of them — Yue Zhishi felt like he'd improved already.
And yet, Yue Zhishi still felt like the degree to which he needed Song Yu was far, far more than the requests Song Yu had asked from him. His possessiveness and the level of intimacy he needed were at levels even he himself found unbearable.
Qin Yan's message was very long, and he said he was going to bring his girlfriend along tomorrow to celebrate Yue Zhishi's birthday and also said he'd already booked a karaoke room. Yue Zhishi said he didn't need to spend that kind of money, but he didn't receive a reply instantly.
As he waited, Yue Zhishi tapped Qin Yan's profile and saw a Moments update that was uploaded not too long ago. He'd uploaded two photos: one of the Plum Garden sports ground and one of his and his girlfriend's hands as they interlocked together.
So it was him.
Yue Zhishi stared at that photo for a long time, his heart slightly envious. He sometimes really wanted to show off his partner to every one around him, and yet he had no choice but to endure.
Enduring was the thing he was most unable to do. When he was a child, he'd been unable to endure the pain as he fell sick from his allergies and had uncontrollably cried; he'd also been unable to endure his happiness and pleasure and had wanted to pour out all those feelings completely. And especially how he liked Song Yu — he hadn't been able to hide it for even one moment, wanting to tell him about his entire heart.
But after being together with Song Yu, Yue Zhishi started to learn what it was to endure. It was so that this relationship that went against the rules could last for just a little longer.
Because he truly liked him very, very much — and thus Yue Zhishi, who had been successful at anything he did, started to learn what it was to be a coward.
It was 11pm, and he finished showering, pulling on a woolly beige-coloured outer coat meant to be worn at home.
The dorm mate across from him was on the phone with his girlfriend, Jiang Yufan was playing games with his girlfriend and the other remaining dorm mate said he was peckish and wanted to go downstairs to get a cup of instant noodles from the vending machine.
Yue Zhishi went down with him.
"Both of them are always showing off their relationships in the dorm." His dorm mate elbowed Yue Zhishi. "Why aren't you dating? So many girls are chasing after you."
"I have someone I like," Yue Zhishi truthfully said.
"Ah?" It was if his dorm mate was a bit flattered at how Yue Zhishi suddenly opened himself to him. "I didn't expect you to be able to have a secret crush as well."
Even though he'd been misunderstood, Yue Zhishi didn't correct him.
His dorm mate stood in front of the vending machine, speaking as he decided which one to get. "The person you like must definitely have great looks. They're probably also quite a good person."
Yue Zhishi dipped his head. "Very gentle."
It was unlikely anyone other than Yue Zhishi would agree to that description of Song Yu. Only Yue Zhishi knew: Song Yu, who always looked so unfeeling and cold, carried the gentlest and greatest heart in the world.
"Gentle people are always really easy to persuade." His dorm mate seemed to be egging him on. "You can give it a try, she might think you're a really good, handsome person. She'll have no way of rejecting you so she might just agree to dating you. Wouldn't that make everyone happy?"
He chose the noodle he wanted, paid and then gave Yue Zhishi another piece of encouragement. "I hear your chances of succeeding double if you confess on your birthday."
After a burst of sound, his dorm mate took out the noodles lying on the bottom of the machine.
But because of his words, Yue Zhishi fell into confusion.
"Are there really people who would agree to dating just because they can't think of a reason to reject someone?" Yue Zhishi asked.
"Yup." His dorm mate said, "I confessed many times to a girl I liked in high school, and she ended up agreeing to be with me. But I could sense that she didn't actually really like me all that much, so we broke up after graduating. She was a very gentle person who didn't like rejecting people, and she felt like she could give us a try."
"Is that so?" Slightly demoralised, Yue Zhishi said, "But that's true, especially if someone ended up crying when they were confessing. It'll be even more troublesome."
His dorm mate said in amusement, "Isn't that something only girls would do?"
He shook the cup of noodles in his hand and leaned onto the vending machine. He asked Yue Zhishi, "Le Le, do you want something to eat? This pudding's pretty nice. My treat."
Yue Zhishi said no need. He didn't want to eat; his mind was looking for all the pieces of evidence that could prove Song Yu really liked him — he felt like there were much too many. He shouldn't be so insecure, worried about how much of Song Yu he actually had.
He was torn for two seconds, but then Yue Zhishi still ended up asking his dorm mate to buy him a pudding, with the money transferred to him later. His dorm mate kept waving his hand in refusal, and the words that came out of him were actually somewhat romantic. "Just think of it as a final little gift from me to your eighteen years of life."
"Thank you." Once he took the pudding, Yue Zhishi sluggishly followed behind him. He walked a few steps, and then turned back.
"What are you doing?" His dorm mate watched as Yue Zhishi headed towards the main doors of the dorm building. He called out, "The doors are about to get locked!"
"I know. I'm not coming back tonight." Yue Zhishi held onto that carton of pudding and ran out without even looking back.
He didn't have his phone, and without a GPS, he ran around in the pitch black campus for a very long time. He ended up relying on his intuition, born from so many days of walking back and forth on these roads with Song Yu, and arrived at the part of campus where Song Yu lived.
He stood in front of Song Yu's dormitory building, panting for air. After struggling to calm his breathing, Yue Zhishi pulled up his courage and went to the window where the dormitory auntie was. The auntie saw him in his outfit of sleeping clothes, and since he was a wholly unfamiliar face, she asked him why he was here and which building he belonged to.
Yue Zhishi answered all of her questions, still short of air. He didn't look too normal, and so the auntie was very suspicious.
"I'm here to look for Song Yu. He lives in room 418."
"Why are you looking for him? It's so late. You guys aren't from the same school, so you can't just casually come in and visit."
"I..." Yue Zhishi thought about saying he was his little brother, but he wasn't willing to say it — and so he stood in front of that tiny window, frozen.
Someone walked behind him, and that person headed slightly closer to him. It was a very delicate looking guy, and he wore a pair of black-framed glasses. He glanced at Yue Zhishi a few times before he decided to come up; he lightly patted his shoulder. "You're Yue Zhishi, aren't you?"
"Yes."
He didn't know this face. Yue Zhishi asked in surprise, "Do you know me?"
"Of course." The guy smiled. "Is there something urgent you need Song Yu for?"
Yue Zhishi thought — giving a cheap pudding wouldn't be considered as anything urgent, and he would be ashamed to even say it out loud. He fell silent.
"It's okay. Did you not bring your phone?" That guy gazed at Yue Zhishi and went around him, greeting the auntie inside the window. "Auntie, this is Song Yu's brother. Can I take him up to look for his older brother?"
Suspicion covered her face, but this guy seemed to get along well with the auntie; he coaxed her into laughing with just a few sentences, and so she relaxed with Yue Zhishi.
"You should've said you were his brother earlier. Why didn't you say so when I asked?"
Yue Zhishi was still unwilling to speak.
"You need to come out in a bit, you can't stay over."
"We know, auntie. Good night." The guy brought Yue Zhishi to the stairs before introducing himself. "I'm Song Yu's dorm mate. I'm Chen Fangyuan."
"Nice to meet you, senior." Yue Zhishi hurriedly greeted him, but he was still a bit curious. "Senior, how did you know who I was? Have you seen me before?"
"Yeah, I've seen you and Song Yu eating together at the cafeteria a good few times already. The gossip about Song Yu almost getting into a fight with someone from the law school because of you has spread around our year several times."
Chen Fangyuan grinned. "But what a wonder — Song Yu's such an icy guy, and yet he's a damned younger brother-con." He then rushed to explain, "I'm just teasing, don't take it to heart."
Yue Zhishi shook his head. He followed Chen Fangyuan to the door of their dorm room, and then he hesitated. "Can I go in?"
"Of course." Chen Fangyuan pushed open the door and then realised there was no one inside. "Eh? Your brother's not back yet. He must still be in the research lab. Why don't you sit at his desk and wait a bit."
This place was still the dorm Yue Zhishi was familiar with — it felt like he'd hidden here from the rain just yesterday. He gazed at the bed he'd slept together in with Song Yu; it still looked exactly the same.
Chen Fangyuan headed to the desk across from Song Yu's bed, taking off his jacket and pulling out his phone. "Let me give your brother a call. Have a seat, the cleanest looking one is his."
Yue Zhishi very obediently went over. Song Yu's desk wasn't too different from before, with all the furnishings pretty much the same. Except there was now an item in a corner, covered by a black velvet cloth, and he couldn't tell what it was.
Song Yu didn't pick up the phone, so Chen Fangyuan turned back around and saw Yue Zhishi touching the black cloth cover on Song Yu's desk. He immediately called out, "Hey, hey, little brother — don't touch that. He might come back and yell at you."
Yue Zhishi pivoted his face over to him in doubt, and yet he didn't take back his hand. He looked at how nervous Chen Fangyuan was, but the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "He won't yell at me."
With a face full of this little ancestor has no idea what's coming, Chen Fangyuan rapidly sent a text and then headed over to where Yue Zhishi was sitting. "That's not necessarily true. Your brother fucking babies this thing and doesn't let anyone touch it. At first he was worried about dust and water, so he put a glass cover over it. And then when dust kept piling up on the glass, he found the velvet cloth to put over it. Eighty percent chance my future sister-in-law gave it to him."
He then added, "If they do end up getting together."
Hearing Chen Fangyuan speak so hotly and emotionally about this decoration, a bit of jealousy grew in Yue Zhishi's heart. He had never seen Song Yu treasure something so much.
He reached out a hand again. "I want to see."
Chen Fangyuan silently wondered about how this child just refused to listen. "Fine, but just be careful. Or else I'd be worried about your brother coming back and saying something to you."
"He won't," Yue Zhishi said, a bit of pique in his voice as he took off that cloth covering.
The next second — he froze where he was.
The globe he'd given to Song Yu after labouring for so many summer nights rested under the glass cover.
Yue Zhishi had almost forgotten this thing existed. He'd thought Song Yu wouldn't like it at all, had thought it'd long been thrown into some random corner — it wouldn't move, would stay still as it faded away and collected dust. It would have been abandoned.
He knew there was a lag in the knowledge transmitted between him and Song Yu. Song Yu's feelings were like well-buried clues, puzzle pieces hidden deeply away.
It had been so hard for Yue Zhishi to find a small piece of the puzzle; and now, the puzzle of feelings Song Yu held for him in his heart could be slightly restored to its original appearance.
But it was never complete — which is why he would question it.
With twenty minutes still remaining until he turned nineteen, Yue Zhishi gained an extremely important clue.
And with this, he became intensely greedy. The puzzle pieces that came out one by one made him lose all patience; the sole thought of wanting a complete Song Yu pressed into him, so urgent he couldn't stand it.
Chen Fangyuan's phone vibrated, and he immediately answered it.
"Hey. Yeah, it's cold downstairs so I told him to come up, I thought you were at the dorm... your brother didn't bring his phone..." Chen Fangyuan looked Yue Zhishi up and down as he continued speaking. "...it doesn't look like anything happened to him. I don't think he's sick either. Ah, sure..."
The door to the room opened, and Yue Zhishi and Chen Fangyuan looked over at the same time. It was Song Yu in a rare panic.
"Why'd you call if you were already on your way up. What a waste of money." Chen Fangyuan hung up the call.
Steadying his breathing, Song Yu walked in, his eyes containing only Yue Zhishi. He didn't even notice the globe on his desk.
"Are you okay?" He quietly asked, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming over?"
"I..." Yue Zhishi didn't know what he should say. Should he say he really missed him, that he changed his mind and wanted to stay by his side in the last few remaining minutes in order to spend the first moments of his birthday together? Or should he use the shoddy reason he'd hastily thought up, and say he heard a certain pudding was quite tasty — and had ran over half the campus in the middle of the night to bring to him to eat.
Or should he admit to the insecurities that had come without cause and needed to be soothed.
It seemed like Song Yu understood something, and he pulled Yue Zhishi's wrist and headed outside.
"Hey," Chen Fangyuan called out to him from the back. "Where are you going?" He ran to the door. "Don't get angry at your brother."
Song Yu only said, "I'm not coming back tonight, no need to wait up."
Yue Zhishi was taken downstairs. The auntie had already finished her shift at the entrance, and they left the dorm with no other place to go.
Seeing the cotton slippers on Yue Zhishi's feet, Song Yu could only tug him to the grove a few hundred metres behind the dormitory building. There was an empty, open air car park with very little people, and Song Yu was used to leaving his car there.
Song Yu turned up the aircon after getting in the car, and then he asked Yue Zhishi what happened.
Yue Zhishi continued to not speak, only gazing at Song Yu. His nose started to burn, but he couldn't tell if it was from the guilt he felt at misunderstanding him, or if it was from the heart that'd been touched after seeing the globe.
"What's wrong, Le Le." Song Yu called him by his nickname, and touched his face that'd been chilled by the wind. All of a sudden, Yue Zhishi couldn't hold back anymore — he embraced Song Yu from his passenger seat, burying his face into the side of his neck.
"I want to spend my birthday with you."
Song Yu's body visibly relaxed a bit at this, and he hugged Yue Zhishi back. "You could've told me."
"I was worried after hearing you ran over." He stroked Yue Zhishi's back.
"This was very unplanned, I wasn't thinking of coming out initially," Yue Zhishi explained. He then thought about what his dorm mate had said, and without thinking about it, he poured it all out for Song Yu to hear.
"He said his ex-girlfriend was also a really good person and agreed to be with him because she couldn't reject his confessions. And then I thought about you, thought about how particularly sorry I'd looked when I confessed. I was sick too, so you definitely had no way to reject me. But..."
He squirmed on Song Yu's shoulder, his nose somewhat blocked. "But I really do like you, a lot. I didn't want to leave after kissing you. You said you wanted to celebrate my birthday early with just the two of us — but in reality, I wanted to give my entire birthday only to you."
He was slightly agitated, and there was no method or logic to his speech. Song Yu tried sifting through his words and found an important point Yue Zhishi no longer considered important.
"Do you think I don't really like you?"
Yue Zhishi rose from his body, shaking his head. "No, I just... Sometimes I don't know how much you like me. I just feel like you definitely don't like me as much as I like you. I want you to rely on me a bit more... I don't know why I think like this either. But I saw the globe just then."
The look in Song Yu's eyes changed, and after a few seconds, he asked, "Did that help you believe I actually really do like you?"
Yue Zhishi met his eyes and nodded. "Yes. I understand now."
Song Yu let out a light laugh, and yet there wasn't much amusement in his eyes.
"No, you don't understand."
The false birthday cake and candles had only provided happiness in advance — there was still the final minute remaining before nineteen.
"I only used the word like in order to adapt to you," Song Yu said.
"Because the word sounds relatively harmless. It doesn't sound all that intense, and the word itself doesn't carry much possessiveness. But I'm actually very unreasonably anxious. Do you know why I don't remember using the stickers you gave me?"
Yue Zhishi watched him. "Why?"
In the dark, the second hand on the watch ticked, second by second, like the sound of a countdown.
"Because I've kept all of them. I still have every single sheet. I remember very well that there are ten sheets — I count through them every year when I'm cleaning." Song Yu was clearly smiling, yet his face was very pale.
"Do you think that's something a normal older brother would do?"
"The watch you gave me; the four leaf clover you gave me that's so withered it would disintegrate if it's touched; the old calendars you've used... I still have all of them, hidden away. It's the same with the globe."
"Didn't you ask me before about when I started to like you? To be honest, I really can't find a specific moment. Maybe when I was thirteen, or maybe when I was six. I can't tell."
Three—
"I only know that I've lost countless nights of sleep because of you."
Two—
"If I did sleep, I would have many dreams about you, dreams I shouldn't be having."
One.
Song Yu gazed at his eyes, his voice slightly hoarse. "I don't like you. Yue Zhishi, I love you."
Yue Zhishi, at nineteen years old, finally received the birthday present he needed: a fully and utterly exposed Song Yu, who gave to him the whole of himself.
Translator has something to say:
Chen Fangyuan calling YZS his ancestor is Chinese slang (? I think it's considered slang) for someone you ironically, sarcastically "respect".