CH 75

Kofi dono chapter from Anra7777; shoutout a thanks to them in the comments!

Trigger warning: Mentions of homophobia

[Gloomy skies.

This year’s winter was very cold; it didn’t snow anymore, but depression was self-induced in this weather.

Karina curled her hands in her pockets and slowly trudged her way home.

There was a funeral scheduled for tomorrow, after all, her best friend Mary died yesterday.

This made Karina, who’d never been so close to the deceased before, a bit uncomfortable.

Moreover, she felt that the situation surrounding Mary’s death was eerie; she needed to find out the truth.

We woooo, we woooo…

The whistle of the police car shot through the sky and the dazed Karina instantly woke up.

She turned to look in the direction of the sound, and a police car parked in front of a dilapidated two-story building was carrying a covered stretcher.

A sturdy, rugged middle-aged man followed suit and walked out of the house.

“Damn! Little bastard! Just as useless as his mother!”

Karina knit her brow; due to family circumstances, she had learned to hate these types of guys.

She was unfamiliar with who the man and the corpse were so she pouted and left.

“Dead … dead, all dead …” A thin boy who’d run over not far away started to break down as he watched the house that was being flooded with policemen.

Karina looked at him skeptically. “Johnny, is that you?”

Johnny looked up at her timidly, exposing his bloodshot eyes behind his glasses’ lens.

“Did you know that person?” 

Instead of answering her, Johnny bit his fingers nervously with a bowed head, muttering, “Yes, it was his doing, it was him, it was Morris who killed Zhou Yu– I’ll be next … “

Morris.

Karina nibbled her lip in thought.

This was the second time she heard that name.

Bang!!—-

The gloomy skies finally released a thunderclap.

It started to rain. 】

——From《Nightmare》

Zhou Yu was fatigued. He looked at the empty room, and could only eventually hold his head and flop onto the bed.

The irregularity of the past few days had indeed led him to believe that there were things in this world that couldn’t be explained by modern-day science.

For example, the paintings he drew—and the subsequent change in his father Eugene.

Another example was that day when Paul, who had intended to beat him up, ran away without doing so.

The schoolbag from the burned-out classroom-and the black handprints on it.

There was also Annie’s sudden act of self-harm.

Is it the same thing?

Zhou Yu sighed and raised his voice slightly, stating, “Although I don’t know who you are, thank you, thanks for helping me a lot.”

After a minuscule pause, Zhou Yu remembered the roses that mysteriously appeared in his locker.

“In addition, if you were the one who gifted me those flowers – although it’s a little ungrateful of me, I would still ask you to please not send them anymore .”

Morris’s bright blue gaze from the ceiling dimmed at a rate visible to the naked eye.

“There’s someone dear to my heart already.”

He had no idea why he blurted out that phrase.

Zhou Yu bit his lower lip in annoyance forced his face to return to its’ indifferent state.

Who did he like?

The face of a smiling blond appeared in his mind.

But it’s a sin.

Even the world had entered modern society, in this era of universal religious beliefs, homosexuality wouldn’t be punished by being burned at the stake like in the Middle Ages, but it would still be considered a stain on the rest of their lives.

No company dared hire a homosexual employee.

In some more-remote areas, homosexuals were even still being sent to mental hospitals.

Just like in the town where he lived. Homosexuality was a sin against the gods, a blasphemous disease that needed to be purged.

Morris floated down from the ceiling, walking close to his best friend and stretching out his charcoal-like hand.

The spirit’s chest was burning in fury and sorrow.

He wanted to ask who his (ZY) loved one really was and why he liked that person, even though he didn’t really have any legitimate reason to interrogate Zhou Yu.

However.

Why did you reject my flowers?

It’s obvious that roses are your favorite.

Morris’s black, sunken eye sockets seemed to ignite into two ghostly blue flames, giving off an incongruent sense of aloofness

They were best friends, and always would be.

And best friends always told each other everything, didn’t they?

So, how could it be okay for anyone to intervene in their friendship at will? [1]

Gently pressing a kiss to Zhou Yu’s earlobe, Morris made sure that he couldn’t see him, a deep obsessiveness glimmering in his gaze.

No matter who or what… anyone, anything – he wouldn’t allow unneeded trash to intervene in their relationship.

When he figured out who exactly the shameless woman was, he planned to show her what a real nightmare was. [2]

Zhou Yu felt a chilly aura approach him, but it dissipated after a bit.

Having reached out and touched his cold earlobe, Zhou Yu’s dark emerald eyes shifted side to side, surprisingly timid.

Is that thing gone?

“Did you leave?”

In the quiet room, only the alarm clock on the desk made a light ticking sound.

Zhou Yu’s originally tight back relaxed a smidge.

He blinked and looked at the sky outside the window.

It was still storming, the wind and rain battering the window, as if eager for the warm light inside.

That thing had definitely been offended, after all, that which was so resolute was shot down mercilessly.

Zhou Yu peeled off his soaking wet pants and put them on a chair near the desk.

He didn’t wear long johns, so his long, white and tender thighs got covered in goosebumps as soon as they were exposed to the air.

Morris retracted into the corner, not moving an inch. He tried covering his eyes, but he could already sense everything around him mentally, covering his eyeballs did nothing.

Right now, he had only one realization in his heart – Zhou Yu was a bit delicate, and his legs looked nice.

No, it should be said that everything about his Zhou Yu was good.

But the thought that these things would be occupied by an unknown woman one day or another caused the anger that Morris had shoved down to flare up again.

It was absolutely critical to find the woman who dared seduce his friend!

In the cramped room, Zhou Yu moved his pale freezing toes and looked dispiritedly out the window.

“It still hasn’t snowed yet.”

He once agreed with Morris to meet somewhere after the first snow this year-although it sounded naive, he used to look forward to it.

Zhou Yu shook his head and stood up, taking a pair of pajamas from the wardrobe and going to wash up.

In the room, Morris fell into a faint daze.

He’d remembered their promise to have a snowball fight as well.

But…

It was doomed to be an unfulfillable wish.

Morris glared down at his ugly, scarred palm and clenched it blankly.

Zhou Yu stepped out of the bedroom and saw Eugene still lying on the ground, no longer cursing out the air but began to pant, as if he had some trouble getting oxygen. 

The dark-haired and green-eyed boy blinked, for a split second, he’d seemed to see a sickle of dark mist reaching for Eugene’s throat, just like the sickle in the picture he drew yesterday.

“Huuuuuuuu! Help me up! Do you want to be the death of me?! Damn it–” Eugene, who had suffered a bit, still apparently had a bit of tact and barely showed a smile while choking back his curses, saying “My dear son, help me out, I can barely breathe!”

Zhou Yu’s green eyes flickered, the corners of his lips quirked up: “Yes father.”

I will of course help you, help you go to hell for atonement.

Walking over to Eugene, Zhou Yu crouched down and asked with an innocent face: “So, my dear father, as a reward, why don’t you tell me where Mother is?”

Eugene’s cloudy eyes were sluggish, his fatty face swinging with a nasty tone: “Your mother, you son of a bitch? Heeeee, where could she possibly go? That whore went to a brothel! You damned devil spawn! “

Zhou Yu righted himself with a gloomy face and kicked this putrid man in his face, his falsely crisp and melodious voice dimming in spite: “Is that right? Then you might as well take a hike to Hell, where you belong! “

Almost pained to tears, the fat all over the man’s dumpy body trembled and jiggled.

Zhou Yu watched him cry in pain with a deadpan face and walked to the bathroom to wash up in the music of screaming that resulted from his father’s hand getting stepped on by a certain individual.

Some people never change.

***

Crystal snowflakes fell, beauty suffusing the irregular patterns.

A snowflake gradually fell and melted onto a pure white sheet.

The dark-haired boy lying in bed fell asleep quietly, a few snowflakes hanging on his long eyelashes.

The eyes under those thin lids shifted around rapidly in a way that announced his waking mind.

Ding ling, ling–

A crisp wind chime rang, spirited and beautiful.

Zhou Yu sweet waking was met with the delicate sound of a wind-blown melody from out of the blue.

Is this a dream?

Lying on the bed, watching the ceiling turning into a spreading painting of the night, the teen viewed snow falling from the new “sky”.

His green eyes trembled as he slowly sat up.

Reaching out to catch a snowflake, observing it gradually melt in his warm palm, Zhou Yu’s gaze gradually began to sparkle.

Snow.

It’s beautiful.

Zhou Yu looked around at his now snow-layered narrow room. 

As the snowflakes continued to fall, the whole room got covered in beautiful pureness, like the setting of a fairy tale.

Zhou Yu’s white insteps were set upon the snow, but strangely, he didn’t feel a trace of coldness.

There was already a heavy layer of flakes over the floor, crunching with every step.

Zhou Yu walked over to the window and stared at an empty white landscape.

With a bit of rarely-aroused interest, Zhou Yu quickly strode to the door and threw it wide open.

Sure enough, the world outside the door is quite different.

The dark and narrow house had disappeared, only a vast white plain remaining

A perfect place for snowball fights.

“Hey! Zhou Yu!” A familiar voice echoed from behind his back.

Zhou Yu froze all of a sudden, blinking rapidly.

He turned to see a blond boy standing not far away.

The short blond hair of the boy ruffled as ever, but had an unforgettable face.

Profound and delicate features, the most beautiful work that God ever created.

The youth’s intoxicating sapphire eyes were full of charming smiles. 

“Morris, you’re back.”

The dark-haired boy stared at the blonde in front of him, he’d obviously anxiously awaited his return but inexplicably felt a little flustered.

“Let’s have a snowball fight!” The other teen grinned brightly.

The dark-haired boy looked at the familiar smile on his favorite face and narrowed his eyes gently.

The next moment, a snowball slammed into the blonde’s face.

Zhou Yu scooped up another snowball, laughing: “Okay.”

Soon, joyous peals belonging to young men soared around on the snow, leading one to believe that the pain of reality was all an illusion.

After a while, Zhou Yu was tired of playing around, he smiled slyly, grabbed Morris’s hand, and fell into the soft snow together.

“Hahaha! I caught a Morris! Now you have more snow on you than I do!”

“Ah! That’s not fair!” The blond teenager who was pressed down by the dark-haired boy sulked.

“Too bad~” Zhou Yu stuck his tongue out at Morris with none of the indifference that was shown to outsiders.

Morris gazed up at the person sitting on him, his blue eyes gradually darkening in lust.

Zhou Yu looked back at Morris, staring at each other.

Their heated breaths swam between each other, and even the air suddenly felt ambiguous.

Morris stretched out his hand and tightened it around the aggressor’s waist, pulling Zhou Yu and his thin, pale lips closer to his own.

Ringggg—

The alarm went off.

The boy’s long eyelashes trembled and lifted off his eyes.

There was still a faint mist in those emerald pools.