CH 11

Chapter 11 – Senses In The Dark

Today is the commemorative day of our TingJue’s coming out of the closet!

Fang Juexia’s sense of time was thrown into chaos, and so was he. 

“Here.” He hastily stuffed the mochi into Pei Tingsong’s hand, before forcibly pulling his arm away and returning to his half of the space within the dark closet.

How many minutes were left? He tried to calculate the amount of time left, but the more he calculated, the more chaotic he felt instead. The second hand of his internal clock that had mis-ticked seemed to have gotten stuck in the rhythm of a beat that he couldn’t get into, and even when he chased after it, he couldn’t bring it back to its normal track. Finally, Fang Juexia could only choose to give up. He leaned his back against the wall of the closet and retracted his hands and feet as far back as possible. It seemed that staying in such a posture was safe. 

However, his little clock was broken, and he no longer had the confidence that he would remain calm and stable.

To be honest, Pei Tingsong was a little confused about what had happened just now. He pinched the mochi in his hand, and from the packaging came the broken crinkling sounds of plastic being squeezed. 

Fang Juexia’s perceptiveness was always delayed. His perception was slow in catching up, just like during the transferring the candy wrapper game before, where he was only startled by Pei Tingsong’s swift and vicious attack, but felt nothing else. However, all of a sudden, the sound of the rustling of a package appeared in the silent wardrobe. This seemed to trigger some of the nerves in his sensory system, which then instantly pulled him back to the scene of that explosively competitive game. 

The sound of the rubbing of the cellophane candy wrapper brought about a reaction after a long delay—his already red ears started to boil up. 

Just having his clock fail was enough, but now, even his perception was starting to go haywire.

It turned out that Fang Juexia was trying to give him a snack. Only now had Pei Tingsong managed to figure out the other party’s motivation.

Then just say it directly ah. 

Right, Fang Juexia had wanted to tell him directly in the beginning, but he had stopped him.

The lively voices of their group members floated in from outside. 

Pei Tingsong felt powerless inside. Originally, he should have been one of them.

“You want to dispatch me with just this…” He said in a low voice.

Who would have known that under the cover of darkness, Fang Juexia would grab the initiative to say, “Then throw it over here, and return it to me.”

He tried to take the opportunity to get back his snack, although his tone seemed a little cold.

“Dream on.” Whatever had arrived in his hands would not be returned. He directly opened the package with his teeth and squeezed the soft mochi into his mouth.

The moment it touched his lips, the familiar soft glutinous feeling caused Pei Tingsong to become lost in his thoughts. 

Clearly, during the process of playing the game, he had had no abnormal emotions, just a pure desire of wanting to win. 

But right now, it seemed as if his lips had been electrified, and this mochi led him down a path filled with intrigue and strange, wild thoughts. 

In the darkness, where no one could see anything, Pei Tingsong’s Adam’s apple rolled up and down in a flurry, and then he swallowed up the small soft thing, secretly vowing that he would never eat mochi again.

Even so, the scene of when he had transferred the candy wrapper still lingered in his mind. The darker the surroundings became, the brighter the glimmer of Fang Juexia’s eyes seemed to be. 

Under the darkness, a petri dish of emotions started to breed, and the accompanying silence allowed for  a magnifying glass to be focused on all their senses. 

Only wanting to get away from some kind of train of thought that even he wasn’t clear about, Pei Tingsong tried to break this silence. He stretched out his somewhat limp and numb legs and poked Fang Juexia, calling out, “Hey.”

“Don’t I have a name?”

Fang Juexia wasn’t trying to make things hard for him on purpose, and was just asking this question without carrying any emotions about it. As a matter of fact, he had long been used to Pei Tingsong’s wanton disregard, and he also didn’t care much about the proper behavior that should be displayed with order of age. It was merely that at this moment, he felt very strange; everything was very strange.

Pei Tingsong choked. He had originally wanted to ask Fang Juexia if he had anything else to eat, but now that he had been coldly counterattacked, his natural vicious behavior bounced right to the forefront. 

“How many times have you called my name?” After saying this, he attempted to grab the cool guy’s attention by getting closer, then using his knee to push apart Fang Juexia’s legs, and giving an order in a rather commanding tone, “Hey, look at me.”

His deliberately low voice sounded more oppressive like this. He maliciously pushed his knee in hard, pushing the other person’s legs further apart, even going to the extent of stepping on his thighs. “You’re not looking at me at all ba?”

Fang Juexia answered bluntly, “I can’t see you.”

“I don’t care.” Pei Tingsong’s tone contained more mischievousness now, shadowed with a hint of a smile. Just as he was about to make his next move, the closet door was suddenly opened.

The light caught them off guard.

“Dang dang dang dang! Come out of the closet ba!” Ling Yi, who was holding the door of the closet, had the cameraman standing behind him. At first, he didn’t see things clearly, but in the next second, he noticed that there was something strange about the positions of the people in the closet, especially Pei Tingsong’s legs…

Standing beside Ling Yi, Lu Yuan gloated and said, “Yuan Ge is very pleased. It seems that in the past five minutes, you two have gotten along very well ma.”

Eyes that had been immersed in the dark always took some time to adjust to the brightness of the light that had suddenly returned. Fang Juexia squinted his eyes and lowered his head, while Pei Tingsong reached out his hand to block his eyes, while also quickly retracting his wanton legs.

Of course, this scene was also immediately recorded by the camera and broadcasted on the livestream. 

[It’s only been five minutes, but I’ve missed you guys so much!! Quickly let mama peek at what you two are doing!]

[Hahahahahaha 01 about to die of laughter, come out of the closet la, it really is]

[AHHHHHHHH WHAT KIND OF ADULTEROUS SCENE IS THIS!!! I feel faint!]

[Pinot Tree Supreme, where are you stepping with your feet!]

[WTF, what happened between the two of you to be in this position?? Why was there no cameraman in the closet! I hate it!]

[This scene contains the visual sense of the anti-pornography team directly breaking into the scene hhhhhh, especially with the way Juexia’s lowering his head, as if admitting guilt]

[AHHHHHHHHH A BILLION TIMES WRONGED!! I want to see wardrobe play!!]

[Came out of the closet came out of the closet came out of the closet]

[Today is the commemorative day of our TingJue’s coming out of the closet!]

Pei Tingsong walked out first, mumbling to himself and suffocating to death. 

“Just now we played another game outside, and then Lu Yuan lost, hahaha!” Ling Yi said that and then couldn’t stop laughing as he continued, “He had to record a clip of himself doing the flower hands!”

Only then did Fang Juexia realize that they had been deceived when they had been told about a cameraman sitting outside, and that there had been no one outside the closet at all. 

His heart beat a little strangely, not following his body’s usual rhythms. He attributed this to the lack of oxygen in the confined space.

“I’m starving.” As soon as he got out, Xiao Pei started to forage for food. “I’ve been punished all night, quickly give me something to eat.”

Ling Yi picked up a bag of food that had already been opened and was lying on the sofa. “Hey, eat this. Mochi, it’s delicious.” Then he took one out of the package and threw it at Pei Tingsong. 

This tiny little mochi drew an arc in the air. When it reached Pei Tingsong’s arms, the way he reacted violently to it made it seem as if it had basically turned into a hot potato. “I don’t want this.” After saying that, he threw it to He Ziyan. He Ziyan didn’t manage to catch it, and the mochi bounced off his arm, and as luck would have it, fell into Fang Juexia’s hands. 

Seeing this scene, Pei Tingsong walked away awkwardly, pretending that he hadn’t seen anything. “Where’s that half-full bag of chips from before?”

Fang Juexia bowed his head and stared at the poor mochi  that lay paralyzed in his palm. Finally, and still expressionless, he opened the bag and ate it himself.

“Is it delicious?” Ling Yi pulled him in front of the sofa. “I bought it.”

It was delicious….

Fang Juexia pursed his lips and then smoothed them out again. He gripped the transparent colored plastic wrapper and stuffed it into the pocket of his pajamas. Suddenly letting go of the squeezed packaging caused it to slowly rebound in this small fluffy space, making a slight but lingering rustling sound as it did so. 

“Delicious.”

After everyone arrived, an interactive chat session was opened up. Each of them could feel the growing number of fans, and could also tell that there were a lot of new fans who couldn’t manage to connect to the livestream right now. This was an exciting matter; after two years of hard work, they could finally be seen by everyone. 

“Let’s answer the fans’ questions.” Jiang Miao looked at the barrage rolling across the screen and automatically cued everyone up. 

Ling Yi and Lu Yuan gave him a lot of face and started clapping, “Okay!”

“I’ll go.” He Ziyan took a look at the screen and picked a question. “This fan friend with the ID of [Kaleido is my new obsession] asks, ‘Are all the Gege in K using their original name? Do any of you have a stage name or an English name or something?’”

He then exchanged glances with Jiang Miao, who said with a smile, “Very few people ask about this. Is it because our members’ names are all pretty special?”

As soon as this was mentioned, He Ziyan started up, “Only Ling Yi is special ba.”

Just as he finished saying that, he and Lu Yuan started up a two-person act without any warning. Suddenly, they both cried out in unison, “Is there a 1?” Lu Yuan even pulled open Ling Yi’s coat, searched inside, and was kicked away by Ling Yi who yelled, “No! Scram!”

Pei Tingsong had seen the video before, and he was laughing so hard that he was nearly spraying out the potato chips in his mouth. “Hahahahahaha.”

[Hahaha, no, I’m going to go crazy with laughter from watching this silly group]

[Help, hahahahaha is there a 1 hahahahahaha]

[Look at 01’s expression hahahaha, damn 01 is too miserable hhhh]

“You guys are bullying me again!” In the beginning, Ling Yi swung his arms around like a little chicken paddling in the water, putting up a desperate fight against He Ziyan and Lu Yuan. He was restrained by Fang Juexia and Jiang Miao with difficulty, and Jiang Miao held back a smile as he said, “Okay, okay, don’t get angry with the two of them.”

Fang Juexia suddenly, and also rather absent-mindedly, added, “If you damage yourself by being angry, there’s no one to replace you.”

[Hahahahaha Teacher Fang gradually becomes meaner]

He Ziyan, who had laughed enough, covered his stomach and sat upright before saying, “Okay, okay, okay, seriously answering the question now. All six of us are using our original names. We have no stage names or English names. Maybe the company didn’t make any overseas plans at that time?”

Lu Yuan directly exposed everything, “The company is so poor, how can it afford to do overseas planning?”

Ling Yi said, “It’s fortunate that they didn’t make any such plans, since we haven’t gotten that popular.”

Pei Tingsong said, “This group’s biggest strong point is that we all know ourselves.”

[Hahahaha Teacher Yuan is awesome!]

[Boss is watching you!]

[Pei Tingsong, you didn’t inherit this advantage, and you’re the one who knows himself the least!]

[Fuck! Three consecutive hits, hahahaha, what’s with this group!]

Jiang Miao looked at the barrage and said, “What about Juexia? Ah, yes, Juexia is his real name.”

Fang Juexia immediately nodded and said, “Yes, my mama came up with it, because my birthday is June 26, and I was born in the summer.”

“Juexia’s name comes from ancient poetry,” Jiang Miao added, “Xiao Pei’s is also from ancient poetry, isn’t it?”

Xiao Pei had a Pocky dangling from his mouth, and he looked at the camera and asked, “Does my name sound nice?”

[Sounds nice!!!]

[It has both Ting and Song, you were born to be a singer!]

Jiang Miao suddenly thought of something and said, “Ah, but Xiao Pei grew up in the United States, so maybe he has an English name ba.” He glanced at Xiao Pei as he continued, “We actually really don’t know.”

However, Pei Tingsong directly shook his head. “No, when I was there, everyone just directly called me Song. The pronunciation wasn’t a barrier, and Americans would also find it strange to come up with another name when you already have one. And my grandfather said that one should be proud of their origin and their name.”

[Your grandfather feels very stylish]

Ling Yi said, “Telling you guys secretly, Xiao Pei’s grandfather is a writer oh, and he’s published a collection of poems.”

[Wow! Your grandfather is so awesome!]

[I feel that Xiao Pei’s family is especially magical. No wonder Xiao Pei is so talented!]

Lu Yuan stared at the screen. “Someone is asking why Xiao Pei’s Chinese is so good.”

“I grew up in a bilingual environment.” Pei Tingsong explained, “My grandfather used Chinese with me, and I used English with my mom. When I was a child, my grandfather took me to read Chinese books, and he taught me how to write characters using a brush.”

Fang Juexia didn’t know anything about any of this. He listened in silence, and some particular thoughts came to his mind. Sure enough, people’s inherited genes would be responsible for many things, eventually evolving into those so-called ingrained bad habits or those inborn talents. He could verify that fact just by looking at Pei Tingsong. 

“In short, I don’t have an English name. Everyone should just call me by my real name.” Pei Tingsong emphasized again, “It’s Pei, not Fei.”

[Hahahahahaha take off the yi and start up the wen Xiao Pei]

The corners of Fang Juexia’s mouth couldn’t help but draw up upon being cued like this. It just so happened that this sentence had also made Pei Tingsong think of him, and so the two people’s gazes collided unexpectedly.

Pei Tingsong mouthed at him—what are you laughing at?

Fang Juexia raised his hand, pulled down the rising corner of his mouth with his index finger and thumb, and returned to his expressionless state. 

Before Pei Tingsong could bask in his satisfaction, Ling Yi, who had suddenly hooked his arm around his neck from behind him, shouted, “Xiao Pei, I’ll give you an English name!”

Long years of doing crosstalk with him gave Lu Yuan the opportunity to immediately respond, “You withdraw, let me do it!” He covered Ling Yi’s mouth and said, “Pei Tingsong’s English name is Listen and Song…”

“Pei,” He Ziyan added his surname to it and in the imitation of a foreign accent, dragged out the name.