CH 56

Chapter 56 – The Point Of No Return

What was so urgent ah

Really… Pei Tingsong thought that his temper had been too good recently, and he had spoiled Fang Juexia until he ended up like this. Just as he was about to speak, the cellphone in his hand vibrated. He glanced at the lock screen and saw the words [Astar Liang Ruo].

Within a split second, his mood plummeted down to reach the bottom of a valley, while an inexplicable angry heat rose up within him internally. Pei Tingsong wasn’t a good-natured person, and when he thought about how Fang Juexia had just asked him to bring over his cellphone, maybe it was because he had wanted to chat with Liang Ruo. Seeing him get involved with that person like this made Pei Tingsong’s chest grow stuffier and stuffier. However, he still held back and didn’t want to lose his temper at Fang Juexia, and he also had no standpoint to justify losing his temper. So, he just placed the cellphone, with its screen upside down, on the ground, pulled Fang Juexia up and stuffed the salad box into his arms.

Fang Juexia didn’t count as being someone with a sensitive personality, but even he could almost immediately feel that Pei Tingsong wasn’t happy. He couldn’t explain why; he just thought that Pei Tingsong should retort back, but instead, he was so stuffy and silent, and the atmosphere seemed to have turned a bit wrong as well.

Yet, if Pei Tingsong was really angry, his reaction should be much greater than just this.

Very strange. Fang Juexia couldn’t grasp the reason behind it, and he didn’t want to expose this right now, so he opened the salad box instead and ate a few mouthfuls, after which he saw the cucumber slices there. He had long disliked cucumbers, and that sandwich from a few days ago had left him with some trauma over pickles, so he used his fork and moved all of the cucumber slices to a corner of the box, then ate the other vegetables and chicken breast pieces.

Pei Tingsong saw this series of small actions. He had originally been sulky, but now, he kind of wanted to laugh. “Hey, how old are you, that you’re still picking through your food? I’m two years younger than you, and I don’t even pick through it.”

Fang Juexia placed the fork on the side of the box and emphasized while mumbling, “Three years younger.”

“Two and a half.” Pei Tingsong picked up his fork and ate all the cucumber slices he had just picked out. 

In Fang Juexia’s opinion, sharing food with another person was a very ambiguous thing, especially if one ate the food that the other person didn’t like. Because when he was very young, he had seen his dad also be this way— he would eat the celery that his mama didn’t like while telling her not to be picky.

Seeing that he was in a daze, Pei Tingsong knocked on the side of the box with his fork. “What are you thinking about? You’re so engrossed.”

Fang Juexia returned to his senses and said, “Nothing, just that I don’t think you’re behaving like a young master at all right now. People who didn’t know better would think the company has wronged you and isn’t giving you any food.”

“I’m adhering to the fine tradition of not wasting things and not being picky about food. That’s why I could grow to be 1.9 meters, and you could only grow to a height of 1.8 meters.”

“You got taller again?”

Pei Tingsong was even a little proud. “Just measured yesterday, exactly 190.” Saying that, he got up and went to the door, to turn on the light in the practice room.

“Kaleido has no room for such a big Buddha like you.” Fang Juexia picked up his cellphone from the ground. He just wanted to glance at the time when he saw Liang Ruo’s name displayed on his lock screen. 

He had no feelings towards Liang Ruo and theoretically, he also didn’t believe him when he said he had important matters to discuss with him. After all, there was almost no intersection between them now, except for unequal competition. If it was about what happened in the past, he had already distanced himself from that issue a long time ago, and didn’t want to look back anymore.

All of their other bandmates also came back, and Fang Juexia was actually glad that they hadn’t returned any earlier and caught him alone with Pei Tingsong, with the lights off.

No, why was he afraid of that? He didn’t do anything wrong.

Fang Juexia realized that recently, he was always falling into this contradictory mire woven between logic and emotion. Rationally, he had never done anything that would produce any apologetic feelings, shame, or guilt, but these emotions kept surging up nonetheless.

Especially guilt.

In the middle of the night, they were brought to the studio in order to complete the recording of the last song of the whole album. It was a hard-earned achievement, and Cheng Qiang sighed, “Finally finished it. You’ve all worked hard, go back and take a hot bath, and we’ll have a meeting at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning. Xiao Wen will pick you guys up, so don’t sleep too late.”

Just as he said that, another round of wailing emerged— 

“Another meeting ah.”

“I’ve gotten so numb to meetings recently. As soon as Boss speaks, I start feeling sleepy.”

“Alright, you guys,” Cheng Qiang sent them out of the studio with the final words, “Tomorrow’s meeting is to discuss the styling and MV design, it probably shouldn’t be too long. Anyway, even if you guys didn’t have a meeting, you would still have to get up early to practice. At least while having a meeting, you can also have a bit of a rest.”

By the time they returned to the dormitory, Fang Juexia’s cellphone already had no power left. He went back to his room and charged it.

“Yiyi, are you taking a bath?”

Ling Yi, who was already lying on his bed, said, “You go first ba, I’ll scroll through Weibo for a while.”

Fang Juexia let out an “en”, found a medicinal plaster in his desk drawer, and took a clean set of pajamas from the wardrobe before going to the main bathroom.

He took a quick bath and put on his pants. Injuries were inevitable while training, and recently, the intensity of their training had increased. Although he had made sure to rest well and stretch properly, things would still happen. Fang Juexia took off his top, pressed the back of his slightly sore waist, and tore off the cover on the plaster while aiming it at his injury through the mirror. However, it was really a little hard to look at the mirror in this manner, and his head was twisted around until it was sore.

He was about to twist his hand around to reach his back when the bathroom door suddenly opened. He thought it was Ling Yi who was entering, but when he looked up, he saw Pei Tingsong instead.

The other party seemed to be a bit surprised. “The door wasn’t locked, so I thought nobody…”

Fang Juexia blinked a few times before standing up straight with the plaster still in his hand. “Oh, I… I wanted to stick this on.”

Sure enough, those strange, illogical emotions sprang up in his heart once again.

Pei Tingsong scratched his head while grabbing the door handle, neither leaving nor staying. Thinking of the awkward posture Fang Juexia had been in when he had pushed the door open just now, he simply offered, “I’ll help you.”

He came over just like that and stretched his hand out to take the plaster. Fang Juexia didn’t even have the time to refuse anything. 

“Where do you want to stick it?”

Fang Juexia turned his back to him and thought of the scene when Pei Tingsong had played a prank on him in the practice room in the afternoon. He twisted his hand around to the back of his waist, pressed above the curve of his waist on the right with his fingers, and released it again. “Here…”

His skin was dazzlingly pale under the strong light of the bathroom, and there were also water droplets rolling down his back. That illusion of the tug of war in the practice room appeared here again, and Pei Tingsong’s breathing grew tight. He pulled out a towel to dry the residual water on Fang Juexia’s waist for him. His index finger and middle finger pressed together to then poke against Fang Juexia’s waist a few times. “Here?”

“A little to the right.”

“Here?”

“En.”

Pei Tingsong felt that something wasn’t quite right with him; his heart had started beating faster and faster, and his thoughts were completely disorganized. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Fang Juexia without a top on before; he had even held him in his arms for an entire night and hadn’t thought anything of it at that time.

So, what was going on right now?

He stuck the plaster he held in his hand onto that spot, smoothed it out with his fingers, and then, with his head half lowered, he said, “Okay, done.”

“Thank you.” Fang Juexia reached out and rubbed it, then picked up his pajamas and put them on, buttoning it with his back towards Pei Tingsong, only turning around after he was done. “Do you want to take a bath?”

“En.” Pei Tingsong kind of had no way to look at Fang Juexia directly right now. He knew that he was being very strange like this, and he felt feverish, so he could only divert his attention. “Is your waist okay, why do you need to stick that on? Has your waist injury been acting up again?”

Fang Juexia wiped his hair with a towel. “No. I’m just a little sore. That wasn’t a pain killer, that was just medicine to relieve soreness.”

“Then that’s good…”

Fang Juexia didn’t speak any longer, instead making room for him and closed the bathroom door behind him. However, Pei Tingsong remained standing in the same place for a while, waiting for his mind to reach a peaceful state before he locked the door. He reached out a hand to take off his top, and the light in the bathroom made him fidgety. When he was mixing around in the underground rap scene, he had seen many people try to stick close to him as they showed off their lust and desire openly, but he had felt nothing at the time, and had even kind of detested this low-level animal instinct.

Pei Tingsong was a paradox; he seemed very worldly, but in fact, he didn’t count as being someone who had transcended beyond the boundaries of this world, or even someone who had been out and about in society for very long. He was like a dragon’s reverse scale stuck at the border, a thorn, someone who didn’t listen to advice and refused to obey. He looked like a rich second generation, but in fact, he was just a piece of white paper. A very stubborn piece of paper that couldn’t be lit easily, but once a spark started burning, there would be no turning back.

The water dripped down, and the bathroom was full of hot steam. As he washed, the image of Fang Juexia standing right here and taking a bath appeared in his mind. Pei Tingsong turned the water tap to cold and hastily finished up. 

Fang Juexia returned to his room and saw a message from Liang Ruo, along with four missed calls as well. He didn’t know why Liang Ruo was being so persistent and was hesitating on whether to reply or not when a new message popped up on his WeChat.

[Guide Dog: If you have a sore waist, you can pad it with a small pillow while you sleep.]

Pei Tingsong lay on his bed and was flipping the pages of his book when his cellphone finally vibrated.

[Just a pretty face but also pretty: I don’t have a small pillow.]

This Fang Juexia was really more terrible than any straight man of steel. Pei Tingsong put down his book and turned his head to look around. There were two pillows on his bed, one big and one small. The big one was for him to prop himself up against the bed, and the small one was from the bay window of his apartment. Now, he used it to sleep on. 

He picked up the pillow and got ready to go out, but then he thought that if he went out like this, He Ziyan would see. Pei Tingsong sat on the bed and thought about it, then stood by the window and turned his head to look at the balcony next door.

Fang Juexia had just spread out his quilt when he heard a click. He suddenly turned around, for it seemed as if something had hit the balcony. Walking over to see what it was, he saw a black backpack, which had impartially hit the cactus, leaving it all crooked now.

He straightened the cactus with a gardening hoe and said to himself slowly, “What was so urgent ah?” Only after finishing up with that task did he go to deal with the unknown black bag. As soon as he opened it, he found that it was a small white pillow. Fang Juexia walked to the left side of the balcony with the small pillow, and looking at the window next door, uttered thank you in a low voice. He hadn’t expected a hand to extend out of the window and give two cool waves in reply. 

With a small pillow supporting his waist, Fang Juexia had a good night’s sleep. However, the other person separated by a wall, kept tossing and turning all night, dreaming about Fang Juexia’s appearance when dancing, his bright and clean back, and the way he used to walk and laugh with others the whole time.

“Wow, Xiao Pei, why does your face look like you’ve spent the whole night indulging in carnal desires? Could it be….wu!” Before Ling Yi could finish speaking, Pei Tingsong, who was sitting beside him, covered his mouth. “Laozi didn’t sleep well, don’t mess with me.”

“Really?” He Ziyan had recently grown more and more in love with teasing him, “Xiao Pei didn’t sleep well, and his own roommate didn’t know. It was Gege who wasn’t good, Gege recently hasn’t taken care of you properly, it’s all Gege’s fault.”

Pei Tingsong’s eyelids drooped, and he was full of world weariness.

Chen Zhengyun came into the meeting with people from the planning department. “Morning, it’s been tiring recently ba?”

“Tired to death~”

“It will be a bit tiring in the earlier stages, and it will become a lot easier after recording finishes.” Chen Zhengyun motioned to the planning director, then gave a brief account of his recent work to the six members of Kaleido . “Our expected comeback launch date is April 5, so we still have more than two weeks to go. Yesterday, we confirmed the shooting site of the MV and just signed the contract. In a moment, Director Zhang will tell you about the conceptual design of the MV, and the stylist group will arrive in half an hour.”

“The focus of this work is still on practicing the main song. We will start shooting the MV next Monday, so for the next few days, everyone should rest well and strive to be in their best condition for the shoot.” With that, he also gave Ling Yi a special look. “Recently, everyone’s weight control has been very effective. I’ve seen all the numbers, and it’s good.”

Ling Yi shook his head with pride.

Cheng Qiang checked the schedule. “At present, it’s arranged like this—The first notice will be released early morning on the 26th, and then each member will release a notice day by day. On the 2nd, the whole MV will be released, and then an entirely exclusive sales channel will be opened on the music platform. The 4th will be a mini fan meeting for your new album, and on that same day will be your first live performance of your main song. At the same time, the scene of your singing will be recorded, which the singing program will broadcast on the 5th.”

This arrangement already counted as being very humane, not too packed nor too slow, and giving them enough time to practice.

Pei Tingsong asked, “If all the songs and the MV are made public at the same time, will it reduce traffic on both sites?”

Chen Zhengyun replied, “We are still discussing this point. Maybe, we will release the main song first at the end of March. We have to see when…”

Before he could finish his words, the door of the conference room was suddenly opened, and a staff member burst in with a look of panic and called out, “President Chen!”

“What’s the matter? You’re so flustered.”

“It’s bad, Ka-Kaleido’s album’s demo was leaked, and now, it has spread all over the Internet!”