CH 7

Chapter 7: Juice Dye

Song Yu briefly recounted his memories of Yue Zhishi’s first allergic reaction, skipping over his feelings and mental processes at that time. 

After listening, Yue Zhishi only had one thought — even now, Song Yu still wouldn’t give him anything nice to eat.

He was a little depressed thinking about it. But he didn’t say anything, thinking that he would seem a bit childish if he brought it up. Song Yu saw his dejection and thought it meant something else, like being unable to accept Song Yu’s accidentally harming him.

So the two of them didn’t keep talking. 

Curious girls in his class surrounded him once he returned to school in the afternoon. Yue Zhishi’s head ached, so he spoke around the topic and didn’t directly tell them of his parents’ joint death. He only said the relationship between his and Song Yu’s father has been very good, the two families were very close and that was why he was temporarily living with Song Yu. It wasn’t really a lie.

He didn’t actually think it was shameful to not have parents. It was just that if he told the truth, everyone would definitely look at him with faces full of sympathy. Yue Zhishi still couldn’t take that sort of situation.

He considered himself to be very happy and didn’t want to turn into a pitiful child in other people’s eyes.

Other than the curiosity towards his family background, Yue Zhishi didn’t expect something more troublesome to happen — Song Yu’s pursuers. 

Peiya’s high school and junior high school departments were each split into two buildings. Two of the buildings had one open corridor connecting them on the third floor. Song Yu and Yue Zhishi’s classes were coincidentally both in these two connected buildings, so it became very easy to cross school departments to look for someone.

Many of Song Yu’s pursuers weren’t able to get a response from him, so they decided to take a more devious path — they added Yue Zhi’s QQ and grabbed information that way. It could be seen as simply asking for help, but more than half of the people who ran straight to Yue Zhishi’s class were his seniors. Yue Zhishi didn’t know how to handle them at all.

The night self-study session ended at 9:30pm. Everyone counted down the seconds until the bell rang and streamed out the door once the time came. Yue Zhishi didn’t follow them. High school’s self-study didn’t end until 9:50pm, so he slowly finished the question he was working on, slowly packed up and dawdled until he was the last person to leave.

He pretty much did this every day.

Yue Zhishi paused once he reached the corridor. He tilted his head and looked across to the fifth floor’s high school class 3-5’s room. Time slowly passed, and Yue Zhishi simply sat in the corridor and read some manga. The bell rang at 9:50, but the door for class 3-5 remained quiet.

The advanced classes in high school were clearly very hard. 

Yue Zhishi ended up biking home by himself. Lin Rong was simmering some Chinese herbal pigeon soup, filling the entire house with fragrance. The little Pomeranian ran straight to Yue Zhishi as soon as he opened the door. He lifted the dog into his arms and said, “Cotton Candy, have you gained weight again? You’re so heavy.”

“Is it you, Le Le? You must be tired.” Lin Rong dropped some rice cakes into the pot and scooped them into a bowl with the soup as soon they softened. She then placed some red centred dragon fruit slices into another bowl.

Yue Zhishi sat on the carpet and raised his head to take the bowl of soup. “Where’s Uncle?”

“He’s out of the country for some business. I don’t think he’ll be back until next week.” Lin Rong caressed his head. “He said he’ll bring home some presents for you.”

Yue Zhishi happily swallowed a big mouthful of soup and almost burned his tongue.

“Slowly, no rush.” Lin Rong placed the bowl of fruit next to him before returning back to the kitchen.

He continued sitting on the carpet, legs curled under him. Yue Zhishi continued eating his bowl of rice cake soup while watching a variety show. Once he could see the bottom of his bowl, he heard the door open and immediately dropped it to crawl onto the sofa and look over.

Song Yu placed his keys on top of the doorway cabinet and changed his shoes before walking in. The family cat leisurely raised its head from the noise, twitched its tail and meowed once before turning back over to continue sleeping.

“Welcome home. Hurry and come in.”

Song Yu entered the kitchen after hearing Lin Rong’s words. Yue Zhishi followed behind him, whining about how he’d lately turned into just a tool for others to exploit. “They all added me on QQ and then the first things they would ask were your QQ username and what was the answer to your mandatory friend request question.”

“Just say you don’t know it.” Song Yu calmly drank his soup, his entire demeanour as if the situation had nothing to do with him.

“How could I not know it? I’d be lying,” Yue Zhishi muttered to himself. The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t help but complain. “They don’t even bother saying some pleasantries before asking after you.”

The first half of his words was full of childish whining, and yet Song Yu found the second half a bit funny. “You even know the word ‘pleasantries’?”

Yue Zhishi frowned, feeling as though he was being underestimated. “Of course I do.”

“Our Le Le’s all grown up now. I still remember how he used to not know what sister-in-law meant,” Lin Rong laughed. “He even said he wanted to be his own sister-in-law.”

Song Yu glanced at him before lightly moving away his line of sight.

That was something from a long time ago. Yue Zhishi had started learning Chinese later than other children, and Chinese familial relationship terms were complicated to begin with. He had been utterly confused every time he heard his classmate talk about uncles, aunts or nephews. One day, he heard a classmate say he had a very beautiful sister-in-law. He had returned home and curiously asked Song Yu, what is a sister-in-law?

“A sister-in-law is the wife of your older brother,” Song Yu had replied. 

Lin Rong just happened to be eavesdropping nearby. “You’ll have to leave home once you have a wife.”

That sentence gave Yue Zhishi’s little heart a large shock. 

His small brain mused over it for a long time. If Song Yu gege married a wife and gave him a sister-in-law, then wouldn’t they have to separate? He would have his own family and wouldn’t be able to live together with him anymore.

No way!

Yue Zhishi hugged Song Yu’s arm and cutely begged, “Xiao Yu gege, I don’t want a sister-in-law.”

Father Song teased him. “How would that work? Your gege won’t marry just because you don’t want a sister-in-law?”

Yue Zhishi replied innocently, “Then I’ll be your sister-in-law!”

Yue Zhishi saw questions marks all over Song Yu’s face and realised something wasn’t quite right. He hurriedly corrected himself, “No no, I’ll be my sister-in-law!”

From then on, that childish babble became part of Yue Zhishi’s dark past in the Song family. Someone would occasionally pull it out, and every time, Yue Zhishi would have one of his rare fits  of annoyance.

Just like now.

“I was only five! Why bring it up again!” He walked away as he complained. His movements were stiff, almost like a robot pretending to be angry like a human.

“To be honest, it sounded like you wanted a childhood betrothal at that age.” Lin Rong was too amused by Yue Zhishi and lay on her son’s shoulder as she laughed. Suddenly, a scream came from outside the kitchen. 

Song Yu paused for two seconds before putting down his bowl and went into the living room. But there was only Yue Zhishi and Cotton Candy in his arms: “How come you look like this? Who let you steal my dragon fruit? Hm? Did you want to dye your fur?”

Cotton Candy was originally as white as snow, but now his entire face was covered by rose coloured juice, his little grape-like black eyes blinking innocently at him.

“There’s no point looking at me. You can’t just randomly steal things, what if it was something you couldn’t eat? Do you want to go to the hospital? It’s always so depressing to go to the hospital.”

Just a false alarm. Song Yu stood there, watching Yue Zhishi scold the little dog like a child pretending to be an adult. Every word from his mouth was too familiar. 

“You really make people worry.” Yue Zhishi finished scolding with this sentence. But he soon cuddled Cotton Candy again, turning around and almost running into Song Yu.

“Watch where you’re going,” Song Yu said.

Yue Zhishi slipped away into the bathroom, cleaning Cotton Candy up before taking a shower himself. His energy was finally depleted, and he laid down on his bed. His phone kept vibrating from the QQ notifications. He couldn’t take it anymore and could only use the last remaining bits of his consciousness to reply to everyone, saying he himself didn’t know the answer to Song Yu’s friend request question. He wasn’t allowed to give away Song Yu’s QQ and if he did, he would be in big trouble.

He really would get into trouble. He’d done it before when he was younger.

Yue Zhishi turned off his phone once he finished replying and immediately fell asleep. He dreamed about the one time in elementary school he’d been convinced by an older girl to pass along a confession letter. He’d ended up being ignored by Song Yu for an entire week, and this memory almost scared him awake.

He rarely rejected girls on Song Yu’s behalf, but it was very effective this time. He was left alone for a good few days.

But he never expected that his refusal to help his seniors and the lack of interaction between Song Yu and him would cause the school to start spreading many strange rumours. They were born from the same mother but had different fathers, or he was dumped under their roof, etc. The rumours were more exaggerated than even some dramatic novels. And in the midst of all this gossip, there was one main topic — that the two brothers didn’t get along. 

As the rumour kept spreading, it finally reached the ears of the person involved. Yue Zhishi felt like he was a little mouse crawling and tumbling around, falling from one grey pit to another with no end to his troubles. He explained again and again, but everyone refused to listen.

After two math classes in a row, Yue Zhishi’s brain was fully numb. He fuzzily took back his homework from the math class representative and took out a red pen to fix his answers. He started chewing on the end of the pen as he reviewed.

“I got the arc length wrong again…”

Jiang Yufan didn’t even bother to open his assignment book. “We finally get to go to physical education class!” He tugged at Yue Zhishi’s arm. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

“Mm…” Yue Zhishi sighed. He suddenly tasted something sweet in his mouth and looked down at the pen he was just biting. It was leaking!

Yue Zhishi immediately touched his mouth. His fingers came away covered with red ink.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Yufan watched Yue Zhishi run out and was completely confused. He looked around for a while before seeing Yue Zhishi come out of the toilet, lips tightly pressed together and refusing to speak. The class bell was about to ring, so the two of them ran quickly to the sports ground. They managed to get there just in time.

The class warmed up with some running. Yue Zhishi didn’t open his mouth the entire time, and once he finished running, he covered his mouth with a hand and told Jiang Yufan he needed to go to the toilet. Jiang Yufan seriously thought he had diarrhoea, so he didn’t ask much before going to play basketball with the other boys.

The girls in the class walked through the sports ground in pairs, heading towards the canteen in the cafeteria. They started chattering loudly at the sight of a boy, but Yue Zhishi simply couldn’t care anymore. He was embarrassed and wanted to find a place to hide and scrub away the red ink staining his mouth.

I’ll just go home if I can’t get it off.

But I still need to open my mouth to request leave…

Let’s just go to the toilet in the cafeteria. At least there’s a mirror there.

Decision made, Yue Zhishi covered his mouth and lowered his head, quickly pushing past the girls and leaving the sports ground. The artificial grass underneath his footsteps stubbornly stood back up after being stepped on, rustling in its movements.

He kept moving forward, and in a moment of inattention, he accidentally bumped into someone. It was actually quite a heavy bump, so he quickly apologised. “I’m sorry.”

“Isn’t it Le Le?”

The voice sounded familiar. Yue Zhishi raised his head and saw Qin Yan, one of Song Yu’s classmates since they were young. He could also be considered as Song Yu’s only friend.

Qin Yan looked at Song Yu. “Does your little brother plan on leaving his big eyes just for decoration? He doesn’t use them.”

Yue Zhishi wanted to retort, but he didn’t want to open his mouth. He just shook his head.

“I saw you from far away and watched as you walked over step by step until you finally knocked into your brother here like a magnet. Good thing you didn’t bump into poor weak me, or else I’d be on the floor right now,” Qin Yan teased, elbowing the expressionless Song Yu. “Right?”

Song Yu lazily said, “You should go get checked if you’re ill.”

“No way, I have to be our Le Le’s loyalest cheerleader even if I’m sick from the flu.”

Song Yu was holding a basketball, and Yue Zhishi guessed that he wanted to go play. If it was before, he would definitely want to stick to Song Yu, but he was too embarrassed right now and just wanted to run away. He lowered his head and said, very quickly, “Sorry, it was an accident, I have to go now, bye.”

Yue Zhishi circled around and prepared to sneak away, but his arm was abruptly grabbed.

A change in behaviour was always obvious.

Yue Zhishi looked over and saw Song Yu’s gaze move down towards his mouth. He looked at it for a little while before throwing the basketball in his hands to Qin Yan and started pulling Yue Zhishi in one direction without a single word.

“Ah?” Yue Zhishi stumbled after him. Once his brain caught up, he tried to tug his arm away, but he couldn’t pull away. He could only keep his mouth closed and used his two arms to pull at Song Yu, body leaning backwards and trying to keep Song Yu from moving. 

Seeing him like this, Song Yu stood still. Yue Zhishi couldn’t fully open his eyes from the strong sun, and the few girls walking nearby all turned their heads to look at them.

Song Yu suddenly opened his hand. Yue Zhishi was still leaning backwards, so he abruptly plopped onto the floor. 

Song Yu knelt down as well and took hold of Yue Zhishi’s chin. His thumb and index finger squeezed Yue Zhishi’s cheeks and forced open his mouth. He saw the teeth dyed with red ink.

“I knew it.”

Yue Zhishi quickly closed his mouth, butt scooting backwards. 

So embarrassing.

“Why are you running.” Song Yu held his face and examined his mouth, pulling him up once he was done. “Are you planning on going to class like this?”

Since he had been discovered, Yue Zhishi could only follow behind Song Yu in despair. Song Yu pulled him along like he was just a balloon.

“Can we walk slower? My butt hurts.”

Song Yu didn’t say anything, but he did slow down a bit.

The infirmary again.

Yue Zhishi said in a small voice that he wasn’t sick, but Song Yu didn’t reply. He simply continued pulling Yue Zhishi into the room. The doctor in charge was somewhere else, and there was no one else around. Song Yu told Yue Zhishi to sit on the chair before he went next door to find someone. He came back with a bottle of medical grade ethanol and a box of swabs.

“What’s this?” Yue Zhishi watched him as he dragged a chair over to sit in front of him.

Song Yu held his face again and expressionlessly commanded, “Open your mouth.”

Yue Zhishi listened obediently. His lips were fine, but his teeth and tongue were dyed completely from the pen’s red ink. It was actually quite funny.

Song Yu dipped a swab into the ethanol and carefully wiped at the areas with ink. Yue Zhishi had butterflies in his stomach — he was a bit worried that the ink wouldn’t come off, and he would have to continue to attend class. It would be so hard to keep his mouth closed the entire day.

He didn’t know why, but he suddenly remembered how Cotton Candy stole the dragon fruit yesterday. He had to sigh: this pair of master and his dog really was related.

The next moment, Song Yu unexpectedly laughed. The sound was very soft, light enough that Yue Zhishi thought he heard wrongly.

“You really make people worry.”

The author has something to say:

The Song Yu brand of recording machine is #1 in teasing his younger brother.