CH 8

Chapter 8: My Childhood With You

He repeated back to him what Yue Zhishi had said to Cotton Candy last night.

Yue Zhishi didn’t know what to feel. Was he laughing at him? He must be, right?

But what Song Yu said wasn’t wrong either — he really did make people worry about him.

Yue Zhishi felt a bit sad thinking about it. When Song Yu reached out again with a swab, Yue Zhishi moved back a little and said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Song Yu didn’t respond to his apology. He only reached out his other arm to grab his chin. “Don’t move.”

Yue Zhishi really did stop moving after those words. But his thoughts started to wander, and he thought about how in the past, no matter if he had won an award in the speaking contest or if he had been knocked down during a basketball game, Song Yu would’ve never intentionally come up to him even if he was there. They had very seriously pretended to be strangers.

So now, Yue Zhishi was actually the tiniest bit grateful to his sudden asthma attack during the school opening ceremony that day. It had forced them to expose their complicated relationship and allowed them to openly walk together in the light.

Seeing him sitting there in a daze, Song Yu indifferently asked, “Was it yummy?”

Yue Zhishi was pulled from his thoughts and was convinced by this question that Song Yu was definitely laughing at him. 

“I didn’t mean to suck up the ink.” Yue Zhishi frowned.

Song Yu was reminded of the one time they’d gone to the dentist together. Yue Zhishi had eaten enough candy that his entire mouth was full of cavities, and Lin Rong had brought them to the dentist. As soon as he heard the sound of the electric drill, Yue Zhishi had opened his mouth and started wailing, refusing to let go of Song Yu’s hand.

Song Yu continued to clean and calmly asked, “What’d it taste like?”

“Like a cantaloupe.” Yue Zhishi continued describing it. “It was sweet at the beginning, but it started tasting a bit weird afterwards, almost like some fever syrup.”

He managed to describe it so specifically.

Yue Zhishi spat out some of the taste in his mouth into some paper. “Maybe the ink makers predicted that some people would end up sucking the ink, so they purposefully made it taste sweet?”

Song Yu glanced at him. “If you’d known earlier that pen ink was sweet, would we have not needed to take you to the dentist? If you’d eaten this instead of candy, you wouldn’t have gotten cavities.”

He was being teased again, but Yue Zhishi completely missed the point. “Did I go to the dentist when I was younger?”

Unbelievable — he’d cried so much and yet he’d completely forgotten about it. Shouldn’t it have been something he remembered for his entire life?

“Your childhood memories really are quite blurry,” Song Yu said.

Yue Zhishi didn’t comment and held onto his wrist. His mouth was full of saliva, so his words were a bit unclear. “So what if they are. Don’t you remember everything?”

“Since my childhood was all yours anyway.”

Song Yu was slightly stunned.

Yue Zhishi didn’t think he said anything strange, his two legs still moving about. His entire body wasn’t able to sit still. Song Yu stayed silent, using a hand to press down Yue Zhishi’s shaking knees, and carefully used the cotton swabs to wipe off the ink on Yue Zhishi’s teeth.

With his knees being held down, Yue Zhishi lowered his head and caught a glimpse of Song Yu’s empty wrist. He wasn’t wearing the watch he’d given him.

“You’re not wearing your watch?”

Song Yu didn’t immediately respond, and Yue Zhishi continued, “Why not?”

This way of repeatedly, straightforwardly questioning him reminded Song Yu of the time Yue Zhishi gave him the watch. When Song Yu had refused to take it, he’d questioned him directly just like this.

“Why don’t you want it?”

“Xiao Yu gege, you don’t like it?”

Yue Zhishi had been especially naive when he was younger. He’d carried the gift box with the watch, looked at it and thought it looked quite nice. He’d raised his head again and asked, “Doesn’t it look nice? I asked the lady at the counter to help me pick it out, and she promised you’d like it.”

It wasn’t that Song Yu hadn’t liked it. To an elementary school student, he knew that the amount of money looked like a fortune. Yue Zhishi could’ve entirely bought many things for himself and not spent the entire amount on a watch for him. Song Yu had also been very clear at the same time that it would be no use if he said these things to Yue Zhishi, who was a silly and stubborn little child.

So he’d decided to directly speak to the lady at the counter.

“Hello, I want to ask for a refund. I haven’t used this watch before, and the packaging and receipt are all here. I should be able to refund it based on this shopping centre’s policies.”

The lady clearly remembered the cute mixed-race child who’d come alone to buy a watch. Now that his brother was here and carried himself with a maturity far beyond his peers to ask for a refund, it was hard to not marvel at the two of them.

“No problem.” The lady kept slightly smiling. “Can I please see…”

Yue Zhishi was right in front of the counter, and he loudly yelled no before directly sitting onto the floor. He tightly held onto Song Yu’s leg, crying and begging. At first, Song Yu refused to give in and brought out the receipts to give to the lady, but Yue Zhishi was crying so bitterly that the lady couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure you don’t want to discuss it with your younger brother?”

Song Yu thought for a bit before kneeling down. He took out a pack of tissues from his bag and gave it to him. “Why are you crying?”

“You, you don’t want my present,” Yue Zhishi sobbed. The more he spoke, the more he felt wronged. “I haven’t even finished saying happy birthday yet when you, you…” 

Seeing that he was about to start crying again, Song Yu immediately said, “It’s not that I don’t want your present.”

Yue Zhishi immediately hushed, his big eyes brimming with tears as he listened to Song Yu speak.

“It’s just too expensive. It’s not good to spend like this.”

Maybe one day he’d look back and regret spending his entire first pay check in one go. 

The tears continued rolling downwards. Yue Zhishi used the back of his hand to wipe them away. “But I thought about it for a long time. You all keep thinking I don’t understand anything, but I do.”

Hearing this, the counter lady standing by the side couldn’t help but say, “It’s true. Even I thought your little brother was just playing around the first time he came. But he came three times and took a long time to choose. He didn’t pay until the last day.”

He’d taken his money pouch out of his bag and carefully counted his money three times.

The lady looked at Song Yu. “He was really cautious about it.”

Song Yu fell silent. He was still helpless in front of Yue Zhishi’s loud tears, so he decided by himself to make the decision he thought was right. The watch was temporarily not returned. Yue Zhishi thought he tacitly agreed to accept the present and happily followed him home.

Song Yu had sat at his desk that night in his room, the lustrous watch dial glimmering under the light of the desk lamp. He’d looked at the price tag for a long time and decided to go back by himself the next day to return the watch.

Wanting a cup of water before he fell asleep, Song Yu was halfway down the stairs when he saw Yue Zhishi nestled in his mother’s arms, watching some anime with a lollipop in his mouth. He was pointing at the Xiao Tiancai ad playing on TV: “That watch isn’t as nice as the one I gave gege, right, Aunt Rong?” 

“Of course! You bought the prettiest one, better than ten of those put together.” Lin Rong patted his head and asked, “Le Le, why did you buy a watch for your brother?”

Song Yu froze.

Yue Zhishi had taken out the candy in his mouth and said very sincerely, just like a small adult, “We used to be together everyday, and I could find gege to play just by going down two floors. I really miss him now that gege is going to junior high in a different school. I want my watch to stay with him.” He lifted his own empty wrist and laughed, “So whenever Xiao Yu gege looks at the time, he’ll think of me.” 

“Our Le Le is so smart.”

Song Yu never thought that those kind of feelings had rested behind such big, wailing cries. He silently retreated, sat back down and put on the watch.

He was clearly the one who never paid attention to these things, and yet every minute and every second were etched into his memories. When asked, he would be the only one who remembered.

Song Yu couldn’t tell anymore — between Yue Zhishi and him, who needed each other more. 

Engrossed in his memories, Song Yu was a bit careless and accidentally swiped the swab onto Yue Zhishi’s gums. Yue Zhishi frowned from the burn and started moving away. Song Yu returned back to reality and pulled his chin forward. Yue Zhishi didn’t dare move and stayed motionless just like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. He repeated his question again. “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Song Yu said.

There would have been only one question if you answered me the first time, Yue Zhishi thought.

Song Yu’s expression was extremely cold, his gaze concentrating on one particular area. Yue Zhishi thought of a horror film he’d watched before, where a cannibal in it was just as graceful.

Wait, this comparison was too strange. Yue Zhishi told himself to stop daydreaming and closed his eyes.

The loss of his sight strengthened his other senses. 

He could very clearly feel each stroke of the wet swab — it was very light and slightly ticklish. The ethanol was very cooling. Maybe Yue Zhishi felt so differently because he was very aware that he wasn’t sitting across from a dentist.

He was leaning in very closely. He could smell the fragrance of the lemon citrus detergent wafting from Song Yu’s collar. It was the same smell as his own, and Yue Zhishi subconsciously relaxed. 

But the taste of the ethanol really wasn’t nice. Because Yue Zhishi’s mouth was kept open for a while, his mouth kept producing saliva and mixed in with the medical grade ethanol.

So bitter.

Song Yu’s hand suddenly stopped.

Yue Zhishi obediently sat there with his eyes closed and waited for Song Yu to continue. But after a while of no movement, he suspiciously opened his eyes and warily garbled out a ge. 

Song Yu stuffed the ethanol and cotton swabs into his hand and stood up. “There’s a mirror over there. Do it yourself.”

Yue Zhishi pulled some paper, spat out the bitter saliva in his mouth and obediently followed his instructions. He knew doing this for him was a bit annoying, and he should’ve done it himself earlier.

He examined his teeth after he reached the mirror next to the window and found that the stains were pretty much completely gone. 

So cool, apparently even ink as stubborn as that could be dissolved. 

Yue Zhishi was never able to hide his moods, so the feelings of worship towards Song Yu started to show on his face. 

“So amazing. My uniforms are constantly being stained by pen ink. Can alcohol dissolve those too?” He looked at Song Yu like he’d just discovered a new world. 

Song Yu’s right hand was holding onto his left wrist. He separated his hands when Yue Zhishi looked around, released a ‘hm’, and turned around to leave. “Let’s go.”

“Ah… wait for me.” Yue Zhishi wanted to follow Song Yu but looking around him, he also wanted to put away the things they used. He hesitated for a second before deciding to clean up. By the time he walked out, Song Yu was already very far away.

Yue Zhishi felt a bit lost as he looked at Song Yu’s receding figure. 

He touched his chin, pinched it and kicked a little stone. He plodded away and didn’t return directly to the sports ground, but went to the cafeteria’s little supermarket and bought a bottle of Yakult. 

The ethanol had really been too bitter.

Yue Zhishi stood in front of the supermarket holding the small bottle. He swallowed a big mouthful like an adult would swig a beer. He drank it too quickly and felt like he hadn’t drank anything at all. He went back and bought another one, pushing through a straw, and walked back to the sports ground.

When he went back, he found that Jiang Yufan wasn’t playing basketball like he thought he would. He was looking around everywhere and coincidentally managed to meet Yue Zhishi’s eyes. Yue Zhishi nodded while holding his bottle and widened his eyes, hinting that he saw him too.

Jiang Yufan immediately ran over, looking very anxious, and pulled at him. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you okay?”

Yue Zhishi shook his head with the straw in his mouth and thought his expression was a bit weird. So he released the straw and asked, “Why?”

Jiang Yufan quickly glanced around. “Some of the girls in class just said they saw Song Yu pulling you over somewhere to beat you up. They described it so vividly.”

Beat me up?

Yue Zhishi hadn’t had a chance to react when Jiang Yufan lifted a hand to open his mouth. “I heard your mouth was bleeding too, let me see? Are all your teeth okay?”

What. Yue Zhishi escaped from his hands and finished his Yakult. “He didn’t hit me.”

How was there even blood. Yue Zhishi suddenly realised — when he was resisting earlier, he must have opened his mouth. The girls nearby most likely had thought the red ink in his mouth was blood. 

That was some strong imagination.

“I’m fine. How could my brother hit me? It’s just a misunderstanding.” Yue Zhishi was afraid Jiang Yufan would continue questioning him and force him to reveal the embarrassing ink situation, so he quickly changed the topic. “Still want to play basketball? Let’s play together.”

“That’s fine then, I was just saying it didn’t sound right.” Jiang Yufan relaxed and yelled at some of the boys in their class nearby. “Basketball?”

“Let’s go let’s go, three on three.” A classmate waved a hand at Yue Zhishi. “Le Le, come on!”

Yue Zhishi threw away his empty bottle while saying he’d definitely hold them back but ran over quite happily.

“No way, how would you hold us back!”

“Are we splitting up into teams, I want Le Le!”

“Le Le, I’ll carry you!”

The youthfulness and energy of fourteen, fifteen-year-old boys were like the bubbles in a just opened bottle of soda, constantly rising upwards with no way to push them back down. A few metres away, the very sick Qin Yan sneezed and slightly smiled as he rubbed his nose. He looked over and sighed with feeling, “Your family’s Le Le really is everyone’s favourite.” 

The basketball dropped into the hoop.

Song Yu landed on his toes and retracted his hand. His gaze swept over to where it was full of noise before returning back to look at Qin Yan. He didn’t sound very friendly. “You talk too much.”

“Yo, who annoyed you.” Qin Yan smiled foolishly and hooked his arm around Song Yu’s neck. “It couldn’t have been Le Le, could it?”

“Give me back my watch,” Song Yu said.

Qin Yan’s face was full of confusion. “Didn’t you tell me to hold it for you?” He pulled it out from his pocket and passed it over. “I was so confused, you would take it off every time you played ball. I thought it was some big brand. Who gave it to you? You treat it like your baby.”

“My baby gave it to me,” Song Yu replied, face completely dead. He carefully put the watch back on.

Qin Yan cracked up. “Xiao Song, you’re too funny!”