CH 23

Chapter 23: Precautionary Warnings

Yue Zhishi would never dodge away from his eyes, and this time was no different. He slowly blinked and said, looking relaxed, “No, why would I be? You’re not a bad person, so how would you lead me astray?”

“Everyone would rather I turned out like you anyway.”

Song Yu pressed his lips together. His answer was perfectly reasonable, and Song Yu probably could’ve guessed his answer ahead of time. He merely couldn’t find a way to reply to it. 

“It’s cold outside. Let’s go in.”

Yue Zhishi had initially thought Song Yu was just joking, but he really didn’t end up going to class and stayed in his room the entire afternoon without coming out. After eating dinner, Yue Zhishi worked on his homework on the tea table in the living room, but he found it hard to focus. He kept thinking about Song Yu’s wrist, so he grabbed his phone and pulled up Baidu — he only typed in [what to do if your wrist slightly hurts], but he somehow found himself reading about all kinds of injuries, from sprained wrists to even fractured wrist bones.

Yue Zhishi sat up in alarm and hurriedly pulled on a heavy knit outer-coat. “Ah… Aunt Rong, do you have any trash? I’ll take it out for you.”

“How come you’re so good today.” Lin Rong grabbed a small bag from the trash can. “Just this.”

Yue Zhishi ran off with the trash in his hands. 

Cotton Candy lay on the sofa and watched him leave, wagging his tail. 

Yue Zhishi rushed back soon after, and Cotton Candy sat at the entrance to welcome him home. Lin Rong was busy with her yoga exercises and told him a plate of fruit was left on his desk. Yue Zhishi responded to her words and hugged the medicinal supplies he’d just bought tightly to his chest, afraid she’d see it, and bolted upstairs.

After he placed down the medicine boxes, Yue Zhishi sat down to eat the small plate filled with pear and green apple slices while he studied an instruction leaflet.

“Compound anaesthetic patch… to improve blood circulation and to dissolve clots…”

It looked like the patch needed to be stuck on in order to stop the pain. Yue Zhishi lifted his head and looked at the time. Song Yu should still be doing his homework, but it felt like he might disturb him too much if Yue Zhishi just directly went over now. But what should he do if he went over later and Song Yu was already sleeping?

He thought of a way to solve both issues.

Song Yu was finishing his examination paper when he heard a knock on his door. He went to open it and didn’t expect to see Yue Zhishi, who was carrying his schoolbag.

“Song Yu gege, can I do my homework with you?” Yue Zhishi asked with an expectant face.

“Why?”

“I don’t know how to do some of the questions…” Cotton Candy staggered over to Yue Zhishi’s legs as he spoke and hugged his calves. He asked again, “Can I?”

Song Yu eventually relented, and Yue Zhishi happily went inside. Orange was sitting on Song Yu’s bed, leisurely rolling a cat toy around his paws, and Yue Zhishi couldn’t help but be slightly envious. 

“Move a chair over.”

Other than study materials and stationery, Yue Zhishi’s desk was covered by many drawing tools he’d saved up money to buy. Song Yu’s desk was only one size larger, but there were much less things on it and looked extremely neat. Yue Zhishi grabbed a chair from the balcony as Song Yu went to find a book on his bookshelf, and he intentionally placed his chair particularly close to the desk, only a few centimetres away.

“Song Yu gege, you really didn’t go back to school today.” 

“Mm.” Song Yu took out a book from his shelf.

Yue Zhishi asked, “Your teacher didn’t try to call you?”

“I said I was sick.”

“Isn’t that lying?” Yue Zhishi quietly said.

“Fighting, skipping class, lying.” Song Yu turned around and blankly tilted his head to look at him. “Am I bad enough now?” 

Yue Zhishi very seriously considered his question, but a part of his brain was sighing with emotion — that pair of glasses really looked quite nice. Maybe he should also get a pair.

Seeing Yue Zhishi daze off, Song Yu gave up on trying to get any useful reaction from him. “Didn’t you say there were some questions you didn’t understand? Which ones?” He sat down as well, and pushed up the glasses resting on his nose. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. I’m heading to bed after that.”

Yue Zhishi glanced at the desk. “But aren’t you still doing your papers…”

“I only have one question left.”

Left with no choice, Yue Zhishi could only brace himself and choose a random question to ask, worried Song Yu would see through him. But luckily, Song Yu didn’t say anything, pulling over the question to seriously look at it.

Yue Zhishi sat there, fidgeting, when Song Yu suddenly opened his mouth.

“You just went out.”

There were no traces of doubt in his voice, as if he was completely certain.

Yue Zhishi widened his eyes. “How’d you know?”

Song Yu didn’t raise his head, gaze still focused on his question. He very casually said, “You smell like the cold.”

The scent of winter.

He phrased it so delicately. Yue Zhishi lowered his head to sniff at his collar, but he couldn’t smell anything special. Rather, he immediately noticed the light shower gel fragrance on Song Yu’s body. It smelled very nice and was as pleasant as the smell on his blanket, making someone feel at ease.

But Song Yu didn’t give him much time to explore the smells. He directly started talking about his question.

The little Pomeranian jumped onto Yue Zhishi’s thighs and nestled into his arms, one tiny head peeking out as he listened together with Yue Zhishi to Song Yu’s explanations.

He quickly swept his eyes over his chosen question, and Yue Zhishi thought he probably could’ve answered the question himself — but as he continued to listen, he realised Song Yu was teaching him another method, one that contained less steps than the method his teacher taught in class. Yue Zhishi didn’t expect his excuse to turn into a real tutoring session and completely forgot about his medicinal supplies. 

“Do you understand?” 

Yue Zhishi hummed in agreement and took back his workbook to hastily write down the entire method, afraid he would forget it later. After a long period of schooling, the usual flow of answering homework questions had long been engraved into his body; he naturally, without thinking about it, finished his initial question and automatically started working on the next. It was slightly more complex, and by the time Yue Zhishi discovered how to solve it, Song Yu had already finished his last question.

He pulled off his glasses, placed them on the desk and silently rose up to get into bed. 

The orange cat jumped off the bed the moment he lifted the blanket, meowing once. Yue Zhishi also made a questioning noise. 

“I finished my question, so I’m going to sleep. Go back to do your homework.”

“I, I still have something to ask, wait a second…” Yue Zhishi frantically flipped through his workbook. Song Yu knew he was only looking for an excuse, so he grabbed the blindfold resting on the bedside table and securely put it on, looking entirely like someone ready to pass out for the night. 

“Gege, don’t sleep yet.” Yue Zhishi knew he could no longer continue pretending. Carrying the dog and his bulging backpack, he ran to Song Yu’s bedside and plopped down onto the floor. He unzipped his bag and poured out a pile of medical supplies in one go.

Song Yu frowned and turned over in heavy distaste. “Aren’t you cold, what are you moving about so much for.” He chucked a beige coloured cushion at Yue Zhishi.

“I’m not cold.” Yue Zhishi very naturally placed the cushion onto the wooden floor and sat on top of it with his legs crossed, Cotton Candy comfortably burrowing into his arms once again. “Song Yu gege, I bought some medical supplies. Let me see your hand.”

“No need, I’m fine,” Song Yu coolly refused.

“There is a need.” Seeing it’d be useless for him to keep asking, Yue Zhishi got up slightly on his knees and carefully lifted a corner of the blanket to look for Song Yu’s hand, only to have his face covered by it. 

“Go to bed.”

Yue Zhishi took the opportunity to grab his hand. He was worried he’d hurt Song Yu’s wrist, so he only took hold of the front half of his fingers. He lightly cupped his wrist after Song Yu didn’t show any signs of wanting to struggle. “Does it hurt? It won’t hurt after I put on an anaesthetic patch for you.”

Song Yu sounded a bit impatient, but he didn’t pull back his hand like Yue Zhishi thought he would. “Don’t bother, it’ll look so ugly.”

“But I bought the most expensive one, it’s meant to be very good. The auntie at the pharmacy said the pain will stop as soon as the patch is on.” Yue Zhishi gazed at Song Yu’s wrist, the bruising now more obvious than during the day. The wrist bone area was also slightly swollen, and the symptoms looked almost exactly like the ones listed online for a sprain. 

“I already said I don’t need it.”

It felt like Song Yu was very resistant to plaster patches. Yue Zhishi tried offering something else. “Then do you want to try this gel? The auntie said this can also be used to stop pain…”

“I just want to sleep.” Song Yu interrupted his sales pitch. 

“That’s fine, you can sleep.” Yue Zhishi intentionally pulled the cat over and placed him into the crook of Song Yu’s arm. “I’ll apply the gel for you. I promise I’ll move so lightly you won’t feel a thing.”

How could he not feel anything.

With the blindfold blocking his line of sight, Song Yu silently opened his eyes. He could still see some faint light shining through the blindfold, gentle and warm. Even though he clearly couldn’t see a single thing, he could still completely imagine how Yue Zhishi looked as he knelt next to his bed.

“Let me apply some of the gel first. It might be a bit cool, the instruction leaflet said it contained some menthol.”

Yue Zhishi investigated the instructions very thoroughly, reading through them more carefully than he did his homework. His hands were very warm, and it didn’t feel too uncomfortable as he spread the ice-cold gel onto Song Yu’s wrist.

“Massage it in. It’ll absorb faster if it’s rubbed in,” Yue Zhishi muttered to himself. The sound of his voice was very light, as if he was very worried about bothering Song Yu. His two hands held onto his wrist, and he moved very lightly and gently as he massaged Song Yu’s injury from the sprained wrist to the palm of his hand.

It must be tiring to be constantly writing, Yue Zhishi thought. He decided to give Song Yu a very unpracticed hand massage.

Song Yu could pretty much imagine Yue Zhishi’s current feelings right now. He must be feeling very attentive, but at the same time, he was also probably slightly delighted, feeling as if he was like an adult who now had the ability to take care of people.

This made him want to tease him.

As Yue Zhishi kept massaging, he felt Song Yu’s hand suddenly twitch and asked in alarm right away, “Did that hurt? Was I pressing too heavily?” He immediately apologised, but Song Yu said, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with the gel?”

Yue Zhishi jumped in panic and pulled out the instruction leaflet. “No way, an allergy?” He very nervously looked over Song Yu’s wrist. “Where does it feel uncomfortable? Does it itch?”

This was interesting. The usual scene was now flipped upside down — the person constantly sick and bedridden since childhood was now worrying about someone else. 

“There were no precautionary warnings?” Song Yu steadily asked.

“Warnings? They’re listed here.” Yue Zhishi held onto that long piece of paper, carefully looked at it and recited the precautions out one by one. “Do not use this medicine if you are allergic. Please be cautious if you have allergies. Please keep this product out of the reach of children. Children must be under the supervision of adults when applying…”

He heard light laughter as he continued reading.

Yue Zhishi doubtfully raised his head. “What are you laughing at?”

The curve at the corner of his mouth was pretty obvious despite Song Yu’s blindfold. Maybe because the blindfold hid his eyes, but Yue Zhishi felt the gege in front of him was a bit different from usual.

“So it’s not adults who should be under the supervision of children when applying.” Song Yu spoke calmly, the teasing in his voice almost imperceptible. 

Yue Zhishi understood after a little while and realised Song Yu was making fun of him. He opened his mouth and very determinedly denied, “I’m not a child… right.” He trailed off very indecisively.

He actually wanted to go online and search up the legal definition of a child.

Song Yu used his other hand and pushed up his blindfold, his two eyes peering out. “I’m just teasing.”

Yue Zhishi was stunned, all the disapproving words he’d wanted to say at Song Yu making fun of him disappearing from his mind.

Since he was teasing him, that meant Song Yu gege truly wasn’t feeling too uncomfortable. This was very important to him.

“My hand feels much better. Go to bed.” Song Yu turned off his bedside lamp and flipped over. “Turn off the light for me.”

Yue Zhishi stuffed all of the medical supplies lying on the floor back into his bag and stood up. When he went to grab his homework, he also placed the cushion Song Yu gave him onto a chair before softly moving out of the room. He stood at the entrance and turned off the light, ready to close the door, but then he abruptly noticed Cotton Candy looking at him in the middle of the room and wagging his tail. He ran back inside to scoop him up.

“Thank you.”

He suddenly heard those words from Song Yu, who had his back facing towards him.

Yue Zhishi froze for a moment, foolishly standing there with the dog in his arms for two seconds, before he felt like a small and shrivelled balloon that was suddenly blown full of air.

“You’re welcome!”

Anyone could tell just from Yue Zhishi’s voice that he was smiling very happily.

The light from outside the room arrowed in and reflected the door’s shadow on the wall. It continuously shrank as Yue Zhishi noiselessly moved away, gradually narrowing and narrowing until it turned into a brilliant and dazzling gap in between the door and the wall. 

“Good night, gege.” He heard Yue Zhishi say.

The door was finally closed, Yue Zhishi taking away the last of the light.

Good night, Song Yu whispered in reply.

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Next chapter is another day of Le Le displaying the strength of his older brother complex!