CH 40

Chapter 40: An Isolated Island in the Rain

“Ah…” Yue Zhishi lowered his head and looked at his still wet umbrella. It really was transparent.

He was too foolish, trying to use a see-through umbrella as a shield.

“Didn’t you say 6pm?” Song Yu asked.

Yue Zhishi pursed his lips and ended up clearly laying out his failed surprise plan to Song Yu. Song Yu didn’t look too surprised, only nodding, and then asked if he’d eaten.

“Not yet.” Yue Zhishi shook his head, explaining he’d come straight over after going home, but then he stood back up, taking his bag and preparing to leave. “Can your cafeterias pack food for takeaway? I don’t want to eat here, you’re already drenched through. Let’s go back first and shower.” 

Song Yu silently accepted his suggestion and stood up as well, very naturally taking Yue Zhishi’s bag off his shoulder and pulling it over his own before he went to grab the bag with the insulation container. He only said, “Hold your umbrella.”

“Oh.” Yue Zhishi securely held onto his umbrella and his flowers, and he followed behind his gege. Song Yu queried if there was anything he wanted to eat, but Yue Zhishi only said he wasn’t hungry — he was completely focused on getting Song Yu into the shower, worried that he might be cold.

But Song Yu looked like he already had a destination in mind. He didn’t consider too much and went directly to a window with a long line. He paused and squinted towards the front.

Yue Zhishi really liked this little movement of his — the little squint felt like something a big cat would do, and he felt it was very cute. Even though Song Yu and the word ‘cute’ were two completely isolated things, sometimes, that description would unconsciously jump out into Yue Zhishi’s mind.

There were many people waiting in line. Yue Zhishi wanted to help Song Yu carry a bag, but he was rejected. Song Yu’s fingers were still dripping with water; Yue Zhishi stretched out a fingertip and caught the droplets of water as they fell.

“Where’s your umbrella?” he asked Song Yu.

Song Yu very quickly replied, “I’ve lent it to someone.”

Yue Zhishi thought about what he’d seen under the school building. “Did you lend it to that girl? You only had one umbrella, and yet you still gave it to her.”

If I’d known, I would’ve gone to pick you up.

“I don’t want to share an umbrella with other people.” The crowd of people slightly shifted upwards. Song Yu then said, “She’s a classmate in the same group as me. There were some issues in our data collection, so she wanted to discuss it with me.”

So that’s what happened. Yue Zhishi nodded. “Then next time don’t lend out your umbrella. Ah, no, that’s not good.” He himself felt that suggestion wasn’t too chivalrous, so he changed what he was about to say. “If you’d called out to me, I would’ve stopped running. You wouldn’t have gotten wet.”

Song Yu wanted to say something, his lips moving, but he decided to give it up. He felt like Yue Zhishi might not even understand himself, so there was no need to confuse him even more.

They lined up to buy two portions of pineapple rice, and then they went to other windows to buy steamed Wuchang-style fish, water spinach with minced garlic and sweet and sour pork. They took them all back to Song Yu’s dormitory.

Using his already drenched body as an excuse, Song Yu told Yue Zhishi to hold his umbrella by himself, but Yue Zhishi completely refused, insisting on sticking next to Song Yu. So Song Yu, who’d said he wasn’t willing to share an umbrella with others, actively chose to lift up the umbrella, even though most of the clear umbrella was mainly tilted towards Yue Zhishi’s side.

After Yue Zhishi noticed, he pushed Song Yu’s wrist, but it wasn’t all that effective — after a little while, the umbrella naturally crept over again, as if it was some kind of unreasonable set routine.

There were more and more puddles of water, and even though none of them were higher than their ankles, Yue Zhishi’s pants were already wet to his knees. He jokingly called it the capillary effect. A quickly moving girl passed by ahead of them, one hand supporting an umbrella and her other hand holding a big bag of fruit. She used only her ring finger and pinky to carry a bowl of beef noodles, and it all looked very precarious, very dangerous — and yet everything stayed securely in place.

When it rained, people would always become very interesting. They walked around and around, and Yue Zhishi complained to Song Yu that he’d almost gotten lost when he first arrived. “I shouldn’t have come in through the main entrance. I walked really far and got really confused, I later found an older sister near the old science building to point me in the right direction.”

As he spoke, a car flew past. Yue Zhishi could see the incoming splashes, but he didn’t manage to dodge in time. He only felt his waist being pulled, his entire body dragged over, and then he completely escaped the water.

The car was already very far away.

Song Yu’s hand didn’t drop away in time, and it still rested on Yue Zhishi’s waist. He turned around to look at that car, and then he turned back around, his mind still on what Yue Zhishi had just been complaining about. “You even managed to get lost on Cherry Blossom Avenue.” 

Maybe because his words held the slightest hint of ridicule, but Yue Zhishi’s ear was a bit warm. He lowered his eyes and weakly said, “I can’t tell which one is Cherry Blossom Avenue when there aren’t any cherry blossoms. It looks the same as any other road.”

Song Yu felt there was a bit of logic in his words, so he didn’t bother to retort. He only then realised the position of his hand wasn’t quite right, so he lowered it while pretending nothing had happened. “Let’s go, we’re almost there.”

The dormitory building was older than Yue Zhishi had imagined. He used to think Song Yu, with his obsession with cleanliness, wouldn’t really want to live in a dorm and might even go home often when he couldn’t get used to living there. But this thought very quickly disappeared in smoke.

Song Yu greeted the auntie in charge of the building and brought Yue Zhishi upstairs. The light in the building wasn’t quite bright enough, but as soon as he opened his dorm room, the south-facing room still looked bright and spacious. There was no one else in the room. Yue Zhishi walked in, looking left and looking right, and then finally stared at their window. He really liked it — fresh greenery, soaked with rain, lay outside their window.

He could immediately tell which was Song Yu’s desk. It was as clean and fastidious as he always kept his desks. “Is this your bed?” Yue Zhishi raised his head to look at it, the bed linen pretty much the same as the ones he used at home, all of them a very cool, dark grey colour.

“Mn.” Song Yu placed down their items. His clothes were so wet they stuck onto his body, so he went into his closet to find two outfits, giving one of them to Yue Zhishi. “Everything’s new, I haven’t worn them before. You can change into them later.”

“It’s okay even if you’ve worn them before.” Yue Zhishi scooped up a bit of the pineapple rice into his mouth. The rice was moist and sticky, and there were even pieces of nuts and raisins. “This one’s really yummy, it’s a bit sweet.” He picked up a bit and sent it across to Song Yu’s mouth. “Have some.” 

Song Yu took a bite, but then he frowned, looking as if he didn’t really like it. Yue Zhishi thought it was strange. “Why’d you buy it if you don’t like it?”

“I haven’t tried it before. There’s always a line in front of this stall, and everyone always says it’s good,” Song Yu carelessly said, and then he went into the bathroom with his clothes.

Haven’t tried it before.

Yue Zhishi lowered his head to look at the pineapple rice, jabbing it twice with his spoon — something flashed across his heart and disappeared. 

Taking the chance while Song Yu was showering, Yue Zhishi sent a message to Lin Rong, asking if she was already on the train. He didn’t get an immediate reply, but the other phone on the desk vibrated, the screen lighting up. It was Song Yu’s phone. Yue Zhishi accidentally saw the content on the screen.

[Daisyyy: Song Yu, I left your umbrella on your seat, thank you. I bought you a cup of milk tea too, remember to drink it.]

That sense of feeling uncomfortable once again flooded back, like rain that never truly went away. Yue Zhishi pressed the lock button for Song Yu, and the screen turned black. He looked around the surface of the desk, wanting to find something to do, so he turned around and placed the wet cap and umbrella nearby to dry. He then opened his schoolbag and pulled out the salted-egg puffs and flower pastries Lin Rong had stuffed inside, separating them out portion by portion before he placed them onto the desks of Song Yu’s roommates. 

Having finished giving the items away, he then grabbed the takeaway food and arranged them for eating; he also poured a cup of steamy hot soup for Song Yu into the insulation container’s cap. He flicked his head over and saw the flowers he’d bought were hanging from a chair — Yue Zhishi pulled them out of the bag, shook off the water droplets on them, and displayed them on the wall in front of Song Yu’s desk.

The flowers looked very out of place, but they looked very warm and comfortable.

After taking a photo, he sent it across to Lin Rong. As he stared at the chat between him and Lin Rong, Yue Zhishi once again thought about that message, but this time his focus shifted, thinking only that Song Yu was very amazing. He could clearly remember who was who, and didn’t need to change the display names at all.

Song Yu came out from the bathroom, and his entire body was still wet — except this time, hot steam was diffusing from him. He changed into some white coloured clothes, and they greatly softened his entire person.

He saw Yue Zhishi sitting in front of his own desk. Two pairs of chopsticks were already separated and sitting next to the bowls, ready to use. The food was laid out very neatly on the desk, and pastries were on every single one of his roommates’ desks. 

He’d never once thought of this scene — a very subtle sense of pleasure emerged. Song Yu stood in the doorway of the bathroom and was lost in a daze for a little while. 

“You’ve finished showering?” Yue Zhishi turned around first, smiling at him. “Hurry and come eat.”

Song Yu rubbed his hair with a towel. “Do you want to shower?”

“I’m hungry, I want to eat something first before showering.” Yue Zhishi asked if they could borrow a roommate’s chair. Song Yu nodded and grabbed the chair across from them, placing it next to Yue Zhishi and sitting in it. 

Yue Zhishi pushed the soup until it was in front of Song Yu. “Drink it while it’s still hot so you won’t catch a cold.” There was very little logical science behind his words, but Song Yu still did it, lowering his head to drink the soup his mother had made for him while he listened to Yue Zhishi chatter about stuff that had happened to him at school.

“Peiya’s about to celebrate its 70th anniversary. Everyone’s preparing for it right now, so every day has been really lively. You should come by and see.” Yue Zhishi greatly enjoyed his food. His entire journey here had made him tired and hungry, and with his mood swinging up and down, the delicious food was there to act as his comfort.

Song Yu placed a piece of sweet and sour pork in his bowl. “Are you guys participating too?”

“No way, we’re already in third year. There’s only one more month until college entrance exams.” Yue Zhishi gave up all his manners and slouched against the chair as he finished speaking. “So tired. I feel like it’s been a long time since I had a break. I don’t get enough sleep every night. I almost fell asleep during yesterday’s monthly literature exam.”

Song Yu could pretty much imagine the entire scene — the exam paper might even have Yue Zhishi’s careless splotches of ink on it. It should’ve been very funny, but he still seriously asked, “How did the exam go?”

Yue Zhishi came back alive, sitting up straight as he drank a big mouthful of soup. “It was okay, it wasn’t hard.” As one of the few boys studying liberal arts in his year, Yue Zhishi’s grades were still near the top. He was about to graduate, and he had still yet to change his preference for studying in the corridor. Sometimes he would stay there as he ate dinner, sometimes he would go there after the night self-study session — even when he didn’t want to study, he would still sit there for a little while.

These days, he wouldn’t sit on a chair in the corridor and read manga. There also wouldn’t be anyone who would run over there to pick him up.

“I want to come to Wuhan U too,” he abruptly said, feeling like there was no lead up to his sentence.

Song Yu lifted his head, giving him a glance, and then lowered his eyes again as he cleaned up his bowl and chopsticks. “You can look at other schools and majors.”

Yue Zhishi didn’t really like this reply from Song Yu. It felt like he was still a child in Song Yu’s eyes, as if he said everything based on impulse. But he also understood, no matter what, Song Yu would never say to him, sure, I’ll be really happy if you came.

He saw Song Yu’s phone screen light up again, so he tried changing the topic.

“Your phone vibrated earlier when you were showering. I think someone messaged you.” Yue Zhishi pretended to act like he didn’t see the content at all, that he was only simply prompting Song Yu.

Song Yu made a noise in response, but he looked like he didn’t plan on opening his phone to have a look.

“You’re not looking at it?” Yue Zhishi frowned.

“Maybe later.”

Yue Zhishi didn’t know what was pushing him on, but he said it anyway — “That girl who borrowed your umbrella, she bought milk tea for you and told you to drink it.”

He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. One reason was because he exposed the fact he’d seen the messages, even if he didn’t mean to, and the second reason was because the tone of his voice was truly too strange.

Song Yu’s eyebrows slightly wrinkled, and he stared at Yue Zhishi’s face. “What’s the matter with you?”

He’d turned and run away after seeing him, and now he was so clinging so stubbornly onto one message.

Yue Zhishi couldn’t answer his question. He blinked, and then suddenly didn’t really want to talk anymore.

The rain grew worse the longer it fell.

“I’m full.” He rose up from his chair. “Can I go shower?”

Of course Song Yu wouldn’t say no — he didn’t continue questioning him. He took Yue Zhishi into the bathroom, gave him the slippers he himself had worn as he showered and told him which direction to turn the knob for hot water. He finally taught him how to manage the very difficult to use hair dryer.

“This belongs to one of my roommate. It’s a bit fiddly, remember to wrap the cord around the bottom when you hold it.”

Yue Zhishi said he understood, but he wasn’t really listening. The bathroom was very narrow, the two of them a bit crowded together as they stood inside. Yue Zhishi turned to turn on the shower, but the direction of the shower head was a bit off: the water poured directly onto his body. He retreated half a step backwards in a fluster, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it off.

He entirely forgot Song Yu was still behind him.

His back was very pale, very skinny, and his waist was skinnier than Song Yu had imagined. He looked a bit taller than he used to be, but his frame was still a youth’s frame — slender wrists and ankles, as if they would snap as soon as they were twisted. Realising he was staring, Song Yu twisted his face away, but at that very moment, Yue Zhishi stepped on something, slipped and fell backwards.

Luckily, Song Yu caught him just in time and held onto his arms.

Yue Zhishi’s heart had leaped in fear.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Yue Zhishi placed his palm against the wall and stood securely. “This pair of slippers is a bit slippery.”

“Be careful.” Song Yu opened his hands. He realised he held on too tightly — in such a short amount of time, he had left a red mark on the back of Yue Zhishi’s arms. He didn’t look at Yue Zhishi anymore and turned himself around. “I’m going out. Go shower.”

Even though the bathroom didn’t look that nice, the water temperature was very comfortable. It was similar to the temperature he used at home, and Yue Zhishi didn’t need to fiddle with it. He was a bit distracted as he showered. He kept thinking of how Song Yu had looked like when he was speaking with someone else, and he felt like he was being a bit irrational. It felt like he didn’t want Song Yu to speak to anyone else. 

But he wanted Song Yu to have a good relationship with his roommates; he hoped his life went smoothly every day. 

His thoughts twisted in circles until they finally turned into a tight, secure knot. Yue Zhishi felt a bit dizzy as he continued showering, so he very quickly washed away the suds on his body.

Song Yu had given him a sea blue t-shirt. There was nothing on the front, and he even thought he’d put it on inside out. When he flipped it out, there was a block of cheese printed on the reverse side, and it looked like the block of cheese on Tom and Jerry. Yue Zhishi pulled it on — it was very large, very oversized, and half of his shoulder was exposed just by tugging at the neckline. He gazed at himself in the mirror. This colour made him look even paler.

But the pants were too large. Yue Zhishi bent over, looking at the loose pant legs, and rolled up the hem a few times before he got up and grabbed the hair dryer, turning it on.

Song Yu had just finished cleaning up his desk when he heard the sound of the hair dryer from the bathroom. The noise came on and off sporadically, and he knew there had been no point in him teaching Yue Zhishi how to use it. He stood in place, not heading over, and waited for three seconds; as expected, the bathroom door opened, and Yue Zhishi peeked out with his damp hair, a bit of embarrassment on his face.

“Gege, I still don’t know how to use the hair dryer.”

At the end, Song Yu still ended up blowing dry his hair. Yue Zhishi obediently sat on a chair, his eyes closed, and left Song Yu to mess up his hair however he wanted. Song Yu’s fingers were very long, and the feeling of them combing through his hair was very comfortable. It created a sense of security, of safety, that Yue Zhishi felt he could rely on.

“Your previous hair dye’s gone.” Song Yu’s hand twirled his brown strands of hair. He thought of one time he’d gone home and realised Yue Zhishi had dyed his hair black. He had looked a bit unlike himself, but Song Yu hadn’t asked much at that time, thinking it was only a child’s passing fancy.

“Mm.” Yue Zhishi lowered his head. “Even if it didn’t fade away, it would’ve been cut off anyway. My hair grows too quickly.”

He thought about it — from when he started high school to now, the most rebellious thing he’d done in the last three years was only to dye his hair black once. 

His excuse had been even more bizarre. It was only because last semester, when Song Yu had attended his parent-teacher meeting, too many people had said the exact same thing to him.

You and your gege don’t look similar at all.    

That day had even been his eighteenth birthday. 

“Don’t dye it anymore, it’s quite nice this way.” Song Yu’s hand accidentally touched Yue Zhishi’s long nape. A small, inconspicuous mole grew there, and most likely even Yue Zhishi didn’t know he had one there.

He used to occasionally stare at that mole in a daze, and when Yue Zhishi had sometimes caught him looking, Yue Zhishi would laugh and ask if he’d taped a piece of paper on his back and why he kept staring at it.

Song Yu didn’t have a habit of pranking people — he only held a strange yet complicated emotion towards this natural mark. 

Such as a desire to possess.

“Do you think I don’t look good in black hair?”

Song Yu’s phone on the table started vibrating for a long time just as the question left Yue Zhishi’s mouth. Yue Zhishi helped him grab it, passing it behind his back.

Song Yu’s thoughts were interrupted. He picked up his phone — it was the dormitory head’s phone call, so he turned off the hair dryer and accepted the call.

“He’s already here, he’s in the dorm right now. Yes. I know, I’ll tell him to go back in a little bit.”

Sitting on the chair, Yue Zhishi heard that sentence and immediately spun over, shaking his head at Song Yu. The person on the other side of the call seemed to be saying something, so Song Yu walked towards the window and looked outside.

“It’s already flooded?” Song Yu paused, and then, his voice very low, as if speaking to himself, “Then how will he leave…”

Yue Zhishi inexplicably cheered up a bit as he heard those words. He relaxed.

Song Yu hung up the call without speaking too much. The roommates’ group chat sent over two videos: one was the flooded subway station, and the other was the rain that even umbrellas could no longer hold back.

[Chen Fangyuan: Our annual sea view came early. Comrades, we once again have an ocean view house.] 

“Has outside flooded really terribly?” Yue Zhishi also stood up, and he ran to the window to have a look. The rain truly had increased.

“Mm, it’s a level red warning today. It might flood out like before, and then it’ll be really inconvenient to go out.” 

“Then I might not be able to go back today.” Yue Zhishi’s voice was a bit too obvious with its utter lack of regret for not being able to go home, and it held an unmistakable joy. But as soon as he turned around, he saw Song Yu lifting up his school bag. “What are you doing?”

He sounded like a child who’d had his snacks taken away from him right in front of his face.

Song Yu pulled open the zipper, checking inside to see if there was anything left behind. But he abruptly noticed — in this black schoolbag, the name badge he’d carelessly given to Yue Zhishi was pinned to the inside. 

The moment he saw his name, he found himself at a loss.

“Gege.”

Hearing Yue Zhishi’s voice, Song Yu’s attention returned, and he placed down the bag. “Since the subway’s flooded, it won’t be safe either in a car. I don’t have anywhere for you to sleep here, but there’s a few hotels nearby. I’ll see if I can book one for you.”

A blinding white light suddenly flashed outside the window. Yue Zhishi had suffered through this too many times, and his body’s instinctive reaction was to cover his ears. In the next moment, a tremendous crack of thunder rang through the sky.

Song Yu saw his shoulders shaking, and yet he still grabbed his phone, preparing to book Yue Zhishi a hotel.

Yue Zhishi was very upset seeing him act like that. It felt like he’d run to all different kinds of fruit stores to finally find a crisp peach, and when he bit down, full of expectation, the peach turned out to be soft. 

But he had been the one who’d wanted to come — just like he’d been the one to buy the peach.

He needed to eat it entirely, and yet each mouthful was full of discouragement.

Since it was currently a school break, all of the hotels nearby the university were already very hard to book, and it was even harder with the special weather the last few days. Song Yu checked a few good quality hotels, and pretty much all of them were fully booked. He didn’t want to even check hotels with a slightly lower quality, and when he thought about the environment of those hotels, he didn’t want to send Yue Zhishi over at all.

Especially since his body was still so sensitive.

As he thought about how the bedsheets in the hotels might not be clean enough, and how they might even smell of cigarette smoke, Song Yu thought, if he told Yue Zhishi to live there by himself, it might be Song Yu himself who tossed and turned and was unable to sleep all night.

His wrist was suddenly grasped just as he was struggling with what to do. Yue Zhishi had arrived in front in him. He wore the shirt Song Yu had bought and yet had never worn, and the body wash fragrance diffusing from his body was the same as his. His hair was soft and smooth, his gaze innocent.

In a very soft voice, he said, “Gege, I don’t want to stay outside.”

The hand surrounding Song Yu’s wrist was pale enough that he could see Yue Zhishi’s veins as they throbbed up and down, full of life. Song Yu knew very well — this kind of skin would turn red and would turn warm at the merest chafing. Just like when he was younger, at the slightest cry, Yue Zhishi’s face would turn red just like a fragile peach.

“It’s thundering outside. I won’t be able to sleep.” He used the excuse Song Yu could never reject, just like the first time he’d intruded into his room. But compared to the painful crying of his childhood, the way he requested it now seemed to make it even harder for Song Yu to deny him.

He seemed to be even better now at guessing Song Yu’s thoughts than when he was a child — he simply stretched out a hand, and he was able to touch Song Yu’s weak spot. 

Yue Zhishi gazed at him, that pair of large yet beautiful eyes full of pleading but also full of some kind of other emotion that could give someone a wrong impression.

“Can I stay here? Just one night.”

The author has something to say:

Say yes!

Something that can be easily overlooked is gege’s love~

Some sisters said gege’s too cold. He truly isn’t, when you compare how he treats other people with how he treats Le Le. It’s called restraint. To me, the charm of an older gong in a situation like this is in his restraint — if he can’t even control his own emotions, then he would have an unfair advantage due to his guidance of the younger person. He would affect the younger person’s choices, and that, to me, would completely lose the charm of having an older gong. The ways he treats Le Le well are all in the details. In choosing to not express his love, he is taking responsibility for and protecting Lele, especially after seeing a failed example. Especially since their relationship is so similar to a relationship between brothers. If he chose to directly express it, and then they later face dangers or difficulties, who will bear the burden for that? Would he be willing for Yue Zhishi to suffer through Xu Qichen’s experience? After all, Le Le still has yet to go through his college entrance exams.

I feel like questions like “will they still be like this after they get together” are very strange. Clearly they won’t, Song Yu is already like this before he’s even felt Le Le’s arrow — he’s only bearing it and not expressing himself because he wants to protect the relationship between them. He’ll love Le Le up to the heavens when they’re together.

Refusing to allow the person you like to get close to you doesn’t mean you don’t love them. But if someone treats you, the person they like, with despicable behaviour, then no matter what they do, that’s not called ‘being cool’ — that’s called ‘they don’t love you’.