CH 99

Chapter 99: Lingering Fears

The aftereffects of coming out to the entire university weren’t small — for example, that photo of them kissing was forwarded to the Christmas Kiss now event organiser’s social media account and leaped to first place in the poll.

And Yue Zhishi, who wasn’t aware of that at all, suddenly received a delivery one day. It was a rainbow coloured toaster oven, and the delivery also contained a letter congratulating them for winning the prize and included the photo of them kissing. Only then did Yue Zhishi know he’d won the Kiss now competition.

“They said their sponsor was a household electronics brand.” Yue Zhishi expressed his excitement to Song Yu at winning a prize based on his own ability and asked him to move the toaster oven into the apartment soon. “It’s so cute, isn’t the colour really pretty? All thanks to me.”

Song Yu smiled in the video call. “You can’t kiss by yourself.”

“True.” Admiring the oven, Yue Zhishi said very generously, “Then I’ll allow you to use it too.”

Other than that, Song Yu instantly became the ideal type for many 0s around them and went through a very long time period of harassment. But Song Yu remained extraordinarily unmoved, and made it so his few social media accounts couldn’t be added by others.

And for another example, many girls spread the news of Yue Zhishi and Song Yu’s relationship — except the actual plot wasn’t quite right. Because Yue Zhishi had previously admitted in his Moments post that he was the one who’d pursued Song Yu, everyone thought he’d pined after Song Yu for many years. Yue Zhishi became quite vexed about this, so he didn’t go to Song Yu’s apartment for an entire two days, sleeping in his own dorm.

And so Song Yu had Qin Yan come out and clear things up on the forums, and Qin Yan even specifically stressed the key points of ‘Song Yu has pined after Yue Zhishi for many years’, ‘childhood sweethearts’ and ‘Song Yu has liked him since they were kids’. For a time, their beautiful love story created waves of extreme excitement in female classmates who liked to ship real people.

But because Qin Yan added in too much bitter yearning in his post, Song Yu, the cold guy with a paralysed face, was moulded into a love icon filled with melancholy. His popularity once again increased, and Yue Zhishi became even more annoyed.

It was an eye for an eye, though: on a certain day, Song Yu went to the law school to look for Yue Zhishi after classes had finished. As luck would have it, he happened to see Yue Zhishi caught in the corridor by someone dressed in the volleyball team’s uniform, chatting. The other guy was leaning in quite closely.

Song Yu silently headed over; he thought he heard the guy asking for notes, but he kept talking about all sorts of random things — until he finally praised the colour of Yue Zhishi’s eyes as being especially gorgeous.

“Fellow student, he’s not single. Please keep your distance.” Circling around the guy, Song Yu walked directly over to the astounded Yue Zhishi and took him away, slipping an arm around his waist. They hadn’t walked two steps when they bumped into Shen Mi, who was grinning quite wickedly. 

His voice was full of taunting as he said, “Serves senior Song Yu right.” 

For the entire next day, Song Yu kept staring at Yue Zhishi’s eyes — Yue Zhishi could feel goosebumps popping up all over his body from his focus.

“I feel like he was just giving me a polite compliment,” he attempted.

“It wasn’t polite at all.” Song Yu didn’t hide a single shred of his discontent.

But compared to secondary school, where students’ worlds were much smaller, university was different — something that could’ve been a serious matter in secondary school was nothing in university, and with the passage of time, the aftereffects gradually disappeared. After all, everyone in university had their own lives. It was like a lake; it didn’t matter how large of a stone was dropped in or how big of an explosion it caused. Those ripples would always calm down.

After they became used to those changes, Song Yu and Yue Zhishi could finally act like so many other couples on campus. They could draw out time from their stressful studies to eat and go on dates; they could hold each other if they wanted to embrace, and if they wanted to kiss, they didn’t need to hide away.

They merely received a few more second glances.

The week of their final exams had been too difficult, Yue Zhishi having spent a good few days studying through the night in the library. He was utterly exhausted after finishing the exam for his final course, and he slept the entire way back home. He wouldn’t wake up despite Song Yu’s attempts to wake him up, and Yue Zhishi only abruptly startled awake when Song Yu said he was going to leave him behind — he then pitifully threw his arms around Song Yu, not yet recovered from the shock.

On the first day of their break, Jiang Yufan’s uncle, a manager at a cinema, gifted him with a bunch of movie tickets. Jiang Yufan then gave them to his friends, making plans with everyone to watch a movie together. 

They only discovered that they couldn’t choose what movie to watch after arriving at the cinema. The movie currently showing was a disaster film with very good word of mouth and was focused on family. It talked about a family of five as they were met with a tidal wave; it was a story of how each of them fought for survival and found each other again.

The film was very realistic, and it was also very well made. But the moment he saw the pair of mother and son reunite after having been separated the entire time in the disaster zone, Yue Zhishi used the excuse of going to the bathroom to exit the cinema room.

He’d overestimated his ability to handle it.

Song Yu followed right behind him. He felt like he had been sitting even more uneasily than Yue Zhishi earlier in the dark cinema room, but once they left, he didn’t say anything at all — he only held Yue Zhishi in his arms as they stood in the long corridor of the carpeted cinema.

Holding back his distress, Yue Zhishi thought it was likely he would always be timid when it came to certain things. After one minute, he very honestly told Song Yu about that thought.

Song Yu replied, you don’t need to be too brave — leave me some space to love you.

Once Yue Zhishi calmed down, he decided to head back into the cinema room. No one else knew he actually still had an instinctive fear of disasters, and neither did he want to reveal it. Except Song Yu pulled at his hand, stopping him, and sent a message to Jiang Yufan.

“Let’s go have some cake.” The palm of Song Yu’s hand was broad and dry, warmth diffusing from it. “I saw a newly opened cake shop when we first arrived. It sells that berry cheesecake you like.”

The cake shop had a dazzling array of sweets, yet Yue Zhishi could only choose from very few. Luckily, he was easily satisfied, and Yue Zhishi’s mood brightened when he saw Song Yu frowning as he took a bite of a very sweet cake Yue Zhishi had asked him to try.

Winter in this city was both wet and cold, like an old sponge soaked in cold water. Ever since starting their winter break, Yue Zhishi hadn’t been able to be away from heaters; he even covered himself with blankets as he slept on the carpet during afternoon naps. Orange would be curled onto Yue Zhishi’s belly, and Cotton Candy would be snuggled into his arms.

Of course, Song Yu took a photo of that scene and saved it into his camera album.

But even though they were on break, Song Yu didn’t idle around, always processing remote sensing images while at home. Qin Yan occasionally dropped by, wanting to pull Song Yu out to play, but he would end up only with a free meal.

“You’re working too hard, they’re already working you like a dog despite you being only in fourth year. Hey, when are you going to have the time to go on a date with our Le Le? You a master at time management?” Qin Yan walked to the side of Song Yu’s desk, bent over and peeked at the monthly schedule resting on top. Each grid was neat and orderly, check marks for [finished] covering all over.

When he saw a grid marked in red for next week, Qin Yan squinted. “Geez, your research group’s heading out again?” 

“We were just notified. The seismological bureau Professor He previously worked with invited him to Western Sichuan to analyse and measure the land subsidence. We’re also going to grab some spatial observation data of the mountain areas while we’re there.”

Qin Yan had a headache just from listening, thinking only that Song Yu once again needed to suffer from lugging instruments. He patted Song Yu’s shoulder like an elderly father, saying, “All right then, work hard. Try to come back two days before Lunar New Year, my mom’s going to send over some homemade dumplings.”

Compared to many other people of the same age, Song Yu seemed to always be running ahead of everyone else on the racetrack of life. When others were struggling on entrance examinations, Song Yu had already completed and decided on his career path. When the majority of people in university were still engrossed in being students, Song Yu had already begun to realise the achievements of his work, little by little drawing closer to the life goal he’d established as a child.

He had always been able to rapidly reach his goals, creating plans one step ahead as he raced to grow up and mature. His feelings had been the same — it was a single ray delineated a very long time ago. The trajectory of his life was a perfectly linear growth, rising steadily and never falling. 

But even so, Song Yu had had never-ending patience as he’d waited for Yue Zhishi to grow up.

After walking Qin Yan out, Song Yu returned back upstairs. When he passed by Yue Zhishi’s room, Yue Zhishi happened to be on the phone — he hadn’t continued sleeping.

“Really? Then do you still need a week? Okay that’s fine, let me see if there are any special dates coming up… Ah, it doesn’t look like there are. Ohh, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve… I hope you guys can hurry and finish it earlier, please work a bit faster…” 

Yue Zhishi just then was wrapped in his blankets, facing his heater, as he talked on the phone. He suddenly felt Orange and Cotton Candy run away, and he naturally was a bit puzzled — when he turned around, he saw Song Yu standing behind him.

“You’re awake?”

Yue Zhishi nodded blankly, and then he rapidly said to the person on the phone, “Let me call you again later.”

Song Yu didn’t ask about why he was acting so furtively, and that made Yue Zhishi feel lucky; although, when he thought about it a bit more, Song Yu truly never seemed to involve himself in his matters. Even when he hadn’t gotten along with Shen Mi, he hadn’t said anything along the lines of ‘you can’t be friends with him’. 

“I need to head out for fieldwork again.” Song Yu sat down, still wearing that pair of silver glasses he usually wore when working.

“When are you going?” Shifting closer to him, Yue Zhishi picked up Orange who’d poked himself in between the two of them. 

“Next week. I should be back before two days before Lunar New Year.” Song Yu faintly quirked an eyebrow. “The day you were talking about on the phone.”

“As expected, you heard me.” Yue Zhishi leaned in to give Song Yu a kiss. “Can you take me along this time?”

“I don’t think so.” Song Yu explained to him, “Even though the place has nice scenery, it’s still the Western Sichuan plateau. It won’t be good for you to come.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Altitude sickness will affect your breathing.” Song Yu held onto his shoulders. “Wait for me to come back. We’ll go to Hokkaido.”

He was like a master negotiator, holding techniques in the palm of his hand that could quickly persuade Yue Zhishi. He also had a trump card that never failed.

If he couldn’t persuade Yue Zhishi, then he’d kiss him. Human mouths weren’t to be used only for speaking, after all.

It was slightly raining the day Song Yu left. Winter rain always seemed to be cold enough to pierce into the bones, and Yue Zhishi took off the light grey scarf he’d worn out the house and very forcefully wrapped it around Song Yu’s neck, worried he’d be cold.

They shared a very long kiss before separating, disregarding everything around them. Yue Zhishi fixed his eyes on Song Yu’s receding back and his black mountaineering backpack; he really wanted to shrink himself smaller and smaller until he turned into a little pendant that didn’t weigh anything or take up any space — he wanted to be tied onto the zipper of Song Yu’s backpack, swaying and rocking, and go with him to every single corner of the earth.

Three days later, Lin Rong suddenly received a phone call from her mom’s caregiver in the middle of the night, saying her mom had been sent into the ER due to a cerebral haemorrhage. Song Jin was overseas, and so at 1am, Lin Rong and Yue Zhishi rushed to the hospital.

It was hard to relax when surrounded by the smell of disinfectant. Yue Zhishi had complicated feelings towards death — he always felt it would be quite normal for himself to pass away at any given moment; accidents would always occur. But it was very difficult for him to accept it when the people around him were lingering between the border of life and death.

He wasn’t wearing much, and he sat uneasily in the hospital corridor, silently praying for grandma to pull through. Luckily, after the night passed, the hospital told them her condition was temporarily no longer life-threatening; Lin Rong and Yue Zhishi sighed in relief.

Lin Rong ran back and forth for her mother, and Yue Zhishi also busied himself with helping her with various procedures. Song Jin returned back to the country the day after in the afternoon, and the moment he arrived in the hospital room, Lin Rong’s tense nerves finally relaxed. Hugging Song Jin, she cried for a very long time. After she calmed down, she wrapped her arms around Yue Zhishi and said, “Darling, you haven’t slept all night. You should go back and rest.”

Yue Zhishi didn’t want to leave, holding onto Lin Rong quite tightly. He was unwilling to leave her, but the room couldn’t hold so many people — Yue Zhishi could only leave by himself.

As he travelled home, he gave Song Yu a call. His phone was turned off, so Yue Zhishi sent through many messages, asking if he was cold, how was he eating and sleeping.

He slept all the way through to 10:30pm. Yue Zhishi saw Song Yu’s messages when he woke up, and he’d answered every single one of his questions like an artificial intelligence, saying it wasn’t too cold, he’d been eating well and he’d been sleeping very well because he’d been so tired. At the end, Song Yu gave him an extra response that went beyond Yue Zhishi’s questions.

[Arctic Circle: Everything’s been fine. I just really miss you.]

He’d also gifted Yue Zhishi with a photo he’d taken of the scenery; it held icebound lakes and snowy mountains peeking through in the distance.

It was truly hard to endure missing him.

Yue Zhishi sent over a voice message of I miss you too.

He only received one piece of good news over the last few days — he received the items he’d ordered ahead of time. They didn’t arrive as slowly as he’d imagined.

Lin Rong didn’t come home the entire night, and since Yue Zhishi had slept for too long during the afternoon, he couldn’t sleep that night. He sat in the living room by himself and watched anime all night, heading out at 6am to buy some fruit and breakfast before heading to the hospital. Grandma seemed to be sleeping; Lin Rong was wiping down her arms with a towel soaked with warm water, appearing to be much more relaxed.

Sitting down, Yue Zhishi peeled an apple each for her and Song Jin, and he talked to them very quietly about the plans Song Yu had made for their Hokkaido trip.

He was chatting with Lin Rong when Jiang Yufan called Yue Zhishi and said he’d found a store selling anime merchandise. At 12pm, the store was going to start selling one of the pieces of merchandise Yue Zhishi really wanted, as well as a limited edition commemorative booklet. Yue Zhishi was somewhat hesitant, but Lin Rong had heard some of their conversation; she guessed what it was about.

“You should go with Xiao Fan, Grandma’s already fine. She only needs to stay in the hospital for observation, so it’ll be fine with just us.”

Only then did Yue Zhishi meet up with Jiang Yufan, the two of them seeing each other at the subway station. Jiang Yufan even bought him a brown sugar milk tea, and the two of them talked as they headed towards the store. There was a large, disorganised crowd of people in front of the entrance, all of them having arrived early, and it was the first time Yue Zhishi had experienced being around so many other people as otaku as he was.

With nothing to do at home, Jiang Yufan had caught up on a lot of shows. He chattered away, promoting shows to Yue Zhishi one by one, and Yue Zhishi earnestly listened; he didn’t find it all that boring to line up, only hoping the store would have a higher quantity of merchandise. He hoped he could buy what he wanted, so he could fill up another shelf in his room.

Two girls were chatting and drinking milk tea in front of them, and they were dressed in lolita-style clothing. One of them lowered her head, checking her phone, and abruptly said, “Oh no, there’s an earthquake again.”

“What? What magnitude?”

“6.9… Oh my god, it sounds so scary. I hope there won’t be any deaths.”

Yue Zhishi suddenly had a very bad premonition. He inwardly told himself to calm down, and then he pulled out his phone, checking Weibo. 

Jiang Yufan hadn’t noticed the girls’ conversation. He was on his tiptoes, glancing into the glass windows at the store’s entrance, and said, “I think they still have some, good, good… Le Le, let’s go eat some barbecue once we’re done here, we haven’t had barbecue in a really long time.”

When he didn’t receive an answer, he turned around and looked at Yue Zhishi — Yue Zhishi’s face was pale.

“What’s wrong?”

“Earthquake…” Yue Zhishi mumbled to himself. He hurriedly and absent-mindedly said goodbye to Jiang Yufan, but he didn’t actually know what he’d said; he separated from the crowd with unsteady footsteps, running towards the street.

In a gust of cold wind, he managed to flag down a taxi and hastily pulled open a door.

“To the airport.”