CH 44

Lu Yong looked at Shen Wenqiu whose face turned pale instantly.

Shen Wenqiu asked, “How did you know? … Who told you?”

Lu Yong said, “You don’t need to care about who told me.”

After a long while, Shen Wenqiu said hesitantly, “I… I haven’t decided yet… I have applied to a few schools, and it will take a few months before I know if I will be admitted.”

Seeing his frightened appearance, Lu Yong’s temper cooled down a lot and he thought to himself: Do I have the right to speak to Shen Wenqiu in such a vicious and accusatory tone? It is up to Shen Wenqiu to decide what kind of life he chooses to live.

He thought so, but he couldn’t help but get angry.

Lu Yong tried his best to restrain his anger, so he indifferently and detachedly answered, “En.”

Shen Wenqiu thought for a while and looked at his face. He said cautiously and guiltily, “I-I’m sorry.”

Lu Yong said in a cold voice, “What’s the point of apologising to me? The school you wanted to study at originally was something I could not intervene in.”

“No.” Shen Wenqiu said anxiously, “I should have told you…but I didn’t know if I would get accepted or not. So if I rushed to tell you and didn’t get accepted in the end, wouldn’t it have looked awkward?”

When the words ended, Lu Yong blurted out and asked in response, “Then why do they all know?”

Am I the only one who doesn’t deserve to know? Lu Yong really wanted to ask, but the second half of the sentence got stuck in his throat, and he swallowed it back down.

Shen Wenqiu froze.

Lu Yong felt distressed when he saw him standing still awkwardly, unable to find an excuse to explain himself with his overwhelmed and heartbroken appearance. Even if Shen Wenqiu treated him like this, he still liked him. He only hated himself for having dirty thoughts towards his friend. Why couldn’t he be broad-minded? Why did he have to be so jealous and doubtful??

Lu Yong approached Shen Wenqiu. Shen Wenqiu rarely showed such an expression, such as trembling when he was bullied, but his innocent and frightened face could not help but make people want to bully him even more. There was also some sort of impulse surging up in his heart—

He wanted to kiss Shen Wenqiu right here, right now.

Lu Yong leaned down, and the shadow slowly climbed up Shen Wenqiu’s body and covered him.

Shen Wenqiu was like a poor prey being stared at, panicked, confused, unable to move, not knowing what was going to happen.

Just when he was about to approach Shen Wenqiu, Shen Wenqiu suddenly came back to his senses. His face was red, and he reached out to push Lu Yong away.

Lu Yong fell back a few steps and pulled away, but his body didn’t fall. He felt like Shen Wenqiu had thrown his heart on the ground.

With Shen Wenqiu’s shocked and fearful eyes staring at him, Lu Yong’s hot head finally gradually cooled down.

Currently, there was actually still a distance.

They only tacitly understood each other, and they both sensed that there would be a kiss initially.

Lu Yong clenched his fist—his chest was full of anger and he wanted to find a way to vent, but unfortunately he couldn’t. He finally said in his sullen voice, “I’m sorry.”

Since he couldn’t think of a better way to word it, he simply repeated, “Sorry.”

After speaking, Lu Yong turned around and left. This time Shen Wenqiu didn’t follow him.

He felt defeated.

Reason returned to his mind, and Lu Yong was too ashamed. He felt that his behavior was an attempted crime, and he should be punished for it.

Lu Yong still didn’t want to go back to the classroom. He was circling around downstairs like a wandering soul, and the homeroom teacher caught him.

The homeroom teacher scolded him with a few words, but seeing that he was lost and absent-minded, she still cared about her student’s psychological problems.

Lu Yong took a deep breath, raised his head, and said, “Teacher, I want to change seats. I want to go back and sit in the back alone. Thank you, Teacher.”

***

The fact that Lu Yong almost kissed him had left a huge impact on Shen Wenqiu.

He didn’t know how to go back to the classroom to face Lu Yong. He hid in the playground for a class period until after school, and then hurriedly fled home.

Was Lu Yong going to kiss him? Or just get close to him? Did he get it wrong? He had been feeling anxious recently, always feeling that Lu Yong wanted to get close to him.

What do I say when I greet Lu Yong tomorrow morning? Act naturally and pretend nothing happened?

Yes, yes, just like that, pretend nothing happened.

Shen Wenqiu couldn’t sleep until the early hours of the morning before he made his decision.

Early the next morning, Shen Wenqiu arrived at school with breakfast. He also brought an extra portion of small dumplings and a carton of milk to give to Lu Yong, but when he arrived in the classroom, he saw the desk beside his that belonged to Lu Yong had been moved away.

It was moved back to the lonely corner near the trash can that Lu Yong had sat next to before.

Shen Wenqiu was dumbfounded. This time he really panicked.

Shen Wenqiu asked his classmate, “Where’s Lu Yong? What’s going on with this? Why was his desk moved there?”

The classmate said, “He moved it last night. Didn’t you all disappear? He moved the table as soon as he came back.”

Shen Wenqiu asked blankly, “What happened?”

The classmate replied, “You are on good terms with him. How would we know when you don’t know? I also want to ask what happened…”

Shen Wenqiu couldn’t eat a single grain of rice.

Finally, when Lu Yong came back, the class bell rang again. Lu Yong stepped into the classroom at the exact time, and the class started before Lu Yong even had the chance to ask. 

After class, Lu Yong left. He turned to look at Lu Yong, but Lu Yong didn’t even look at him. 

He had stayed up all morning, but Shen Wenqiu couldn’t catch Lu Yong to ask a few questions properly.

Shen Wenqiu simply went to the bedroom to wait for Lu Yong.

He could not enter the student dormitory casually after deciding to not stay there. For this reason, he borrowed a student pass from his classmates. When the dormitory aunt was not around, he hurried in and went to the dormitory he used to live in and sat in Lu Yong’s seat, waiting idly for an opportunity.

This time, Lu Yong was caught.

Lu Yong didn’t seem to be angry, but when he faced him, he felt a guilty conscience. “Why did you come to the dormitory?”

Shen Wenqiu said, “I have something to say to you.”

Shen Wenqiu gestured for the two of them to go out alone with his eyes. Lu Yong pretended not to understand and said in front of the other students, “What’s the matter?”

Shen Wenqiu was worried as looked at the others and said, “Why did you suddenly move your seat?”

Lu Yong answered, “I told the homeroom teacher.”

Shen Wenqiu said angrily, “Is speaking to the homeroom teacher about this the main problem?”

It seemed like they were about to quarrel in front of the other students in the dormitory, so they walked away quietly, even remembering to help close the door.

Only the two of them were left in the room.

Lu Yong slowly bent over his overly tall body, squatted down, knelt on the ground with one knee, looked up at him, and said, “I’m sorry.”

Shen Wenqiu: “…”

Lu Yong added: “I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

Shen Wenqiu became madly flustered, so flustered that he was almost out of breath. His eyes slowly turned red. He wanted to pretend that nothing happened, but Lu Yong just didn’t cooperate.

Obviously they didn’t say anything, so it was impossible to just let it pass simply, right?

Why did Lu Yong have to admit it?

Lu Yong said, “I don’t think I should continue to sit next to you. The homeroom teacher is about to change seats as well. You should go back to the original middle seat.”

To say that this was a tear-jerking showdown, it didn’t seem to be that way either.

It was ambiguous and under-ripe.

Lu Yong didn’t make it clear that he wanted to stay decent and friendly in the future, and Shen Wenqiu himself was more embarrassed to say so.

Shen Wenqiu was both sad and angry, and he laughed angrily, “Okay. You helped set me up, right? And you don’t even ask my opinion. You think I’m the one who wants to be at the same table with you?”

Shen Wenqiu didn’t know what he was talking about, and Lu Yong’s maliciousness pierced his bones , “I just think that you have no friends and you are pitiful. Do you think anyone other than me would like to sit at the same table with you?”

Lu Yong was silent, and after a while, he replied as if suffering from pain, “Yeah.”

The homeroom teacher rearranged the seats in the class.

Shen Wenqiu went back to the third row in the middle group which faced the blackboard with an excellent view, surrounded by all the classmates that he had good relationships with.

His tablemate changed back to Sheng Xu.

But he wasn’t happy at all.

The third year of high school passed too quickly. Before Shen Wenqiu even noticed, it was the end of the semester. When he changed into his down jacket, he received a reply to his university application.

He could go abroad to study.

Shen Wenqiu actually imagined this scene, and even in his imagination, he was not happy. He felt empty in his heart.

His dad asked, “…Why are you crying?”

Shen Wenqiu finally realized that he was crying. He wanted to find a tissue to wipe his tears, but there was no tissue paper on the table, so he roughly wiped his tears with his sleeve. “Dad, I panic when I think of going abroad.”

His dad hugged his shoulder and sighed.

Shen Wenqiu couldn’t stop crying.

Distressed, his dad said, “Ai, don’t cry. It’s normal for you to be afraid. You haven’t left home since you were young. You want to go out alone, but Dad can’t watch you, and Dad is also very worried. Dad is not forcing you to be more promising, but it is not impossible to support you for the rest of your life with the money Dad is earning now. Everyone has to grow up… This is a very important decision, so I can’t make the decision for you. Think carefully about it yourself. If you really don’t want to go, then don’t go. If you don’t want to go, don’t go and stay in China. I think domestic universities are pretty good as well. Staying in China is not necessarily worse than going abroad.”

Shen Wenqiu nodded in frustration. He didn’t want to go anymore.

It was because of this matter that he fell out with Lu Yong.

He even thought in his heart that he wanted to go to the same university as Lu Yong. Would Lu Yong want to make up with him if he went to talk to him like this?

He hadn’t spoken to Lu Yong for a month, and he missed Lu Yong too much, way too much.

They had never been apart for so long since they became good friends.

The two of them had a still relationship like that. 

Lu Yong was such a silent and passive person. If Shen Wenqiu didn’t take the initiative, he was afraid that Lu Yong would not come to him.

Shen Wenqiu thought that it would be great if Lu Yong was still willing to be friends with him, just friends was good enough.

He went to Lu Yong’s house uneasily.

Lu Yong was not there at that time.

Shen Wenqiu used to go to his house, and Father Lu didn’t know about their quarrel. When he saw him, he still welcomed him very warmly.

Father Lu said, “The yard is a mess. Go to your secret base and wait for him.”

“Okay, okay.” Shen Wenqiu agreed and went to Lu Yong’s technical house studio.

As soon as Shen Wenqiu entered through the door, he saw an open notebook on the table which was very beautifully decorated.

Shen Wenqiu walked over unexpectedly, and at a glance saw the half-written diary on that page:

[I almost forcibly kissed Shen Wenqiu, I feel very guilty.]

[He looked at me several times as if he wanted to talk to me, but I dared not talk to him, and I couldn’t promise him that I would only be his friend.]

[I like Shen Wenqiu.]

Shen Wenqiu felt as if a storm was suddenly rising in his heart, and he didn’t even have the last layer of self-deception to cover up anymore.

—Lu Yong has a crush on him.

—Lu Yong is gay.

But homosexuality is a mental illness!

Shen Wenqiu panicked.

He was so panicked that he didn’t hear someone approaching. “Xiao Baa, what are you looking at?”

Shen Wenqiu turned his head and saw Lu Yong standing at the door. He had asked him without a single hint of a smile on his face. Lu Yong was hooded in the dark, and his overly tall figure was like a sunshade, blocking the light.