CH 16

Shen Weixing realized that something wasn’t quite right.  

Two days had already passed since that day, and he couldn’t call Ye Jiuyue out to meet up.

Ye Jiuyue insisted that he was sick, and couldn’t fuck.

Shen Weixing thought, who are you kidding?! Being sick was the excuse that I made up for you! If you’re tricking someone then at least bring out some sincerity, okay?!

Once he was done being furious, he quickly clicked into Sui Dong’s Weibo account to see if this had anything to do with him.  

Jiu Yue Ru Dong hadn’t posted anything. 

Shen Weixing fell into a deep silence. 

This time Ye Jiuyue hadn’t lied; he really was sick, and what’s more, he was very seriously sick. It came out of nowhere, as if he’d been cursed by Shen Weixing. The following day when he woke up, his was woozy and had a splitting headache. After swallowing a pill of cold medicine that was kept ready in the dorm, he insistently went to class, and then that night he started running a temperature. 

According to his dormmates’ opinion, Ye Jiuyue should get an IV drip, but Ye Jiuyue didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the pain, he was just firm in his belief that getting too many IV drips wasn’t good for the body, and wouldn’t go even under pain of death. 

At a time like this, why the hell are you being health-conscious?! His dormmates, full of headaches, stuffed him with medicine and got him to drink lots of hot water (times 3).

And so Ye Jiuyue was forced to drink three times the hot water by his three dormmates, causing him to frequently run to the bathroom. The timing perfectly aligned with a drop in temperature, so with a few gusts of cold wind, the effect of the hot water was probably cancelled out; in any case, he continued to run a fever.  

Ye Jiuyue thought to himself, if he wasn’t better by tomorrow night, then it would be better to just go and get an IV drip; otherwise, he might be burned silly. Or if he hadn’t been cooked silly by the fever, then he would die of suffocation from not being able to breathe through a stuffy nose.

These two days were all required courses, so Ye Jiuyue wore a mask and dragged his sick body to the classroom for lecture. The teachers were moved by his willpower and urged him to take a day off to rest up in his dorm, as well as promised to not take marks off his normal grades. 

On the second day, Ye Jiuyue persevered through the morning and first-afternoon class, before he really couldn’t keep on going. The teacher persuaded him with difficulty and promised that they would give him a special remedial lessons to fill him in once he was back. Only then did he agree to go back to his dorm and rest. 

Teachers always show favour to hardworking students with good grades. Afraid that Ye Jiuyue would faint on the way, the professor called on his dormmate to accompany him back. Just as his dormmate got up from his seat, he glanced towards the door and immediately pushed Ye Jiuyue into the arms of the newcomer. “Sui Dong, you accompany Jiuyue back to the dorm, this is the key.”

Sui Dong deeply understood that pursuing someone had to start from the dormmates.  Whenever he was free he would get close to Ye Jiuyue’s three dormmates. That’s how he knew about Ye Jiuyue’s fever in the first place. Actually, the day before he had already bounded over to be thoughtful and caring, and said that he would help Ye Jiuyue take notes for his classes, but was turned down by Ye Jiuyue.

Aera cbk, Tf Alesef’r vbgwwjaf abbx jvnjcajuf bo atf alwf ktfc Tf Alesef kjr yflcu egufv ys atf afjmtfg ab mbcajma Vel Gbcu. Ccv rb, Vel Gbcu delmxis gjc bnfg ogbw atf cflutybeglcu yelivlcu.

Ye Jiuyue could see stars as he tried to identify Sui Dong. “I’m fine, I can go back by myself, you guys go back to class. Sui Dong, you too.”

“I don’t have class.” Sui Dong casually said, without a blush nor quickening of his pulse, “I’ll send you back to the dorm.” 

Tf Alesef ageis vlvc’a tjnf atf fcfgus ab mbcalcef jguelcu klat tlw, rb tf vfmlvfv ab lucbgf tlw. Lf oibjafv abkjgvr atf vlgfmalbc bo atf mijrrgbbw’r fzla ys tlwrfio.

Sui Dong hurried to follow him, and snatched the backpack from Ye Jiuyue’s hands, who was currently so feeble he couldn’t even fight a chicken. “I’ll help you.”

Ye Jiuyue slowly went down the stairs while supporting himself on the wall. “No need, thanks.”

“You’re already like this, even as just a friend I could take care of you, couldn’t I?” Sui Dong said. “Before, in high school when I was sick, you took care of me too, just take this as me returning the favour, alright?” 

“No need.” Ye Jiuyue was tormented by his sickness, so his patience wasn’t as good as it normally was. He couldn’t help but say, “If I let my guard down, you’ll think that you still have a chance, but there’s no chance for anything between us anymore, so I can’t give you any hope. Sui Dong, don’t come looking for me anymore.”

“Jiuyue——”

Ye Jiuyue’s phone rang, and he weakly got it out and took a look. At first, he hadn’t planned on picking up, but his hand slipped and it picked up. As such, he couldn’t just hang up, so he turned his head to the side and said, “I’m busy these next few days, don’t come looking for me.”

Shen Weixing asked, “What’s wrong with your voice?” 

Ye Jiuyue said, voice raspy, “I caught a cold.”

“You really did catch a cold?”

“En.”

“Is it serious?” 

“En.”

“You didn’t take any medicine? Where are you?

“I’m going back to the dorms to rest.”

“Stay where you are and don’t move, I’ll come pick you up.” 

“It’s not like you can give me medical advice.”

“I can send you to get medical advice!”

“I already took some medicine.”

“Where are you?” 

Ye Jiuyue gave Sui Dong, who was in front of him, a glance. He thought about it and said, “C Building, first floor at Entrance C.”

Ye Jiuyue gripped his phone and persisted in going down the stairs. He sat on the fire extinguishing equipment box on the building’s first floor, leaning against the wall, waiting while on his last breath for Shen Weixing to come pick him up.  

Standing by his side, Sui Dong saw this and wasn’t having it. “You’re—that guy again?”

Ye Jiuyue softly said, “En.”

“He doesn’t even dare show his face, how is he better than the past me?” Sui Dong was starting to be a little frustrated and indignant. “Back then I was only in high school, to be honest, me being afraid is understandable, right? But he’s already a working adult, he’s already in a set form. He doesn’t even dare show his face, every time it’s like he’s a thief. You’re planning on being with him? Then in the future, if he finds a woman and marries her, he’ll continue to sneak around and be with you? Jiuyue, don’t be foolish just to spite me.”

Ye Jiuyue silently sat there and didn’t say anything.  

Sui Dong finished venting, then squatted down in front of him, raised his head and looked at him. “Jiuyue, give me another chance. I was wrong before, give me another chance to change, okay? There’ll always be a way to solve the thing with my parents, we can face them together.”

Ye Jiuyue lightly sighed, then silently stared at Sui Dong.

He didn’t know why, perhaps it was because being sick made him more sensitive and emotional than usual, but as Ye Jiuyue stared at Sui Dong, his eyes suddenly pricked and he almost had tears fall from them. 

Sui Dong quietly called him, emotional, “Jiuyue……..” 

“Even till now you don’t know why we broke up, what will you change?” Ye Jiuyue’s eyes were red as he sniffed and gloomily asked. 

Sui Dong：“……”

He confusedly and timidly asked, “Isn’t it because I was afraid of my parents finding out and because I was afraid of my own sexual orientation, so I got a girlfriend?”

Ye Jiuyue sniffed, then said with pauses and stops, “That is a very important reason, but it’s just one out of many.” 

Sui Dong: “Huh?”

“You would always put your dirty clothes in my bin and get me to wash them. And you would eat my food, I was regularly left still hungry. The scarf that took me a month to knit, you took it and wouldn’t return it. I don’t have a lot of money saved, that winter I didn’t even have a scarf to wear; it was so cold.” Ye Jiuyue slowly said. “In the winter, when I was sleeping, after you would finish going to the bathroom and come back, you wouldn’t want to climb back onto the top bunk so you would burrow into my blankets. It was so cold; I was scared awake many times. When I was working on homework, you would always step on my feet under the table. And you would send me those jump-scare ghost gifs; they really scared me.”

Sui Dong：“………………………………………………” 

Shen Weixing, who was hiding outside the door and eavesdropping: “……”

Ye Jiuyue slowly said all this, then lastly he said, “I’ve said many times before that I don’t like that, but you still just do whatever you like. Sui Dong, I don’t like it when others bully me.”

“……” Sui Dong awkwardly said, “No, I-I I wasn’t, I wasn’t bullying you, I was teasing you. I-I really wasn’t bullying you, I just thought that teasing you was fun, because I like you. And I didn’t think that you were so angry, when you speak your tone is pretty soft, I thought you were just saying things.”

“That’s my accent.” Ye Jiuyue explained, “The people in my hometown all talk like this.”

“No wait,” Sui Dong said, not knowing if he should laugh or cry, “I’m wrong, I didn’t know before. I won’t do those things anymore. Just because of that? I really haven’t thought of that. Then I know now, I absolutely won’t do those things in the future, alright?” 

Ye Jiuyue slowly shook his head. “Sui Dong, our personalities aren’t suited to each other, even if there weren’t those things, there would still be other things.”

“But——”

“Done talking?” Shen Weixing heard Ye Jiuyue start coughing again, and quickly showed himself. “If you’re done talking, then let’s go. Give me the backpack.”

Shen Weixing reached out to take the backpack from Sui Dong’s hands. 

Sui Dong didn’t let go. 

“Whatever then, you can help him take it to his dorm.” Shen Weixing turned around and picked Ye Jiuyue up. He couldn’t help but smugly say to Sui Dong, “So childish.”

“You—” Sui Dong tried to refute him, but couldn’t think of the right thing to say at that moment. Presently, he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock from just now, and could only dazedly stare as Ye Jiuyue was carried away by that man who didn’t even dare reveal his face. 

He really hadn’t thought of the possibility that Ye Jiuyue had broken up with him because of these things. 

He’d always thought that that was flirting between himself and Ye Jiuyue. Or else, it was because of this that he liked Ye Jiuyue even more; because Ye Jiuyue would silently help him wash his clothes, the lunch boxes that he made were also very delicious, when you teased him he wouldn’t explode in anger like other people, at most he would just softly complain a little. He liked the Ye Jiuyue that was like this, felt that he was super cute, and when he was with the Ye Jiuyue that was like this he was very content. 

But in the end, Ye Jiuyue had always taken these things as bullying?

Sui Dong felt like his entire worldview was crumbling.  

The author has something to say:

@Xia Qiu, hurry up and come see, there’s someone straighter than Shen Ge (.)

Rinrin: Indeed. And he DID think he was straight before YJY, so. 

Lastin: I think Sui Dong is looking for a mother-figure, not a partner. Only his mother would take care of him like that without an issue.