Chapter 11: Yu Fan Put Chen Jingshen in the Hospital
Yu Fan had half expected it.
Since morning his head had felt heavy and light at once, his body weak, everyone’s voices droning like scripture. He had not been sick in a long time. This felt worse than scrapes and bruises.
His lips were dry. He swallowed, a dull pain tightening his brow. “Hand off.”
Silence. A few seconds later, Chen Jingshen withdrew his hand.
Yu Fan shifted and pillowed his head on his arm.
“You should go to a hospital.”
“Mind your own business,” Yu Fan said with his eyes closed.
The noise beside him stopped.
He was as he had been during morning study, muddle-headed and yet unable to sleep. In a haze he listened to the boy next to him shut a book, pack up, and zip his bag. He tilted his head and saw Chen Jingshen swing the backpack onto both shoulders and lift a chair to stack it on the desk.
Wait for the room to clear, stack the tables, then snag some sleep. Or crash at an internet café again? In this state, going home might mean he could not even take Yu Kaiming in a fight.
His eyelids drooped. He saw vaguely that Jingshen’s hand catch the zipper and shrug off his jacket. There was a beige knit vest under the heavy down, and only then the uniform shirt.
These bookworms are so pampered, Yu Fan thought. It is barely cold and they are wrapped likeSo it was used here as a metaphor
for someone who is overly bundled up in clothing. zongzi
…?
Caught his forearm?
Yu Fan snapped back. “What are you doing?”
“Hospital,” Chen said calmly.
“I said mind your business. Let go. Touch me again and believe it or not, I will really hit you.”
He stared at Chen’s face, patience gone, and swung. Chen caught his wrist in one hand. Like the chair from a moment ago, Yu Fan was simply picked up.
He drew his other fist. That hand was confiscated too.
Being sick, Yu Fan decided, was a f***ing hassle. It was one thing to lose to Yu Kaiming. Now he could not even beat Chen Jingshen?
The down jacket fell around his shoulders.
“Arms up,” Chen Jingshen said.
Two girls passed the classroom door. Hearing the noise, they looked over. Yu Fan unclenched his fists.
Forget it. Struggling would only look worse.
Ignoring the look that said, “First day I am better I am killing you,” Chen pinched the zipper and pulled it to the top. It was a high-collared jacket; the nape of Yu Fan’s neck was covered again. Feeling the lingering warmth of the jacket’s owner, Yu Fan lifted his chin in disgust. “Trying to suffocate me.”
Jingshen glanced at him, then pressed the collar neatly under Yu Fan’s chin.
To house teachers who needed it, the faculty dorms sat beside the science building. Most residents were either fresh hires or iron-blooded veterans who had planned out the school’s next twenty years.
Hu Pang lived on the fifth floor. His balcony faced the campus; two steps out and he could watch the gate. That evening, as usual, he took his bowl out to the balcony and watched the flowers of the motherland who had “studied so hard they forgot to go home.”
He spotted Chen Jingshen’s tall, spare figure, and a smile climbed, then froze.
Jingshen had an arm around someone. They were close, posed like the early-dating couples he was forever catching in the garden.
Jingshen too?
Startled, he set the bowl down and grabbed his glasses. He focused and saw a messy head of hair and a face that sent his blood pressure through the roof.
…He would rather you were dating.
Yu Fan had fought the grip. He had also nearly fallen down the stairs.
There were not many people on campus at that hour, though the place was not deserted. Yu Fan wanted to memorize the faces for future witness removal, but the dizziness blurred them all. He dropped his head and let Chen bundle him into a cab.
They went to the nearest hospital.
His temperature: 39.1°C. High fever.
“Bit high. How long has it been?” the doctor asked, studying his face. “I will write you some meds. If it is not down by tomorrow, come back for bloodwork and an IV.”
“Skip it,” Yu Fan said. “Give me the drip.”
Ten minutes later he was in the infusion room.
He pulled one arm out of the sleeve and held it out. The nurse clocked the fading cuts and scrapes on his face, hesitated, and glanced at the uniform under the jacket. Yu Fan’s arm was thin. Truthfully, all of him was. No meat on his bones. When he slept at his desk, the shoulder blades pitched the fabric up. People often wondered where his punching power came from.
He watched the needle slide under his skin, the catheter taped down on the back of his hand.
“All set,” the nurse said. “Drink hot water. Keep your jacket on. Best if you can sweat it out.”
“Thanks.”
He slumped back into the chair. The down jacket cupped him as he sank. After a day of fever, he looked worse than most of the patients there.
Drowsiness returned as he lay on soft warmth.
Pills and a paper cup of hot water were set before him. “Take them, then sleep,” Chen said from above.
Too tired to argue, Yu Fan swallowed them, tilted his head until it found a comfortable angle, and closed his eyes.
When he woke again it was dark.
Without changing position, he slitted his eyes and took in the room. Not many people: a mother with a child, a couple holding hands, a grown-up typing with the IV in, and a high schooler doing homework with his head bent-
…?
He turned for a better look.
Where a patient’s arm should rest lay a test paper and a blank notebook. Chen Jingshen, sleeves pushed to his elbows, was writing.
Yu Fan’s school-hate surged. His voice was a rasp. “Why are you still here?”
“Homework’s not done,” Jingshen said.
“…What, changing locations would break your train of thought?”
After sleep, the worst had eased. Watching Jingshen’s pen move, Yu Fan remembered how being sick had left him too weak to win and decided a little warning was due.
“Chen Jingshen.”
“Mm,” Chen answered, pen steady.
“You know what happens to people who piss me off.”
Chen turned.
Head tipped, eyes on his thin single eyelids, Yu Fan said coolly, “Since you are here already, might as well reserve a bed—”
A cool hand touched his forehead.
Yu Fan cut off. Before he could react, Chen withdrew his hand.
“Fever is down.” Chen lifted the bag of meds. “I will get the nurse.”
…A check showed 37.9°C.
As the nurse came to pull the needle, she chatted. “Classmates?”
“Yeah,” Yu Fan said lazily.
“Pretty close,” she smiled. “You were asleep and he watched your IV the whole time. Two bags.”
Yu Fan’s eyelid twitched. He flicked a look. Jingshen was writing as if nothing existed but the page. So Yu Fan only paused and said, perfunctory, “Mm.”
The nurse had barely left when Wang Lu’an called.
Chen saw Yu Fan press a cotton swab to the back of his other hand, phone wedged at his ear, and wait, bored, for the voice to speak.
“Man, get on WeChat,” Wang exploded. “I sent thirty-seven messages tonight. You did not answer one. I feel like your f***ing simp.”
“Did not see. What,” Yu Fan said.
Pause. “What is with your voice?”
“Cold,” Yu Fan replied. “Say it.”
“Just reminding you to copy the math paper,” Wang said. “Fangqin said it in class today. Every wrong problem copied ten times. If you do not hand it in tomorrow, you are standing through math next week.”
Ten times?
Yu Fan pictured his completely blank test and said flatly, “Not copying. I will skip math next week.”
He hung up, figured that was that, and lifted the swab to toss it.
A brand-new homework book with no name on it appeared under his eyes.
He stared for two seconds and looked up. “What is this?”
Sitting down, Chen looked even taller. A clean jawline, Adam’s apple rolling once as he spoke. “Math.”
“For Fangqin. What does that have to do with me—” Yu Fan stopped, then caught on. “You did it. For me?”
“Mm.”
…So all that furious writing at his side had been for him.
Yu Fan stared. The fever he had just shed felt like it was creeping back. “Who told you to do that. Fangqin is not stupid. Our handwriting is nothing alike—”
“I wrote it with my left hand.”
“…My handwriting is not that f***ing ugly.”
“Call it thanks for the back gate,” Chen said.
“Do not overthink it,” Yu Fan frowned. “They just pissed me off.”
“Mm,” Chen said, meeting the glance he kept dodging.
Since the words had been spoken, and Chen had no use for a set of wrong-problem copies anyway, Yu Fan tugged the notebook over. “How much were the meds?”
“I will transfer you on WeChat.”
Jingshen named a total. Yu Fan opened WeChat, scrolled through his contacts, and then remembered-
“Right.” Jingshen asked, “Why can I not see your Moments?”
…Is he brain-dead?
He was about to say, “Because you are blacklisted,” but swallowed it under Chen’s gaze.
F***. Why did he suddenly feel like a scumbag.
“No idea. Bug,” he muttered. He opened his phone and dragged Chen out of the blacklist. “Sent.”
When the money came through, Chen tapped Yu Fan’s avatar. A few stray posts popped up along with a photo of several stray cats, probably snapped near school.
His brow lifted a fraction. “Mm. I can see now.”
Bent over in the observation room, Zuo Kuan listened to a nurse. “You need to take care with the incision after circumcision. Take meds on time. Avoid big movements.”
His scalp prickled. He nodded and leaned on the wall, eyes roaming for a distraction.
He saw two familiar figures.
He jolted upright. The sudden tug on the wound made him hiss and cup himself. He braced on the wall and checked again, carefully.
The boy in front had both hands in his pockets, lazy as ever, paler than usual in the cold. The one behind wore too little; the uniform shirt that was always perfectly straight was wrinkled all over, and he even lifted a hand to rub his eyes at the door.
Zuo snapped out of it, whipped out his phone, snapped a burst, and dropped the pics into a school group of a hundred plus.
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: (photo) Holy s***, look who I just saw.]
[Class 7 — Zhang Xianjing: Why are you in urology.]
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: ??]
[Class 7 — Wang Lu’an: Hahahaha congrats, Bro Kuan. Basketball tomorrow.]
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: F*** off.]
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: I didn't post a pic for this!]
[Class 7 — Wang Lu’an: For what then.]
Zuo circled the two tall, thin silhouettes in the photo.
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: You cannot even recognize your own classmates?]
[Class 8 — Bro Kuan: Yu Fan put Chen Jingshen in the hospital.]
Little note(s):
Yay! I finally figured out how to add hover text for extra deets that both work for PC and screen readers. Moving forward, if you see a colored word like this, you can hover/press for more info! I guess farewell to my little notes section for now. :')
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