Chapter 6
“…”
Silence. Dead-still.
A cool gust lifted the curtain. The phone on the desk buzzed twice more, tugging Yu Fan out of his shock.
He stared at Chen Jingshen for a long time.
Jingshen’s face did not so much as ripple. If not for that idiotic love letter still pinned under his fingertip, Yu Fan might have believed he had imagined the whole thing.
They stood there, wordless, locked in place.
Yu Fan’s fist tightened and loosened, again and again. After a few cycles, he sat back down.
The phone din was needling his head. He flipped it to silent, then found his voice. “Are you sick or something? I am a guy.”
“I know,” Chen said, leaving the letter on the desk and straightening up.
“You know, and you still…” Yu Fan paused. “Are you gay?”
Jingshen lowered his gaze and stayed silent for a moment. Then a cold syllable slipped from his throat. “Mm.”
“…”
“Do you hate gay people,” Jingshen asked.
“Not exactly,” Yu Fan said after a long beat. He looked toward the window and rushed the words. “But I am not. I like girls.”
“Do you like a specific girl?”
It was his first time getting confessed to by a boy. His brain blanked. “No,” he blurted.
He snapped back a second later, ready to say what does that have to do with you?!
“Then how do you know you like girls?”
“…?”
What kind of logic is that.
“Anyway, I am not gay, and I am not about to date—”
The last two words stuck in his throat. Too weird to say out loud.
He snatched up the letter that had been lying there and held it out like a live bomb. “Here. Take it.”
Chen Jingshen did not take it.
Yu Fan stood there with the prickly envelope for ten seconds and felt like an idiot. “Are you taking it or not? If not, I will tear it up.”
Jingshen studied the curve of his ear for a moment, then said, “Tear it.”
He was not satisfied with this draft anyway, after all the crossings-out.
Yu Fan took a deep breath and swallowed the urge to punch something. He lowered his head, reaching for Chen’s pocket to stuff the thing back...
“Yu Fan!”
The familiar voice boomed down the third-floor corridor.
Yu Fan’s hand jerked to a stop before he even touched Chen’s clothes. Seeing the figure about to step inside, he whipped the letter back and shoved it into his own pocket.
Wang Lu’an came through the door. “Yu Fan, why are you not answering my—”
He froze. “What are you two doing?”
“Why are you back again,” Yu Fan asked, irritated.
“Forgot my homework. On the way back I saw Fat Tiger head to the restroom, so I thought you could help me grab my stuff and then we could make a run for it…”
Wang Lu’an squinted at him for a moment, then gaped. “Why are your ears so red?”
“…?”
Yu Fan clapped a hand over his ear and frowned. “You are seeing things.”
“For real.” The entrance scene replayed in Wang Lu’an’s mind. The two faces were… complicated. Too close, too tense, like they were about to fight.
He looked at Chen Jingshen, incredulous. “Did you twist my bro’s ear?”
Yu Fan wanted to pull the envelope out and stuff it into Wang Lu’an’s mouth.
Jingshen gave Wang Lu’an a glance and said nothing.
Which, to Wang Lu’an, looked like an admission. He opened his mouth to press when Yu Fan grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back.
The phone in Jingshen’s bag kicked into a steady, pulsing buzz. A call this time.
Chen ignored it. He tipped the bag with a finger and, face blank, said, “I have paid attention to you since first year.”
“…”
“?”
“I watched your events at the sports meet,” he continued.
“?”
“???”
“I am serious,” Chen added, hands at his sides. “I hope you will think it over.”
Fat Tiger took a long time in the restroom, so in the end Yu Fan walked out the front gate with full legitimacy.
His expression could curdle milk. Students moved aside as he passed.
Wang Lu’an took yet another look at him and finally spoke. “Doesn’t what Chen Jingshen said sound familiar to you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
He scratched his head. “So what did he want with you?”
Yu Fan’s face went darker. He pressed his lips together and, after a long struggle, forced out, “A fight.”
“?”
“Then why did he say he noticed you in first year,” Wang Lu’an asked, baffled.
“He could not stand me since first year.”
“And watching your events at the sports meet?”
“He wanted to see how badass I was.”
“And in the end, he asked you to consider it?”
“To consider fighting him.”
“…”
Weird. Yet not entirely unreasonable.
Honestly, he could not think of any other possibility for these two.
“So, did you strike a deal?” Wang Lu’an asked idly.
“Strike your ass.”
“…”
They passed a supermarket. Wang Lu’an remembered the dwindling stash of contraband snacks at home and went in to restock.
Yu Fan waited outside.
Evening brought a chill. A couple walked past. The girl’s hand was tucked into the boy’s pocket for warmth.
Yu Fan squeezed the letter in his own pocket and suddenly wanted a cigarette.
He was trying to quit, down to one every three days. Progress was real.
He was not going to let Chen Jingshen ruin it.
He turned his face to exhale and caught sight of a trash bin by the corner.
He hesitated, walked over, pinched the envelope out with two fingers, and dangled it over the opening.
A breeze came through and the pink paper wobbled.
Two seconds later he clicked his tongue, lightly, and pulled his hand back—
“Holy— a love letter?”
Yu Fan moved fast. By the time Wang Lu’an rushed up, the envelope was back in his pocket.
“Who gave you that,” Wang Lu’an asked, plastic bag in hand. “Just now? How did I miss it?”
“You are imagining things,” Yu Fan said, walking on.
“No way. My vision is 5.2.” Wang Lu’an snapped his fingers. “I got it. It must have happened when you went back to write that review. No wonder your ears were so red.”
He had been friends with Yu Fan since eighth grade.
Yu Fan could take on five guys without blinking. He could read a self-criticism in front of thousands without a flinch. Always cool, always cocky, like he feared nothing.
Until high school, when a girl confessed to him.
That was the first time Wang Lu’an saw Yu Fan blush.
The guy who never blinked in a fight stood there with his head down, ears blazing, stammering an apology to a tiny girl barely one-fifty tall, eyes refusing to meet hers.
From that day on, he knew his badass friend was, in secret, a painfully pure high-school boy.
“Are you done?” Yu Fan asked.
They had reached a fork. He turned and headed the other way without looking back. “I am out.”
Yu Fan showered after he got home. When he came out, the floor above was still clanging away.
Cheap rentals did not do soundproofing. He was used to it. He stepped to the mirror for a look.
The bruises had faded. A few more days and they would be gone.
Still ugly.
He scrubbed his face with the towel until the cuts twinged, then stopped.
Slippers slapping, he left the bathroom, grabbed a cup-noodle bucket, and was about to peel it open when someone knocked twice.
Two hollow knocks, straight into his temples.
He froze. When he looked up again, the laziness on his face was gone, replaced by a cool, wary edge.
He watched the shadow under the door and waited.
Another knock.
He let go of the instant noodles and went to the door.
His hand clenched the knob and twisted, not gently. He lifted his eyelids to look outside, and saw… nothing.
He frowned and started to close the door when the corner of his eye caught a little dark round head.
He lowered his gaze and met the eyes of a small girl.
The new neighbor’s kid. He had seen her yesterday. Two tiny pigtails, chubby cheeks.
His expression was too fierce, and her brows drooped. She looked timid.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“What do you want?” Yu Fan asked first.
The earlier mood had not fully faded. His voice was still tight.
She flinched.
A real flinch.
“…”
Yu Fan sighed, crouched to eye level, and said, “Talk.”
She held a plastic bag bigger than her face and mustered her courage. “Mom said she was too loud yesterday when she was unpacking. She says it will not be loud tonight. She told me to bring you dumplings… Brother, do not be mad.”
“Got it.”
He glanced at the bag. “Take it back. I do not want it.”
She did not move. She stared up at him with pleading eyes.
“Do you not understand?” he asked, brows knitting.
She hugged the dumplings tighter and flinched again.
“…”
A moment later, Yu Fan carried the bag inside, shoved all the dumplings into the freezer, and went back to his cup noodles.
The family upstairs kept their word. Not a sound all night.
Yu Fan, however, was still awake at two. Maybe it was the first-week-of-school syndrome. He had been sleeping badly for days.
He raked a hand through his hair, gave up, and went to the living room for water.
Something by the kettle made him pause.
Before showering he had dumped everything from his pockets onto the table. A key chain, a cafeteria card, some loose change, and a pink envelope lay in a careless pile.
He stared at the mess for a while, raised the cup, and left.
A few seconds later he came back, face blank, plucked the envelope from the heap, and returned to his room.
He had gotten love letters before. The girls were shy. If he refused, he could hand them back on the spot.
This was the first time he had accepted one and brought it home.
Flat on his back, he held the envelope up and, for no good reason, thought of Chen Jingshen’s overly proper uniform and the inhuman coolness with which he had rejected Zhang Xianjing.
He wanted to see what on earth someone like that could write.
He propped one hand behind his head, lay there, and flipped the flap open.
The envelope and seal were gaudy. Inside was just a sheet of regular letter paper, the one Chen had written after school.
“…”
He should have walked out at the time.
Chen’s handwriting was lean and taut, orderly with a hint of careless speed, like he had practiced.
Yu Fan pinched the paper and started at the top.
“Dear Classmate Yu, Class Seven,
Hello.
I am Chen Jingshen, Class Seven, Grade Two.”
There were two inks, dark and light. The darker lines must have been added after school. In “Class Seven,” the “Seven” had originally been a “One,” then dark ink added a stroke and turned it into “Seven.”
“I do not know whether you remember me. We have seen each other several times at the flag-raising.
In the first flag-raising of first year, you spoke at the podium at length. The way you recited the self-criticism by heart carved itself into my mind.
That was when I began to notice you.
I started watching the grade ranking sheet from the bottom. When I passed Class Seven, I would look, without meaning to, at the back of your head while you slept. In class I could not help glancing out the window at the track, at you running laps for punishment.
Without realizing it, a year went by.
In one of the big exams, I saw your ranking climb by one place. I felt genuine happiness for you and understood my feelings.
So I decided to write this letter to express them.”
From there on, the ink was all dark.
“Although in the end-of-term exam last semester you returned to last place, I believe you have a talent for studying, especially in math.
After all, a score of 9 is not something an ordinary person could achieve.
So as long as you are willing to work, you can do better.
Here are the study guides and problem books I recommend:
‘How a Rookie Learns Math,’ ‘Early Bird 2017,’ ‘Middle School Math Points Summary.’
Wishing you success in exams and steady progress.
Chen Jingshen.”
“…?”
“…”
What the hell.
No wonder your Chinese was only 110.
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