Chapter 81 — At His Boyfriend’s Place
Chen Jingshen, for once, slept in. This whole year, with the company just getting off the ground, he woke and dove straight into work. Even weekends were for coding and meetings, and he scraped by on a few hours of sleep a day. A year of that never felt exhausting, yet now he was strangely heavy-limbed, like a tired bird finally home.
He turned his face into Yu Fan’s pillow, blank-faced, breathing in the clean scent there, until his phone buzzed and he opened his eyes.
He saw the caller ID, picked up, set it to his ear, and shut his eyes again, leaning closer to the other pillow. “Go ahead.”
“F***…” On the other end was Luo Liyang, their company’s head of engineering and Chen Jingshen’s senior by a few years. They had not known each other long, but admired each other’s ability, worked in the same division, and were close.
Hearing that lazy voice, Luo glanced at the time. “Brother, it’s one in the afternoon. You’re still asleep?”
Chen Jingshen did not even lift his eyelids. Calm as ever, he reminded him, “I’m on vacation.”
“Right, right. Where are you?”
“At my boyfriend’s place.”
“Oh, then your laptop should be right by… where?”
“At my boyfriend’s place.” The same man who cannot be bothered to repeat a code path in meetings had plenty of patience today.
“…”
“You actually have a boyfriend?” Luo was floored.
“What else would I have?”
“You’ve had him on your lips forever, but never call the guy or meet him, so I figured you were making it up to shut people up…” Luo shook himself. “Forget it. Work first. The program’s hung on a bug. The whole team tried and failed. Get on your computer and fix it.”
“Don’t have it.”
“…”
Luo’s composure cracked. “You’re a programmer on a trip without a laptop? That’s like going to war without a sword.”
“My boyfriend’s place is not a battlefield,” Chen Jingshen said.
“Where are you, then? And where is the laptop? I’ll bring it to you. I’ll come find you.”
“I’m in Ningcheng,” Chen Jingshen said. “The laptop’s at the hotel.”
Luo was even more confused. “If you can stay at your boyfriend’s, why book a hotel?”
Long story. Chen Jingshen did not explain. “I’ll call and have them send it. Hanging up.”
Yu Fan accepted a certain friend request after lunch, then a few hours later wanted to delete the person again.
[s: I forgot I had this photo.]
[s: I got up.]
[s: Did you order that takeaway for me?]
[s: What time do you get off work?]
Yu Fan read every one and replied to none, then, mortified and annoyed, deleted the very first message thread.
With the typhoon, there was no outdoor shooting today. Everything was in-studio. Between sets, while the model changed outfits, a new message came in: [T-T]
Yu Fan sat with one leg crossed over the other and pressed voice reply, impatience in his tone. “Chen Jingshen, say what you need and stop being annoying or I’ll delete you.”
The reply came quickly, voice low from sleep, cool and not matching the crying emoji at all. “Is your desk usable?”
Yu Fan: “Did spikes grow on it?”
“No. I’m worried there’s something else I shouldn’t touch.”
“…”
He blacklisted him. Instant peace.
Yu Fan focused on work and when the shoot wrapped it was nearly four thirty.
Wang Yue came downstairs with her bag and set two jars of honey by his computer. “Got these from a friend, pure and natural. Take them home and brew some. It’ll be good for your stomach. Alright, clock out.”
Yu Fan had long been used to Wang Yue forcing freebies on him and no longer resisted. He thanked her, then said, “It’s only four thirty.”
“Head home early. If it isn’t finished, take it with you. You’ve got someone waiting at home, right?”
Yu Fan’s hand paused. He lifted his head, blankly staring at her. “How do you know?”
“I’m not dumb. I watched you on your phone all day. And that bit about the charging cable on the nightstand…” Wang Yue lowered her voice like a conspirator. “Dating?”
“…”
Yu Fan had barely opened his mouth when Wang Yue shushed him, looking all-knowing. “Say no more, it’s written on your face.”
“On my face?” he frowned.
“Yeah. You didn’t notice? You’re totally different today. Always checking your messages, scowling fiercer than usual, even blushing. You also talked more to clients.”
“…”
“I did not,” Yu Fan said coolly.
“Come on, with our relationship you still think you need to hide a boyfriend from me? No wonder you drank so much last night. You two had a fight, didn’t you?”
Yu Fan: “…”
Wang Yue patted his shoulder. “About time. Look at how you’ve lived these years, besides me you had no friends. How lonely is that… Ugh, my future brother-in-law’s calling. I’m off. Pack up and go keep your person company. Lock up.”
After she left, Yu Fan sat a while longer, then finally packed up and headed out.
In typhoon weather, people hurried through the streets. Yu Fan walked under his umbrella like someone had hit slow motion.
Wang Yue’s words were still drifting through his head.
She said he was lonely. He had not felt that himself. When he first came here he was busy earning money and studying, crushed with exhaustion, and talking felt optional. Over time he got lazy about socializing. Hovering outside the crowd did not seem so bad.
But thinking back, when Zhang Xianjing sprinted at him, when Wang Lu’an and Zuo Kuan added his WeChat, when Chen Jingshen appeared in his viewfinder, he had indeed felt a full, complicated rush he had not tasted in years.
Like being dug up after a long time underground and finally gulping air.
He stopped by his usual roast stall. The owner glanced up and called into the kitchen like always, “One roast rice—”
“…Hang on.” Yu Fan pointed stone-faced at the dishes on display. “This one, this one, and this one. One of each. Two bowls of rice.”
While the owner boxed the food, Yu Fan stared at a glossy, blazing-red duck hanging in the case, then shut his eyes in regret and sighed. His breath drifted away in the blowing rain.
He had been drinking last night and was already light-headed. Chen Jingshen kept pecking at him like a woodpecker, and the words slipped out of his mouth without passing through his brain…
Once he sobered, he knew it was not that simple. Between him and Chen Jingshen there was a deep chasm. Even if he filled Yu Kaiming’s ledger by sheer effort, there would still be a scar.
Did Chen Jingshen know about that?
No need to think. If he knew, would he still seek him out. Not afraid of getting squeezed again?
The rain grew louder, drumming on the umbrella. Yu Fan’s face looked no different from the weather. When he spotted two men crouched by the neighborhood gate smoking under umbrellas, his expression went glacial.
Seeing him, the burly one stood first. The folded skin at his neck stretched and a swath of tattoos showed. He looked at the bags in Yu Fan’s hand and grinned around his cigarette. “Off work?”
Yu Fan stared without a word.
The skinny guy behind him sprang up at once, face twisted. “Hey, he’s talking to—”
“Hey.” The big guy gave him a side-eye to shut him up, then looked at Yu Fan again with a half-smile. “I’ve come a few times already. The higher-ups are breathing down my neck. How about you chip in a little and help your dad pay it back…”
“He’ll be out soon,” Yu Fan said. “Wait at the gate and collect then.”
“Tsk. Tough. Isn’t it cancer or something… you should have gotten the notice too. He’ll probably be half-dead when he gets out, and he has pissed off so many people, I bet I won’t even find him before he’s already gone.”
Yu Fan: “Then go collect at his grave.”
“…”
Yu Fan turned to leave. The skinny one could not hold himself back and grabbed for Yu Fan. Yu Fan looked back, his face harsher than the debt collectors’, and swung the umbrella up to bring it down.
“Hey, no.” The big guy yanked his own man’s hand back. “Forget it. Go on.”
Yu Fan stared at the skinny one for a long beat, then shifted his eyes to the other man.
“Do not come here again for a while.”
The skinny one watched him walk into the complex, that tall narrow back a cold, sharp line in the rain.
He recovered after quite a while. “F***, boss, what was that? How does a debtor look meaner than us debt collectors…”
“I told you before we came, think of this as a stroll.” The man blew out smoke and smiled. He could not even be bothered to bring up how the kid used to go head-to-head with them. “That ahole who owes us money, his dad, he is the one who handed him in. You think he’d pay for that ahole?”
The skinny one was stunned. “His real dad? No way.”
“Why not. He and his dad fight like they mean to kill. First time I saw it I thought someone would end up dead, I was the one who called 120.” The man still found it wild. He shook his head, clapped his lackey, and said, “Stop staring. Let’s go.”
Yu Fan stood in the elevator with an umbrella in one hand and dinner in the other.
He stood there for minutes, long enough that security buzzed in to ask if he needed help, and only then did he reach and press a button.
He had been drinking, and he had seen the person he missed for so long, so he was a little light in the head.
At his own door he faced the cold wind, ready to think through what exactly he and Chen Jingshen were, but a second later there was a click and the door swung open.
Yu Fan’s head snapped up. A man stood in the entry, coat on, umbrella in hand. Yu Fan blinked, startled. “Chen Jingshen, what are you doing?”
Chen Jingshen’s eyes skimmed the damp shoulders of his shirt. “I wanted to pick you up.”
“…”
“What’s that?” Chen Jingshen looked down at the bags in Yu Fan’s hand.
“Dinner,” Yu Fan said. “Whatever I grabbed from a street stall. Eat it if you—”
A shadow fell over him. Chen Jingshen tipped his head and brushed a kiss over him. “I’ll eat it.”
He reached for Yu Fan’s hand to take the bags. Only then did he notice Yu Fan’s fist was clenched, the plastic crushed pitifully small.
“Chen Jingshen,” Yu Fan said in that cool light way of his. “I have something to tell you.”
Chen Jingshen looked at him for a moment, then said, “Alright. Eat first, talk after.”
He paused, as if remembering something. “Before we talk, take me off your WeChat blacklist.”
“…”
Author’s note:
If you blacklist someone on WeChat, you can remove them from the blacklist any time and the chat history stays. If you delete them, it does not.
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