Chapter 82: Chen Jingshen, you’re nothing special either
Yu Fan stood at his own front door. Under Chen Jingshen’s gaze, he dragged him out of the blacklist, and only then did Chen Jingshen step aside and let him in.
He bent to change shoes and finally felt something off. This was his apartment, right? Why was Chen Jingshen acting like the host?
“Chen Jingshen.” Yu Fan lifted his face, stiff. Then he froze again when he saw something sitting on the floor.
“Mm?” Chen Jingshen took the takeout from his hands.
“…What is that?” After staring a while, Yu Fan asked.
Chen Jingshen followed his line of sight and stated, “A suitcase. Mine. Had it shipped over.”
“You think I can’t tell?” Yu Fan said. “Why did you bring your luggage to my place?”
“You probably do not have many clothes that fit me,” Chen Jingshen said.
“Who told you to be—” Yu Fan cut himself off. “Chen Jingshen, do not change the subject. Did I say you could live here?”
Chen Jingshen was quiet for a few seconds, dropped his gaze, and let out a soft sigh. He leaned a shoulder to the wall, reached out and hooked a finger around Yu Fan’s, face unreadable but somehow looking a little pitiful. He lowered his voice and bargained, “Then can I?”
“…”
He had been in the apartment all day, and had just showered. His fingertips were warm.
Yu Fan let the touch stay for a while without a word. Then he pulled away with a show of annoyance, fished a plastic bag from his sling bag, and tossed it on the floor. He had bought it at the supermarket next to the roast meat shop.
“What is it?” Chen Jingshen asked.
“Slippers. Those on your feet are not small?” Yu Fan walked past him into the room and left a gruff order behind. “Clothes go on the left side of the closet.”
After eating, Yu Fan churned through possible speeches, mind in a tangle. He had not gotten a single word out when his laptop chimed twice. A client message.
Chen Jingshen had his suitcase open and was putting things away. Yu Fan sat cross-legged on the sofa with his laptop, going back and forth with the client. While waiting for a reply, he kept cutting his eyes past the screen.
The suitcase was black and small, with not many clothes in it.
He could tell Chen Jingshen had not planned to stay long.
Good. Convenient. Once Yu Fan said what he needed to say, Chen Jingshen could stuff those few things back in and go.
Just as he was staring, the man packing suddenly stopped. Hands resting on his knees, he lifted his eyes a touch and asked, “You do not like this suitcase?”
“No.” Yu Fan immediately pulled his eyes away.
“You were looking at it like you wanted to kill it.” Chen Jingshen arched a brow.
“Blame by association.”
Chen Jingshen looked aside and let out a short, low laugh. He shut the case, nudged it to the corner, then walked over and hooked a hand under that blank face, bent down, and kissed him. They had both chewed one of the mint candies the shop owner had thrown into the bag. The mint was cool and sweet.
Yu Fan knew what he wanted the moment he stood up. His fingers on the keys twitched. He had meant to shove him away, but the instant their eyes met he let it go.
It was a short touch. Chen Jingshen had only just drawn back when Yu Fan said, “Chen Jingshen.”
“Mm.”
“I…”
Knock, knock. Two raps cut him off. They both looked toward the door.
Yu Fan’s nerves jumped, his hand clenching on its own.
Those two from before had followed them here??
“Hello—” Another bright double knock, and a voice called through the door, “Your grocery delivery.”
Yu Fan: “…”
He slumped back against the sofa and watched Chen Jingshen go answer like it was nothing, say thank you, then carry in a big bag and start stocking Yu Fan’s fridge.
“What did you buy?” Yu Fan asked, hugging the laptop.
“Food. Noodles, vegetables, eggs, biscuits,” Chen Jingshen said. “Your fridge had nothing. You just drown your stomach in milk when it hurts?”
“I had some before. Finished it a few days ago.” He paused, then added coolly, “You are very nosy, Chen Jingshen.”
Watching the straight line of his back, Yu Fan drifted. He should keep the receipt. If Chen Jingshen left tomorrow, he ought to pay him back for these.
The fridge sat under the stairs, a little low. While he was stocking it, Chen Jingshen got a call. He bent at the waist and clamped the phone at his shoulder. The T-shirt lay smooth over that broad, straight back. He no longer looked as thin as he had in high school.
His tone on the phone was as calm as ever. “I did not see the messages.”
“I am eating with my boyfriend.”
“I am on leave.”
Whoever it was said something. Chen Jingshen tucked the last bag of mini dumplings into the freezer. “Got it. I will check.”
“My computer is upstairs. I will go see what they did.” He looked back and found Yu Fan’s fingers squashed on a key, eyes blank on him as a string of letters poured across the chat box.
After a long beat, Yu Fan turned his face away, dodging his gaze, and deleted the nonsense with his head down. He muttered stiffly, “Nothing.”
Water roared in the bathroom. Yu Fan stood under it, staring at the tiles, eyes open. The hot water streamed from his crown and dripped off his lashes, a tiny umbrella for his eyes.
On the way back he had thought it through again and again, chalking last night up to liquid courage. But now, cool and clear under hot water, his thoughts were exactly the same as yesterday.
Would Chen Jingshen get angry when he told the truth? Regret searching for him during those six years? Bring up breaking up?
He did not want to break up.
The lashes could not hold back the water. Heat seeped into his eyes and burned them dry and sore. Yu Fan scrubbed his face hard, so hard his eyelids and the bridge of his nose hurt.
He came out with a towel thrown over his head and went upstairs.
Chen Jingshen was working at the half-empty gray desk beside his computer table. He had always sat straight in class, but maybe the years of study and work had changed him. He typed with his legs loose and long, chair reclined, shoulders slightly hunched, those long, deft fingers flying. The room was full of the low, crisp clack of keys.
It was Yu Fan’s first time watching Chen Jingshen at work. There was a stranger’s slackness and decadence about him, and yet the calm ease between his brows was still the same Chen Jingshen as before.
He typed with both hands. Beside him the phone was on speaker. Yu Fan could not help glancing over and saw the name Luo Liyang.
The man on the other end would not stop talking. First came some work chatter Yu Fan did not understand, then the kindly nag of an elder. “All right, I ran it once, no problem. Hey, I just saw the news. Ningcheng is getting a typhoon this week, right? Pretty big one. How did you catch the only plane that flew? Do you and your boyfriend not see each other every holiday? What difference does a day or two make?”
Yu Fan’s heart thudded, and he paused a few seconds in place before ducking his head and pretending he had not heard, ready to slip by. The keys went silent. His wrist was caught.
He scrubbed his hair harder, wanting to ask what for, then swallowed it because Chen Jingshen was still on the phone. He stood there like an idiot.
“It makes a difference.” Chen Jingshen held him, never looking up, closed the program on the screen, and shut the laptop. “Nothing else. I am hanging up.”
Luo Liyang said oh. “Okay. Rest while you are on leave. I will—”
Chen Jingshen ended the call first. The little apartment went quiet again. He stood, hair tickling the ceiling, tugged the towel off Yu Fan’s head to drape it over his own hand, and lowered his eyes to dry the water beading at Yu Fan’s ends.
Yu Fan froze. The speech he had practiced in the bathroom vanished on the spot.
The place was tiny, so Yu Fan hung a lot of things on the wall: photos, headphones, his bag. Chen Jingshen lifted the hair dryer from a hook. Yu Fan reached out to block him, frowning. “I will do it.”
Chen Jingshen pushed his hand away, flicked the switch, and a low stream of warm air brushed Yu Fan’s ear.
His hair was very soft. Dried, it did not keep its usual fluffy volume, but lay obedient and flat in Chen Jingshen’s fingers and slipped away, slow.
“Six years?” Chen Jingshen asked.
Yu Fan grunted, “You think? I cut it once a year.”
Chen Jingshen hummed. “Why grow it out?”
Yu Fan leaned his back to the wall, eyes on his Adam’s apple, not looking up. “…Because I want to.”
He was not good at blow-drying and could not get that airy look Yu Fan usually had. The hair lay neatly, making his perennially stern face look a little well-behaved.
When it was done, Chen Jingshen hung the dryer back, then slid his fingers into his boyfriend’s hair and rubbed twice. Their breathing both grew heavier. The air still held a trace of damp. He was just starting to gather a little more hair and lower his head when a palm pressed up under his chin and stopped him.
Yu Fan tipped his face up. Maybe it was the long shower, but his cheeks and lips had gone pale.
“Chen Jingshen, I have to tell you something. You might want to break up with me after you hear it.” Yu Fan said it straight.
Chen Jingshen let him hold his jaw, eyes dark and lowered, expression as unreadable as ever.
Yu Fan pressed his lips together and confessed in one breath. “My dad extorted over eight hundred thousand from your family.”
The small room went silent.
Chen Jingshen only looked at him. No answer.
Yu Fan bit down, the muscle at his jaw jumping tight. “But I wired it back the next day. The remaining thirty thousand with interest is paid off too. You can ask your family.”
Still no response.
Yu Fan had no choice but to push on, flat and toneless, like reading a self-critique in high school. “I must have scared your family then. My fault. I did not know anyone had found out about us… otherwise it would not have gone down like that. Chen Jingshen, my situation at home was much worse than what you saw. You may never meet anyone as much trouble as me in your life. I had no plan or concept of a future and just messed around and dated you, and it ended badly. But now…”
Now what?
It ended badly before, so let us not do it now?
Chen Jingshen’s hands hung at his sides, gaze cool.
“But now,” Yu Fan rasped, “I am not as bad off.”
Chen Jingshen paused.
“My job is okay. A little over ten thousand a month. I did not save these years, I donated it, but I can support myself. I will not spend your money.”
His voice was low and almost without pause. “Yu Kaiming is in prison. He will be out in a few months. His health is shot. He will probably go straight to the hospital.”
“His creditors still look for me sometimes, but I can handle it. They are not so hard to deal with anymore.”
“In short, it will not affect you or your family again. I can handle it now. So…”
In his life he had never said anything like this. Blank faced, he looked up at Chen Jingshen. His whole face was red with mortified shame. In the end, every word came out small and difficult.
“So, can we… not break up.”
Outside, rain hammered down. The window had been left cracked and the wind whistled in, a thin sound. It was the only thing left making noise.
He felt like he was being boiled in that storm. His feelings went from tense, to sinking, to finally still.
Chen Jingshen took his wrist and moved his hand away. Yu Fan’s heart thudded dully. He swallowed. The line if you want to break up, then fine rose to his tongue and stuck there.
He heard himself say, “You can think ab—”
Chen Jingshen bent and kissed him. Yu Fan’s voice was cut off.
He had changed back into his own clothes. The clean mint scent returned.
“You rent your own place, then donated all the money?” A flicker moved in Chen Jingshen’s eyes.
“I do not have many expenses and had not planned to buy a place…”
Before he finished, the back of his head knocked the wall. He got kissed again.
“How did he end up inside?”
Yu Fan was a little dazed and just answered what was asked. “I watched him for a long time, then reported him for theft, gambling, running an illegal casino. All in all it came to more than five years.”
Chen Jingshen kept kissing him. “Those debt collectors still come around?”
“Mm. But it is just for show. They do not dare do much anymore.”
Yu Fan finished and reflexively lifted his chin. The kiss that followed was deeper and heavier than all the ones before.
He liked very high pillows. Chen Jingshen knelt over him and could lower his head and reach.
Still, he pinched Yu Fan’s chin to make him look up. Staring down at him, voice unusually soft, he asked, “When my mom came to you… did you feel wronged?”
Yu Fan blinked and finally understood. Chen Jingshen probably knew everything.
Then what was he doing just now???
But he had said it already and the shame had burned itself out. Yu Fan’s heart dropped back into place. Shoulders that had been tight for so long finally loosened. Only his heartbeat stayed just as fast.
“No. I am big. What could happen to me.” He lifted to kiss him with a blank face. “Chen Jingshen, focus.”
Chen Jingshen’s jaw tensed. The back of his hand skimmed Yu Fan’s Adam’s apple. He let out a lazy hum. “Open your mouth.”
Yu Fan had drunk last night so his body was a little slow.
Normally he was not hard to tease. Like now.
…
When Chen Jingshen’s fingers slipped under the loose waistband, Yu Fan flinched so hard his whole body drew tight. Even his mouth went stiff. Chen Jingshen bit his lip with a laugh to make him open up again. He levered him up to sit against the headboard, bent his knees, and set his hands.
He had barely done anything when Yu Fan shivered a few times in small jerks, ears to cheeks burning, toes curling. Chen Jingshen kissed his Adam’s apple and let out a hoarse laugh. “So fast?”
Utter humiliation.
“…Accident.” Face flushed murder-red, Yu Fan clapped a hand over his mouth and grabbed for the drawstring on Chen Jingshen’s sweats in a very rough attempt to return the favor.
…It would not come down.
Chen Jingshen’s throat rolled. He undid it one-handed and guided Yu Fan’s wrist.
Their breathing rose and fell, heavy, filling the room. The second time, Yu Fan was all stutter and stops. When he finished, his vision went white at the edges.
Panting hard against the headboard, he pulled his hand back and swore, “You are f***ing annoying, Chen Jingshen. My hand hurts.”
Chen Jingshen made a low sound, about to say then stop. Yu Fan licked his lips and said, “Switch.”
…
Yu Fan’s hair was soft. Every time he dipped and rose it skimmed Chen Jingshen’s skin. Chen Jingshen drew a deep breath, fingers buried in his hair, veins rising high.
The heavy rain passed. The fine drizzle that followed was easy on the soul.
Yu Fan wiped his face, then his mouth, tipped his head back with his ears burning, and gave a cold little snort. “Chen Jingshen, you are nothing special either.”
“…”
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