060: Ye Ye’s Homework Passed!
Sang Zhao shook his head. “I didn’t.”
He rubbed his hair, a little guilty, but he grabbed this opportunity and hurried to secure the promise Tang Yu had just made while everything was still chaotic.
“But you said it yourself, okay? You said it. You’re not allowed to pet other cats from now on!” Sang Zhao declared.
Since Tang Yu dared say it, the little cat dared take it seriously.
Tang Yu nodded, still stubbornly staring at him, refusing to let go of the breakup question.
But Sang Zhao had no intention of breaking up. He gave Tang Yu those wet, earnest eyes and said with absolute sincerity, “I don’t want to, but, but what if…”
He paused, slow on the uptake, thinking: what if you want to?
If Tang Yu figured everything out, then many things would slip out of the little cat’s control. Once it turned into a gamble, he’d be stuck betting on whether Tang Yu would accept him, betting on whether the Bureau would discover him. It’d be troublesome and exhausting.
A little cat wasn’t some gambling god. He couldn’t even understand half the card games people played. If he gambled, he’d lose for sure.
But Tang Yu pressed down on his hand. “There’s no ‘what if.’”
His voice was steady. “There won’t be a ‘what if.’ Don’t say that again.”
He dropped his gaze to their joined hands, as if he wished he could glue them together.
“If you say something like that again, I’ll glue our hands together. Or handcuff you to me,” Tang Yu said softly. “Then you won’t be able to break up with me.”
Sang Zhao imagined that scene, using glue to stick Tang Yu’s hand to his orange cat paw. That would block his beautiful, perfect strawberry-pink toe beans. Nobody would get to see his flawless pink paws anymore.
No way! Absolutely not!
He quickly agreed. “Got it.”
Then he warned Tang Yu, “You have to remember what you just said. You’re not allowed to pet other cats, and later… even if something happens… you’re not allowed to break up with me.”
If he didn’t threaten Tang Yu a little, he wouldn’t be Sang Zhao.
So he added: “Otherwise, don’t even think about using curtains for the rest of your life! I’ll scratch all your curtains into tassels!”
Tang Yu finally laughed.
He leaned in, wrapped his arms around Sang Zhao, and buried his face against the boy’s neck.
Hidden in Sang Zhao’s shadow, Tang Yu’s expression shifted. No one could see the flicker in his eyes, but it was the look of someone who’d just made up his mind about something important.
Sang Zhao didn’t know that his casual question had nudged Tang Yu toward a decision he’d been quietly turning over for days.
But since Tang Yu still wasn’t ready, Sang Zhao had no idea what was coming.
And with no cat ears to touch, and no “high-tech cat ear headband” to examine, Tang Yu could only think back to a certain gift.
He remembered the little corn-shaped felt charm Sang Zhao gave him for his birthday, the one he kept locked in his home safe inside a cookie tin.
So today, he took that tin out, opened it carefully, and held the tiny corn in his palm, staring at it with intense focus.
He needed reassurance.
Making something like this took real time and effort. If Sang Zhao didn’t genuinely care for him, didn’t like him, didn’t love him, he wouldn’t have made something so delicate by hand.
Tang Yu used it as proof, as a little emotional anchor.
The corn charm was bright orange, soft and fuzzy. He rolled it gently between his fingertips, the wool smooth and fluffy just like a little cat’s fur.
It felt… familiar. Too familiar.
No surprise, really. It was made from cat fur.
Tang Yu kept rubbing. The more he touched it, the more that familiar sensation crept back into his mind.
He liked it. He liked it a lot. But more than the charm, he liked the expression Sang Zhao had that day, the way his eyes shone when he handed it over.
Should he seal it in a plastic pouch? Turn it into a keychain he could carry with him? It’d be nice having something of Sang Zhao everywhere he went.
He stared at it longer and longer… until the color finally made him pause.
He’d encountered this exact shade of orange before.
In fact, Tang Yu thought, his life had an absurdly large number of orange-cat-related coincidences. Way too many.
There was the orange cat Sang Zhao supposedly kept. The orange wool charm. And that one orange cat hair he found at the summer camp on the pillow, no less.
Was that really fur stuck to Sang Zhao’s clothes?
But then why only one? And why so far away, after a wardrobe change?
Haha… unless it was Sang Zhao’s own fur shedding everywhere?
He laughed at the absurdity then stopped laughing.
He suddenly stood up, went to a drawer, and pulled out that single cat hair he’d kept.
He placed the hair next to the felt corn.
Same color. Same texture. Impossible to ignore.
He closed his hand around both.
A strange feeling stirred inside him, an itch in his chest that urged him forward and backward at once.
He’d always known something was off.
But what was it? Why did every thread lead back to the same place? Why did every contradiction point toward the same impossible conclusion?
Unless…
He exhaled slowly.
Even if they reached the “afterward” Sang Zhao feared… even if that “what if” arrived… he still wasn’t letting go.
Break up? Not possible.
Not in this lifetime.
—
Fall arrived, and naturally, Ye Ye had to report for the first day of school.
The homeroom teacher was strict. She checked everyone’s homework with a terrifying poker face.
Little Ye Ye had never experienced this. He clutched his homework and lined up, trembling.
He was terrified. Even when he flipped sleds while pulling tourists back in the snow, he hadn’t been this scared.
Because back then, he knew he was cute. If he messed up, he just had to stomp his paws, wag his tail, and rub against someone and they’d instantly melt.
But the homeroom teacher? She was immune to cute.
She flipped through assignments and interrogated each kid mercilessly.
“Why didn’t you finish the big questions? These choices are all random scribbles. Go stand to the left.”
“No essays? No weekly journal? Go stand in the back. I’ll call your parents later.”
“This looks filthy. Is this homework or trash? Back of the room.”
Ye Ye’s heart dropped.
He didn’t have parents to call!
Uncle could technically come, but what if the teacher yelled at his cat uncle? Cat uncle would claw his fluffy white dog face open! Terrifying! Absolutely not!
Finally, his turn came.
He handed over his homework, bracing for doom.
The teacher flipped through it… paused… then nodded.
“At least you put effort into it. Looks like you worked hard.”
Well, of course he did. By the end, Ye Ye wasn’t fighting alone. Tang Yu was supervising remotely every single day. Ye Ye had to send photos of completed work to him, like daily mission reports. Under Tang Yu’s merciless academic oppression, the little dog had suffered greatly.
But the pain paid off.
His homework passed. Barely, but it passed. The teacher even noticed the faint water stains on one page.
Ah yes, traces of tears. Hard-earned tears.
A good kid indeed.
Ye Ye sagged in relief as he returned to his seat. “Whew… so close… I almost ascended to heaven…”
His gratitude surged immediately. He secretly pulled out his phone and sent a thank you message to Tang Yu and then to Sang Zhao.
And his logic was impeccable: if Sang Zhao hadn’t brought Tang Yu home as his boyfriend, Tang Yu wouldn’t have been around to tutor him.
So whose credit was this? His cat uncle’s!
Tang Yu did help, sure, but the cat’s contribution was greater! The cat deserved honors! The cat deserved glory! The cat deserved tribute!
He whispered a voice message:
“We’re brothers. Ye Ye will only be your dog. I won’t be anyone else’s dog, only yours.”
When Sang Zhao listened, he froze.
Wh… what? What kind of line was that?!
The first half was normal enough, but the second half, absolutely not normal!
“What’s wrong with him!?” Sang Zhao muttered, completely unable to sit still.
He set his phone on his desk and darted out for air.
Meanwhile, Ye Ye happily kept sending messages, thinking Sang Zhao was reading them. He was at school slacking off, believing Sang Zhao was at work slacking off too.
His messages kept popping up on Sang Zhao’s screen.
【The world’s best cat!!】
【I’ll buy you a big gift pack of snacks woohoo~~】
【Ye Ye is cat’s little dog! Little dog!!】
Tang Yu walked over to look for Sang Zhao, only to find his seat empty.
As he glanced around, a new notification lit up the phone screen.
He looked down.
【I want to be your dog.】
A clean, simple sentence. Punctuation and everything.
Tang Yu: ????
What’s going on?!
What kind of play is this supposed to be?!
No, seriously! Who do you think you are, and who said you get to apply for this position?!
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