33: He Belongs to Someone Else
The instant Shen Jin fell, he felt a dry, steady hand clamp around his waist.
A warm, damp body pressed against his back. Their positions shifted in a blink, and the next second they hit the floor hard.
A muffled groan came from behind him.
Qian Kun’s back slammed into the floor, and the pain left him unable to move for a moment.
Shen Jin didn’t have time to care how much he disliked people getting close. Qian Kun’s movement had been too fast, he’d been pulled into an embrace before he could even react.
They’d clearly been at least two meters apart. In the blink of an eye, Qian Kun was at his side.
Even a typical Alpha wouldn’t have that kind of explosive power. The doubt flashed through Shen Jin’s mind and vanished just as quickly. He was more anxious about Qian Kun’s injury.
“Don’t move yet.”
“Did you hit something?”
“Yeah. My bones are fine. It’s probably a sprain. What about you?”
Shen Jin shook his head. He was lying on a human cushion. He was completely fine.
They fell silent for a second.
“Why didn’t you turn on the light when you came back?”
“I thought you weren’t coming back tonight?”
They spoke at nearly the same time.
Then came a longer silence. Both of them realized they’d misunderstood.
Shen Jin was afraid of aggravating Qian Kun’s injury. His build was still that of an Omega, lighter and more delicate than most. Even so, he was still a grown boy. Pressing down like this had to hurt, and the impact had sounded brutal.
Shen Jin didn’t dare move again. Holding that pose, though, made something else slowly creep in, something harder to ignore.
The scent of shower gel on Qian Kun mixed with a faint, green, woody note, slipping into Shen Jin’s nose. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, Qian Kun’s body heat came through in little bursts, like tiny currents that ran up Shen Jin’s spine and straight into his scalp.
Shen Jin seemed imprisoned in this scorching embrace. Even breathing seemed to carry heat.
Qian Kun’s military academy training had taught him how to fall with minimal damage, yet the weight of two people still forced him to take a moment to recover.
Just now, his body had moved faster than his brain.
If he’d ignored it, how would Shen Jin, someone so afraid of pain, have endured that fall?
Once Qian Kun steadied himself, he noticed the flush on the person in his arms, spreading from the neck all the way to the ears.
Shen Jin was clearly uncomfortable, yet because of one sentence from him, he’d stayed obediently still. It felt as if Qian Kun had touched something soft beneath layer after layer of ice.
Qian Kun tipped his head slightly, leaning close to Shen Jin’s ear. “All right.”
Shen Jin sprang up like he had been shocked. He had nothing to brace himself on, and Qian Kun had to steady him.
He rose too quickly, and in the blur of movement, he brushed against something that stood out.
Shen Jin didn’t realize it yet. Qian Kun, who’d been calm and unhurried a moment ago, suddenly furrowed his brows, turned away, and walked naked to his own bed. He grabbed a pair of lounge pants from the wardrobe and pulled them on, the whole sequence fast, quiet, and controlled.
Shen Jin saw a very obvious bruise forming at Qian Kun’s waist and abdomen. He had that kind of injury before. If you didn’t work it out, tomorrow would be agony.
“I’ll go borrow some medicated wine. Wait here.”
Before Qian Kun could say anything, Shen Jin strode out.
Out in the hallway, Shen Jin glanced at his own arm and finally realized what he had touched just now.
His mind went off with a bang, like something had detonated.
It was a good thing Qian Kun hadn’t said it out loud, or Shen Jin would’ve burst into flames on the spot.
He took several deep breaths, forcing away the inappropriate images, then walked expressionlessly to the nearest dorm room. He raised his hand to knock, then heard a familiar thump, thump, thump.
The last of the red in Shen Jin’s face drained away in an instant. He had forgotten it was Gu Yue’s sleepwalking time.
Shen Jin retreated several steps at once. No thanks.
Keeping his face cold enough to rival an evil stepmother, he went straight to Jiang Yifan’s dorm.
Jiang Yifan and his roommates were already on the top bunk. Hearing a knock, he exchanged a look with his roommate.
Jiang Yifan: You go open it.
Roommate: Why not you?
Nobody wanted to climb down. Neither of the two had any roommate affection. Both hoped the person outside would assume no one was in and leave.
Unfortunately for them, the person outside had more patience than they did.
In the end, they settled it with rock-paper-scissors. Jiang Yifan lost and had to get down to open the door.
He didn’t expect to see Shen Jin’s ice-beauty face on the other side. Jiang Yifan almost wanted to fix his appearance on reflex.
They’d been classmates for over a year. Shen Jin only initiated a request a handful of times. It wasn’t that Jiang Yifan was weak. It was that it was rare.
Shen Jin looked like he was in a foul mood, though. Jiang Yifan put on a bright smile and asked responsibly, “What happened?”
Shen Jin said, “Do you have medicated wine? The kind for bruises and sprains.”
Jiang Yifan turned back, found a bottle, checked the expiration date, and handed it over.
After Shen Jin left and Jiang Yifan shut the door, it took him a moment to process it.
“Why does Ice God need that? We didn’t have PE today.”
“We didn’t, and Shen Jin didn’t do any intense exercise either.”
So who was it for?
The two of them jolted. Holy crap. The two big shots really had a physical clash, and this one sounded serious.
When Shen Jin returned to the dorm, he was no longer panicked like he’d been in the bathroom. Still, the moment he saw Qian Kun, his body tensed again.
He saw Qian Kun holding a broom and cleaning the room. Shen Jin’s eyelid twitched. “Stand there. Don’t sweep.”
Both of them cared about dorm cleanliness. That shared trait gave them an easy, unspoken rhythm.
After they started rooming together, they set a rotation schedule for cleaning. Today was Qian Kun’s turn.
Shen Jin shot him a flat look, took the broom from his hand, and shoved it into the corner.
Qian Kun, who was usually decisive and dominant outside, stood quietly now. When the little ice mountain got mad, he didn’t dare cut in.
Shen Jin pulled out a folding chair and had Qian Kun lean over it, face down.
“Lie face down.”
When the cool touch hit his back, Qian Kun startled so hard he nearly sat up. He hadn’t expected Shen Jin, who looked like he was wrapped in a wall of iron, to personally rub his injury.
He assumed that when Shen Jin went out, it was partly to find the medicated wine and partly to bring a classmate over to help, which Qian Kun would’ve refused anyway.
Qian Kun’s head buzzed. He moved slightly, and the chain reaction of nerves made him suck in a breath.
Shen Jin saw it and pressed a finger down on a point along his back, pinning the fierce Beta in place with a cold stare.
“You can’t reach this spot yourself. Stop moving.”
Ruthless, and not much talk.
That was always Shen Jin’s style.
Shen Jin poured medicated wine into his palm, rubbed it warm, then placed his hand against Qian Kun’s waist and abdomen. “I’ve helped my younger brother with this before. Tell me if there’s a spot where the pressure or angle is wrong.”
It was the truth. Shen Xie’an had no idea what happened, but even as a child he’d been obsessed with Alpha-type stuff. He never grew out of it. He was always going to boxing gyms and tennis clubs, and injuries were inevitable. Shen Jin usually handled the bruises and strains.
Qian Kun slowly closed his eyes. Deep in his soul, an extremely dangerous emotion was spreading, surging up like it couldn’t wait to break the surface.
His heart had grown grass. All it took was a little rain, and it would root and sprout.
Shen Jin pressed his warmed palm to the bruised area and began to rub gently.
Qian Kun’s build was tall and straight. Maybe because he exercised year-round, there was a thin layer of muscle across his back. His waist and abdomen were lean and firm, full of a boy’s vivid youth.
Shen Jin looked away, and his hands sped up without meaning to.
“Wait, Xiao Jin, slow down.” Qian Kun’s whole body tensed. This pain wasn’t even a tenth of what he’d endured with past injuries, yet maybe it was the softness of those hands, touching his waist and abdomen, that made the entire process unbearable.
The medicated wine took effect. That spot turned hot and numb, and it seemed to carry something that couldn’t quite be named.
“What did you call me?” Shen Jin glanced at the back of his head.
“Sorry. Slip of the tongue.” Qian Kun’s overheated mind cooled quickly. “I heard your family call you that, so I…”
It was the way Ke Minghuai had called him during evening study.
Neither of them spoke again. Shen Jin finished the massage, went to wash his hands, then came back and told Qian Kun to get into bed and rest. Shen Jin would handle the rest of the cleanup.
Shen Jin finished tidying up before lights-out. Both of them got into bed. The air conditioner blew a gentle breeze, light enough that it felt like the other person didn’t exist at all.
Shen Jin stared into the darkness at the head of his bed. Moonlight spilled in, leaving only blurry outlines.
His hand clenched the blanket, tightening slightly.
“You can call me that.”
Qian Kun was turning off the warning device strapped across his chest. The endless heat kept coming, like the thing had a problem.
He was already irritated when he heard Shen Jin’s voice, soft like a murmur. He turned to look, only to see Shen Jin roll over and say nothing else.
A faint smile lifted at the corner of Qian Kun’s mouth.
He remembered the information he hadn’t finished reading earlier because of Shen Jin’s sudden appearance, and he pulled it back up.
When he saw the words “Omega fiancée,” his smile faded.
He stared for several minutes before finally moving his fingers, stiff from the cold air, and sending a message.
[What’s the name of his fiancée?]
The other side clearly had been waiting. The reply came immediately.
[We only know the surname is Shen. The rest is still being investigated.]
Qian Kun didn’t have people dig into private matters. He had a line he wouldn’t cross, so what he knew now wouldn’t touch anyone’s secrets.
He didn’t ask further. He opened the school’s official website instead. The student council president’s WeChat ID was listed there.
He typed the name into the search bar. After a brief hesitation, he tapped it.
Ke Minghuai’s WeChat profile popped up. The username was Beka[TN1], and the avatar was that pink bunny.
He’d still been holding on to a sliver of hope. The moment he saw the name, it felt as if everything clicked into place.
He felt like he was walking on a tightrope, one step away from plunging into an abyss.
He remembered Luo Ying once saying that the Hugging Bunny dolls came in different colors. The white one was called Snowball, and the pink one was called Beka.
A matching name and matching avatar. It was a couple set. Maybe the two of them hadn’t interacted much at school before, so no one connected them. No one would’ve imagined they’d be this brazen about showing dog food.
Even if someone noticed, they’d just assume it was a coincidence.
At the start, when Qian Kun noticed the hints, he’d only thought Shen Jin had a friend who was more than a friend, maybe still in the ambiguous stage.
Shen Jin always felt too cold, keeping every gender at arm’s length. It made Qian Kun dismiss it without thinking too much.
Qian Kun covered his face quietly.
The best thing about night was that every expression could be hidden.
The heart that had just begun to grow grass felt like it had been washed by a violent storm, beaten flat into silence.
He let out a soft, contemptuous laugh. “Heh.”
There was no need to ask anymore.
Shen Jin belonged to another man.
Shen Jin was already asleep. He sensed the shift in the atmosphere and burrowed deeper under the blanket.
Half-asleep, he opened his eyes in confusion. The opposite bed was quiet too.
His voice was blurred with drowsiness. “Does it still hurt?”
There was no reply.
He must’ve fallen asleep.
Author’s Note:
Qianqian: My heart’s raining.
Couple avatars are nothing. Later you can have couple outfits, couple shoes, couple bags. Anything you want. Jinjin will spoil you.
(Qian Jin is the ship name. Nobody forgot, right? QAQ)
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