Lovely Allergen - Chap 32
After so many days of training, Le Zhishi was very happy to hear Song Yu’s voice for the first time. He said that he would only call for one minute, but when he hung up, it showed that the call had lasted 12 minutes and 3 seconds.
Ever since he was young, whenever he was separated from Song Yu, Le Zhishi would feel extremely anxious. He often cried because of this when he was young. When he was in kindergarten, he knew that Song Yu went to school somewhere else. Crying was useless, but it was different when he was in elementary school. Le Zhishi knew that Song Yu was on the fourth grade floor, but he couldn’t just go and look for him. School-age children didn’t know how to follow the rules, and Le Zhishi matured late. He would often cry in class because he missed his older brother.
Because Song Yu said that he couldn’t cry casually outside, Le Zhishi, who had just entered elementary school, would often cry silently in class while studying. His first grade textbook was still wrinkled.
When the teachers were in class, they would occasionally look up and see Le Zhishi crying. He didn’t dare to make a sound when he cried. Like the other students, he would obediently place his arms on the desk, but his face was wet. Once, the homeroom teacher took pity on him and allowed him to attend class. He moved a small stool upstairs to the fourth grade (8) classroom and sat in the aisle next to Song Yu’s seat.
He stopped crying and was very obedient during the entire class. The English teacher taught the fourth grade students to read words. Le Zhishi put his hands behind his back and read obediently.
However, Song Yu went back that night and taught him a lesson.
“You’re not allowed to come here again. What’s there to cry about? You’re already an elementary school student.”
Le Zhishi felt wronged. “I cried because I missed you.”
Song Yu heard this and didn’t know what to do. He was only in fourth grade and couldn’t speak any profound principles. He also thought that Le Zhishi couldn’t listen to normal principles. He was just a stubborn child.
“Then … then if you miss me, you should focus on your studies. I’m also studying seriously.”
“And then …” Le Zhishi didn’t understand.
“Then I’ll know you’re thinking about me, because we’re doing the same thing, understand?” Song Yu left his room and said awkwardly, “If you come here, you’ll affect me. Then I won’t be able to receive your signal.”
This set of words had fooled Le Zhishi for at least a year and a half, and he had successfully developed the habit of attending classes independently.
He was like this when he was three years old, and he was still like this when he was seven years old. Therefore, it was not embarrassing for him to express his longing for Le Zhishi. He had done enough since he was young.
Therefore, before he hung up the call with Song Yu, he repeated that he missed him very much.
Song Yu didn’t respond. He only paused for a few seconds before saying that he would bring back some Beijing specialty pastries.
However, he quickly changed his words and said that he might be allergic and couldn’t eat them. Forget it.
He rarely forgot about Le Zhishi’s allergies. This kind of mistake was particularly low-level and flustered, but Le Zhishi didn’t care. He happily planned to pick up Song Yu on the day the training ended.
For the next two or three days, they would talk on the phone every night. Most of the time, the time would be less than 15 minutes. Xia Zhixu used to joke about Song Yu, but he got used to it. Moreover, he was the one who could squat in the corridor and talk on the phone until the wee hours of the morning. One day, he came in especially early. Song Yu even teased him about how he didn’t have anything to say. Xia Zhixu shrugged and said that Xu Qichen had fallen asleep while he was on the phone.
He caught a glimpse of the phone on the bedside table. He hadn’t hung up yet, so he walked quietly. After he came back from the shower, he picked up the phone again and listened for a while. He didn’t say anything and just listened.
Song Yu woke up in the middle of the night. He felt a faint light in the room and got up to take a look.
Xia Zhixu was sleeping very soundly, but his phone had a call interface.
Song Yu originally wanted to tease them about it when they called at night. However, when he came back that day, Xia Zhixu’s phone had been stolen. He quickly borrowed Song Yu’s phone to call his parents and Xu Qichen.
However, Xu Qichen didn’t pick up the phone.
“He didn’t save my contact information,” Song Yu said. “Maybe he didn’t pick up because he saw a stranger.”
Xia Zhixu logged into WeChat and sent a lot of messages to Xu Qichen, but he didn’t get a reply. The next day, Xu Qichen replied, “I got it.”
Without a phone, it became troublesome to contact him. Although Song Yu said that he could let him use the phone, Xia Zhixu didn’t want to trouble him. Occasionally, when he logged into WeChat, he didn’t receive many messages from Xu Qichen.
“I’ll go back in a few days. If it doesn’t work, I’ll sneak out and buy one tomorrow. ”
His plan didn’t work. The training camp reached the most stressful stage. He couldn’t go out at all and didn’t have time to use a phone. There were many mock competitions in the camp. Everyone performed well. The teachers took the students out for a good meal and, for the first time, allowed them to go back to the dormitory early to rest.
Xia Zhixu bought two bottles of orange-flavored Arctic soda downstairs. Coincidentally, when the two of them were about to go up, the dormitory suddenly lost power. The room was stuffy and everyone ran out. Song Yu and Xia Zhixu decided to stay outside and sit by the flower bed downstairs.
It was difficult to see the stars in this city. Xia Zhixu looked up for a while and then lowered his head. “That’s fast. There are still three days left.”
Song Yu didn’t say anything. He took a sip of the soda and felt that it was a little too sweet.
“The college entrance exam is coming soon.” Xia Zhixu bumped his shoulder. “Are you nervous?”
Song Yu shook his head. “I’m okay.”
“That’s true.” Xia Zhixu stretched out his legs and was very relaxed. “I feel that you’re not nervous about anything. You’re always at ease.”
Song Yu glanced at him. “Aren’t you?”
Xia Zhixu shook his head. “I’m pretending. Most of the time.” Then, he bent his right leg and hugged it with his arm. “Isn’t it strange? I seem to be very active in everything, but I’m actually avoiding reality every day. Sometimes, when I stand in a crowd and laugh with others, I’m thinking, ‘I’m so tired, so bored, and I want to go home.’ But I’ll still pretend because it’s a lot less troublesome. ”
Even if Xia Zhixu didn’t say it, Song Yu also felt that way.
He thought of something and hesitated whether to say it or not. He watched the bubbles in the glass bottle pop one by one.
“You’re so afraid of trouble. In the future … what are you going to do?”
Xia Zhixu turned his head and asked in confusion, “In the future?”
Song Yu stared into his eyes. “Don’t pretend at this time.”
“I can already tell,” he added.
Xia Zhixu understood.
He buried his head in his knees and sighed deeply. After a long silence, he put the glass bottle in his hand beside the flower bed. “I just want to muddle through.” He stared at the ground. “Don’t you have that kind of time? When you’re doing something that you’re not confident about, you want to maintain the way you are. ”
This sentence was clearly said by Xia Zhixu, but Song Yu felt that it came from his own heart.
When he didn’t get an answer from Song Yu, Xia Zhixu looked up and sniffed. He seemed to have thought of something else and asked him with a smile, “Hey, did you go to Zhongshan Park when you were young?”
“Of course,” Song Yu said.
“Did you feed the pigeons?”
Song Yu stared at him speechlessly.
Xia Zhixu smiled, revealing his canine teeth. “Yes, I did. When I was young, I loved to feed the pigeons. I would buy a small bag of food and pour some into my palm. I would squat there and they would come over by themselves. You said they were afraid of people, but when they came over, they were quite obedient and ate happily. You said they weren’t afraid of people … When I reached out to touch them, they would flap their wings and fly away. And once they flew away, they would never come back. ”
“That’s how I feel now. Do you understand?” Xia Zhixu asked with a smile.
Song Yu’s hand was a little cold from the cold soda.
Of course, he understood how he felt, but it was different from Xia Zhixu’s situation. His pigeons might keep following him, and he couldn’t chase them away. But to avoid danger, he had to take back his hand or even chase them away.
After a moment of silence, Song Yu said, “So you’re going to maintain the status quo forever?”
“I don’t know …” Xia Zhixu looked at the lights not far away. “Sometimes I imagine that we go to university together, choose the same public courses, he watches me play basketball, we join the same club, we go to dinner together, maybe we can even rent a house together during our internship. I feel that it’s really good. ”
Song Yu chuckled. “Your expectations are really low.”
Xia Zhixu shook his head self-deprecatingly. “Expectations correspond to probability. The world is so big. It’s definitely a low probability event to meet someone you like, who happens to be of the same sex, and who also likes you. ”
What he said was not without reason. Song Yu subconsciously calculated his own probability, and it might be even lower.
If there wasn’t such a coincidence, even movies wouldn’t dare to act like this.
“It’s good enough that we can be friends and stay together every day.” Xia Zhixu paused for a moment and patted his thigh in a seemingly magnanimous manner. “As for whether or not he will have a girlfriend in the future, as long as I don’t imagine it, there won’t be one.”
This kind of Ah-Q mentality only made Xia Zhixu laugh, but Song Yu couldn’t laugh.
The dormitory building’s electricity came, and the training teacher asked them to go upstairs. Xia Zhixu stood up and stretched. “Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
He thought that maybe it was because he was close to Song Yu, but they didn’t see each other often. Or maybe it was because he was a boring person, so he could say such ridiculous things without any burden.
It was like sharing a secret with a tree hole that didn’t respond.
Anyway, the tree hole wouldn’t have its own secret.
Song Yu also stood up. He didn’t have a hobby of comforting people, and he knew that it was useless. But during his conversation with Xia Zhixu, he kept thinking about the rainy dinner party from time to time. Xu Qichen’s ears turned red.
The two people’s hands that touched briefly and then separated.
His mind went blank for a moment, as if there was an example question in the process of solving in front of him, and he was about to get the answer soon. He wasn’t a grader, but a student watching from the sidelines. He didn’t know whether it was right or wrong, but he wanted to use it as a reference.
In comparison, Xia Zhixu clearly had the possibility of keeping the pigeon.
“You can try it once.”
Xia Zhixu was stunned. He didn’t expect the tree hole to respond, and it was such a sentence.
Song Yu’s tone was calm and certain. “After you go back, you can try it once. Maybe the result will be much better than you think.”
He didn’t know how this question would be answered.
But he really hoped that the answer would be right.
A month of high-pressure training was finally over, and the flight back to school was scheduled for noon. Xia Zhixu dragged Song Yu out of the training dormitory early in the morning. He said that he had something to buy, but it was actually to pick out a gift.
They went to a very famous local bookstore. Xia Zhixu was there to pick up the book that he had ordered a long time ago. Song Yu stood to the side and listened. Only then did he realize that the book was very difficult to buy. It was a limited edition of the original English edition, and it even had the original author’s signature on it. It was only because the author had signed a contract with this bookstore that he could buy it.
“Do you want to buy anything? I’ll go with you. “Xia Zhixu was in a particularly good mood when he received the book.
Song Yu shook his head, indicating that he didn’t need to bring a gift back. But Xia Zhixu didn’t believe him, and insisted on dragging him around. Finally, they found a place that made handmade notebooks at the back of the bookstore. Xia Zhixu went in and didn’t leave. He spent two hours making a small inspiration book, and the outer leather cover was sewn by him.
Song Yu, on the other hand, made a sixteen-page sketchbook. The cover was lead-gray leather, and the shop owner said that he could engrave the words or patterns by hand. Song Yu hesitated for a moment, and finally drew a triangular piece of cheese with holes and carefully engraved it.
The two of them were smart enough to solve problems quickly, but they were particularly clumsy when it came to handiwork. They weren’t satisfied, and in the end, they were almost late for the airport.
After sleeping for a while, the plane landed, and they boarded the bus that they had taken when they set off. Song Yu hated flying, and he couldn’t sleep well on it, so he continued to sleep as soon as he boarded the bus. The bus was shaking, and he was wearing headphones, so his senses were blurry.
The fear of returning home gave birth to a dream. There weren’t any specific scenes in the dream, but he could vaguely hear Le Zhishi’s voice through the radio, repeating the questions that he obviously knew but still pretended not to know. The girl in the back pulled open the window curtains, and the dazzling light illuminated the dark dream. Le Zhishi stood in the light not far away, standing in the same spot.
Song Yu held the sketchbook in his hand that he probably wouldn’t make a second one in his life, and walked towards him.
At least in the dream, he couldn’t stop in the same spot.
When they were about to arrive at Jingjian Middle School, the surroundings suddenly became noisy, and the music in the headphones couldn’t be blocked. Song Yu frowned, and heard Xia Zhixu’s voice.
“Class 4? What’s wrong with Class 4? ”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but this post is written quite like that, and now it’s all over the Internet …”
Song Yu opened his eyes and saw that Xia Zhixu next to him didn’t look right. He was holding someone’s phone and browsing the Internet, but his hands were trembling, and his eyebrows were knitted together.
“What’s wrong with you? What are you looking at? ”
Xia Zhixu didn’t respond at all, and Song Yu felt that something was wrong, so he took off his headphones, “Hey, what happened?”
After he finished speaking, Xia Zhixu stretched out his other hand to support the back of the seat in front of him. His eyes were confused, and he blinked several times. Song Yu rarely saw him like this. No matter what, Xia Zhixu always showed a different kind of sunshine than ordinary people, but at this moment, he looked like he was about to collapse.
Song Yu saw the worried face of the boy in the back seat. The phone was probably his, so he turned his head to ask what happened.
It was a quiet and thrifty junior, and the other party was also a little confused, “Our school had a post today that was very popular, and it’s all over the Internet. I just showed it to senior, and I don’t know what happened.” He was worried, so he went to the front and patted Xia Zhixu’s shoulder, “Senior, are you okay? What happened to you?”
Post?
Song Yu was confused, but the car stopped, and the teacher in charge reminded him that the quiet and thrifty students had arrived. Xia Zhixu didn’t even take his bag, and rushed out of the car under everyone’s puzzled gaze.
“Xia Zhixu!” Song Yu took his bag and followed him out. In such a short time, he had already run through the school gate, but Song Yu was stopped outside.
“Student, you’re not wearing our school uniform, are you?”
Song Yu stood outside the door, and shouted Xia Zhixu’s name again, but he didn’t seem to hear him at all, and ran desperately in the direction of the school building.
“Senior Song Yu.” The junior who was sitting behind Xia Zhixu just now rushed over, “Let me help senior carry his bag back.”
Looking down, Song Yu looked at Xia Zhixu’s bag. It was very heavy, and inside it were the books that he wanted to give away, and the notebook that he made himself, but he forgot to take them with him.
The bus didn’t wait for him, so Song Yu stood alone in front of the door of the quiet and was lost in thought.
He thought of the post that the junior mentioned, so he took out his phone and tentatively opened the space that he had never looked at before. Many of their middle school classmates also went to Jing Jian for the senior high school entrance exam, and the social circles of the two schools overlapped. He scrolled down and hurriedly browsed until he saw a repost. Song Yu’s finger stopped moving.
He was stunned for a second.
The title of the repost was eye-catching, as if it was the work of an unscrupulous media company. If he saw it on any other day, he would have just ignored it, but the main character was Xu Qichen.
[The homeroom teacher of Grade 12 (4) has an ambiguous relationship with a male classmate. There are pictures to prove it. Does the school not care?]
There was only one picture, and it wasn’t strong evidence. It was just a picture of Xu Qichen getting into a car, and the person sitting in the car seemed to be their young homeroom teacher. Other than that, there were all kinds of evidence listed in the repost, such as extra benefits, so-called abnormal extracurricular talks, and even various awards that were obtained through improper means.
The replies were all moved out, and rumors were everywhere. Everyone was discussing it very enthusiastically, as if they had seen what they had done with their own eyes. It was vivid and vivid.
Looking at these people describing Xu Qichen, a cold person, as a ruthless character who induced adult men to abuse their power for personal gain, Song Yu felt that it was both absurd and true. He looked at the world from a negative perspective, and he wasn’t too surprised by any bad possibilities.
The honor and achievements that were exchanged with talent would be distorted into the dirty products of private exchanges. It was the inevitable evil that people would do in their pursuit of excitement.
In the eyes of the audience, how could the truth be more important than other people’s dramatic encounters?
Obviously, Song Yu thought that he was cold, but suddenly, for a moment, he was brought into Xia Zhixu’s perspective. It was as if he could empathize with those words and those harsh and mocking replies.
The students in the comments were just watching the show. Not many people questioned whether this was true or not. The junior high school classmate who reposted the post on his Qzone only posted such a sentence when he reposted it.
[God, a teacher and a student of the same sex. They don’t even dare to film such an exciting ethical drama. This boy is finished.]
Staring at this sentence, Song Yu’s emotions were complicated. It was as if he had been forcefully peeled open, and his heart, which was not so open and aboveboard, was exposed. Some of the words in this sentence were replaced with what he imagined, and then turned into a shining knife, gouging out his heart and throwing it under the sun.
The bell for the last class in the afternoon rang, and the students came out one after another. Many of them went to get takeout through the door. Song Yu was wearing another school’s uniform, and he stood out like a weirdo.
He wanted to send a text message to Xia Zhixu to say something, but he suddenly remembered that this guy was so pitiful that he had nothing, not even his phone.
There was an endless stream of people on the road. Song Yu walked back to the side of the road and hailed a taxi back to Peiya. On the way back, the driver chatted enthusiastically, but Song Yu didn’t say a word. The driver was a bit embarrassed and ended the conversation he had started. Song Yu paid the driver, and before he got out of the car, he said sorry. After he turned around, he stopped in his tracks.
There was no one at the school gate. The junior high school students who were on their monthly break had already left at noon, leaving only the senior high school students who had extra classes. Le Zhishi was wearing a cream hoodie, sitting on a small stool in front of the newspaper stand outside the school gate. His head was down, and he was reading a new magazine.
He looked very focused. Song Yu knew that Le Zhishi was very focused.
But he had long forgotten that he was the one who had taught him this good habit.
Separated by a distance of ten meters, Song Yu looked at him quietly like a stranger. Sometimes, he also wished that he was a stranger.
Perhaps it was telepathy, Le Zhishi turned a page and raised his head, just in time to meet Song Yu’s eyes who was standing not far away.
“Song Yu gege?” Le Zhishi stood up immediately, and the smile on his face quickly spread. His hair, expression, clothes, and even the way he ran towards Song Yu were especially soft and excited, like a puppy who had been waiting for a long time to see its owner. Every movement was played in slow motion in Song Yu’s mind, full of cute little details.
But at this moment, his mind was still filled with the harsh ridicule and violence disguised by curiosity.
Standing in the wind, Song Yu hoped that those dark things would stay behind him, and that Le Zhishi would always be bright.
Running in front of her brother, Le Zhishi stopped. Before she could even catch her breath, she said to him, “When the bus stopped here just now, I thought you were back. After waiting for a long time, only one person got off. I asked the driver, and he said that you got off early. I thought you weren’t going back to school. ”
I thought you forgot that I was going to pick you up.
Song Yu could almost imagine Le Zhishi guarding the door and looking in. The corners of his mouth moved reluctantly. “Then why are you still waiting?”
Le Zhishi smiled at him. “I thought you would come back, and …”
His eyelashes lowered, and a harmless look appeared on his face that gave birth to a desire to protect. “You said that I would wait for you here.”
After saying that, Le Zhishi felt that it was a little strange to say it out loud. He scratched his head. “What I mean is, if I look for you … I don’t know where you are, and if I send you a WeChat message, you …”
“Le.”
Song Yu interrupted him, using a form of address that he had rarely heard since he grew up.
Le Zhishi was stunned and looked at him in confusion. “Hmm?”
“I’m so tired.” His voice was a little hoarse, and his whole body exuded a sense of fragility that did not match him. It made Le Zhishi feel confused and sad. In all these years, he had never seen Song Yu express his uneasiness and negative emotions so directly.
When he was young, Le Zhishi felt that his heart was actually with Song Yu. Song Yu’s knee was injured while playing football, and he was bleeding a lot. When he treated the wound, he was expressionless. The only one who shed tears was Le Zhishi.
Outside Peiya’s empty school gate were lush parasol trees that occupied both sides of the street. They were so lush that they almost swallowed the blue sky. A magnolia flower quietly fell on the ground. A huge truck with a roaring sound drove past them, carrying goods that were about to be overloaded.
The ground was shaking.
Le Zhishi took a step forward and hugged Song Yu.
He rested his chin on Song Yu’s shoulder and placed his soft palm on his back. He slowly stroked up and down. “Brother, lean on me.”
“I’ll recharge you, okay?”
