Lovely Allergen - Chap 44
The subway was noisy. Le Zhishi stared at the message on his phone. His expression was calm, but his heart was beating fast.
He locked the screen, looked up at the route and station names in the subway, and couldn’t help but turn on the screen again. He read Song Yu’s message again, and then took a screenshot, as if this way he wouldn’t miss what he said.
Pulling the tab, Le Zhishi stared at his reflection in the subway window. He had some illusions that the person in the mirror looked like him, but was wearing a Peiya student uniform.
He remembered the day Song Yu took Lin Rong’s place to attend his parent-teacher conference.
It was October 10th last year, Le Zhishi’s birthday. Having a parent-teacher conference on his birthday wasn’t something to be happy about. It was very cold that day, and the temperature had dropped when he got up in the morning. Le Zhishi was originally wearing a thin sports uniform, but Lin Rong ordered him to change into a knitted vest and uniform jacket.
Thinking about it, Le Zhishi was very grateful to Aunt Rong for forcing him to change into formal attire, because he received a message from Aunt Rong during lunch. She and Song Jin were going to attend a very important cocktail party in the afternoon, and Song Yu would take her place to attend the parent-teacher conference. She also said that she would celebrate Le Zhishi’s birthday this weekend.
Lunch was actually very bad. It was scrambled eggs with carrots and fish-flavored shredded pork with carrots instead of winter bamboo shoots, but Le Zhishi was in a very good mood. He was so excited that he didn’t sleep during his lunch break, and hurriedly cleaned up his desk. In the afternoon, his deskmate came to school and was shocked to see his new desk.
“How did you do it?”
Le Zhishi wiped his desk with a wet tissue for the third time, threw it away, and clapped his hands. “Nothing else, only speed.”
Later, he sat in front of this reborn desk for three periods. Until the end of the class, he kept everything clean, even the drawers. Finally, it was the parent-teacher conference. Most of the students hated this kind of meeting very much. The better ones could stay invisible during the parent-teacher meeting, while the worse ones would send their parents to participate in the public execution.
This was also the first time Le Zhishi had such expectations.
The weather was worse than it was in the morning. Dark clouds covered the sky. Le Zhishi began to worry about whether it would rain and whether Song Yu had brought an umbrella. The homeroom teacher entered the classroom early and played the PowerPoint presentation on the screen in the classroom. At the same time, he instructed the students to wait in the corridor.
Soon, the first parent in the class arrived. It was the mother of one of the female students. She was dressed very plainly and appeared at the door of the classroom in a daze. Le Zhishi watched as the classmate led her mother to her seat. Finally, she couldn’t help but leave the room. She leaned against the railing in the corridor for a while before walking to the staircase.
“Le, your dad or your mom?” Another male classmate standing at the top of the stairs nudged him with his shoulder.
“They’re all busy. My brother is here. ”
“You have a brother? That’s great.”
Another girl walked over. “Don’t you know? Oh, right. You weren’t here in middle school. Her brother used to be a senior in our high school. He’s handsome and has good grades. ”
Le Zhishi’s vanity swelled. “It’s not that bad.” Unexpectedly, the next moment, she turned around and saw the real person.
Song Yu was wearing a trench coat as black as his hair. It accentuated his sharp facial features and outstanding temperament. He was particularly easy to recognize among the parents. He looked up as he walked up the stairs and happened to meet Le Zhishi’s gaze. The originally straight corners of his lips moved slightly, and the cold expression faded a little.
“Brother.” Le Zhishi took a few steps forward and stood beside Song Yu when he came up. “I’ll take you to your seat.”
The girl behind him was still discussing with the male classmate. “I didn’t lie to you, right? Is he a handsome guy?”
This was Song Yu’s first time in Le Zhishi’s classroom. However, the person who was more curious and excited was Le Zhishi.
His seat was in the second last row of the third group in the classroom. Le Zhishi led Song Yu to his seat and pointed to the cup of warm water that he had just filled. “You can drink it if you’re thirsty.”
After he finished speaking, Song Yu nodded and observed his desk. His face was expressionless, but he praised, “It’s so clean.”
The female deskmate next to him immediately betrayed him to the handsome guy. “He cleaned up all afternoon today.”
Le Zhishi, who was exposed, glared at his deskmate. “It wasn’t that exaggerated …” He wanted to save some face for himself, but he realized that Song Yu didn’t seem to be paying much attention to this. Instead, he was looking around the classroom. He asked him, “What are you looking at?”
Song Yu retracted his gaze and looked at Le Zhishi. “I realized that this is my second-year classroom.”
Peiya changed classrooms frequently. Sometimes, they would even change the sign outside the classroom. Since Le Zhishi started high school, he had changed classrooms a total of four times. He didn’t expect that he would finally graduate from Song Yu’s second-year classroom.
“Really?” Song Yu felt that Le Zhishi’s happiness was unreasonable.
Song Yu nodded. He rested his elbows on the table and calmly added, “I’m sitting behind you.”
His words were too confusing.
It was as if they were really in the same classroom and he really was sitting behind Le Zhishi every day. As long as Le Zhishi wanted to, he could see him as soon as he turned his head.
In a parallel universe that was delayed by a year, if it overlapped with Le Zhishi’s current universe, then Song Yu could accompany Le Zhishi through every difficult day of his third-year high school.
Le Zhishi was stunned for a second, then he couldn’t help but smile.
“Is there anything on your seat that I can’t look at?”
Hearing this, Le Zhishi spread his hands and said generously, “No, you can look anywhere you want.”
He cleaned up so cleanly just to take care of Song Yu’s mysophobia.
The homeroom teacher urged the students to leave. He couldn’t stay any longer, so he followed the other students out. Everyone stood outside the window and looked into the classroom, observing the reaction of the teacher and their parents. However, because of this parent-teacher conference, Song Yu’s appearance was a special situation and was especially eye-catching. The surrounding students were all talking. The boys said that Song Yu was good at basketball, the girls said that Song Yu was handsome and had good grades, and Le Zhishi couldn’t beat them.
He only had eyes for Song Yu. The other parents looked up at the homeroom teacher seriously with an expression that said, “For my child, I must be pious enough.” However, Song Yu didn’t look up. Instead, he bent down and took out a stack of test papers and teaching materials from Le Zhishi’s drawer.
“You’re in trouble.” His deskmate, who was also standing outside the window, said to Le Zhishi, “Your brother is looking at your test paper. He won’t complain to your parents, will he?”
Everyone laughed, but Le Zhishi was surprisingly calm. “No, he never complained, and my parents don’t really care if I do well or not.”
“Really? That’s great.”
“Then why did he take it out?”
“That’s right. I don’t like people looking through my things, not even handsome guys.”
Hearing this, Le Zhishi frowned. “He’s my brother, not just anyone. I like to let him look through my things. “After saying that, he walked to the side. He was famous for his good temper and popularity. Not to mention getting angry, he didn’t even say harsh words. This time, he was obviously unhappy, which surprised the surrounding girls.
Another classmate said, “Lele, you really don’t look like your brother at all. He looks so cold and aloof. But his facial features are also well-defined. Is he also mixed-blood? Why are his hair and eyes so dark? ”
Le Zhishi felt that he had a lot of questions, but he still answered, “He’s not mixed-blood.”
“No wonder. You two look completely different. You’re not brothers, right? Cousins? ”
Le Zhishi was silent. He didn’t really want to answer this question.
After entering high school, Song Yu separated from him. Even if Le Zhishi went to the study room next to Grade 12 Class 5, there was no one he could go home with. Sometimes, he would stare blankly at Song Yu’s name on the college entrance exam red list in the cafeteria. However, that list was only posted for one year. The next year, it was replaced by another group of people.
He regretted staying in Peiya. It would be better to go to a new place where he wouldn’t think of Song Yu all the time. When he went to the cafeteria, he thought of Song Yu’s hated dishes. When he went to the field, he thought of Song Yu’s pitching.
The most annoying thing was the corridor in the sky on the third floor.
“If they’re not brothers, they can’t be very close.”
He looked at the window. His face and Song Yu’s silhouette overlapped. It was like double exposure in a camera.
Le Zhishi suddenly wished that he and Song Yu looked exactly like each other. That way, people would be able to guess their relationship at a glance. That way, no one would question him and he wouldn’t have to worry about his gains and losses.
Not long after, the homeroom teacher came down from the podium. She opened the classroom door and asked the class monitor to take them outside or go home first. As soon as the classroom door closed, a girl outside suggested that they go to the cafeteria. The others agreed and they all went down together.
Le Zhishi was a little reluctant to leave. He took a few more glances at them. Song Yu took off his windbreaker and put it on the back of the chair. He wore a white sweater and sat quietly inside. He held his pen and lowered his head. His expression was very serious, as if he was thinking about something.
This made Le Zhishi feel like he was back three years ago. He stood outside the classroom, waiting for his brother who was still in class.
“Let’s go, Le.”
Le Zhishi turned around and said, “Okay.”
The content and process of the parent-teacher conference were actually more or less the same. The homeroom teacher talked about the harsh situation of the college entrance examination and then took out the latest mock exam results to announce. Song Yu was very familiar with it, but the roles had been reversed. He was now the one sitting in the audience.
He wasn’t in the mood to listen. He had been listening to these things for three years. Even if he didn’t listen, he was better than the parents who knew nothing about the college entrance examination.
Song Yu flipped through Le Zhishi’s paper. His English was as good as ever. Even he was a little curious. Was there really a so-called metaphysical effect of blood lineage? However, compared to other subjects, his mathematics was not particularly good. His marks fluctuated and were not particularly stable. When he was good, he could get very high marks. When he was bad, his marks would be pulled down by other students.
He found Le Zhishi’s wrong questions book and flipped through it. He found that the wrong questions he had recorded were wrong in the latest test paper. In Song Yu’s opinion, these questions all had a very clear context and routine, so he simply picked up a pen and used this period of time to help Le Zhishi sort out the wrong questions systematically. He also wrote down several common problem-solving routines in his wrong questions book.
Song Yu was very focused on organizing for a while when he suddenly heard the homeroom teacher call Le Zhishi’s name. He looked up and found that the parents sitting in front of him were also looking at him.
“Le Zhishi’s parent is actually our Peiya’s outstanding graduate, Song Yu. His grades were always among the best in school and his college entrance examination results were also very good.” Then the homeroom teacher looked at Song Yu expectantly. “It’s a coincidence that you came here today. Can you share with us, the other parents, some of your thoughts during the revision period or some things that parents should pay attention to?”
Song Yu was very uncomfortable with this environment. He felt that he was not Le Zhishi’s older brother but more like his father. This strange seniority made him purse his lips unnaturally. After a moment of silence, he said in a deep voice, “Actually, at this stage, it’s too late to talk about learning.”
His words were so direct that the homeroom teacher felt a little embarrassed. “Yes, that’s true …”
“However, I think there are still things that parents should do. The last six months are very important. If possible, try not to put too much pressure on the students. Instead of blindly letting them study or nourish their bodies, it’s better to care more about their psychological state and reduce the impact on their education. ” Song Yu gave the homeroom teacher a way out. He had a business-like attitude and gave her a subtle smile. “I think you’ve already explained everything else very well.”
It was probably because he had a halo that parents agreed with everything he said. After he left, Song Yu continued to focus his attention on his little brother’s test papers. When he was almost done, he organized the papers in order and put them back in the drawer. He also put the wrong questions on top so that Le Zhishi could see them when he came back.
When he was picking up the test paper, he accidentally brought out a mathematics textbook with a purple cover. Song Yu had nothing to do, so he flipped through it a little. This kind of teaching material that didn’t need to be handed in usually wasn’t very full.
Sure enough, not only was there not a lot written, but this textbook also seemed to be a good tool for Le Zhishi. At the bottom right corner was a simple comic drawn by Le Zhishi. It was a character that he liked very much. If he flipped through it quickly, he could see a complete fighting action.
Only Le Zhishi would do something like this.
Song Yu suddenly felt that the parent-teacher conference was very interesting. He looked at the content again. Many pages were written in a completely unrecognizable font. The more he wrote, the more floaty it became. In the end, it became a punctuation mark. At first glance, it was obvious that he was so sleepy that he lost consciousness, but still forced himself to write.
Just by looking at these marks, Song Yu could picture Le Zhishi’s vivid appearance in his mind.
He turned to a certain page and stopped. He stared at it for a while before he picked up the pen and wrote a line at the bottom.
Time passed quickly. After the conference, many parents came to Song Yu’s table, hoping that he could share more. Although Song Yu was always cold, he did not want to be too obvious. He only said a few words. When a parent asked for his contact number and asked if they could hire him as a tutor, Song Yu really refused.
“I’m very busy. I don’t go home much. If I really want to teach, I’ll definitely teach my own children. Don’t you think so? ”
After putting on his windbreaker and leaving the classroom, Song Yu did not see Le Zhishi, so he called him. No one answered. Le Zhishi’s phone was always on silent or turned off when he was at school. Song Yu guessed that he did not see it, so he simply went to find it himself.
In fact, Le Zhishi did not take out his phone. He was surrounded by many students in the cafeteria, facing a very awkward situation alone. A female student who he never thought would like him suddenly confessed to him and even prepared a small birthday surprise. Le Zhishi was pressed into a seat by the boys who were making a fuss. He could not even get up.
“This is the cake I specially went out to get this afternoon.” The girl sitting opposite him pushed the cake in front of him with a shy expression on her face. “Their cake is very delicious. I ordered it a week in advance.”
The cake did look very beautiful. It was rose-lychee-flavored, and the words “Happy Birthday to Le Zhishi” were written on the top.
Everyone was making a fuss. Most people did not know that Le Zhishi was allergic to wheat. The only person who knew, Jiang Yufan, was still in the science class. They made a fuss and asked Le Zhishi to cut the cake and taste it. Le Zhishi could not refuse. He thought that it should be fine to eat some cream.
So he picked up a fork and tried to scrape some cream off. At the same time, he was thinking about how to politely get away later.
But his plan was not put to use. The next second, his wrist was grabbed by a familiar hand.
When he looked up, he met Song Yu’s cold eyes.
“He’s allergic. He can’t eat cakes from outside.” Song Yu’s tone was cold as he directly pulled Le Zhishi up.
The girl sitting opposite him looked a little embarrassed. It was not a good situation to give the person she was confessing to food that he might be allergic to right after the confession. But Le Zhishi was still in a good mood. “It’s okay. Don’t take it to heart. Thank you for buying it for me.”
Without letting him say too much, Song Yu pulled him out.
It was windy outside, and it was raining. The ground was covered in raindrops. At such a fast speed, Le Zhishi guessed that it was a shower. He shrunk his neck and followed Song Yu’s footsteps.
“How many times do I have to tell you to eat when others give it to you?” Song Yu’s expression was unfriendly. “Wasn’t the lesson from when you were young enough?”
Le Zhishi felt wronged. “No, I didn’t want to eat it. Just now she …”
Song Yu stopped and looked at Le Zhishi. “You can eat it just because she confessed to you?”
How did he know that it was a confession …
Le Zhishi stood where he was in a daze. He pursed his lips for a short while before retracting his expression. “I didn’t. I just wanted to taste some cream to make her feel better.”
Song Yu stood there for a while. The rain started to get heavier. He said that he got it and walked forward to the parking lot. He took out his car keys and pressed it. Then he went around to the front passenger seat and opened the door for Le Zhishi.
Le Zhishi got into the car obediently and sat next to Song Yu. He realized that Song Yu’s hair was shorter. It was really dark and didn’t look like the kind that was easy to touch. This difference in hair color was probably the biggest difference in appearance between him and Song Yu.
He suddenly thought that he should dye his hair black too. Would that make them look more alike?
He really wanted a one-of-a-kind relationship that couldn’t be broken at any time.
His mind was in a mess. Suddenly, there was thunder outside. Le Zhishi raised his hand reflexively, but Song Yu pressed the back of his hand. Song Yu didn’t say anything. He turned on the car music with his other hand. It was a relaxing classical piano piece.
He didn’t let go of Le Zhishi’s hand.
Song Yu was the person who knew him the best in the world. He knew what he could eat, what he couldn’t eat, what he hated, what he liked, and even the little movements in class. All the details had been accumulated over the years.
Le Zhishi watched him turn around and take out a simple and beautiful white box from the back seat. He placed it on Le Zhishi’s lap.
“What’s this?”
“Open it and see for yourself.”
When he opened it, there was a chocolate cake inside. The rich aroma of the cake hit him in the face. The smooth surface of the cake reflected a beautiful luster like a mirror. It was very Song Yu’s personal style.
“I ran out of gluten-free flour at home. I went to a few shops to buy almond flour. It was a bit rushed.” Song Yu’s perfectionism made him lower his self-esteem, but Le Zhishi liked it very much. He didn’t expect Song Yu to remember his birthday and spend so much effort to make him a cake.
“It looks delicious.”
Le Zhishi thought that he could only celebrate his birthday on the weekend. He thought that Song Yu wouldn’t come back and accompany him.
The white light of the lightning was fleeting. Before Le Zhishi could move, Song Yu raised his hand and covered his ears. The sound of thunder and his voice came together, overlapping each other’s heartbeat.
“Happy birthday.”
Le Zhishi remembered that he sat in the car and ate a large piece of cake, a small piece of chocolate ganache noodles on his nose. Song Yu was very insidious and didn’t tell him. So Le Zhishi didn’t find out until he got home.
He still remembered that day when Lin Rong and Song Jin didn’t come home. He pestered Song Yu for a long time and did his homework in Song Yu’s room until 12 o ‘clock.
At that time, Song Yu even asked him if the teaching assistants he had spent money on were doing a good job.
At that time, Le Zhishi thought it was just Song Yu’s casual inquiry from a parent’s point of view. It was the aftermath of the parent-teacher conference. Now that he thought about it, it turned out that he was hinting.
The subway went much faster than usual. Le Zhishi swiped his card and left the station. Curiosity drove him to rush home as fast as he could to find the answer that had been lying in wait for so long.
Lin Rong saw him go into his room as soon as he got home. She was also curious and went upstairs with a bowl of red bean double skin milk. Seeing Le Zhishi struggling to reach the cardboard box on the top of the bookcase, she knocked on the open bedroom door. “Baby, what are you doing? Come, have some double skin milk. ”
Le Zhishi looked outside the door and stretched out his arms, still struggling. “Aunt Rong, the books I brought back last semester are in this box, right?”
Lin Rong put down the double skin milk and thought for a moment. “Hey, no, I think I put them in the white cabinet.”
“Really? Let me look for them. ”
She guessed that Le Zhishi might have been stimulated by something at W University and came back ready to work hard. Lin Rong didn’t dare to disturb him. “Remember to eat. Tell Aunt Rong what you want. Don’t work too hard. ”
“Okay.” Le Zhishi squatted in front of the cabinet and flipped through the books one by one without looking up. Lin Rong closed the door. He searched for more than ten minutes and finally found a few mathematics books that he had bought before. Le Zhishi narrowed down the search, but he didn’t give up. He carried the books to the desk and flipped through them one by one.
It wasn’t until he saw the comic book that he had drawn and the one that he had used to pass his time that Le Zhishi felt that he had found the right book.
What was it?
Le Zhishi’s hand that was flipping through the book suddenly stopped. His gaze also stopped.
It was a function application question. The question was very long. The first question was to calculate the number of visitors in a certain park. Le Zhishi still had an impression of this question because the question was very long and it didn’t seem to be in human language. It was very difficult to extract the information. At the time, he was in a period of fatigue from doing the question. After reading the question, his mind was filled with keywords like park, visitors, and holidays. He didn’t want to calculate at all.
So, at the time, he wrote a sentence in a rebellious manner.
[Answer: I don’t want to calculate the question. I just want to go and have fun. There are so many visitors.
But when he looked back, there was another line of words below. It was a completely different and fierce handwriting.
[Persevere for a while longer. After the college entrance exam, I’ll take you anywhere you want.]
Was this the encouragement he was talking about?
Le Zhishi’s heart started to pound. He suddenly had an illusion that he and Song Yu were like two people who existed in different time and space in a science fiction movie. At some strange moment, they suddenly matched up and everything began to intersect.
The words that he had written that no one knew about also received a response.
His fingertips were numb. His heart was swollen like overflowing rainwater. Le Zhishi reached out his hand and gently touched the line of words that Song Yu had written. He unconsciously repeated it a few times in his heart.
He felt that there was more. He believed that Song Yu had left behind more traces. After tasting some sweetness, Le Zhishi continued to flip through the book. He flipped through it seriously many times. But he didn’t slack off like this often. Most of the time, he was doing the questions seriously and studying diligently.
There didn’t seem to be many places for Song Yu to show off.
Le Zhishi was a little depressed, but he was already very satisfied.
He closed the book and stared at the cover for a while. Something flashed through his mind and his ears burned.
When he didn’t pay attention in class, he seemed to have done something very stupid.
Thinking of this, Le Zhishi quickly flipped through the teaching materials and finally found the page of his dark history.
Back then, when he was bored, he wrote Song Yu’s name on this page over and over again as if he was practicing calligraphy. Looking at the names that he had written again, Le Zhishi felt his heart beat faster. He couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or some other emotion. When he read, his mind was filled with his own voice. He was calling his brother’s name over and over again, hoping for a response.
Suddenly, he was stunned. He stared at the last name that he had written. It was still the same two words, Nineteen Paintings.
[Song Yu]
Below that, there was an additional word, like an echo.
[Hmm?]