Chapter 17
Jiang Zhong’s mind went blank in an instant. After a long pause, he stammered, “It’s this… this, uh.”
“Yes,” Xi Qin’s voice grew even more subdued, “Can you do it?”
“It seems like…” Jiang Zhong swallowed, “I can.”
“So, you’re agreeing?” Xi Qin confirmed.
Jiang Zhong remained silent.
“Is Jiang Zhong now my boyfriend?” Xi Qin asked again.
Jiang Zhong suddenly felt very hot—his face, ears, and the palms holding the phone were all burning.
Will the phone explode?
The heat quickly spread through his entire body, making his throat dry. Jiang Zhong quietly murmured a soft “Yes.”
There was no response from Xi Qin’s end. Realizing that his previous answer had been just a sound, Jiang Zhong took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Xi Qin’s voice was filled with laughter.
“Well,” Jiang Zhong said, feeling flustered, “I need to go to sleep.”
“Okay,” Xi Qin still sounded cheerful, “Send me a message when you wake up tomorrow.”
“Yeah, good night.”
“Good night,” Xi Qin added with a nickname, “boyfriend.”
Jiang Zhong hurriedly ended the call and threw himself heavily onto the bed. That nickname sounded so…
It’s really hard to keep it together!
Jiang Zhong turned onto his side, held up the already hung-up phone, and silently said, ‘Good night, boyfriend.’
Blushing, he quickly placed the phone on the bedside table, screen down.
“Go to sleep!” Jiang Zhong muttered to himself, pulling the blanket up to his neck.
Two minutes later, Jiang Zhong turned his back to the bedside table.
Another two minutes passed, and Jiang Zhong kicked the blanket down a little. Why is the heating so hot tonight?
Yet another two minutes later, Jiang Zhong lay face down on the bed.
—
Jiang Zhong lost track of how many two-minute intervals had passed. He changed positions countless times, feeling uncomfortable no matter how he tried to sleep tonight.
“Damn it!” Jiang Zhong cursed under his breath in frustration, reaching for his phone on the bedside table and opening WeChat.
The chat screen with Xi Qin still showed their last conversation before washing dishes, with Xi Qin’s last message being “Okay, go ahead.”
Jiang Zhong lay on his side and tapped on Xi Qin’s WeChat profile picture.
He thought to himself, ‘hmm, this position is comfortable.’
Xi Qin’s profile picture was a side profile of himself, taken secretly by Jiang Zhong during a class break, with the background and other accidentally included classmates blurred.
Actually, Jiang Zhong had also taken a frontal photo at that time. When Xi Qin noticed Jiang Zhong taking his picture and turned to look, he was captured at that moment.
That photo was still in Jiang Zhong’s album.
Xi Qin, looking confused in the photo, didn’t seem aloof at all, instead, he looked a bit… cute.
Jiang Zhong was amused by this thought. He wondered what Xi Qin would think if he knew Jiang Zhong found him cute.
After looking at the profile picture for a while, Jiang Zhong tapped into Xi Qin’s Moments.
Xi Qin’s Moments were very clean—no ads, no messages forwards, and no selfies, just a few short texts.
A bit disappointing, there were no selfies to see Xi Qin’s handsome face.
Jiang Zhong clicked through the short texts, which were all about sharing feelings—happy, unhappy, angry.
So boring.
Jiang Zhong had liked every Moment of Xi Qin’s he had seen before. Now, looking at them, he saw that apart from his own likes, none of the posts had any other likes!
It made sense, he and Xi Qin were classmates, so they should have quite a few mutual friends.
Sure enough, he wasn’t the only one who found it boring!
The next morning, Jiang Zhong was woken up by the urge to pee.
While he was taking care of his biological needs at the toilet, he suddenly remembered that last night’s call had changed his relationship with Xi Qin.
He now had a boyfriend!
His boyfriend was his roommate!
Jiang Zhong was momentarily dazed, and his hand, which was holding onto something for support, shook, nearly causing him to pee outside.
Jiang Zhong didn’t realize how happy he was, but when he washed his hands and looked in the mirror, he saw himself smiling, with his mouth and eyes curving upward.
Was it really necessary to be this happy?!
It wasn’t his first… oh no, it was his first relationship.
That was definitely something to be happy about. Jiang Zhong’s smile grew even wider, almost turning his almond eyes into squints.
After leaving the bathroom, Jiang Zhong searched everywhere and eventually found his phone in the blankets.
He could hardly imagine what his phone had been through last night.
Jiang Zhong didn’t care about these small details and happily opened WeChat.
Before hanging up last night, his boyfriend had asked him to send a message after he woke up.
【Jiang Zhong: Good morning】
Less than 10 seconds after Jiang Zhong sent the message, Xi Qin directly called him on WeChat.
Suddenly nervous.JPG
Jiang Zhong answered the call, his speech a bit fumbled: “Ahem, hello?”
“Are you awake?” Xi Qin’s voice came through.
So pleasant to hear, Jiang Zhong thought, ‘my boyfriend’s voice!’
“Yeah, just woke up a little while ago,” Jiang Zhong replied.
“I was about to call you,” Xi Qin said.
“Is something up?”
“No, not really,” Xi Qin said. “I’m about to arrive at your place. I wanted to call you out.”
Jiang Zhong jumped up: “My place?”
Jiang Zhong looked at the time on his phone, it was only 8:30. It takes over an hour by car from the school to his house.
“Where are you now?” Jiang Zhong asked urgently.
“I’m at the door,” Xi Qin’s voice faintly heard the sound of closing a car door. “I’m at the same place as last time during the social event.”
He had already arrived, so Xi Qin must have left around seven to get here…
Jiang Zhong dashed to the wardrobe: “Why so early? I haven’t washed up or changed yet.”
“It’s okay, no rush,” Xi Qin said. “I’ll wait for you.”
“You can’t. Come in, it’s so cold outside,” Jiang Zhong, now in a panic, said almost incoherently. “Let me come out to meet you and then go back to get ready. You wait for two minutes, I—”
“No need, Jiang Zhong, listen to me,” Xi Qin interrupted. “I came over to have breakfast with you and didn’t give you a heads-up. I’m just too eager. Don’t rush, I’m willing to wait. I really want to see you soon, but your parents are still at home, right? So you don’t need to come out to get me. I want to be alone with you after I see you.”
Jiang Zhong quickly washed his face and brushed his teeth, grabbing a random set of clothes from the wardrobe and changing into them.
Fortunately, Jiang Zhong liked to buy clothes in matching sets. He took a quick glance in the mirror and thought he looked fine, quite handsome.
It was just his hair, after a whole night’s sleep, it had developed its own ideas.
Jiang Zhong grabbed a knitted hat and put it on.
He picked up his phone and got ready to leave.
“Damn it.” The consequence of playing on his phone late at night was that there was hardly any battery left in the morning.
Jiang Zhong frantically stuffed a power bank, charging cable, and tissues into the bag Xi Qin had given him…
Downstairs, only Jiang Zhong’s father was in the living room reading the morning newspaper.
Jiang Zhong dashed down the stairs in a few large strides, making his father look up at the commotion.
“Morning, Dad,” Jiang Zhong said while changing his shoes. “My classmate is here to hang out. I’m heading out, bye—”
Without waiting for a reply, Jiang Zhong hurriedly opened the door and ran outside.
The snow that had fallen all night had blanketed the world in white, and the ground crunched underfoot.
Jiang Zhong practically ran to the entrance.
The knitted hat nearly fell off several times as he ran, and Jiang Zhong had to hold it in place with one hand.
When he saw Xi Qin, his anxious feelings vanished, replaced by a pleasant kind of nervousness.
Standing there waiting for him was his boyfriend!
Jiang Zhong adjusted his hat and used the access card to open the door.
Xi Qin, already facing this way, looked up as soon as the door opened, as if he felt something.
Jiang Zhong suddenly didn’t know whether to step out with his left foot or right foot.
Seeing Jiang Zhong, Xi Qin walked over from under the tree first. Jiang Zhong took a deep breath and moved toward him.
Damn, it felt like he took a wrong turn.
Xi Qin was wearing a mask, so Jiang Zhong couldn’t see his expression, but he knew his own expression must be quite something.
As he got closer, Jiang Zhong noticed that Xi Qin’s eyes were curved down, a familiar sight he had seen this morning in the mirror.
“Didn’t I tell you not to rush?” Xi Qin said, pulling at Jiang Zhong’s hat. “It’s crooked.”
Jiang Zhong thought to himself, I did straighten it: “I… cough cough.”
He had run too fast and inhaled the cold air, making his throat uncomfortable, as if he had just run 1000 meters.
“Are you okay?” Xi Qin asked anxiously.
Jiang Zhong waved his hand, trying to suppress the nausea rising from his stomach.
Xi Qin looked around and then pulled Jiang Zhong away, turning to leave.
Pulled… Pulled away.
Jiang Zhong forgot about coughing, his heart was racing just as fast as it had when he ran over, or even faster.
Was he going to be the first person ever to die from an excessively fast heartbeat caused by holding hands with his boyfriend?
Xi Qin’s hand was slightly larger than Jiang Zhong’s, able to fully envelop Jiang Zhong’s hand. It was warm, much warmer than Jiang Zhong’s.
“Why are your hands so cold?” Xi Qin asked, squeezing Jiang Zhong’s hand and then placing it in his own coat pocket.
It turned out that Xi Qin’s hand wasn’t hot, Jiang Zhong’s hand was cold. Xi Qin was holding the hand Jiang Zhong had just used to adjust his hat.
Xi Qin’s coat pocket was warm, but why was he putting his hand in Xi Qin’s pocket? He had pockets of his own.
It felt strange to be holding hands this way.
Jiang Zhong wanted to pull his hand out of Xi Qin’s pocket, but Xi Qin immediately held it in place.
“Don’t move,” Xi Qin said.
Then Xi Qin put his own hand in the pocket, tightly enveloping Jiang Zhong’s hand.
Well… actually, it wasn’t strange at all.