Chapter 53
Note: not proofreaded
Returning a kiss? Shi Bufan slightly raised his eyebrows.
After Zhen Yuanbai said this, he also noticed that something was off, but he quickly pretended like nothing happened. He turned around and wanted to leave, but how could Shi Bufan let him leave when he finally caught an opportunity like this? Zhen Yuanbai felt Shi Bufan’s arms around his waist tightening and then he was tugged to the side of the wall. Shi Bufan pressed him against the wall and laughed sinisterly. “I’ll return it 100 times more.”
He didn’t give Zhen Yuanbai the chance to react when he kissed him. Zhen Yuanbai was pressed against the wall and the two’s wrists were nearly touching one another. It seemed like Shi Bufan had been looking forward to this for a while and after he started kissing Zhen Yuanbai, he didn’t want to let him go anymore. Unsure whether it was because of fear or something else, he felt his heart jumping out of his chest. He attempted to push Shi Bufan away, but his hands were restrained and he couldn’t do anything.
Zhen Family and Shi Family’s parents walked out of the door that was not even three meters away. They were chatting by the door and chuckling. This time, if someone hypothetically came out to throw their trash away, they would notice the two young men making out.
Zhen Youxiu was the last one to walk out, but the moment he walked out, he asked, “Where’s my elder brother?”
“He should be going back with Xiao Shi.”
Zhen Youxiu didn’t say anything else, but from his expression, he seemed to resent the fact that Zhen Yuanbai didn’t wait for him.
Zhen Yuanbai started to struggle using his feet and hands, but Shi Bufan ended up kissing him even more harshly. Like a rabbit that was pressured, he harshly bit him on the lips. Under the dim light, Shi Bufan glanced at Zhen Yuanbai’s teary expression and his Adam’s apple bobbed, kissing him on the face again.
Zhen Yuanbai kicked him and Shi Bufan groaned in pain. Zhen Youxiu’s sharp ears picked up the groan and said, “There’s someone over there.”
Before waiting for the parents to react, Zhen Youxiu immediately walked over. Zhen Yuanbai saw Zhen Youxiu’s head peeking out, but suddenly, he didn’t know who grabbed him, but they pushed his head back. “Stop moving back. Let’s go.”
“I think there’s someone there.”
In this villa, the majority were couples on vacation. Maybe someone couldn’t endure the loneliness and decided to find excitement there. Zhen Pingjin was afraid that his underage son might see something he shouldn’t, so he hurriedly tugged him back. “Why would there be anyone out in such cold weather? Let’s hurry back.”
After the taut-faced Zhen Youxiu was pushed away by his parents, Zhen Yuanbai felt silence and finally sighed heavily. While panting, he went to hit Shi Bufan. The latter couldn’t help but grab his hand and landed soft kisses on his clean and white face. “You only kissed me once, but I returned so many times more… you got lucky here.”
“Are, are you shameless?” Shi Bufan kissed Zhen Yuanbai’s tears away and said softly, “Ok, don’t be angry.”
While coaxing, he continued to take advantage. Zhen Yuanbai angrily kicked him again and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “If you continue this, I, I…” He wanted to say he will break up, but thinking about Shi Bufan’s miserable past, he suddenly couldn’t make the words out.
Yet, that person had no idea and continued to tease him. “Will, will do what? Stop stuttering.”
“You’re the one with a stutter!” Zhen Yuanbai said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
He turned around and walked out while Shi Bufan chuckled in a low voice. He caught up and held Zhen Yuanbai’s hands, but the latter shook it off. “Don’t touch me.”
Shi Bufan withdrew his hands and placed it behind his back. His smile slowly faded once he watched Zhen Yuanbai run all the way back to Furong Residence.
Zhen Yuanbai just slammed the door as he walked in when he heard Zhen Youxiu ask, “Why did you only come back now?”
“What does this have to do with you?” Zhen Yuanbai climbed into bed and covered himself under the blankets, being rude to everyone because of the bad mood Shi Bufan put him in.
He laid for a while, but he was still angry. He ended up climbing out of bed and doing an exam before he finally calmed down. He received a message from Shi Bufan on WeChat saying, “Sleep soon.”
Zhen Yuanbai picked up his phone and threw himself on bed, slowly replying, “I know.”
Shi Bufan didn’t answer back and Zhen Yuanbai clutched his phone, lying back down again. He touched his lips and then finally realized something. They were dating.
Zhen Yuanbai randomly scrolled through their chat history and while sighing with feelings, he couldn’t help but laugh. As he scrolled through it, he suddenly saw that Shi Bufan was typing a message. He hurriedly scrolled to the bottom of the chat history and waited about half a minute before receiving Shi Bufan’s message. “What do you want to say to me?”
“…” Zhen Yuanbai replied, “I think you’re the one that wants to tell me something.”
“I saw you typing a message.”
“Well, I also saw you typing a message.”
“…” Shi Bufan leaned against the headboard of the bed and silently laughed for a while.
He sent Zhen Yuanbai a video chat invitation and the latter purposely ignored him for a while before accepting it after he thought it was enough. But the ‘ignoring’ that he planned, in reality, was only a few seconds. God knows why time passed by so slowly right now.
Zhen Yuanbai saw his face in the video and that Shi Bufan was leaning against the headboard of the bed. He appeared to be extremely handsome. In his memory, whenever Shi Bufan was video chatting with him, he always leaned against the headboard. Meanwhile, he laid in bed. Then, he realized that his face seemed to be turning bigger within the camera, so he hurriedly covered the webcam and sat up straight. Then he revealed his face again and sighed. He looked pretty handsome from this angle.
Shi Bufan didn’t know Zhen Yuanbai’s thoughts. Seeing that he sat up, Shi Bufan was a bit disappointed. Whenever Zhen Yuanbai laid on bed without a care for his image and video chatted with him, Shi Bufan felt as if the two were living together.
“Why aren’t you laying down?”
“Then why aren’t you laying down?”
Shi Bufan laughed and asked, “What’s the matter with you today? Why do you keep answering a question with a question?”
Zhen Yuanbai said, “You’re not laying down, so why should I?”
“I don’t like laying down.” Shi Bufan said, “When given the option to lay down, don’t you always do that?”
Zhen Yuanbai didn’t know whether he was saying the truth or not, so he casually made up a lie. “I have decided to exercise starting tomorrow.”
“You’re going to start jogging tomorrow?” Shi Bufan suddenly paid attention. He was just wondering under what excuse he was going to give to invite Zhen Yuanbai out while they were on winter break. “Let’s jog together this winter. The two of us.”
“Jog? Why jog?” Whenever it was winter, Zhen Yuanbai wanted to stay in bed the entire day. He panicked for a second before he said in a proper manner. “We live so far apart from each other. How are we going to run together?”
“Jog towards me and I’ll jog towards you. We’ll meet one another soon enough.”
“It’s too far.”
“You can run halfway and I’ll run the whole way.” Shi Bufan said, “After we meet up, I’ll jog and bring you home. Then I’ll jog home. How does that sound?”
Is the main point jogging? The main point was he couldn’t get up that early, ok? Zhen Yuanbai pursed his lips and said, “No.”
“Lazy.” Shi Bufan leaned back as Zhen Yuanbai humphed, saying, “Don’t run away this winter break. Do your homework and do some practice exams as well. Since you have good grades in the past, it means that you’re not stupid. If you study well, you’ll definitely get better grades.”
“Didn’t I tell you that she was lying?”
Zhen Yuanbai knew that he didn’t want to mention this, so he said, “Do you think that you’re very stupid? You can’t even score second.”
“I’m obviously not as smart as you.”
“If you can’t score second, I won’t be with you…” Zhen Yuanbai’s voice suddenly turned lighter and he said, “My parents allowed me to play with you because your grades got better. If you continued to skip classes or fight… just continue to back out of your words.”
Shi Bufan could tell that Zhen Yuanbai seemed to be disappointed with him and he didn’t feel good about himself either. “I didn’t back out of my words. I haven’t smoked, skipped classes, or fought for a very long time. It’s the truth.”
“After all, what you said when you lost your memory are all fake.”
“It’s all true. I promise.”
“Then let’s go to the library during our winter break. I’ll continue to tutor you.”
The library is fine too… Shi Bufan reluctantly said, “Ok.”
Zhen Yuanbai thought that Shi Bufan was passionate about learning as well. He believed in Ling Xuan’s words, but Shi Bufan didn’t talk about a lot of things, so he couldn’t ask about it. He was scared of ripping his wounds.
Thankfully, Shi Bufan kept his words and went to the library with him every day. Zhen Yuanbai did his best to instruct him. The only bad part was that Zhen Youxiu wanted to follow along. Towards this, Zhen Yuanbai didn’t object since he had a deep impression of when Zhen Youxiu had asked him ‘do you like him or not?’ He was a bit worried of him speaking nonsense to their parents.
But Shi Bufan, on the other hand, didn’t like it. He came to the library to enjoy time with Zhen Yuanbai, but with Zhen Youxiu, the lightbulb here, he couldn’t hold hands, let alone kiss Zhen Yuanbai. When it was time, the two brothers went home together, making Shi Bufan unhappy.
When Shi Bufan laid in bed and video chatted with Zhen Yuanbai, he purposely said, “I’m not going tomorrow.”
Zhen Yuanbai thought that he was tired, so he said, “Ok. It’s going to be New Year’s in a few days, so you can take the time to rest.”
“I don’t want to rest.”
He was clearly throwing a tantrum, so Zhen Yuanbai had no choice but to say, “Then what do you want to do?”
Shi Bufan’s face was zoomed in and he said, “I want to see you, kiss you, hug you, touch you, and…”
“Shut up.” Zhen Yuanbai’s face reddened helplessly and he held his phone far away, saying, “I’m going to hang up.”
“Don’t, don’t.” Shi Bufan’s face was zoomed out and he looked outside, saying, “It seems to be snowing again.”
“Mhm. Tomorrow will definitely be very cold.” Zhen Yuanbai said, “Then starting tomorrow, I’ll give you a break. We can talk about it after New Years.”
Shi Bufan glanced at the face on the screen and poked it. The screen was rough, so he started to be improper. “I want to go and find you.”
“Why?”
“I want to see you.”
“Aren’t you seeing me right now?”
“It’s different.” Shi Bufan seemed to have made up his mind and he said, “I’m going to find you now.”
Before Zhen Yuanbai could reject it, the video chat was hung up. It was 8pm on the clock and it was dark and cold during the winter nights. The snow gradually became stronger and Zhen Yuanbai pulled open his window to look out. He looked down and made a message, “Don’t come. The snow is becoming stronger.”
Shi Bufan didn’t reply.
No one picked up when Zhen Yuanbai called and his reason told him that Shi Bufan probably won’t come over. However, in his heart, he believed that Shi Bufan would definitely come over. This gut feeling was too intense. Zhen Yuanbai laid down and rolled over, calling again, but it hung up. He rolled over and wore his coat, walking out. Zhen Pingjin also walked out, saying, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the convenience store to buy some food.”
Zhen Pingjin was a bit surprised and said, “Well, buy me two packs of cigarettes while you’re at it.”
Zhen Yuanbai obediently grabbed the money, but he heard Qin Ying said unhappily, “Why are you buying cigarettes again? If you’re going to smoke, go sleep at the balcony.”
“It’s going to be New Year’s soon and I’m quite busy these days… ok, I promise I won’t smoke second-handed cigarettes.”
The door was closed and his parent’s voices weakened. Zhen Yuanbai wore his hat and walked out of the neighborhood. As expected, the snow was getting stronger. Right now, the ground was covered in white. While walking, Zhen Yuanbai looked around, but didn’t find Shi Bufan’s figure. Therefore, he walked straight into the convenience store.
Because he said he was going to buy some food, Zhen Yuanbai walked towards the snacks section and glanced at the food, picking out some biscuits and beef jerkys that Youxiu liked. While he was at it, he also grabbed two pounds of cake. Once he was done, he called Shi Bufan. This time, the call went through and Shi Bufan rolled his eyes, saying, “You’re here?”
“What? Do you want to see me?”
“I knew you didn’t come. Humph.”
“I’m obviously teasing you. Who wants to look for you under such cold weather?”
“Liar.” Zhen Yuanbai hung up and felt as if he must be a fool to wait for him under such a cold night. He paid the money and wore his hat, walking out of the door and prepared to sprint back to his neighborhood.
Although his clothes weren’t soaked by the snow, the chill pierced his bones as he felt the snow dropping on his face.
Suddenly, Zhen Yuanbai stopped. Standing by the convenience store, he looked towards the other side of the road. There was a figure wearing a white coat under the tree and he seemed to be chewing on something, shoving their hands into their pockets and gazing quietly at the neighborhood.
Zhen Yuanbai reached over and scratched his face, blinking his eyes.
If he didn’t come out, he would’ve thought that Shi Bufan didn’t come over. Right now, he would’ve been asleep. Thinking of this, Zhen Yuanbai suddenly got angry. He grabbed his things and walked over angrily, saying, “Hey!”
Shi Bufan stood up straight and turned around to look. His pitch-black and deep eyes suddenly lit up like stars in the sky. He took out the candy from his mouth and said, “Why did you come out?”
“I came out to buy cigarettes for my father.” Zhen Yuanbai said, “Didn’t you say you’re not coming? Why are you standing here?”
“Nothing.” Shi Bufan curled his lips up and his eyes were obviously smiling. Zhen Yuanbai didn’t like how proud he was acting, so he turned around and wanted to walk off when he heard noises behind him. “It’s so cold in winter…”
He extended his arms and revealed the warm woolen sweater under his coat. “Kind classmate, can I hug you?”