Jiang Tingnan took one bite and stopped, pushing it back to Ruan Yan. “You should eat more fruit.”
He pressed a hand to the mattress again. “Baby, sit down and see whether it’s soft enough, whether we need another quilt on it.”
Ruan Yan pouted. “You’ve already put yours on my bed. Are you going to sleep on bare boards?”
Jiang Tingnan drew him down to sit. “I can sleep on anything.”
With the bed made, Jiang Tingnan dug a bed curtain out of his bag and hung it up with brisk efficiency.
Ruan Yan was astonished. “When did you buy that? What do you need it for?”
“I bought it a while back.”
Jiang Tingnan kept it brief. “From now on, draw the curtain when you change, or go and change in the bathroom.”
Ruan Yan, “……”
He wanted to laugh. “Nobody else does that.”
Jiang Tingnan glanced back at him, assuming Ruan Yan found it a nuisance, and coaxed him in a low voice. “It’s only for this one month, good baby.”
Ruan Yan asked deliberately, “Everyone here is a man, what is there to worry about?”
Jiang Tingnan said nothing more, taking Ruan Yan’s hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss.
With the bedding sorted, Jiang Tingnan even opened the suitcase and folded every garment in it into neat squares before setting them in the cupboard.
The roommate’s expression grew steadily more vacant.
He’d probably taken the “child bridegroom” line for the truth.
It was a four person dormitory, and the roommate whose bed stood nearest the door was the last to arrive. As he came in, Jiang Tingnan was folding clothes for Ruan Yan, and Ruan Yan leaned over to kiss his chin.
The new roommate saw it.
He looked the two of them up and down, his gaze coming to rest on the sneakers on Jiang Tingnan’s feet, their uppers coming unglued.
A flicker of contempt crossed his eyes.
A pauper, and gay as well.
Fortunately Ruan Yan didn’t catch that look, or he’d certainly have bristled and flown at the man on the spot.
It was nearly noon, and Ruan Yan towed Jiang Tingnan off to the canteen to eat.
Jiang Tingnan had handled every formality for him and was now introducing them one by one. “This is your meal card, I’ve topped it up. This is your water card, be careful when fetching hot water, don’t scald yourself. The dormitory key is in the inner pocket……”
“Stop, stop, stop.”
Ruan Yan moved the chicken leg from his plate into Jiang Tingnan’s. “Do you actually want to be my father?”
Without so much as a flicker, Jiang Tingnan moved it straight back. “Call me every morning and every night. Answer my texts. When your timetable comes out, remember to send me a copy.”
Between the two of them going back and forth, that chicken leg was fanned into catching a cold.
Ruan Yan huffed. “Fine, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll even tell you what position I sleep in each night, will that do.”
Jiang Tingnan had clearly misunderstood. He frowned and said in a low voice, “Baby, too often isn’t good for you. You’re still young, what if you wear your health out?”
The more he thought about it the graver the matter grew. Ruan Yan’s nature was all play and mischief, and without him there to keep an eye on things, what if he really did overdo it and do himself harm.
Jiang Tingnan said seriously, “Baby, only once a week, all right? Don’t lie to me. I’ll be calling to check.”
Ruan Yan very much wanted to roll his eyes at him.
“Who was talking about that…… and what about you? All you do is lecture me, what about yourself?”
Jiang Tingnan answered with perfect righteousness. “With you not beside me, I don’t want to even once.”
Ruan Yan smiled coldly. “Fine. You said it, remember.”
They ate a hurried meal and then Jiang Tingnan had to go, still needing to register at his own school. Ruan Yan wanted to go along, but Jiang Tingnan stopped him.
“You’ve been running around all morning, you must be tired. Go back and rest, get a proper sleep.”
Ruan Yan honestly couldn’t identify which part of him was supposed to be tired, given that Jiang Tingnan had done all the work. But on reflection it followed: so long as he was upright and breathing, Jiang Tingnan considered him to have had a hard day.
After a great deal of wheedling and wearing down, Jiang Tingnan finally agreed to let Ruan Yan walk him to the school gate. It was registration day, with people coming and going and no shortage of cars. But Ruan Yan, without a care in the world, burrowed straight into Jiang Tingnan’s arms and held on, saying softly, “Husband, I miss you already, what am I supposed to do.”
“Other people are mama’s boys. Do you think that makes me a husband’s boy?”
Somehow that came out sounding rather awkward.
Jiang Tingnan would have liked nothing better than to shrink his wife down, tuck him in a pocket and carry him off.
“I miss you too.” Jiang Tingnan kissed the tip of his ear. “Be good, baby.”
Ruan Yan really didn’t want to go to this university anymore.
Before, Jiang Tingnan had taken him along even on business trips. Neither of them could bear to be apart from the other at all.
Watching the rims of Ruan Yan’s eyes redden, Jiang Tingnan bent and set his forehead against his, his voice hoarse. “Don’t cry, baby. When you cry I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Ruan Yan said in a small voice, “I’ll wait for you. But hurry up. You don’t have to earn all that much money, I can spend less.”
Saying that was nothing short of carving Jiang Tingnan’s heart out.
Jiang Tingnan made no sound and offered no further promises, only pressed a solemn kiss to Ruan Yan’s forehead.
After seeing her husband off, Ruan Yan was like a withered little blade of grass, visibly wilting all over.
When he got back to the dormitory the other three were all there.
This being his second time at university, Ruan Yan knew these roommates inside out. The one by the door was a notorious poser whom Ruan Yan disliked more than anyone. They’d lost contact after graduation. His name was Jia Cheng.
The one Ruan Yan got on with best was Han Qiu in the bed opposite, the one he’d just fed the child bridegroom story to.
The last was a top student who left early and came back late every day. As Ruan Yan recalled, he’d gone on to postgraduate study after graduation and into academia.
“Ruan Yan!”
Han Qiu waved at him warmly. “These are apples I brought from home, they’re especially sweet.”
He’d washed them all and given one to each person.
Jia Cheng tossed his apple in the air, his smile going nowhere near his eyes. “An apple. They sell them downstairs. Was it really worth packing them into a suitcase to bring all this way?”
He lifted his chin. “The chocolate on the table is what I brought back from abroad over the summer. Help yourselves.”
Han Qiu wasn’t quick with words and stood there awkwardly, his face flushing red.
On an ordinary day Ruan Yan wouldn’t have bothered engaging with Jia Cheng, but as it happened he was in a foul mood, and a belly full of temper went straight at him.
He gave a cold laugh, strode over and snatched the apple away. “An apple this good would be wasted on you.”
“And as for your chocolate, that factory stopped production the year before last. So this…… is a fake, isn’t it.”
Ruan Yan’s mouth twisted, and he said it one word at a time. “Poser.”
Jia Cheng shot to his feet, glaring at him. “You’re gay, and you’ve got the nerve to talk about me?”
“Oh? And what’s wrong with being gay?”
Ruan Yan smiled sweetly. “You surely don’t imagine I’d take an interest in you? Rest easy, there’s no chance of it. Someone like you, no man or woman would want you.”
Behind them, Han Qiu was frankly dumbfounded.
Wasn’t this the first day of term? Was the firepower always this heavy?
Ruan Yan’s chin was tipped high, as though he’d have liked to climb onto the table and look down his nostrils at Jia Cheng.
As if.
When he lost his temper, even Jiang Tingnan retreated a good long way.
And here was someone with no regard for his own life, walking straight into it.
Insult you?
It just slipped out.