In that fleeting turn of thought, Mu Xinghai found himself developing a trace of interest in Ruan Chen.
He found it amusing.
Because Ruan Chen seemed to believe he was hiding himself well. His ears were clearly flushed red yet he still forced himself to act as though nothing were wrong, calling Mu Xinghai over and when he spoke, he was so shy that he could not even meet his gaze.
Mu Xinghai noticed his lowered lashes. Behind the lenses of his glasses, Ruan Chen’s eyelashes were long and thick, the tips so extended that they brushed against the glass. They were uneven, slightly messy.
“Student, could you help me carry these books?” Ruan Chen said, staring at the floor.
“Sure,” Mu Xinghai replied readily, while openly staring at the side of Ruan Chen’s face.
Ruan Chen must have noticed the direction of his gaze. The flush spreading from the roots of his ears deepened, blooming outward until even the places his eyes touched seemed to be stained with red.
He did not dare look at Mu Xinghai yet every part of him was acutely aware of Mu Xinghai’s movements.
Suddenly, Mu Xinghai reached out his hand.
The instant his cheek was touched, Ruan Chen jerked back as though pricked by a tiny electric current. He glanced at Mu Xinghai in alarm, almost as if he had been molested.
Mu Xinghai held up his finger, where a fallen eyelash rested and showed it to him. “Professor Ruan, one of your eyelashes fell. I was just picking it off for you. Your eyelashes are too long.”
Ruan Chen pushed his glasses up awkwardly. “Thank you.”
Mu Xinghai helped him carry the books.
Ruan Chen took half of them himself. He looked thin, his clothes hanging loosely on his frame yet he did not appear to be struggling under the weight.
All along the way, Ruan Chen made a visible effort to keep the conversation going. “You attend class very diligently. You’re almost always there but you shouldn’t keep signing in for other people. It’s obvious at a glance. I might not mind but if it were another instructor, you could get punished along with them.”
“Alright. Thank you for the reminder, Professor,” Mu Xinghai replied.
Ruan Chen added, “I feel like I see you at all sorts of events.”
Mu Xinghai gave a soft “Mm.” “I’m helping prepare for the university anniversary celebration. The department arranged for me to play the piano. Will you come watch me perform, Professor?”
Ruan Chen’s words lost their thread. He fell silent.
After a while, they reached the office. Mu Xinghai was about to leave when Ruan Chen gathered his courage once more. “My surname is Ruan… Could I get to know you properly, I mean… could you tell me your name?”
Seeing that he had to summon every ounce of courage just to say that he wanted to know him and that he was stammering so badly, Mu Xinghai found him unexpectedly adorable. Still, he could not resist teasing him. “Professor, you call attendance every day. You don’t know my name?”
“Ah? Ah! Y…. yes, that’s right,” Ruan Chen stuttered. His gaze froze for a second, as though his mind had short circuited. He lowered his head quickly. “Sorry.”
“What’s there to apologize for?” Mu Xinghai said. “Why are you apologizing to me? If you want to get to know me, you can just say so.”
He kept calling him “Professor.”
Ruan Chen felt unbearably awkward. He could not listen any longer. “Student, don’t call me ‘Professor.’ I’m only substituting. That hardly counts. If you must call me something, just call me ‘Senior Brother.’”
“Don’t be fooled by how old I look. I’m still a student too. I’m doing my PhD.”
“I know,” Mu Xinghai said. “Ruan Chen, Senior Brother Ruan.”
Ruan Chen lifted his head in surprise and looked at him. For a fleeting moment, their eyes met and it felt as though his gaze had been caught and held by Mu Xinghai’s, unable to move away.
Mu Xinghai let out a soft, amused laugh. “Senior Brother Ruan, I remember you. I don’t know why you’re pretending not to know me. We’ve met at gatherings twice already, haven’t we?”
Ruan Chen pressed his lips together tightly. He tugged at the hem of his trousers, embarrassed. “I thought you wouldn’t remember me. You have so many friends.”
He knew his own insignificance. In life, he was often a transparent presence. There were people who had met him several times and still could not remember his name.
He had firmly believed that someone as radiant as Mu Xinghai could not possibly remember him. Their previous encounters had been hurried and superficial. That was why he had wanted to find another opportunity, one where they could formally introduce themselves to each other.
Without blinking, Mu Xinghai lied, “I remember you. You have beautiful eyes.”
Even though he had only just noticed them today.
He even praised his eyes.
Ruan Chen’s face turned an even deeper shade of red, an explosive crimson.
That single compliment felt as though it carried all the weight he had ever received in his life.
Mu Xinghai continued, “We were already friends. You don’t need to reintroduce yourself to me. Didn’t we add each other already? And you were the one who sent the friend request. If you want to talk, just message me on WeChat.”
He studied Ruan Chen’s face. The light freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose and cheeks were not many but up close they added an extra touch of timidity.
Ruan Chen made a small sound, perhaps “oh,” perhaps “mm.”
It was too soft. A fragile, gentle murmur.
Mu Xinghai did not catch it. Even though Ruan Chen had not spoken clearly, he somehow read the meaning from the downturned corners of his lips, as if they were saying: I don’t dare. What if I message you and you don’t even know who I am and delete me?
For an introverted person, that would indeed be terrifying.
Ruan Chen’s lips moved again. At last, he spoke.
A few beats too late, he said, “It was three times.”
Mu Xinghai did not react at first. The smooth rhythm he had been controlling was suddenly disrupted. “What three times?”
Ruan Chen said, a little irritated, “We’ve met at gatherings three, three times!”
The dormitory bed was a 1.5m by 2m single bed.
It could fit two adult men but only barely. It was cramped. Ruan Chen slept poorly because of it and he particularly disliked being held by Mu Xinghai while sleeping. Like an overly clingy large dog, Mu Xinghai insisted on pressing his face close, sticking to him.
The alarm rang punctually at 6:50 a.m.
It was a perfectly legitimate excuse to push Mu Xinghai away. Ruan Chen was just about to wriggle out of his arms when he had barely moved before being pulled back in.
Mu Xinghai, whether awake or still half asleep, reached out from behind him, pressed him down slightly, grabbed the phone from the bedside table, turned off the alarm and then tightened his arms around him again, continuing to sleep soundly.
Ruan Chen glared at his handsome sleeping face.
After they had finished last night, Ruan Chen had showered and changed into clean pajamas. Mu Xinghai, shameless as ever, had refused to leave no matter how much he was urged and had gone to sleep in his bed wearing nothing but a pair of underwear. If Ruan Chen had not rushed him, he would have intended to sleep naked.
Mu Xinghai buried his face in the crook of Ruan Chen’s neck and muttered sleepily, “Don’t you not have class today? Let’s sleep a little longer…”
Warm breath sprayed against the skin at the back of his neck, ticklish.
Ruan Chen felt uncomfortable and said politely, “You sleep. I need to get up and write my paper.”
His tone was so cool and distant, as if nothing intimate had happened between them the night before.
Mu Xinghai simply pulled him back and pressed him down.
Ruan Chen struggled weakly for a while, letting out muffled sounds and gradually softened.
Lying beneath him, Ruan Chen saw a beam of golden sunlight slanting through the gap in the curtains. When he moved forward, the light fell across one of Mu Xinghai’s shoulders and chest; when he shifted back, it slid over his back instead.
Too handsome.
Even the beads of sweat shimmered faintly.
Even if he disliked Mu Xinghai, he had to admit that Mu Xinghai was undeniably good looking. Otherwise, how could he have ended up tangled together with him as if under a spell?
Daylight was more embarrassing than night. Everything could be seen too clearly.
Ruan Chen covered his face with his arms.
Mu Xinghai laughed, amused. “Senior Brother, I’ve already seen all of you. Why are you covering your face? What’s there to be shy about?”
Ruan Chen did not want to talk to him. He could not talk. He had to concentrate on enduring, on holding himself together so that no sound escaped his throat, even as he was worn down to the point of tears.
One good thing about Mu Xinghai was that afterward, he would keep holding him, kissing away his tears, instead of simply satisfying himself and leaving.
That was the only thing Ruan Chen liked about him.
So at moments like this, if Mu Xinghai took the opportunity to kiss him, he did not resist.
Mu Xinghai kissed him like a greedy child with a sweet tooth, again and again.
Afterward, perhaps feeling a slight pang of guilt for being too rough, Mu Xinghai said gently, “Senior Brother, whatever movie you want to watch, I’ll watch it with you.”
Bullshit, Ruan Chen thought. Liar. How many times have you tricked me already? You never wanted to watch a movie in the first place.
Mu Xinghai truly wanted to stay but he still had class.
At last, Ruan Chen managed to drive him out.
Reluctant to leave, Mu Xinghai stood at the doorway and turned back to embrace and kiss him once more. He did not let go until there were only ten minutes left before class, finally saying, “I’m going to class, Senior Brother.”
Ruan Chen frowned. “Hurry up and go. Don’t be late.”
Mu Xinghai really did leave.
And just like that, the room suddenly felt much emptier. It was as if even the temperature had dropped by several degrees, how strange, considering it was nearly noon.
Ruan Chen lifted the blanket. On the sheet lay a crumpled, slightly dirty large towel.
He had prepared it deliberately. If he spread it underneath, he would not have to wash the bedsheets every single time. There had been a period when he washed them so often he ended up having to buy new ones.
For someone who wished he could split fifty cents into two halves to spend, that had nearly pained him to death.
Ruan Chen took the large towel to wash it.
Halfway through, his phone chimed with a notification. Very few people ever looked for him. Mu Xinghai had just left, so it could only be one other person.
Mu Xinghai’s ex girlfriend, Jiang Tingting.
His junior from the same department.
Jiang Tingting: “Senior Brother, have you finished revising my paper?”
Ruan Chen wiped his hands and replied: “Not yet. Can I give it to you tomorrow?”
Jiang Tingting: “Okay~ It’s not urgent. Anytime before the day after tomorrow is fine.”
Jiang Tingting was his little goddess.
Over the past two years, he had written many of her assignments for her, without a single complaint.
He quickly finished washing the towel and hung it out to dry, then hurried back to continue writing Jiang Tingting’s paper.
At that moment, Mu Xinghai sent a message as well: “Senior Brother, can I come see you tonight?”
Ruan Chen replied: “No. If it’s this frequent, people will notice.”
Two minutes later, Mu Xinghai answered: “Then I’ll wait for you to come find me when you’re free. Senior Brother, could you not wait over a week like this time? Maybe shorten the interval a little? I really miss you.”
The way Mu Xinghai said it made it sound as though he were hopelessly infatuated, as if he would come whenever called and leave whenever dismissed.
Strangely, it felt almost the same as the way Jiang Tingting treated him.
After replying to Mu Xinghai, Ruan Chen returned to Jiang Tingting’s paper but as he thought about the fact that he had slept with her ex boyfriend, an overwhelming and complicated sense of guilt filled his heart.
He sighed.
He could not continue writing.
Ruan Chen opened his diary and flipped to a blank page.
He picked up a dip pen and dipped it into deep black ink.
With a sudden impulse, he began to transcribe from memory Kahlil Gibran’s “I Have Learned Silence from the Talkative,” no, that was not it. He wrote instead:
I have despised my soul seven times:
The first time, when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time, when she was lame and feigned a limp before the crippled.
The third time, when she was given the choice between the hard and the easy and she chose the easy.
The fourth time, when she committed a wrong and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time, when she forbore for weakness and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time, when she despised the ugliness of a face and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
The seventh time, when she sang a song of praise and deemed it a virtue.
He wrote it in one breath.
He had committed several of those errors and was, at this very moment, committing the second.
The pen tip hovered over the lines.
“When it was empty, it used love and desire to fill itself… used love and desire to fill itself.”
Ruan Chen found himself repeating the phrase softly, drifting into a daze. He thought of Mu Xinghai in those reckless moments, the rolling movement of his throat, the beads of sweat along his jaw, the young body brimming with masculine vitality.
He could not deny that he was captivated.
Would anyone else be captivated in his place? The thought filled him with unbearable shame. He truly was a person with no self control.
Lost in his thoughts, a drop of thick black ink fell onto the two characters for “love and desire,” bleeding deeply into the paper.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(╯°□°）╯︵ ☕ — deploy caffeine!
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · Rear WindowChapter 2 · Kahlil Gibran, “I Have Spit My Soul Seven Times”Chapter 3 · His ToyChapter 4 · Star GazingChapter 5 · Just a dreamChapter 6 · ColdChapter 7 · Yearning for LoveChapter 8 · A Good PersonChapter 9 · Such a good boyChapter 10 · Delivered to your doorChapter 11 · Not familiar with itChapter 12 · First loveChapter 13 · Giving giftsChapter 14 · HeartstringsChapter 15 · Chinese New YearChapter 16 · TruthChapter 17 · SeparateChapter 18 · Planting minesChapter 19 · ChoiceChapter 20 · More hereChapter 21 · Could things have gotten any worse?Chapter 22 · Not because you like me?Chapter 23 · Not because you like me?Chapter 24 · It’s a tangled mess, impossible to unravelChapter 25 · The truth has been revealedChapter 26 · Extra: 1Chapter 27 · Extra: 2Chapter 28 · Extra: 3Chapter 29 · Extra: 4Chapter 30 · Extra: 5Chapter 31 · Extra: 6Chapter 32 · Extra: 7