He liked Xu Yuanzhe.
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“Online Dating Partner Is My Roommate” by Feng Su
“Beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep!”
The shrill ringing of an alarm clock pierced the quietness of the dormant dormitory.
The balcony curtains were not pulled all the way shut, allowing dazzling sunlight to stream through the gap. The boy in the bed near the window frowned in agony, raising a hand in an attempt to block the unwelcome beam.
A minute later, the alarm rang once more.
“Beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep!”
Ji Wenyu dismissed the alarm with his eyes closed.
“Today is Tuesday. The early class is Machine Learning! Whose turn is it this week?”
As his brain slowly booted up, the boy rolled over to dodge the light cutting through the curtains, raising his voice to rouse his remaining roommates who had yet to wake up.
A university life without skipping a single class was incomplete. This was especially true for an ungodly, torturous early-morning major course like this one.
Three weeks into the semester, out of the four people in the dormitory, only two had ever seen what the instructor for the Tuesday morning first-period class looked like.
“I pulled an all-nighter playing ranked matches last night, please spare me.” A desolate roar echoed from one side near the door.
“Old Ji, why don’t you go instead? I have classes all day today, it is too agonizing, I need to rest up.” The bed on the other side of the dormitory door chimed in immediately.
His neck burning hot from the sun, Ji Wenyu wore a mournful expression, still refusing to open his eyes. “I do not want to go either.”
“Why don’t we all just skip it? Isn’t one person from the dorm enough? Let Old Xu answer the roll call for us. Old Xu? Xu Yuanzhe?”
“Is Xu Yuanzhe there? Calling Xu Yuanzhe!”
Struggling to sit up, Ji Wenyu looked over at the opposite bed, which was also near the balcony.
The bed was completely empty, and the black canvas backpack usually hanging on the wardrobe underneath had been taken away. Xu Yuanzhe had already gone to class.
Truly, this came as no surprise.
As the undisputed academic genius of Zijing University’s Class of 2023 Artificial Intelligence Department, who consistently topped the grade point average rankings year after year, it would have been a miracle if Xu Yuanzhe was still lying in his dorm bed at seven-forty.
“He already left.” Ji Wenyu let out a resigned, heavy sigh and dragged his body out of bed with utmost reluctance.
Hearing the shuffling of his slippers against the floor, the other two roommates beamed with delight.
“Then once again, thank you for your hard work, little Yu!” “Let us all thank baby Yu together!”
A lightning-fast wash, a bicycle dash to the cafeteria to grab an egg crepe, and a mad sprint to the foot of the Jizhi Building. When Ji Wenyu rushed into Room 302, it was precisely two minutes before eight o’clock.
He mentally called it a close call, but just as the boy was about to let out a sigh of relief, his foot caught on the threshold of the classroom door.
The good news was that, with his nimble reflexes, he did not suffer the embarrassment of falling flat on his face in front of a classroom full of classmates, and his most vital companion for this class, the egg crepe, remained completely intact. The bad news was that he seemed to have sprained his ankle.
Ji Wenyu forced himself to suppress a grimace, putting on an enthusiastic smile as he limped toward the back row of the classroom, nodding and smiling at the familiar faces on either side of the aisle.
He then took a seat in the second-to-last row, shoved his backpack into the desk compartment, and unwrapped his breakfast, which still radiated a charming aroma.
Noticing the female student sitting next to him casting stealthy glances in his direction, Ji Wenyu turned his head and offered a warm smile. “Morning, have you eaten?”
The girl was from the neighboring Class 2302, though he had no idea what her name was. But since they were both sitting in the classroom at this ungodly hour, they were companions in misery.
Ji Wenyu was good-looking, sporting a trendy golden fringe with layered bangs, and possessed delicate, exquisite features that made him stand out strikingly among the unpolished engineering majors.
Seeing him suddenly turn to initiate conversation, the girl froze slightly, her earlobes turning red as she pulled a bag of purple rice bread out of her desk bag.
He had just taken a bite of his egg crepe when the minute hand pointed straight to the hour, and the lecture officially began.
Since the semester had just started, the coursework was still lingering in the realm of basic theoretical knowledge. During the first ten minutes of class, Ji Wenyu leisurely finished his egg crepe. For the remaining seventy minutes, he inevitably began to grow drowsy. It was only during the final ten minutes when the professor took roll call that he snapped back to wakefulness.
Not a wasted trip, not a wasted trip, the boy rubbed his eyes and straightened his posture.
The roll call was randomized, and Room 606 happened to draw only him and Xu Yuanzhe.
After answering the roll call, Ji Wenyu looked in the direction from which Xu Yuanzhe’s voice had come.
Row after row of classmates separated them, but that person was sitting in the front row slightly to the left, holding a black pen as if he had just finished taking notes.
Good, very good. Ji Wenyu secretly smiled, the corners of his eyes curving upward. With Xu Yuanzhe’s notes, he would not have to worry about this course.
Much like the outfit he had casually grabbed and thrown on that morning, Xu Yuanzhe was also wearing a white t-shirt and jeans combination. However, while the clothes Xu Yuanzhe bought were always deliberately oversized and hung loosely on others, Xu Yuanzhe somehow managed to wear a casual t-shirt with meticulous precision, making his entire appearance look exceptionally neat and orderly.
Neat to the point of being somewhat cute.
Ji Wenyu blinked, the corners of his lips curling upward once more.
There was only this single class in the morning. When the professor on stage announced the end of the class, the students filed out in a steady stream, and Ji Wenyu picked up his backpack, ready to head back to the dorm for a nap.
The moment he stood up, a piercing pain flared sharply across the outer side of his left ankle, causing the boy to sharply intake a breath as he finally remembered that he had twisted his foot before class.
His exposed ankle was faintly stained a patch of red and seemed a bit swollen. Glancing down at it, Ji Wenyu felt his heart sink halfway.
His pace in exiting the classroom slowed to a crawl. He stood in place, tentatively trying to rotate his ankle, only to be reined in by the pain each time. By the time only a scattering of students remained in the classroom, the boy limped his way from the back row to the doorway.
At this rate, riding a bicycle back to the dorm was out of the question, but external vehicles were barred from entering the Zijing University campus, leaving him no choice but to walk back. Moving at the speed of someone with only a single functioning foot, he might not even make it back to the dorm before lunch time without a single minute left to sleep.
Just as he was fretting, Ji Wenyu suddenly sensed someone halting beside him.
The boy raised his head, unexpectedly locking eyes with his roommate’s sharply chiseled, handsome face.
Carrying his backpack over one shoulder, Xu Yuanzhe looked down at him expressionlessly. “Going back to the dorm?”
This marked the very first time in over two years of living in the same dormitory that Xu Yuanzhe had ever taken the initiative to speak to him.
Before his brain could process it, Ji Wenyu’s body nodded honestly on its own.
What did the campus academic prodigy mean by asking him this? Could he be planning to head back to the dorm together? At this hour, Xu Yuanzhe was normally either attending class or studying independently in the library. He and the other two roommates rarely ever saw Xu Yuanzhe in the dormitory during daylight hours.
Only in the face of Xu Yuanzhe would the socially fearless Ji Wenyu’s face reveal a trace of flustered helplessness.
Even while hesitation lingered in his mind, his feet were already walking alongside Xu Yuanzhe toward the elevator lobby in the hallway.
The teaching building’s elevators were small and agonizingly slow. Naturally, students in a rush for class usually took the stairs, let alone when heading down. But with Ji Wenyu’s injured foot making even walking across flat ground a chore, taking the stairs was out of the question. Perhaps because Xu Yuanzhe had already greeted him, he felt it would be impolite to leave first, so he simply stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him by the elevator to wait.
Stepping out of the elevator through the side door of the Jizhi Building led straight to the bicycle parking area.
Watching Xu Yuanzhe stride over to his bicycle on long legs, Ji Wenyu cast a wistful glance at the man’s lavender professional road bike. He could not ride it; he simply could not ride it at all. While missing out on the chance to cycle back to the dorm with Xu Yuanzhe was a pity, he had no desire to scramble onto the saddle only to crash face-first into the dirt alongside the bike due to his uncooperative left foot.
“I will walk back.” Squinting against the dazzling glare of the sun, the boy narrowed his eyes.
Before the word “bye” could leave his lips, Ji Wenyu saw the other boy wheel the bike right in front of him and stop, using a glance to signal the empty seat behind him.
“Going together?” Xu Yuanzhe gave him a look.
Huh? Was that what he thought it meant? Ji Wenyu widened his eyes in astonishment, frozen in place for a long moment without daring to move.
Seeing that he had not climbed on, Xu Yuanzhe raised a finger this time to point toward the back seat, issuing a command: “Get on.”
“Yes, sir!” Ji Wenyu curved his lips upward and hurried forward.
The bicycle’s rear seat lacked any handles to grip onto. Staring at Xu Yuanzhe’s back for a few hesitant seconds, the boy cautiously reached out a hand to grab the hem of the other’s shirt.
“Hold on tight.” Straddling the ground with one long leg, Xu Yuanzhe spoke in a flat tone.
“Oh.” Ji Wenyu acknowledged with a soft sound, stuck out the tip of his tongue, and changed his grip to grasp the fabric around the man’s waist with both hands.
He still did not dare wrap his arms directly around Xu Yuanzhe’s waist because Ji Wenyu harbored a guilty secret.
Before entering university, he had never experienced the sensation of liking someone, especially when the other person happened to be of the same sex.
That was until the very first day of freshman orientation when he caught his first glimpse of Xu Yuanzhe. A sudden, unexpected sinking sensation had gripped his heart, and a voice inside told Ji Wenyu that he was completely done for.
Unaware of whether Xu Yuanzhe was straight or gay, he could only bury his affection in secret, terrified of letting the other person detect this unusual sentiment of his. And so, he hid it away, keeping it concealed for two whole years.
To swerve around a pedestrian at an intersection, the bicycle executed a sudden, sharp brake. Failing to fight against inertia, Ji Wenyu bumped his forehead straight into Xu Yuanzhe’s back.
“Ow.”
Warm body heat radiated through the thin cotton fabric, cushioning the impact of the collision.
Ji Wenyu let out a soft exclamation, a wave of scalding heat washing over his face just as he locked eyes with Xu Yuanzhe, who had turned his head to check on him.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine, I am fine.” The boy hurried to reply. Raising one hand to cover his forehead, he used the gesture to mask his unnatural blush, hoping the other person would not notice anything amiss.
Fortunately, Xu Yuanzhe quickly turned his head back. A few minutes later, the bicycle came to a halt right beneath the dormitory building.
“We are here.” Xu Yuanzhe kept his long legs braced against the ground, showing no intention of getting off. Pulling out his phone to check a message, he seemed to have other arrangements for the moment. “I am not heading up yet.”
“Ah, right.” Ji Wenyu carefully dismounted using his right leg as support, rubbing his nose. “Then I am heading up, thanks a lot.”
The boy let out an affirmative sound, pivoted the handlebars, and the bicycle quickly vanished down the end of the tree-lined path.