X asked him.
X had seen him typing back and forth repeatedly yet sending nothing at all!
Ji Wenyu panicked to the point of almost dropping his phone.
However, he quickly realized something was wrong.
This chat box: not only was he guarding it, could X be looking at it too?
Why would X open the chat box with him and yet send no message?
He suddenly had a bold guess.
Could it be that X was just like him, also waiting for a message? Was X waiting for his message?
Could X really like him?
A thin layer of sweat quickly coated Ji Wenyu’s palms.
The message was sent by X first, but he still didn’t know how to reply.
Is looking up how to reply to a crush’s message online a bit ridiculous?
Not wanting the other person’s message to hang for too long, the young man ultimately just thought of a casual reply.
[Little Fish: Got a phone call halfway through typing]
Ji Wenyu, go on and keep putting up a front! If you had replied to this sentence well, you definitely could have flirted with X, but look at what you actually replied with!
Having sent the message, Ji Wenyu regretfully took a large gulp of his iced americano.
Bitter, truly bitter, overly bitter, just as bitter as his mood right now.
Fortunately, X smoothly picked up right after his completely conversation-killing sentence.
[X: Call finished?]
[Little Fish: Mhm mhm]
[X: Voice chat?]
Excited to the point of almost knocking over his coffee, Ji Wenyu frantically rummaged for his headphones.
[Little Fish: Let’s do it]
For an extrovert like him in real life, voice chat provided much more room to maneuver than typing.
With the familiar male broadcast voice changer, X’s voice slowly flowed out from the headphones.
“At the library?”
Ji Wenyu naturally picked up the conversation: “Yeah, came to prepare for the winter camp application, what about you?”
X: “Outside.”
Thinking the other person was also studying in the library, Ji Wenyu only then realized the background on the other side of the headphones sounded somewhat noisy.
Ji Wenyu: “Went out to eat?”
X: “Mhm, already ate, ended up coming along to a KTV.”
KTV? A god-level student like X would actually go to entertainment venues like KTV just like ordinary people?
Ji Wenyu paused.
The amount of information in X’s brief sentences was a bit large.
Tagging along to a KTV, with whom? Guys or girls? One person or a group?
He suddenly felt even more restless.
The young man stood up and walked out to the hallway outside the door.
He wanted to ask who exactly the other person was with, but his throat tightened before he could speak, and Ji Wenyu realized he didn’t seem to have the standing to ask such a question.
He was just an online acquaintance of X, so wouldn’t asking like this seem a bit overstepping?
His pause was noticed by X: “Why did you stop talking?”
Ji Wenyu cleared his throat, his brain spinning fast to find an excuse: “Someone sat across from me just now, so I came out to the hallway. Going downstairs to buy a cup of coffee.”
“I’m in the hallway too,” X said. “The private room is a bit noisy, so I came out to hang out for a bit.”
“You guys… midterms are over, out singing?” the young man tentatively asked.
X: “It’s a project team get-together.”
“Oh…” Rounded off, that could also be considered work. Was X already working on his mentor’s project? He wondered if X, who would be a senior next year, would also enter his mentor’s research group early. “At this hour, are you aiming for an all-nighter?”
Clearly telling himself not to ask too much lest he annoy the other person, Ji Wenyu still couldn’t control himself.
“No all-nighter, heading back soon. Most of the team are girls, not staying out overnight,” X seemed to know what he wanted to ask. “Yan Qiong is here too, and I saw you followed her on Qinghe. Do you know her?”
“Don’t know her,” Ji Wenyu’s denial slipped out instantly. I only followed her because I heard you were very close with her. He naturally couldn’t say the second half of the sentence aloud.
Silence fell into the headphones, and neither side spoke for a long time. Until someone in the private room X walked past started singing Die to Live and even cracked their voice. The sound entered his ears, and Ji Wenyu couldn’t help laughing out, immediately followed by hearing X’s soft chuckle on the other end.
“Not going back to sing?” the young man asked. Someone as outstanding as X should be a core presence in the project team. “Are they waiting for you inside?”
“Not in a rush,” X refused in a relaxed tone. “They all know I’m not very used to this kind of setting.”
Did that mean no one in the private room was waiting for X to return? Ji Wenyu stopped in the dimly lit stairwell and sat down on the steps. Could he also boldly deduce that there was no one very important to X in the private room, which was why that person chose to make a phone call with him outside the room?
“Did you finish buying coffee?” X asked.
Uncertain whether the other person wanted to end the call this way, Ji Wenyu shook his head: “Not yet, too many people lined up downstairs today.”
X: “Drinking coffee at this hour, won’t you have trouble sleeping tonight?”
Ji Wenyu self-deprecatingly said: “I’m not very sensitive to caffeine, so it should be fine. But I basically slept for a day today anyway, so not sleeping at night is normal too.”
X: “So you’re purely treating coffee as a study buddy?”
“Pretty much,” Ji Wenyu couldn’t help smiling.
Chatting idly about random things with X, he realized there was no heating in the stairwell. Since the young man hadn’t worn a coat when he came out, after staying for a while, he started feeling a bit cold.
“Achoo!”
“Didn’t wear a coat downstairs?” X cared.
“Yeah,” Ji Wenyu rubbed his nose. “Forgot.”
X: “If there are too many people, why not just go back.”
The young man blinked, realizing the other person was talking about the coffee shop.
Ji Wenyu: “Alright.”
Not only was he heading back, but since they were out singing, it wouldn’t look good for X to keep lingering outside the private room either.
He lit up his screen to check the time; without realizing it, he and X had already been chatting for over twenty minutes.
Yet he still couldn’t bear to hang up.
“Not buying it anymore, heading back up to sit,” Ji Wenyu said slowly. “Then you go back inside too.”
Twenty-odd minutes of voice chat was actually already quite long, but his previous voice-chat study sessions with X always started at an hour baseline.
X acknowledged: “Alright.”
Neither side mentioned hanging up, yet tacitly neither continued chatting about anything further.
So X… did this count as keeping him company while studying?
Their previous voice chats at least had both parties studying, which could barely count as mutual supervision. But today, only he was working hard in the library.
His gaze drifted to the laptop screen, but Ji Wenyu still couldn’t concentrate.
“Does God X count as specifically supervising me to work hard in the library?”
His heart beat so fast it affected his breathing before he even spoke, yet the young man couldn’t help asking anyway.
He actually wanted to ask if X treated him like this for any reason other than friends and study buddies.
Did X like him too? Ji Wenyu suddenly felt an urgent desire to know the answer.
Perhaps having returned to the private room where speaking wasn’t convenient, X simply gave a brief “Mhm.”
With the other person responding a little less enthusiastically, Ji Wenyu immediately deflated, not daring to push forward another step.
“Then should we hang up first? It’s inconvenient for you in the private room,” he proactively retreated.
“It’s fine, it doesn’t affect anything,” X replied, not minding. “Will it feel noisy through the headphones? If it’s noisy, I’ll mute the microphone, and you can just turn it back on when you look for me.”
Ji Wenyu’s heart rate started soaring again.
“God X,” he took a deep breath, unconsciously clutching the coffee cup beside him. The ice cubes in the iced americano had long since melted entirely, leaving the plastic cup covered in condensed water droplets, soaking wet.
X: “Mhm?”
Ji Wenyu: “I found that having you supervise me actually turns out to be quite efficient. Is this the power of a top student?”
X on the other end let out a low laugh.
Emboldened, Ji Wenyu continued: “If this turns into a habit, what am I going to do if I can’t study by myself later?”
A brief silence hung in the headphones. During those few seconds, the young man felt both expectant and regretful, holding his breath as he waited.
“You can connect every day if you want to,” X deliberated for a moment, saying word by word from the other side of the screen.