Talon gripped Cen Jin’s finger to keep him from pulling it back, then dragged that slender finger across the air until it pressed firmly against his own chest. “Oh, so it’s me after all.”
The hand was searingly hot where he was held, his fingertip forced to jab against Talon’s chest with a heavy shove.
Cen Jin hadn’t expected this fellow to be not only utterly lacking in manners, but also remarkably thick-skinned.
Cen Jin’s face flushed red, his expression shifting into one of sheer shock.
He soon realized that Talon was simply giving him a way out, which made him look at Talon in a slightly different light.
Does that make you think he’s a good person?
So gullible.
‘Of course not.’
Cen Jin muttered under his breath; he didn’t like being thought of as simple-minded.
This group of ordinarily unruly boys reined themselves in slightly once Cen Jin joined them, keeping their voices subdued and their movements restrained while playing dice.
They even claimed that since Cen Jin was a student, they should play with a more refined approach.
Cen Jin had a fair idea that they were doing this to accommodate him, so he offered no objections, hugging his schoolbag and leaving everything to the group’s arrangements.
“Let’s play Truth or Dare, how about that?”
“Xiaojin?”
Only then did Cen Jin realize they were addressing him.
He raised his head to meet several pairs of eyes staring straight at him.
“Come on, play Truth or Dare with us.” Talon leaned in close, his voice by no means quiet, yet he spoke as if terrified Cen Jin wouldn’t hear him, his nose practically brushing against the soft flesh of Cen Jin’s cheek.
Cen Jin blocked Talon’s face, pushing him away before letting out a soft, breathy “Mn.”
A moment later, noticing no one responded, he assumed he had spoken too quietly and repeated himself.
It was then that Cen Jin felt a strange sensation against his palm as he pushed Talon away. Even the people sitting around the table glanced toward his side.
A puff of warm air brushed across his palm, tickling the skin.
Talon was sniffing his hand.
Cen Jin abruptly pulled his hand back, tucking it away between his torso and his schoolbag.
You shouldn’t act so easy to bully; you need to be a bit more wicked.
‘I am not easy to bully.’
Cen Jin hated hearing the voice in his head describe him that way.
Truth or Dare was a game with both a remarkably high ceiling and a remarkably low floor; play it poorly and it became agonizingly dull, but play it well.
“I lost again.” Cen Jin stared gloomily at his six ones, speaking in a muffled, sullen tone.
They had adopted a very straightforward ruleset: comparing high and low rolls, the person who rolled the lowest score had to choose between Truth or Dare, with the question or penalty issued by whoever rolled the highest.
Earlier, Cen Jin had continuously rolled the lowest score, while the person rolling the highest score changed every single time. It made him suspect that his dice might actually be rigged.
With that thought in mind, he even picked one up and inspected it closely in his hand.
Hmm, nothing seemed wrong with it.
His little routine amused the surrounding young men, who chuckled and remarked:
“Why is Xiaojin’s luck so terrible?”
“Did you deliberately lose to us?”
“You’ve chosen Truth every single time. Could it be the same this time too?”
Cen Jin had no idea why these people had suddenly started calling him Xiaojin; he wasn’t used to it and found it rather grating.
Moreover, these people kept teasing him in that particular tone.
Putting on a stern face, Cen Jin looked at them earnestly and said, “Don’t call me Xiaojin.”
“Haha, alright, Xiaojin.”
“Whatever Xiaojin wants.”
“Then should I call you baby?”
“How about Cenchen?”
“Xiaojin-baobei?”
They were deliberately messing with him.
Cen Jin curled his lip and ignored them altogether.
Wei Xin pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, his gaze shrouded in shadow as he kept his eyes locked on the scantily clad boy.
Because he had sunk deep into the plush sofa, his legs were lifted slightly by the compressed cushions, his toes tapping rhythmically. When those maliciously-minded boys teased him, he didn’t retort; he simply wore a displeased expression, clutching his schoolbag as he sat quietly, his toes occasionally brushing against one another.
He wouldn’t even let people use a nickname.
And now he was sulking.
What a massive temper.
If he got this angry over just that, what would happen if he were pinned down and bullied on the sofa by a bunch of intoxicated guys without the ability to fight back? He’d probably burst into tears.
And while crying, his little mouth would likely still be cursing people out without mercy.
No, then again, he might just bite his lip in silence and start throwing punches.
Much like a kitten scratching someone it only hurt a tiny bit, but it did a remarkably effective job of provoking an even stronger desire to tease and torment him.
Wei Xin’s inner nature was far more malicious than anyone else’s, yet he managed to project an image of pure, lofty detachment.
Sitting off to the side with lowered eyes, pretending to mindlessly tap at his phone screen while actually swiping back and forth across the home page, his mind was long gone from the device.
The person who rolled the highest score this round was Talon. This was his very first time posing a question, as the guys before him had asked utterly brain-dead questions.
Things like where do you live, how old are you, which school do you go to, do you like your mom or your dad more at home, and besides Talon, whom do you like most as a boyfriend?
Talon wouldn’t ask anything so tedious.
“How many moles do you have on your body in total?”
The moment Talon’s words dropped, the booth fell dead silent for a split second.
Cen Jin froze as well.
What kind of question was that?
He instinctively reached up to touch his chin, but before his fingers brushed his face, his wrist was caught in Talon’s grip.
His wrist could be completely encircled by a single hand—slender, though not entirely skin and bones. Gripped tightly enough, one could even feel the soft, yielding flesh pressing outward.
Talon gave it a gentle squeeze, then leaned in close right toward Cen Jin. The scent of alcohol and body heat enveloped him, making it slightly difficult for Cen Jin to breathe.
“Don’t block it, let me see,” Talon murmured, his voice slightly unsteady.
Their breaths intertwined, and Cen Jin’s nose brushed against Talon’s hair.
From a straight-on angle, it looked as though Talon was leaning over Cen Jin to kiss him.
Cen Jin felt Talon’s thumb brush against the right side of his jaw, sending a ticklish shiver through his skin.
Trying to push him away, Cen Jin shoved at Talon’s shoulder.
“I found it, there’s one right here.”
“So tiny, so faint, you wouldn’t even notice it if you didn’t look close.”
“Just like Xiaojin.”
Cen Jin’s mouth twitched. What did having a mole have to do with being like him? Such a bizarre description.
He had been born with this mole, which finally made him realize that this was his actual body rather than an avatar transmigrated into someone else.
“What about other places?”
Talon had already straightened up, returning to a safe social distance.
Cen Jin looked at him in bewilderment.
“Are there any other small moles? Hmm?” Talon asked with a smile. “Hidden under your clothes, places we can’t see? Like your tummy, your thighs, or inside your socks?”
“None,” Cen Jin said coldly.
With a sharp slap, he batted away the hand resting on his thigh, the sound ringing out clearly through the booth.
Talon rubbed his hand where the skin had been reddened from the friction, his expression flushed with an unnatural warmth, looking rather excited.
Cen Jin assumed he had hurt the man, though he distinctly remembered not using that much force.
Cen Jin lost again, rolling six ones for the second consecutive time.
With a stony expression, he grew virtually certain that these people must have rigged his dice.
‘I feel like they’re the villains here; they’re all so bad, and they won’t even play the game properly.’
Then you just need to be more wicked than them.
With the air of someone making a resolute decision, Cen Jin piped up in a crisp, bright voice, “You guys cheated.”
The person with the highest score this time was Mann. Far from being annoyed, he met Cen Jin’s eyes and smiled gently. “How unjust, this is actually my very first win.”
“Do you think I’m easy to bully, so you’re accusing me of cheating the moment I say I lost?” Though he said that, Mann’s tone lacked the slightest trace of grievance.
It sounded precisely as though he knew he was in the wrong, yet deliberately feigned ignorance just to toy with Cen Jin for fun.
Cen Jin bit his lower lip. “How could I possibly lose every single time?”
Perhaps Cen Jin’s phrasing sounded too adorable, drawing chuckles from the people sitting around the table.
Even Wei Xin, who had remained silent the entire time, couldn’t help the slight upward curve of his lips, though he quickly straightened his expression and turned his head away as if nothing had happened.
“In that case,” Mann said, “if you can find proof that I cheated, then this round will count as your win and my loss. You can issue any punishment you like to me. How does that sound?”
Mann sat at the edge on the opposite end of the sofa.
Cen Jin set the schoolbag he had been hugging down onto his original seat, stood up, retraced his steps around the large coffee table, and walked over to stand right in front of Mann.
The table was quite low, its surface marred by a few gray footprints left behind when these guys had propped their feet up earlier.
Cen Jin bent down before Mann, beginning to search through Mann’s person.
Mann’s shirt was buttoned all the way to the top collar, leaving nothing visible when he leaned over.
As the boys’ gazes swept toward the neckline, for some reason, they felt a mixture of relief at seeing nothing and profound regret.
However, Cen Jin’s shirt, tucked neatly into his shorts, pulled taut with his movements, accentuating the slender, pliant waist that could easily be spanned by two hands.
Mann was entirely distracted. The drooping head hovering right in front of him occasionally brushed against his nose and chin, the soft strands of hair tickling him so fiercely he felt like sneezing.
The faint, elusive fragrance emanating from Cen Jin drifted straight into his nostrils, immediately banishing his urge to sneeze as he inhaled the sweet scent of Cen Jin like some sort of absolute weirdo.
Cen Jin paused mid-search as his hand brushed against Mann’s pocket, then tilted his head to look at him. “Your breathing is so heavy. Are you drunk?”
Cen Jin operated under the assumption that this crowd couldn’t hold their liquor; otherwise, why did every single one of them look so flushed and dizzy, as if they were ready to pass out at any second?
Mann’s face flushed red. He averted his gaze from Cen Jin’s, curling his hand into a fist to cough against his lips.
Cen Jin retrieved three dice from Mann’s trouser pocket. When he held them up with an indignant huff, Mann didn’t dare meet his gaze, his body growing remarkably rigid.
Cen Jin simply assumed the man felt guilty for getting caught doing bad deeds.
When Cen Jin walked back, he carried himself with an arrogant air, tossing an insult at Mann: “Bad dog.”
Hearing those words, Mann stiffened momentarily before dropping his head, his face obscured in shadow, rendering his expression unreadable.
Only his hands, clasped together in his lap, trembled slightly.
Wei Xin watched Mann with cold eyes, his expression turning somewhat strange.
Talon, remaining oblivious to the weird atmosphere, shot Mann a gloating glance before reaching out to grab Cen Jin as the boy struggled his way back, giving his head a ruffle. “You won. As a reward, you can issue an order to any of us anything at all.”
Cen Jin disgustedly shoved the rock-hard body away and scuttled back to his own seat.
Were these really the rules of this game?
(Now is a great opportunity to humiliate Wei Xin.)
Cen Jin stealthily glanced sideways at Wei Xin, who was seated a person away from him. He assumed his covert little action had gone completely unnoticed by everyone present.
In reality, every single person in the room caught it.
For a moment, complex thoughts churned in everyone’s minds.
Cen Jin remained completely oblivious to this, his mind latching onto a brilliant idea.
‘Where does Wei Xin rank among everyone’s dice rolls?’
(Second)
(What are you planning to do?)