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[Chapter 073] His Feelings Were His To Convey, And Not For Someone Else To Say!
It was a good day, with the sunlight shining warmly on them. Lu YunFei leaned against the tree as he memorised vocabulary, memorising and memorising until he felt tired. He rubbed his eyes and said to Bian JinYuan, “Bian Bian, I’ll take a short nap.”
Saying so, he slept against the tree.
Bian JinYuan saw how he had fallen asleep in a span of a few words, and couldn’t take his gaze off him for a while.
Lu YunFei’s face was lit in spots where the dappled shade let the sunlight through, a picture of serenity. As he looked at him, Lu YunFei’s head tilted to one side. Bian JinYuan quickly brought his shoulder over for him to lean on before he jolted himself awake.
Lu YunFei’s head was thus planted on his shoulder. He frowned, but didn’t wake. Bian JinYuan looked on as his mouth slowly curled into a smile.
As Lu YunFei napped, Bian JinYuan continued reading.
It was only when the physical education teacher blew the whistle to get the class to gather back together that Bian JinYuan nudged Lu YunFei awake.
Lu YunFei rubbed his eyes blearily, his mind still slightly fuzzy. He stood up and walked with Bian JinYuan to the assembly point, rubbing his forehead as he did so.
“It’s so warm, do I have a bit of a fever?” Lu YunFei said as he pulled Bian JinYuan’s hand to his forehead.
At the touch, Bian JinYuan sensitively felt the warmth. He touched his own forehead and determined that Lu YunFei’s forehead was indeed warmer than his.
“Go get it checked out at the infirmary,” Bian JinYuan said.
Lu YunFei nodded.
The both of them headed to the infirmary after class ended. Along with them was the third wheel, classmate Li YuanQing.
The school doctor took his temperature, looked at the thermometer, and advised: “It’s a low grade fever, you’ll just have to take some medicine.”
Lu YunFei still felt a little sleepy and asked her, “Could I sleep here after taking the medicine?”
“Sure,” The school doctor said kindly, “If you still feel uncomfortable after your nap, do take the rest of the day off to go home.”
Lu YunFei nodded and went to Bian JinYuan and Li YuanQing to say, “You guys head back. I’ll rest here for a while.”
In acquiescence, Bian JinYuan said, “I’ll come back after class to see you,” and left with Li YuanQing.
Lu YunFei ate his medicine and removed his shoes to lie on the bed. The school doctor covered him with a thin blanket and said gently, “Rest well, you’ll be fine after sweating it out a bit.”
Lu YunFei closed his eyes and entered dreamland.
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Bian JinYuan saw that Lu YunFei was still fast asleep when he went back to the infirmary after school. Lu YunFei’s face and body were damp with perspiration. Seeing this, Bian JinYuan borrowed a small tub and a towel from the school doctor and went to fetch water.
“This is your younger brother?” The school doctor asked in curiosity at Bian JinYuan’s busying.
“No, a friend.”
Are the friendships between boys so thoughtful nowadays? The middle-aged school doctor felt that she couldn’t keep up with the times. However, while a close relationship is admirable… she looked at the time and asked, “Aren’t you going to class?”
“I’ve already spoken to the teacher.”
The school doctor thus didn’t probe further.
“Then you stay here first, I’ll head down to the canteen to eat. Otherwise it’ll be too crowded after this period ends at 12pm.”
“Alright.”
“If anyone comes here to be seen, tell them to come back in the afternoon. If they’re in urgent need of care, tell them to go to the nearby hospital.”
“Alright.”
At his acknowledgement, the school doctor took her keys and meal card as she prepared to leave, “What do you want to eat? I’ll buy it back for you.”
“No need, thank you.”
I’ll just buy something at random then, the school doctor thought as she left.
In that moment, only Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan were left alone in the enclosed room.
Bian JinYuan looked at the youth who was deeply asleep on the sick bed, and slowly wiped the perspiration from his face. Lu YunFei remained obediently in slumber, allowing him to touch his face. As he wiped down his cheek, the towel grazed the corner of his mouth. Bian JinYuan’s gaze fell onto his lips.
As if in nervousness, he reached out with slightly trembling fingers to touch the rose red lips of the boy on the bed.
Very soft, Bian JinYuan thought, just like his person.
He couldn’t help but touch it once more.
Dai HanSen arrived at this scene. He hadn’t noticed the school doctor outside, and so he had naturally pushed open the door of the infirmary, thinking that she would be in the room. However, he hadn’t expected that instead of the school doctor, he would find the sleeping Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan sitting beside him as he withdrew his hand.
“What happened to him?” Dai HanSen walked over.
Bian JinYuan ignored him. He had never been one to answer everything that was asked.
Dai HanSen wasn’t on good terms with Bian JinYuan, and so he asked brusquely, “What were you doing just now?”
Bian JinYuan continued to ignore him, but inwardly said: I was careless.
He had focused too much on Lu YunFei and hadn’t paid any attention to his surroundings. Added to the good soundproofing of the room, he hadn’t noticed Dai HanSen’s arrival. But it didn’t matter, Bian JinYuan thought. After all, he hadn’t done anything that he wasn’t supposed to.
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But Dai HanSen had figured that his last action was inappropriate. If he hadn’t seen it wrongly, Bian JinYuan should have been touching Lu YunFei’s lips just now. Was this a normal action coming from a boy? Bian JinYuan had taken advantage of Lu YunFei sleeping; it was obvious that he had bad intentions!
He looked at Bian JinYuan nastily, “What were you doing just now?” He asked once more.
Bian JinYuan continued to ignore him, and went on to wipe Lu YunFei’s neck.
Dai HanSen reached out in an attempt to halt Bian JinYuan hands, but Bian JinYuan dodged him.
“You’re too noisy,” Bian JinYuan said icily.
“And you’re a pervert!” Dai HanSen shouted.
Bian JinYuan frowned and reminded him, “Lu YunFei is sleeping, and you’re making too much noise.”
“You still have the guts to mention Lu YunFei. To think that Lu YunFei thinks of you as a friend. What about you, what do you treat him as?”
“He’ll wake if you continue to make so much noise.”
“It’ll be a good thing for him to wake up!” Dai HanSen said angrily, “Once he’s awake, he’ll know just what you did to him.”
Bian JinYuan suddenly got on his feet, and with a “bang”, pushed Dai HanSen against the wall, “Scram.”
“You…”
He had more to say, but Bian JinYuan covered his mouth to muffle his voice. Bian JinYuan couldn’t be bothered to deal with Dai HanSen’s nonsense, and so he pushed Dai HanSen out of the infirmary and closed the door. Dai HanSen stood outside scolding him, but seeing that the door wouldn’t open, finally left.
Bian JinYuan shook his hands as if they were dirty, and so he reopened the door to go wash them.
Dai HanSen got angrier the more he thought about it. He didn’t understand just why Lu YunFei would hang out with someone like Bian JinYuan, and would protect him to this extent!
When he was a first year, he had been in the same class as Bian JinYuan. There was no express class in the first year, only five specialised classes that served as training classes. The five classes were of equal standing, and the top ten students were evenly distributed. Back then, Dai HanSen was in the 90th ranking and had happened to be assigned to the same class as Bian JinYuan.
He scored well in physics, and ranked in the top three in class in this subject. Later, he rose to become the top three in the grade for physics after attending after-school tuition for it. In every physics class, the teacher would pick him to explain the answer to the more difficult questions, and then praise him in front of the whole class.
Dai HanSen was very used to such conduction of physics classes, enjoying the attention. That was, until he met Bian JinYuan.
Just as he had stolen Lu YunFei’s treasured first place in this subject, Bian JinYuan supplanted Dai HanSen’s first place in physics as soon as he entered the school. Dai HanSen thus became the second ranked in physics and overall fourth in the grade. In addition to being shocked, he also felt that this was as expected of a school like First High.
At that time, he hadn’t held any animosity towards Bian JinYuan. In fact, he had even humbly asked Bian JinYuan about a question that he hadn’t been able to solve. But Bian JinYuan had coldly rejected his request by claiming that he hadn’t had the time. This resulted in Dai HanSen feeling annoyed at him, feeling that he looked down on him.
Later on when it came to selecting the physics representative, the teacher had wanted to select Bian JinYuan. It was just that there were too many teachers who favoured Bian JinYuan, yet he didn’t want to hold any position, and so the physics teacher wound up selecting Dai HanSen. Dai HanSen himself had therefore been enthusiastic as a representative, striving to answer any problems that the physics teacher would pose to the class.
He was bound to encounter problems that he wouldn’t be able to answer, given the numerous attempts that he strove to participate in class. Similar to his classmates, whenever Dai HanSen took a wrong step while solving the question up on stage, the teacher would use him as an example of commonly made mistakes. After explaining it, the physics teacher would then invite Bian JinYuan to come up on stage to write down the correct answer.
As Dai HanSen watched Bian JinYuan write down the answer effortlessly, he would be brought back to the time when he became the green leaf that would be standing aside dumbly as an example of an incorrect answer, while Bian JinYuan replaced himself as the vibrant flower who was accentuated with the green leaves.
Dai HanSen’s mental state was thus distorted.
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He would magnify numerous issues, and the position of physics representative no longer brought him joy, but awkwardness. He even thought that his classmates were secretly laughing at him for not deserving the position.
He began to focus on Bian JinYuan, constantly comparing to him while trying to find areas where he could win. And he did find it. Unlike him, Bian JinYuan had no friends.
So what if he ranked first in the grade, so what if the teachers liked him, and so what if the girls in class secretly found him attractive. The fact was that he had no friends at all. In Dai HanSen’s eyes, the most awkward moment for Bian JinYuan was when the physical education teacher instructed them to practice in pairs, because nobody would approach him to practice with. In the end, the teacher would either designate a classmate or become his partner.
Dai HanSen thought that this was good. This Bian JinYuan looked so pitiful.
Later on as year twos, they were sorted into the science and arts majors. Dai HanSen went to class three, which was still a specialised class. However, there were express classes from year two onwards. Bian JinYuan had streamed into the express class, together with Lu YunFei whom Dai HanSen had paid attention to since a while ago.
He paid attention to Lu YunFei because of his physics scores. Back then, Dai HanSen had always been hovering around the third or fourth ranks for physics in the grade. When he asked his teacher who were ranked before him, he heard Lu YunFei and Wen MingYi’s names.
Lu YunFei was perpetually ranked second in the grade. Meanwhile Wen MingYi was a curiosity to him, as he was either ranked third or in the hundreds, almost as if his exam results were based on his mood.
He met Lu YunFei once during an exam. At that time, he had sat in front of Lu YunFei. As Dai HanSen worked on his paper, his pen ran out of ink, causing him to scratch on his rough paper furiously.
Just as he was about to give up, he heard the invigilating teacher’s voice behind him, “What’s wrong?”
The voice was very close, and Dai HanSen thought that the teacher was talking to him. As he turned back to look, he saw Lu YunFei tell the teacher, “The student in front of me seems to have run out of ink. He looks troubled. Please pass him this pen.”
Hearing this, the invigilating teacher looked at Dai HanSen. Dai HanSen said sheepishly, “Thank you, it’s true that my pen ran out of ink.”
The teacher handed the pen to him.
Dai HanSen received the pen and politely thanked Lu YunFei once more, before turning back to continue answering the examination paper.
After the exam ended, he returned the pen to Lu YunFei. He was about to talk to him some more when another boy rushed over from the exam hall to shout: “Lu YunFei, Wen MingYi and Li YuanQing have started fighting with someone.”
Dai HanSen then watched as Lu YunFei swiftly packed his bag and ran out. By the time he came to his senses and packed his own bag to chase after him, Lu YunFei was nowhere in sight.
To Dai HanSen, Lu YunFei was someone who was upright and helpful; Bian JinYuan was irritatingly selfish and indifferent. Therefore, when he read the posts on the discussion board claiming that Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan were now friends, he considered it absurd. How could Bian JinYuan have friends, and how could he deserve to be friends with Lu YunFei.
Bian JinYuan ought to be alone forever.
With these thoughts, Dai HanSen offered an olive branch of friendship during the first physics training class.
It was too bad that while he remembered the incident of Lu YunFei lending him his pen, Lu YunFei had completely forgotten it. In Lu YunFei’s numerous exam experiences, he had lent out too many stationery for him to keep them in mind, let alone remember such instances.
Dai HanSen walked to the bench under a tree and sat down quietly. Even though he hadn’t had time to take photos of Bian JinYuan’s actions, this sort of thing would induce disgust by the receiving party despite the lack of evidence. Lu YunFei definitely didn’t know about Bian JinYuan harbouring such thoughts about him. When he found out, he would distance himself from Bian JinYuan
Just like how he was distanced.
Dai HanSen unconsciously smiled. He knew it, someone like Bian JinYuan was more suited to be alone. There was no way that someone like Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan matched. They were simply not the same type of people!
Bian JinYuan continued to wipe Lu YunFei’s perspiration. The school doctor had also bought a meal back, even buying a portion for Bian JinYuan. Bian JinYuan thanked her and insisted on paying for it, before calling his part-time job at the milk tea shop to apply for a day off.
Lu YunFei was roused by the smell of food.
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He looked at Bian JinYuan who was eating his meal and asked, “How is it?”
And so Bian JinYuan fed him two bites of food.
Lu YunFei critiqued the food candidly: “Too oily.”
Bian JinYuan took his chopsticks back and continued eating.
Lu YunFei noticed that he hadn’t changed out the chopsticks and reminded him, “You’ll catch what I have.”
Bian JinYuan didn’t mind, “It’s alright.”
“You’re not going for your part-time job?”
“I took leave.”
Lu YunFei tore the blanket off, “Then let’s go for a meal.”
He had taken a nap and seemed to be in better spirits, “Let’s go.”
Bian JinYuan could only put down his meal to accompany the prince to eat.
Lu YunFei didn’t have much of an appetite. The both of them decided to visit a porridge shop and ordered two bowls of porridge, a basket of steamed dumplings, and a plate of pot stickers.
“Are you going for class later?” Bian JinYuan asked.
Lu YunFei nodded, “Yes.”
Bian JinYuan felt his forehead, “It’s not as warm as before.”
“Right, that’s why I’ll attend class.”
“You should go home to rest if you can’t handle it.”
“I’m alright,” Lu YunFei assured him, “I usually recover from a fever by sleeping.”
Bian JinYuan didn’t press the issue at this.
Lu YunFei saw Dai HanSen at the classroom door when he returned in the afternoon.
Seeing him, Dai HanSen smiled and asked after him, “Are you feeling better now? I saw you lying in the infirmary when I visited this morning.”
“Much better, thank you,” Lu YunFei replied politely.
Bian JinYuan glared at him, his eyes holding a depth to them.
Lu YunFei knew that Bian JinYuan disliked Dai HanSen, and so he told him, “We’re entering,” and pulled Bian JinYuan into the classroom.
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As Bian JinYuan brushed past Dai HanSen, Dai HanSen asked, “Does he know what type of feelings you hold towards him?”
Bian JinYuan shot him a sharp look.
Dai HanSen smiled proudly at confirming his thoughts after seeing Bian JinYuan’s strict warning on his face.
He could almost imagine that the following days would be filled with unease and fear for Bian JinYuan. Before he told Lu YunFei, he would worry about when he would say it; once he told Lu YunFei, He would be even more worried that Lu YunFei would distance himself from him due to disgust.
Dai HanSen thought that he should pick a good date to tell him, so as not to waste discovering such a secret.
However it turned out that he had been overthinking things.
While there existed people who would be so afraid of their secret being exposed that they would lose sleep over it, Bian JinYuan was not one of them.
He had never been someone who would cradle a secret crush. He liked Lu YunFei, and so he didn’t disguise his intentions towards him. He had only wanted to give Lu YunFei more time to get used to the idea of being with him, as well as to give himself more time to grow. He was always going to let Lu YunFei know about his feelings, and so he completely didn’t care whether Dai HanSen would tell Lu YunFei about it, or how he would tell him.
Because he wouldn’t let Lu YunFei listen to him.
If Dai HanSen really intended to tell Lu YunFei about his feelings, then he would tell Lu YunFei first before he did.
His feelings were his to convey, and not for someone else to say!
Bian JinYuan turned to look at Lu YunFei, who was already seated and organising his desk. He placed the books that he didn’t need below, and then took out the required books to place on the desk.
“Do you want some water?” He asked Lu YunFei.
Lu YunFei nodded, and even emphasised, “I’d like some warm water.”
Bian JinYuan smiled and rubbed his head, “You definitely ought to drink more warm water.”
Lu YunFei: …
This was warm water for a straight guy.
The sports festival commenced once again in the later half of October, but this time it fell on a different day from Bian JinYuan’s birthday. It would be held two days after his birthday. Lu YunFei mulled over not being able to celebrate Bian JinYuan’s birthday in school, and pondered about picking either an afternoon or evening to do so. However, since Bian JinYuan was to celebrate with his family at night, this left only the afternoon.
Or, “How about you celebrate it over the weekend like I do,” Lu YunFei suggested.