CH 12

Chapter 12: Cheese Flavoured Yoghurt

After wiping the chalkboard, Yue Zhishi was covered by chalk dust. He put down the duster and went to wash his hands at the bathroom. After cleaning his hands, he just so happened to bump into Song Yu, who was walking his way from the third floor’s open corridor. His white shirt was glaringly obvious against a sea of blue.

Song Yu was holding some mock exam questions and wasn’t surprised to see him. He lifted his other hand and passed across a carton of cheese flavoured yoghurt.

Yue Zhishi accepted it with both of his hands, eyes slightly widening. “Is this for me?”

“Qin Yan wanted you to have it.” Song Yu quickened his footsteps away after he finished speaking.

Yue Zhishi suddenly remembered that Song Yu had been showering and hadn’t been around when he told Uncle and Aunt Rong of his new work at the broadcasting station. He chased after Song Yu and asked, “Then did you know that Qin Yan gege asked me to help?”

He said the words ’Qin Yan gege’ so sweetly and so obediently.

Song Yu halted, and Yue Zhishi rammed straight into his back.

So did he know or didn’t he? He couldn’t tell.

“And?” Song Yu didn’t even look around. His speech came quickly, and it didn’t seem like he was in a good mood.

“Ah? That’s… that’s it.” Yue Zhishi started chasing after Song Yu again. “Can I go home together with you tonight?”

Song Yu didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t answer until just before he entered the classroom.

“Go home by yourself.”

Yue Zhishi pressed his lips together in disappointment, following him inside.

Everyone worked separately on their own tasks during the second half of the night self-study session. Song Yu sat at the podium and focused on his mock exam questions.

At first, only one or two people dared to ask questions, but everyone soon realised Song Yu really was amazing — he only needed to look at a question once before giving out a concise and comprehensive explanation. It was very easy to follow his train of logic. More and more people started to head up to him, and of course, this included girls who were looking after their own selfish interests.

“How come you’re not going up?” Jiang Yufan lightly tapped Yue Zhishi. “We’re going to need to line up to take numbers soon.”

Yue Zhishi didn’t bother to look up, seriously working on his physics homework. “I can ask him anytime, no need to take the time away from everyone else.”

“True.” Jiang Yufan pondered over his words. It felt a bit purposefully benevolent, like an official wife generously giving the concubines time to spend with their husband.

Yue Zhishi really did behave accordingly. He didn’t go up to the podium even once during the entire rest of the session, and after he finished physics, he started working on his English assignment where he needed to fill in empty blanks in passages. He concentrated very earnestly, his face very low to his papers. His nose almost touched the desk.

Song Yu passed back an assignment booklet after he finished explaining a question. When a different student came up to him, he glanced around the room before returning back to the student in front of him. His eyes caught onto the student’s glasses, and the student looked quite shy.

“Your lenses are so thick,” Song Yu carelessly said, lowering his head to look at the new question. “How many degrees?”

The student who suddenly received this ‘care’ was a bit frightened by this attention, and cautiously pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well… six hundred.”

Song Yu had already sketched out a rough guideline, writing out the main points on a scrap of paper. He didn’t look like he wanted to explain further.

“Pay attention to your posture.” He returned the question back to the student.

He glanced back again, and the Yue Zhishi who had been bending his head over his work was now sitting up, back as straight as if it was strapped to a piece of wood.

The rest of the session finished very quickly, but a few students remained, wanting to ask questions. Even though Song Yu’s face remained very icy, he still stayed for a little while longer.

All the other students have all left for home, and Jiang Yufan had initially pulled Yue Zhishi away with him. But Yue Zhishi pretended that he was missing something, needed to look for it and told him to go first. There were less and less people, and after explaining the last question, Song Yu departed as well.

He didn’t say anything to him at all.

But that’s right, they weren’t going home together anyway.

Looking at the remaining students who lived on campus, Yue Zhishi hesitated for a second, but he decided to sit down and finish his remaining chemistry assignments. Whenever Yue Zhishi worked on his homework, he was particularly attentive; if there was a question he didn’t know how to solve, his whole attention would be sucked in completely.

“Looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Ah? I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“Close the window first, otherwise all the desks in the fourth section will be wet tomorrow.”

Hearing this, Yue Zhishi went up to help close the window. It was raining heavily outside. The rain in this city never knew how to transition, and would always start like a storm whenever it rained. Big droplets of rain pattered on the glass, the noise clattering away into the room.

Leaning onto the window, Yue Zhishi gazed across to the high school building’s bright third floor before going back to his seat and continued working on his questions. Dormitory students with umbrellas partnered up with those who didn’t and prepared to leave, with one female classmate offering to lend her umbrella to Yue Zhishi. He refused, thinking it wasn’t right for a girl to get rained on while returning back to her dormitory.

He thought the sudden shower would quickly disappear, but contrarily enough, the rain grew stronger the longer it stayed.

The never-ending pitter pattering of rain almost concealed the sound of the bell. High school’s advanced class 3 tended to stay long past the end of class, with some live in students remaining in class until 11pm.

Qin Yan twirled his pen. “I really can’t do this question. Hey Song Yu, can you look at this for me…” He leaned his head over just in time to see Song Yu already packed and ready to leave. “Wait, you’re leaving so early today?”

“Yes, it’s raining.”

Qin Yan was confused. “Is it strange for it to rain here?”

Looking out the door and windows, Song Yu didn’t reply. He could only see white shirts nearby. Qin Yan thought his expression was a bit unsightly and wanted to ask what was wrong, but Song Yu left before he could.

The lights in the connecting corridor were still on, brightly leading the way to the dark junior high school building.

Song Yu silently descended the building among the other high school year 3 students, the floor number changing from 5 to 4, then to 3. His footsteps slowed as he got closer, the people behind him shouldering past.

Yue Zhishi sat with his legs straight out, the noisy rain blocking his awareness of his surroundings. It felt like he was in his own world. His brown hair softly reflected the light and looked like the softest part of the dark, rainy night.

He touched the edges of the carton of yoghurt before carefully tearing off the cover in one piece. A layer of yoghurt remained on the plastic, almost like milk skin. He looked at it for a few seconds before he tentatively licked it.

The yoghurt attached to the cover was always the tastiest bit.

The usually light flavoured taste of the cheese spread in his mouth and was very sweet. Yue Zhishi used a straw and sucked up a large mouthful, his feelings of pleasure increasing with the rising levels of dopamine in his blood. He wanted to double check again to see if high school’s class 3-5 were still studying, but when he looked over, Song Yu was already standing in front of him with an umbrella in his hand.

Yue Zhishi froze. Traces of yoghurt were still smeared on his lips, making him look very silly.

Song Yu stood there steadily, eyes a little cold. “What are you doing here?”

Yue Zhishi clutched his carton of yoghurt and didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t as if he could tell Song Yu he waited here every day.

“I’m just waiting for the rain to stop and thought I’d spend the time memorising vocabulary.” He slowly drew back his long, straight legs. He’d long rolled up the bottom of his pants in order to prevent them from getting drenched in the rain, pale narrow calves peeking out.

Song Yu raised an eyebrow. “And if it never stopped?”

Yue Zhishi watched as the transparent sheets of rain blanketed the edges of the corridor and said to himself, “It’d eventually stop raining.”

He stood up, pulling on the schoolbag on his back. He very weakly retorted, “Then what are you doing here?”

Didn’t you say you weren’t going home with me?

“I left a pen in your classroom.” Song Yu’s face didn’t change at all.

Yue Zhishi believed him and immediately looked backwards. “Then… we’ll go back and get it?”

“No need, the rain’s so heavy.” Song Yu turned out. “Let’s just go home.”

“Okay.” Yue Zhishi quickly took a few steps forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Song Yu. “Then can I bring it to you tomorrow after I find it?”

“No need.”

“I’ll definitely find it for you, I’ll look for it early in the morning.”

“I said there’s no need.”

Yue Zhishi made a sound in response and didn’t continue. They went down the stairs, the rain gaining strength as time passed and making them unable to ride their bikes. Song Yu held up the umbrella, and they stood by the road and waited for a taxi.

Taxis were always difficult to find during rainy days — they would either not come, or several would come all in one go. They found themselves in the former scenario. Yue Zhishi was a bit hungry despite having just finished the yoghurt.

Speaking of yoghurt…

“Ah, that’s right. Can you tell Qin Yan gege thank you for me?”

Song Yu didn’t say anything. It looked like he had a small piece of dry skin on his lower lip. Song Yu kept licking it and didn’t look too comfortable.

“That yoghurt he bought was really yummy, the cheese taste was strong.”

Song Yu still didn’t speak.

Yue Zhishi added in a low voice, “But it was a bit small.”

The competent umbrella holding sculpture finally reacted, turning his head to look at him, and lightly opened his mouth: “Follow me.”

Almost as if he was afraid Yue Zhishi would refuse, Song Yu extended his hand out and grabbed Yue Zhishi’s arm. The umbrella was very small and didn’t quite cover the two of them together. Song Yu half pulled him into his arms as he walked into another direction and didn’t drop his hand until he was sure Yue Zhishi was walking with him.

“We’re not going home?”

“I’m hungry. Let’s eat something first before going back.”

“I’m a bit hungry too.” Yue Zhishi was a bit happy about finding a common topic. “That rice meal wasn’t any good at all, I only ate a few spoonfuls.”

They arrived at the school entrance’s Grandma’s Stewed Flavour as they were talking.

This was the most famous restaurant near their school. The shop was completely full with no available seats — people could only eat while standing. There was often a crowd of people surrounding the front door. Grandma’s Stewed Flavour was one of the city’s specialty dishes: seaweed, lotus roots, dried and marinated beancurd sheets, quail eggs, beef tendons, duck intestines… All kinds of ingredients were pierced with bamboo skewers before being stuffed into a fully packed big pot. They were then slowly simmered and stewed over low heat in a fragrant, spicy broth, until the flavour soaked deeply into the food.

Yue Zhishi stood by the window and swallowed. The grandma inside saw him and kindly said, “If you’re here for a late night snack, we don’t have much left, only these few skewers.”

Song Yu, holding up the umbrella, said, “Then two portions of the marinated beancurd sheets and seaweed please. And one portion for everything else.”

The grandma neatly scooped everything into a paper bowl, pouring over some of the broth before passing it to Song Yu. She also gave them two pairs of chopsticks and some napkins. “It’s raining so hard, you should hurry and go home after you finish.”

“Thank you.”

Pretty much all of the high school students had left by now, the flow of people ebbing from the initial dense stream to a sparse, gradual dribble. All kinds of umbrellas overlapped in front of the school entrance, dying the dark, rainy night with colour.

Heavy rain tended to collide and knock over the usual rules of life. Teenagers running in the rain with their school skirts and pants wet, or shy souls squeezing together underneath the same umbrella — they were all woven together into the same tight net by the universal rain.

Song Yu and Yue Zhishi were the same as everyone else. They stood side by side underneath the roof, and even their shadows from far away looked damp.

Yue Zhishi very seriously focused on his food, to the point where he forgot everything else. He always ate his favourite marinated beancurd sheets first. When he thought about it, the ingredient was named very aptly: plain beancurd sheets were sliced into connecting links before being deep fried. They would then be crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. By the time they came out of the broth, little holes in the sheets would be filled with the soup, exploding in the mouth and filling the eater with satisfaction.

“So good.” The food was so hot Yue Zhishi needed to open his mouth and pant. After he swallowed the food in his mouth, he couldn’t help but stuff in a mouthful of seaweed as well. The thick seaweed was soft, chewy and full of flavour after having been stewed for so long, and Yue Zhishi thought it tasted better than meat.

Song Yu only ate a skewer of dried beancurd. Gullible Yue Zhishi didn’t think anything was strange, happily eating until only one ham sausage skewer remained. He only then noticed he had eaten everything by himself.

“This one’s for you.” He lifted the ham sausage and brought it to the corner of Song Yu’s mouth. But Song Yu leaned his head slightly backwards and dodged his feeding.

“I’m full.”

“Okay.” Yue Zhishi placed the entire sausage into his own mouth.

Their luck turned for the better after they finished eating, an empty taxi driving past just as they threw away their paper bowl.

The taxi had the radio on, volume not very loud. The female broadcaster’s voice was very gentle. After Song Yu sat inside, he touched his left shoulder. His hand came away entirely wet, so he used the napkins from earlier and wiped himself down a few times.

He heard Yue Zhishi say, “Actually, today was my first time at the broadcasting station.”

Those words were a continuation of what Yue Zhishi left unspoken at the bathroom. With the way his thought processes jumped around, it was most likely only Song Yu who could easily understand what Yue Zhishi wanted to say.

“I know.”

Yue Zhishi turned his head around to look him. “What?”

How could he have known, Yue Zhishi had never mentioned it before.

Maybe it was Aunt Rong? Or maybe Senior Qin Yan.

Song Yu absentmindedly replied, “I heard you.”

Yue Zhishi was suddenly so excited he leaned onto Song Yu’s shoulder, just like a little dog who wanted to pounce on him. “Really? You heard my voice?”

The taxi driver glanced back at them through the rearview mirror. Song Yu pressed onto Yue Zhishi’s animated head, said yes and told him to sit properly.

Yue Zhishi was more delighted the more he thought about it. He’d thought his gege didn’t know about it at all, but he’d actually heard the broadcast and could even tell it was his voice.

He was now in great spirits, and even the song playing in the car was now especially nice to listen to.

Song Yu turned his head to the side. The droplets of rain splashed onto the car windows, melting the bright lights of the city into a vague, dreamlike shape. The song lyrics mixed with the sounds of the rain, faintly rippling and flowing into the ears.

[It wasn’t the rainy day that was the most beautiful, it was the shelter I once shared with you in the rain.]

“What song is this?” Yue Zhishi quietly asked Song Yu.

No response came for a while. He pulled Song Yu’s sleeve and curiously called out gege.

“I don’t know.” Song Yu thought about the title of the song and decided to lie.