CH Extra 3

Extra 3: The Hidden Love of His Youth

If there was one word to describe Song Yu’s teenage years, then it would most likely be: single-minded.

He’d single-mindedly studied, had single-mindedly forged ahead step by step according to his career plan.

Single-mindedly loved someone in secret.

For most of the time, Song Yu had been able to control himself very well when it came to that last matter. But he would occasionally lose control, and during those moments, he’d think in despair: how nice would it be if Yue Zhishi didn’t live under the same roof with him.

If he could reduce the number of times he came into contact with Yue Zhishi, if he could reduce the amount of information about him in his life, then — he should be able to control his hidden love as well as he wanted.

But that was a conclusion Song Yu himself later overturned.

Because it hadn’t mattered that they had been on separate sides of a sports ground, that he hadn’t been able to hear his voice and hadn’t been able to see his smiling face. As soon as he saw a figure earnestly learning how to shoot a ball, his heart had stirred.

When it came to things that appeared to be within his control, his feelings for Yue Zhishi had been the most unstable. But Song Yu had thought it was still okay — he could still endure. It was just that those feelings had come about so inexplicably; he couldn’t find where, and when, they’d started.

No matter how he searched through his memories, it felt like he couldn’t grasp a definite moment in time in which he’d started liking Yue Zhishi. Or perhaps it was because he was always so perplexed and was always looking through his memories that Song Yu remembered all of Yue Zhishi’s tiny bits and pieces so extraordinarily clearly.

Just by closing his eyes, he would be able to remember the first time he met Yue Zhishi. He could see how very beautiful, how very adorable he’d been. Yue Zhishi with his pair of little pudgy hands, so small; he still hadn’t known how to call out gege, then.

But Song Yu hadn’t passed that period of time well at all — the guilt and shame of causing Yue Zhishi to fall into an allergic reaction, as well as the psychological stress caused by Uncle Yue’s accidental passing, had tormented a small child who’d only just hit his sixth year of life.

The only way he’d found relief was to quietly, sneakily, treat Yue Zhishi well.

For example, helping an unwitting Yue Zhishi in elementary school by scolding his classmates who’d once made fun of him for not having parents. Or always leaving inside his own pockets the milk candy Song Yu himself detested before prodding Yue Zhishi to brush his teeth at night.

And for another example, biking to a place very far away to buy a volume of manga that had been hard to find, before he threw the book to Yue Zhishi and lied to him by saying he’d purchased it near school.

Yue Zhishi had been very happy, but he’d also truly believed that Song Yu had bought it on a whim.

He was very easy to trick, and he also never needed to be coaxed.

Which was why Song Yu had never slipped up a single bit and had never given himself the opportunity to break the protective shell cased around his hidden love.

He always treated Yue Zhishi well in secret, and then he’d cover himself with an utterly uncaring appearance. His acting, in the beginning, had truly been very clumsy, but he had been able to get away with it, more or less.

The rain in this city always came particularly frequently, and during summer, it was as though the city floated within rainwater. People would rush about on the roads, and it didn’t matter how careful they were: water would still splatter over them and wet their pants. Even adults were treated like that — let alone young children.

As a child, Song Yu hadn’t felt much towards continuous rain and overcast skies. He’d been a child who would walk very cautiously on the roads, and he would pull on a pair of rain boots before leaving the house, coming home clean and dry. But Yue Zhishi hadn’t been the same — he turned even clumsier during rainy days, and even if the roads hadn’t been flooded, he would still accidentally stumble over a warped tile and be splashed all over.

It would be even worse when it flooded. One time, while still in first year of elementary school, Yue Zhishi had been tricked outside by the boys in his class. They’d said they would go with him to the small canteen and would buy something delicious for him to eat. Yue Zhishi had ended up with pants soaked all the way up to his knees, and he also didn’t get anything to eat either. He had been very upset, but he hadn’t dared to tell Song Yu.

Until school had ended, and they saw each other on the first floor of the classroom building. Song Yu had seen Yue Zhishi’s pants and his aggrieved face, and only then had he realised that Yue Zhishi had sat through the afternoon classes like that.

“Don’t leave your classroom when it rains.” He had been a bit angry, and so he’d set a very unreasonable demand on Yue Zhishi.

But once he heard Yue Zhishi meekly say okay, Song Yu couldn’t help but change his words.

“Don’t leave the classroom building.” He had then stiffly said, “If you want to eat something, come upstairs and look for me. I’ll go buy it for you.”

At that time, Yue Zhishi had only sniffled and reached out, stubbornly wanting to hold Song Yu’s hand.

Song Yu had pulled back his hand, refusing to give it to him. “Do you understand? Don’t run off with other people.”

“I understand.” Yue Zhishi had very obediently nodded at Song Yu, his eyes and nose red.

But perhaps a large shadow had been left on Yue Zhishi’s mind from being tricked. Even though Song Yu had said he’d take him to the small supermarket, when it rained again, Yue Zhishi still wouldn’t come out of his classroom unless it was thundering. During those times, he would really miss Song Yu and sometimes, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his tears.

As soon as school finished for him for the day, Yue Zhishi would still run upstairs to Song Yu’s classroom and wait outside. He’d cling onto the back door and silently blink his large pair of eyes, docilely waiting for Song Yu.

Generally speaking, Song Yu would usually realise Yue Zhishi was there through the whispers of the students around him. No one dared to talk to Song Yu during class, so everyone would lean their heads together and gossip. When Song Yu heard things like ‘that cute younger brother’ or ‘adorable mixed race’, he would be able to guess that Yue Zhishi was waiting for him at the back once again.

After his class ended, Song Yu first packed up his own bag. And then, pretending he didn’t know anything, he would turn around.

Yue Zhishi would leap once into the air very happily the moment their eyes met, and then he’d run into the classroom and wrap his arms around Song Yu’s waist. With a very silly smile, he’d lift up his face and call him Xiao Yu gege.

“Did you get your pants wet today?”

“No.” Whenever Yue Zhishi shook his head, his soft and curly hair looked so very fluffy, and it made him twice as cute. “I didn’t take a single step outside my classroom today.”

Song Yu thought he was being dumb and wanted to say he could’ve come upstairs to look for him, but he didn’t end up saying that out loud.

Their driver had taken a sick day off that day, so Song Yu had needed to take a taxi home with Yue Zhishi. He knew very well that Yue Zhishi would get his pants wet no matter what, so he directly pulled Yue Zhishi onto his back, telling him to hold the umbrella.

He docilely rested on Song Yu’s back, his arms holding onto Song Yu very tightly. He was in an uncommonly good mood, and he sang a strange-sounding, but not unpleasant to listen to, nursery rhyme.

“Xiao Yu gege, Zhang Chengyu said sorry to me today.”

Zhang Chengyu was the classmate who’d lied to Yue Zhishi by saying he’d buy him some snacks.

“Mn.”

Song Yu thought of how he’d disciplined him, and thought that kind of child didn’t really seem like someone who’d truly feel apologetic. He’d only been forced to apologise through the pressure of an older student.

Yue Zhishi started to sing again after saying that one thing. His head was hanging too low, his face almost buried into Song Yu’s neck. The air coming out of him as he hummed was damp and humid, similar to the air of a rainy day.

“Don’t forgive him.”

It was as though he was instilling a sense of intolerance into a child, but Song Yu truly did think so.

Yue Zhishi was too kind — even if he was bullied, he would still think it was because he was different from others. He would think that was why he was excluded, and wouldn’t think it was other people’s fault.

“But I already said it’s fine.” Yue Zhishi was holding onto his neck, and he felt Song Yu stop moving, shifting him a bit higher up his back. “I won’t forgive him next time.”

“You want something like that to happen again?”

“I don’t.” Yue Zhishi sniffed. “It feels gross when my pants get wet.”

Song Yu could feel just how uncomfortable it would be just by imagining it. He walked to the side of the road with Yue Zhishi on his back and asked, “Why didn’t you tell your teacher?”

“I forgot.” Yue Zhishi was curled around the side of his neck, sticky and clingy like a piece of soft candy unable to be removed after being moistened by water. “Xiao Yu gege, I only wanted to look for you.”

A car stopped in front of the two children, and the taxi driver rolled down his window, looking at them with a bit of hesitation. “Heading off?”

Song Yu nodded — and so he passed over Yue Zhishi’s reply.

The child he’d been at fourth year had still yet to learn how to calmly express his inner thoughts to Yue Zhishi.

And later, he realised: after growing up, he was still the same.

The confusion of puberty, the rebellion, the struggle — Song Yu had soundlessly given them all to him, hidden within the shadows.

Even though he didn’t remember exactly when he started to like Yue Zhishi, Song Yu remembered the moment his feelings took a sexual turn.

It had also been in the summer, during third year of junior high as he’d approached his high school entrance examinations. It had been a thundering, rainy night in which Yue Zhishi hadn’t been able to sleep well. By that time, Yue Zhishi no longer fought to climb into Song Yu’s bed like he’d used to as a three year old child; he’d obediently returned back to his own room once he’d been rejected, and he’d left Song Yu alone to regret what he’d done.

The reason behind his rejection was actually very simple. People in class had joked about Song Yu and another girl, comparing them to a young couple in the class next door, and they’d brought up inappropriate things such as ‘first kiss’ and ‘first love’. Song Yu had found it annoying and tedious, and he’d been in a gloomy mood — which was why he’d said to Yue Zhishi words such as ‘I’m really tired, you better go back to your own room to sleep’.

Lying in bed, Song Yu closed his eyes and told himself to hurry up and sleep. But the heavy rain was loud and noisy, and it made his already uneasy heart even more restless. He didn’t know how much time passed, but he fell into a fitful sleep, so many strange scenes appearing in his dreams. He was hugging someone and, just like what those people in class had said, was sweetly enjoying his first love, first kiss.

Outside of his dreams, a sudden crack of thunder flashed by, and it illuminated the face of the person in his dreams.

Song Yu jumped awake from his dreams, his entire body covered in sweat. He was stunned for thirty seconds, and then realised there was something not quite right with himself. At 4am, after changing his pants and his bedsheets, he sat on the bathroom floor and stared blankly at the rumbling washing machine for a very long time. It was hard to swallow; he was shaken.

When he came out of his room in the morning, everything was just the same as usual: Song Yu went to knock on Yue Zhishi’s door at Lin Rong’s behest, urging him to get out of bed.

Standing at the door, staring at the cipher lock for an entire minute — he heard the sound of slippers dragging across the floor from inside, and then the next moment, Yue Zhishi sluggishly pulled open his door. He was wearing a set of soft and fluffy white pyjamas, and he raised a hand to rub his eyes, subconsciously going to hug Song Yu.

“Xiao Yu gege, I still want to sleep.” Yue Zhishi pushed his face into Song Yu’s chest, his arms around his waist. His voice was particularly sticky and needy whenever he wasn’t fully awake.

Song Yu held onto his shoulders and shifted him off, very uneasily.

He went downstairs by himself, and he said to Lin Rong, “Don’t ask me to wake him up anymore.”

At fifteen years old, Song Yu had flipped open the exam paper of puberty. He’d smoothly worked his way through to the end, yet he encountered the most difficult question in history just as he was about to finish.

The first part of the question asked: What should you do if you fall in love with a boy?

The second part of it asked: Then, what should you do if you’ve fallen in love with Yue Zhishi, who is no different from being your true younger brother?

For once, he felt like abandoning the test. He didn’t want it anymore, along with the almost full marks he’d managed to get in the previous questions.

Because he didn’t know what he should do, Song Yu decided to keep things the same as they’ve always been — since Yue Zhishi didn’t know anything about it anyway. Song Yu even innocently fantasied: maybe one day, he wouldn’t like him anymore.

Weren’t people all like that?

But when it came to having a change of heart, it seemed to be much harder than he’d thought. Song Yu was a particular, critical person, his social circles narrow and limited. He never seemed to be able to see someone worth his affections ever since he’d been a child, and other than his studies, there seemed to be only a Yue Zhishi in his life.

When he finished his high school entrance examinations, Song Jin said he wanted to give him a present and told Song Yu anything was fine. Song Yu very rarely wanted anything, because he felt like he already had everything. When his father asked him what he wanted, the first thing that popped into Song Yu’s mind was that Yue Zhishi liked watching anime. And so he asked his father for a projector.

He obviously was given one later, and he even spent an entire morning personally installing it into his room. The projector was right on top of his bed — because he felt Yue Zhishi was really lazy and would prefer to lie in bed while watching television.

He then spent another precious afternoon downloading the anime shows Yue Zhishi liked watching. In his dark room with his curtains drawn, he tested the video display for a very long time, and when he was finally satisfied, he prepared to find an excuse to get Yue Zhishi to come over and watch.

Song Yu didn’t think about what words he should use to invite Yue Zhishi over. In his mind, he only practiced again and again how he would reasonably explain why he had those anime shows.

But Lin Rong had never wanted only one of her children to receive presents, so on almost the exact same day, she installed a new HD television on a wall in Yue Zhishi’s room. Yue Zhishi was overjoyed, boasting about it multiple times at the dining table, saying it was extremely clear and had really good colour.

So Song Yu didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t sleep that night, so he played those downloaded shows on mute throughout the entire night; he only really watched twenty or so episodes.

As he lay in bed, as he watched, he thought: why is this so long? Exactly how is this interesting to watch?

What was so good about it for him to like it so much.

For the first time in his life, he felt: nights were so hard to endure.

But Song Yu didn’t feel any resentment towards Yue Zhishi for wasting his entire day. Faintly, vaguely, he felt like he would still spend a lot of time on that silly little boy in the future.

He then indifferently thought — luckily, he was someone highly efficient. What he had most was time.

The next night, under Qin Yan and their class monitor’s coercion and persuasion, Song Yu carried his adverse reactions from his lack of sleep to the graduation dinner with his junior high classmates. Everyone kept talking about a bunch of irrelevant things as they ate, and the conversation kept changing around; it made it particularly easy for his mind to stray. Song Yu couldn’t remember either, just exactly how they went from talking about barbecue skewers to joking about certain stories.

“You don’t know about the phrase ‘German orthopaedics’? You’re too behind the times.”

“Isn’t it about a brother and sister?”

“What? A brother and sister dating each other?”

“That’s so strange… A bit abnormal.”

Song Yu didn’t say a thing the entire time, looking not much different from his usual demeanour. On the way back home, Qin Yan circled around him, chattering.

“That Yao Mu guy really annoyed me today, he kept asking me why your little brother doesn’t follow your family surname and why he doesn’t look like you guys.” Even though Qin Yan wasn’t that close to Yue Zhishi, he still looked very vexed. “I later told him that Le Le’s parents passed away in an accident, and he could be considered as being entrusted to your family. And then that idiot ended up telling everyone.”

As though worried Song Yu would be unhappy, Qin Yan then rapidly said, “But I’ve already yelled at him. I don’t think he’ll talk about Le Le to other people again.”

Song Yu coldly said mn, the speed of his bike somewhat increasing. He was silent the entire way home.

The wind of a spring night lightly puffed up his white t-shirt, but his chest felt empty, his heart dangling.

Yue Zhishi was just like his one and only allergen, and yet he appeared in every little nook and corner of his life. He was so soft, so adorable — and he left Song Yu with nowhere to escape, no way to reject him.

That night, Song Yu deleted all of the anime shows he’d downloaded for Yue Zhishi, thinking of the quips and jokes his classmates had said around the dinner table. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t find those jokes funny; instead, they made him feel as though he was being brutally cut open.

On one hand, he thought the same as so many other normal people: he felt brothers and sisters being together was very abnormal, and that the older brother must’ve been a despicable person.

On the other hand, he wanted to know: what happened to them after.

After being discovered, after the brother had had his leg broken and then healed — what happened then?

He couldn’t think of what came after, and online opinions couldn’t be believed. But Song Yu silently decided: he didn’t want Yue Zhishi to call him gege anymore.

Just like Qin Yan, he also didn’t know how he should face other people’s questioning. He didn’t know what he should say so that everyone wouldn’t learn about Yue Zhishi’s loss of both his parents; he didn’t know what kind of explanation wouldn’t be considered as hurting Yue Zhishi for a second time.

And moreover, he wasn’t Yue Zhishi’s true older brother to begin with.

He believed very simply that as long as he and Yue Zhishi didn’t act like true brothers in other people’s eyes, then he would be able to be absolved — while he would also be given the space to continue on, single-mindedly.

The projector that Song Yu had initially bought for Yue Zhishi ended up being used to watch many, many geological documentaries. Whenever he watched them, he would think of the past Yue Yi; he became even more wary.

Yue Zhishi tired of his new television very quickly, and he started to enter Song Yu’s room without permission again, clinging onto him to play video games together. He wouldn’t leave even after Song Yu rejected him, and he’d stay in Song Yu’s room and watch those documentaries he wasn’t interested in.

Every time that happened, Song Yu’s single-mindedness would fail.

His eyes would be focused on the documentary, but his heart would be thinking — when would Yue Zhishi find this boring and return back to his own room.

But as long as he wasn’t driven away, and as long as Lin Rong didn’t urge him to sleep, Yue Zhishi wouldn’t leave.

Out of all of the possible pitfalls for Song Yu, he was the purest, yet most persistent one, stubbornly staying by Song Yu’s side and watching as he jumped down.

As though he refused to give up until he got what he wanted.

They moved to another school district for secondary school, Yue Zhishi also entering Peiya’s junior high department. Both of them were surrounded by new classmates. Following his previous decision, Song Y carried out his plan to cut himself off.

When it came to Song Yu, Yue Zhishi would forever obey and listen, giving him whatever he wanted. And so he followed along, acting like a stranger who didn’t know him at school; no part of their school lives intersected, and neither did they interact.

Song Yu was the first one to find it strange.

When they’d still been in the same elementary school, Yue Zhishi would wait outside his classroom for him to finish class. Now that they were in the same secondary school, Yue Zhishi still waited for him; he simply expanded the range and distance between them to the space of strangers, sitting and waiting for him in the corridor connecting their two classroom buildings.

In reality, Song Yu knew everything.

From the first day Yue Zhishi had lingered in that corridor, not daring to head to the high school department’s classroom building — Song Yu had known.

But he believed this was right. There was truly no way he could be anything with his own younger brother.

Other than how strange it’d felt in the beginning and the occasional surges of possessiveness, Song Yu sometimes felt a subtle sense of pleasure at their secret agreement to act like strangers in the midst of everyone else.

They saw each other a good few times in the cafeteria, and whenever Yue Zhishi noticed him, he would do silly things without realising, sometimes even doing them with both his hands and his feet at the same time. Sometimes he’d even bump into someone.

Yue Zhishi, who never looked where he was going, even directly crashed right into Song Yu’s chest one time.

His head half lowered, he hadn’t dared to look at Song Yu. His long and soft eyelashes had been trembling, and he’d stammered out an apology before calling him a very foreign ‘senior’.

As soon as Song Yu thought about how this guy would think up all kinds of different ways to sneak into his room at night, and then cutely beg him for help with his math problems — for a certain moment, Song Yu found this contrast of pretending to be strangers extremely interesting.

“It’s fine.” He reached out a hand to support Yue Zhishi.

“Watch where you’re going, junior brother.”

Unrequited love at close range was no doubt difficult, but he had to admit — love brought about delight and a stirring of his heart.

Peiya’s flag raising team was made of both junior high and high school students, and there were four flag bearers. Two of them, one from each department, would be in charge of hoisting the flag.

Song Yu had been chosen to be a flag raiser since first year of high school, and he’d refused to be one ever since. But in second year, he couldn’t refuse any longer; he was forcefully pulled into the team. He focused on doing his homework during meetings until a certain meeting during the second half of the school year, where the team leader brought up a name.

“…Luo Xing, who was meant to partner up with junior high’s Yue Zhishi, has twisted his ankle. Our high school team needs to switch up our roster. There’s a ceremony next week, and someone needs to take Luo Xing’s place. Who wants to do their shift ahead of time?”

Song Yu, who’d never been enthusiastic about helping others, proposed changing his shift right at this moment.

“I don’t want to hoist the flag near the semester exams. It’ll be good to do it now.” He gave them a slightly clumsy reason, but this impulsive decision actually matched very well with the impression he gave others. He was also volunteering himself, so his team leader gratefully changed the roster for him.

Because he wanted to startle Yue Zhishi, Song Yu didn’t tell him about this. Even when Yue Zhishi kept talking about how he needed to hoist the flag next week at home during late night snacks, Song Yu didn’t open his mouth and say a single word.

Yue Zhishi allowed him to be a true high school boy in the midst of puberty, able to carry out an exceedingly dull prank on the person he liked — while imagining with utter delight how he would look when startled.

When Monday finally came, the two of them left the house before the sky lightened, and they respectively changed into their military uniforms after arriving at school. It was a foggy morning of early summer, and the sunlight weakly shone onto the wet sports ground. Holding down his cap, Song Yu followed behind the other high school boy with trained footsteps until they were behind the two junior high flag raisers.

That little silly boy didn’t notice him until he was standing on the flag raising platform on behalf of the high school department and came face to face with him. There was an adorably earnest look covering his face.

Under his cap, his pair of beautiful eyes were extremely wide. Like a dragonfly skimming across the water surface, the dense top and bottom layers of his eyelashes lightly met each other before separating once again.

He’d thought he’d been prepared to see him; he’d thought the one who would be thrown into chaos would be solely Yue Zhishi.

But it wasn’t like that in reality — Song Yu’s heart was thrown into a complete mess.

Underneath the music and the chirping of summer cicadas, he faintly cleared his throat, signalling Yue Zhishi to wake up from his daze. He could see Yue Zhishi visibly tensing up; he seemed to have forgotten most of the movements he’d practiced so many times on the balcony at home. But he still did his best to follow along with Song Yu, hoisting the red flag together up to the very top as the music came to an end.

Their school flag came immediately after, Peiya’s school song starting to play. The main flag raisers for the school flag were the junior high school students — so, Yue Zhishi. He somewhat stiffly raised the purple school flag, printed with their school’s emblem, and pulled at the halyard bit by bit along with the school song. He carefully controlled his speed.

Song Yu stood next to him silently, and he suddenly heard something. Soon after, he heard a clatter. He’d only just thought something didn’t feel right when the massive school flag abruptly fell down, covering Yue Zhishi and him completely.

The several thousand students under the flag raising platform dumbly watched as the accident happened — some people had already made some rather loud noises of surprise.

Being cocooned by the flag, Song Yu was also very stunned, but he was still able to think. Yue Zhishi caught his arm in the next second and opened his mouth very softly.

“Gege, what should we do?”

They were able to hide from everyone’s eyes, having been drowned by the flag, and it was as though they’d temporarily recovered their intimate relationship. Which was why Song Yu also swiftly grabbed onto Yue Zhishi’s hand.

“It’ll be okay, don’t be scared.”

He threw off the school flag and saluted in apology to the school leaders and students underneath the platform. He then, with Yue Zhishi, bowed deeply. They calmly came back up and bowed again towards the direction of the clock tower where the broadcasting station was.

As stationmaster, Qin Yan reacted very quickly. He replayed the school song as soon as Yue Zhishi was prepared, and he gave them a chance to remedy the situation as soon as possible after the accident.

Yue Zhishi and Song Yu were taken by the teacher in charge of the flag team for a chat, but they weren’t punished. The accident wasn’t actually completely caused by Yue Zhishi’s nervousness; the halyard for the school flag on the flag pole had already aged to the point of tearing.

“Good thing you guys handled it well.” The teacher glanced at Song Yu. “High school seniors truly are different, so calm.”

Smiling, she encouraged Yue Zhishi and said, “You’ll need to thank your senior well later.”

Yue Zhishi was a bit dejected as they came out of the office. The summer sunlight landed on him piece by piece, and it made the military uniform on his body look even better.

In the corridor filled with people, they remained at the distance of strangers.

“You didn’t even tell me.” Yue Zhishi spoke vaguely, as well as in a very quiet voice, as though worried their act of strangers would be seen through by classmates passing by. “You scared me.”

“So you think it was my fault?” Song Yu acted also like a senior whose relationship with him stopped at the level of being in the same flag raising team.

Yue Zhishi shook his head. “It was my fault.” He seemed to still want to say something, but he paused — a girl carrying a thick stack of exercise booklets walked into the broad gap between them.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Song Yu mildly said, “The teacher just said it was the halyard’s problem.”

“It wasn’t.” Yue Zhishi waited until there was no one else around and then opened his mouth, speaking quietly yet candidly. “I was too nervous.”

Walking with him to the stairs, Yue Zhishi lowered his head and said, as if to himself, “My heart gets distracted as soon as I see you, what should I do…” A student came up the staircase, and so he added a form of address to deceive both himself and others.

“…Senior.”

The warm wind of summer blew the soft and gentle tone in Yue Zhishi’s voice to Song Yu’s ears.

“Getting distracted isn’t anything terrible,” he said, consoling him in a seemingly indifferent manner.

It was better than having his heart moved.