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Chapter 29: Late Night Chat by the Lake
His words came very abruptly.
Yue Zhishi didn’t know why, but the piece of shrimp he’d just picked up fell straight out of his chopsticks and back into his bowl.
Lin Rong seemed to not really understand. “What do you mean you’re not going?”
“I’m not leaving the country.” Song Yu was very calm. “I’m going to take the college entrance examinations, and I’ve already thought about what I want to do afterwards and what I want to major in. I don’t want to waste time exploring other options.”
Yue Zhishi finished dinner in the midst of his doubt and confusion.
In comparison, Song Yu’s parents were a bit more relaxed. Song Jin was more satisfied knowing Song Yu already planned out his future than if Song Yu had merely chosen one of the options he’d previously given him.
Lin Rong had never placed too much importance on grades and their future prospects for her children’s education; she knew Song Yu was a mature child and the best way to show her love for him was to give him respect.
It was only Yue Zhishi who couldn’t understand, so he sat on the sofa in a daze, hand caressing Orange’s fur stroke after stroke. Orange was particularly obedient today and didn’t run away from his arms.
Of course, a bubbling happiness slowly grew within his inability to understand, because this meant the distance of their separation immediately shortened from the other side of the ocean to a range he could accept.
He didn’t come to his senses until Song Yu stood in front of him.
“Come out with me for a bit.” Song Yu threw over a coat and walked by himself to the entrance of the house.
It was late spring, and the warmth of its nights were always a very tricky matter. Yue Zhishi wore the coat Song Yu gave him, and it felt like his flu medicine finally started to kick in and helped him feel less uncomfortable. Their bicycles weaved through the late night, the wind softly rising and wrapping around their bodies as if they were swimming in warm water. The light of the street lamps rippled as they rode past.
They passed a decently sized park centred around a lake with many people taking a walk in the darkness. Song Yu parked his bike in front of a brightly lit convenience store and went inside to buy some things, Yue Zhishi very docilely standing outside and waiting for him, just like when he was younger.
Younger Yue Zhishi was very much a glutton. He hadn’t been able able to move every time he entered a convenience store, busily wanting to buy everything he saw, but the majority of the food inside were things he couldn’t eat. He’d cry if he wasn’t allowed to buy what he wanted, and this made things very difficult for everyone.
Song Yu had later thought of a plan — he’d ordered Yue Zhishi to stand in one particular spot in front of the convenience store’s ceiling to floor windows, and he hadn’t been allowed to move. Song Yu would then enter the store and buy what he needed at the quickest possible speed, and he’d constantly look back to check on Yue Zhishi. If Yue Zhishi was obedient, Song Yu would then reward him with an ice cream.
It was the same this time as well, but because his childhood had long gone by, Yue Zhishi was no longer the child who needed to be supervised. This kind of unwritten rule hadn’t been used for a very long time, so Yue Zhishi found it a bit strange when Song Yu gave him an ice cream cone.
The ice cream still carried the frigid air of the freezer, and Song Yu’s fingertips were also cool to the touch.
“Congratulations.” Song Yu led him to a nearby bench and sat down. “Your reward for improving your midterm grades.”
Even though his tone didn’t really sound all that congratulatory and the reward was just an ice cream cone, Yue Zhishi was very obviously happy. He lowered his head and ripped open the packaging, realising he’d never tried this flavour before.
The packaging said the cone was white peach oolong tea flavoured.
“You can have only one bite.” Song Yu once again started to sound a bit merciless. “You can’t eat too much ice cream when you’re sick.”
Yue Zhishi didn’t really pay attention to what he said. He noticed this ice cream cone was slightly different from others — it didn’t have the fancy swirls of chocolate and hazelnut pieces at the top, only a layer of white, translucent jelly. His first reaction after he pulled open the packaging was disappointment, and when he took a bite, he found it a bit sour.
It was a layer of peach-flavoured jelly.
His brain only then processed what Song Yu said. “Only one bite?” He looked at Song Yu and squeezed his eyebrows together. “But this top layer’s not nice at all. I still haven’t gotten to the ice cream, so it’s like I didn’t even get to eat it. Besides, no one’s flu will get worse just because they ate an ice cream.”
Only when it came to food would Yue Zhishi be particularly logical and eager to debate.
Song Yu eventually relented. He leaned back on the bench and gazed at the lake not too far away.
There was a hazy layer of mist floating above the lake. One couple stood underneath a street lamp, kissing, and he looked again at Yue Zhishi. He was truly absorbed into eating his ice cream cone, peeking into it every time he took a bite to see what was inside.
Yue Zhishi found the layer of jelly quite ordinary, so he tentatively tried the light pink layer of ice cream.
It was surprisingly very delicious.
He flipped his face over to Song Yu, eyes bright. “It tastes like milk tea.”
“What?” Song Yu glanced back at him, looking a bit distracted.
“This ice cream cone is milk tea flavoured, like an oolong macchiato.” Yue Zhishi’s voice was very excited. “Do you want to try?” He lifted the cone and merely moved it over closer to Song Yu, unlike how he used to directly stuff the food he wanted Song Yu to try into his mouth.
But after he moved it closer, Yue Zhishi remembered Song Yu didn’t like to eat sweet things, so he  paused and started to retract his hand back, curbing his desire to share his things with Song Yu.
The moment Yue Zhishi’s hand began to retreat, Song Yu grabbed his wrist and pulled, holding it in place so he could take a bite.
Nearby, a mischievous child threw a stone into the lake. The couple joined together under the street lamp slowly pulled apart, and the moonlight shining onto the heart of the lake was startled enough to diffuse and spread into thousands of glittering fragments.
Yue Zhishi took back his hand, his wrist flushed.
Song Yu was silent for a few seconds, and then he gave an assessment. “Not bad.”
The two of them quietly sat there, Yue Zhishi continuing to eat. Eating the ice cream cone took a lot of effort as he needed to break off the cone shell and leave it to the side as he consumed the ice cream, but he was still very satisfied at the end. He said, falling back on the bench, “I feel like I’ve recovered by fifty percent.”
Song Yu didn’t make fun of his childish way of thinking. He took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. Yue Zhishi was a bit stunned when he took the slightly wrinkled paper — he carefully looked over it under the light, and realised it was the action plan he previously created for studying overseas.
“How did you get this?” In his agitation, Yue Zhishi almost stuffed the paper into his mouth. He wanted to crumple the paper into a ball again and swallow it to destroy the evidence just like a television drama.
“I’ve pretty much memorised it all.” Song Yu straightforwardly smashed his fantasy into pieces. “I went to your room to look for the book you took from me. You weren’t there, and the desk was all messy, so I accidentally saw this balled up piece of paper as I was searching.”
“Accidentally?” Yue Zhishi frankly questioned Song Yu’s wording.
“Yes.” Song Yu’s face didn’t flicker at all, and he even gave him a suggestion. “Besides, if you happen to have a secret you don’t want others to discover, you should destroy it immediately.”
He successfully convinced Yue Zhishi.
That’s true. He indeed should’ve torn this abandoned action plan of his into pieces straight away.
“Why did you give up?”
“Why aren’t you going overseas?”
The two of them spoke at the same time, voices overlapping.
Song Yu no longer spoke. Both of them waited for a moment, and then Yue Zhishi opened his mouth first. “I initially…”
He thought for a little bit and then very candidly said, “I didn’t want to separate from you if you were going to leave the country. That’s why I wanted to go too.”
Hearing these words, Song Yu’s hand clenched on the edge of the bench. A bird flew past the lake, and its wings skimmed across the surface of the water, leaving behind traces of its journey.
Yue Zhishi dropped his eyes and continued, “But I don’t have any money. The allowance I normally get isn’t even enough to pay for the English test’s registration fee. That’s why I made a plan to study and work part time.”
“But I later realised I might not be able to save that much money, and I didn’t want to use uncle or aunt’s money. Besides…” He thought about what happened that day at the hospital, paused and changed the excuse he was about to say. “Aunt Rong might not want to me go either. If I left, she’d be the only one left at home and would definitely be very sad.”
The dates on the action plan started on the night Song Yu spoke with his father. The daily schedule included one action to implement every day, and all of them had a little tick mark next to them. The last tick stopped on the day they went to the hospital.
It was also the night Song Yu witnessed Yue Zhishi hiding behind the corner of the fridge and the countertop, mutely eating his cinnamon roll.
“So you decided to give up going overseas and focus on your studies for the high school entrance exam?”
Yue Zhishi discovered Song Yu sounded a bit strange, almost as if he was asking a rhetorical question. But his question was a bit more difficult than a normal rhetorical question — he sounded almost as if he was slightly angry.
“You’re not happy about it?” Yue Zhishi asked.
Song Yu pressed his lips together. Yue Zhishi’s large and pure pair of eyes was staring at him. “What is there for me to be unhappy about?”
“Oh.” Maybe Yue Zhishi thought wrongly. But he temporarily didn’t want to give a proper answer to Song Yu’s question because he didn’t want to tell him he was afraid of being away from Song Yu and was trying to get used to that separation ahead of time — it felt like he would sound a bit stupid if he said it out loud.
So he nodded. “I originally needed to work hard at my studies anyway. I’m number three in my year now.”
Song Yu didn’t continue asking.
Yue Zhishi repeated his earlier question. “Song Yu gege, how come you’re not going overseas anymore?” He thought of how Song Yu had picked up his thrown away action plan and lifted it into the air. “It couldn’t be related to this, right?”
After saying he didn’t want to separate from Song Yu, it felt a bit like he wanted to keep him here with him. So he then said, “I know I said I wanted to go overseas with you, but it doesn’t mean I’ll stop you from going just because I can’t go.”
His words came out with a touch too much self-confidence, but Yue Zhishi had always been a child like this: the care and love he’d received since childhood made him into someone who could openly and honestly express his feelings.
“It wasn’t entirely because you gave up,” Song Yu replied, avoiding the actual question.
Yue Zhishi wasn’t actually all that disappointed. If Song Yu had said he’d given up because of him, then Yue Zhishi would’ve thought something was wrong with him.
“I actually didn’t know if I wanted to go overseas or not. It was just an option I was given.” Song Yu looked ahead at the lake. “I previously didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future. I took a very long time to think about it recently, and I only just now decided.”
He pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper and also handed it to Yue Zhishi.
“What’s this?”
Song Yu glanced at him. “Do you remember what I told you last time about the gift your dad gave me? You said he’d never given you one.”
“Is this the map he drew himself?” Yue Zhishi’s eyes glowed.
Song Yu sounded a bit helpless. “I drew this. It’s a topographic map of the first place we visited together on a tour, Jiuzhai Valley.”
Yue Zhishi drew the map slightly closer. “This is so amazing. I still remember the photo we took together, everything was so beautiful there.”
Song Yu hummed in response and continued, “I’m going to stay and take the college entrance exams so I can enter the major I want to study.” He lifted his head to look at the sky and unexpectedly saw a few spectacularly twinkling stars.
Yue Zhishi very much enjoyed how he felt right now. The words Song Yu didn’t finish saying at the dinner table — to have Song Yu willingly say them to him, Yue Zhishi felt particularly satisfied.
“Song Yu gege, can you give me this map?”
Song Yu gazed at the lake. “Why do you want it for? It’s not like your dad drew it.”
He was just joking and didn’t expect Yue Zhishi to grab his arm and say, very earnestly and directly, “But I want the one you drew.”
Actually, Yue Zhishi was nervous at asking. He did think there was a large possibility Song Yu wouldn’t actually give the map to him since it was the first time he’d ever drawn a topographic map — and since it was a map of the first place he’d ever gone to on a holiday, it held even more sentimental value.
He didn’t expect Song Yu to look at him and very casually say, sure.
“Really?” Yue Zhishi couldn’t control his excitement and scooted closer until they were almost touching. “Are there any conditions?”
How could there be someone rushing to ask for conditions.
“You just reminded me.” The corner of Song Yu’s mouth hooked up in light amusement. “You can give me your drawing in exchange.”
What good luck is this — Yue Zhishi agreed without any hesitation. “No problem, you can choose anything you want! I…”
Wait a second.
Seeing him abruptly stop speaking, Song Yu deliberately asked him if there was anything wrong.
Yue Zhishi blinked. “Which drawing are you talking about?” Since he’d already seen the action plan, did that mean the drawing on the desk…
Song Yu was calmer than ever. “It’s probably the drawing you’re also thinking about.”
No way. Yue Zhishi shot up in a panic, his body posture making him Song Yu think he was going to jump in the lake.
The light from the convenience store shone onto his body and caught on his red ears.
He’d secretly watched on as Song Yu fed the stray cats and had even drawn a picture about it — didn’t that make him one of those perverts in television dramas?
Song Yu wanted to tease him again, so he raised his head and asked, “You don’t want to give it away that much?”
“No,” Yue Zhishi rushed to explain. “I only saw you by accident.” And then accidentally drawn a picture. This reasoning would be too laughable if he said it out loud and didn’t even answer Song Yu’s question, so he didn’t say it. He also didn’t know why his whole head felt warm and said, inserting his foot into his mouth, “This isn’t even the first time I drew you. I used to have a bunch of small comic figures of you, but you never wanted them.”
“When did I not want them?” Song Yu said, looking at him. “Compared to you, always sneaking about.”
Yue Zhishi retorted, “I saw you outside right in the open.” He then added, “Not only did I see you, I’m going to go back and tell Orange you have cats other than him. A large group of them.”
Song Yu froze for a second, and then broke into laughter, the likes of which Yue Zhishi had not seen for a very long time.
Seeing him like that, it felt like the tension Yue Zhishi had been holding in the last few days finally disappeared. Except he faintly felt he hadn’t been like himself lately with all his worries of what he might gain and what he might lose — they circled around and around, randomly making him either upset or happy for no reason at all. He was able to carelessly and honestly say he didn’t want to be away from Song Yu, but he had no way to naturally explain the drawing he’d created in the middle of the night.
Yue Zhishi was a bit embarrassed since Song Yu was still laughing. He told him to stop laughing and even grabbed his arm, wanting to pull him up.
But Song Yu clasped his arm in return, the laughter on his face greatly disappearing as he calmed down.
“Give it to me. I really like it,” he seriously said.
The author has something to say:
Le Le: I think I’ve grown up (1、、) Everyone, please give me more water~
Cornetto, I really like your peach oolong ice cream cone, but please release a version without the peach jelly. I hope you know what’s good for you (doge)