When Xing Ye woke, the classroom was empty. Sheng Renxing sat beside him, writing and drawing on a sheet of paper. For a moment, Xing Ye looked dazed.
“Awake?” Sheng Renxing turned his head toward him. “Hungry?”
Xing Ye sat upright and rubbed his forehead. There were two food containers on the desk. He opened them. Two boxes of fried rice.
“You bought these?” he asked.
Sheng Renxing put away his exercises. “Yellow Hair bought them. He also told me to ask you where the breakfast you were supposed to buy him went. He said he got so hungry he nearly swallowed Jiang Jing whole.”
Xing Ye paused, took both boxes of fried rice out, and pretended not to hear that part. “Which one do you want?”
“The one without scallions is mine.” Sheng Renxing smiled and opened one to check.
This one had scallions. “This is yours.” He pushed it toward Xing Ye, only to see Xing Ye stop moving and stare at his own right hand.
Then Xing Ye looked at him. Sheng Renxing paused. He pulled the other box in front of himself and flashed Xing Ye a toothy smile.
“What is this?” Xing Ye turned his wrist over.
“A watch.” Sheng Renxing scooped up a bite of rice. “Can’t you tell?” The food had arrived a while ago, but he had waited for Xing Ye to wake up before eating. Who would have expected Xing Ye to sleep so deeply that Sheng Renxing ended up starving?
“I can tell from what you said,” Xing Ye replied with a nod.
“…” Sheng Renxing picked strands of carrot out of his fried rice and snorted. “I’ve won awards for drawing, you know.”
“What award?” Xing Ye watched him not only pick out the carrots but also remove the meat and toss it into the plastic bag.
Sheng Renxing stopped for a moment and turned to him. “Are you sure you’re hungry?”
The portions from this place were fairly small, and the food wasn’t especially good. Sheng Renxing forced himself to finish, then asked, “Want to buy drinks?”
Xing Ye shook his head. He pushed up his sleeve, exposing half his forearm, and casually took a pen from Sheng Renxing’s pencil case.
Sheng Renxing watched him pull his hand over. “What pattern do you like?”
“Damn.” Sheng Renxing blinked and gestured for him to wait. With one hand, he opened his phone and searched for an image.
Then he showed it to Xing Ye. “This.”
It was a tattoo of a clock, with half a rose underneath as decoration. Sheng Renxing didn’t actually think it looked especially good. He just thought the design was complicated and deliberately wanted to make things difficult for Xing Ye.
Xing Ye looked at it for a while, then at Sheng Renxing. He left the phone screen lit off to one side, took the pen, and began drawing on Sheng Renxing’s arm.
“If you make it ugly…” Sheng Renxing propped his head on one hand and thought about it. “I’ll draw a turtle on your face.”
“Then you already owe me one,” Xing Ye said without looking up. He ran his hand over Sheng Renxing’s forearm as though surveying a piece of land.
The touch tickled. Sheng Renxing laughed. “Bullshit. Was mine ugly?”
The corner of Xing Ye’s mouth curved. He didn’t answer.
Sheng Renxing said, “I’m remembering this. Just you wait.”
Xing Ye first sketched the rough outline. It covered half of Sheng Renxing’s forearm and already looked surprisingly convincing.
Sheng Renxing watched for a while and wanted to take a photo, but his phone was on Xing Ye’s side. He reached over and ruffled Xing Ye’s hair. “Can you even see?” His hair had grown a little long in front and hung over his eyes. Whenever Xing Ye blinked, his lashes made the strands tremble faintly.
Out of kindness, Sheng Renxing parted his hair neatly down the middle.
Xing Ye lifted his eyes and gave him a cold look. Sheng Renxing couldn’t help laughing. Still laughing, he mussed the hair back into place. “Pretty handsome, kid.”
After a while—
“Why is he afraid you’ll hit him?” Sheng Renxing tapped his fingers on Captain’s desk.
Xing Ye didn’t answer.
Sheng Renxing poked him. “Stop pretending you’re mute.”
Xing Ye clicked his tongue, looked around, then lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped away one of the lines he had drawn. “Are you two close?”
“Classmates.” Sheng Renxing gestured for him to wait, leaned forward, and yanked a pack of tissues out of Chen Ying’s desk.
“I thought you two were dating,” Xing Ye said. “He was the one who came up with the idea of taking my clothes back then.”
“Huh?” Sheng Renxing had been handing him a tissue and froze. He remembered them mentioning before that a gay guy had stolen Xing Ye’s clothes.
“Dating my ass.” He found the thought absurd. His attention shifted to the second sentence. “Why did they take your clothes?”
“Don’t know.” Xing Ye glanced at him and answered indifferently. “Things got a little out of hand when I took the clothes back. He probably thought I’d retaliate.”
“Oh.” Sheng Renxing asked, “Did you?”
“No. It wasn’t that serious.” Xing Ye’s tone was casual. “I warned him.”
He didn’t raise his head, so Sheng Renxing couldn’t see his expression.
Sheng Renxing suddenly laughed. “Someone like you attracts gay guys. Reflect on yourself.”
“I am reflecting.” Xing Ye finished one stroke, pressed a tissue over the still-wet ink, and looked into his eyes. “So do you.”
“?” Sheng Renxing froze. “What?”
“You attract gay guys too,” Xing Ye said.
“Fuck.” Sheng Renxing said, “What kind of logic is that? Just because two people are gay doesn’t mean they’ll date, okay?”
Besides, Captain wasn’t his type at all.
“Just guessing. I’m not gay,” Xing Ye said.
Sheng Renxing was a little speechless. “Saying it like that makes you sound extremely gay.”
“I’m not effeminate,” Xing Ye objected.
“Do you see me making dainty little hand poses?” Sheng Renxing knew a lot of people’s stereotype of gay men was simply “effeminate.”
Xing Ye thought about it, then suddenly laughed. “Do one.”
Sheng Renxing gave him the middle finger.
After a while, Xing Ye asked, “How did you know you were gay?”
Sheng Renxing originally didn’t want to say, but the atmosphere was good. He traced a finger idly across the desk. “Dated a girl. Realized I didn’t feel anything for women.”
“That girl?” Xing Ye frowned slightly, looking so serious it was as though he intended to conduct research.
“No.” Sheng Renxing sounded awkwardly impatient. “All women. I’m not interested.”
“Oh,” Xing Ye said. “Interested in people like your deskmate?”
Sheng Renxing clicked his tongue. “I’m interested in dainty hand poses.”
Xing Ye laughed.
Sheng Renxing thought for a moment. “Have you never been around gay people before? Why are you so curious?”
Xing Ye shook his head. “Only the kind who make dainty hand poses.” He smiled. “If you’re interested, I can introduce you to one.”
“No thanks!” Sheng Renxing simply collapsed forward onto the desk. Then he failed to stop himself. “Introduce yourself to me. I’m most interested in you.”
Xing Ye looked up at him. After a long moment, he said, “Too bad I can’t do the dainty hand pose.”
“Yeah. Tragic.” Sheng Renxing yawned to hide his expression. “Relax. Your type isn’t my thing.”
Xing Ye smiled. “Not good enough for you?”
“Too hard,” Sheng Renxing said. Hard to chew. “I like them softer.”
“Then why not just find a woman?” Xing Ye asked.
Sheng Renxing clicked his tongue. He thought Xing Ye was being ridiculously crude and answered irritably, “Because they don’t have dicks.”
When Xing Ye looked ready to ask another question, Sheng Renxing said, “Shut up, or I’ll draw a dick on you in a minute.”
Xing Ye raised his brows and finally stopped talking.
The two of them rambled back and forth about nothing in particular. The design was large and had a lot of lines. Toward the end, Xing Ye bent over and focused seriously on drawing, no longer talking. Sheng Renxing couldn’t work on problems with his arm held like this, so he propped his head up and watched Xing Ye draw on him.
“You’re actually pretty good at this. Did you ever learn?” Sheng Renxing watched the rough shape gradually emerge, then picked up his phone and compared it with the reference image. It was a little different, but somehow looked better than the original.
“No,” Xing Ye said.
“Then you’ve got talent!” Sheng Renxing praised him.
Xing Ye smiled. “Not as much as you. Never won an award.”
“Tsk!” Sheng Renxing rolled his eyes. “Can you finish it?”
“If you stop moving.” Xing Ye squeezed his arm hard.
In the end, he still didn’t finish. Just as he was nearing the end, Sheng Renxing was summoned away by a teacher.
The messenger was the same female classmate as before. She said the dean wanted him. When Sheng Renxing entered the office, he thought Mooncake had complained about him again.
Instead, Director Li was all smiles. “I heard you can play the piano?”
Sheng Renxing smelled a weasel circling the henhouse. He thought about it. “A little.”
Director Li smiled. “Here’s the situation. The senior-year intensive classes are starting earlier than usual this year, so the school is preparing a motivational assembly for them. At the assembly, the first- and second-year students will perform a few things to cheer them on.” He handed over a sheet of paper. “One of the performances is a piano piece, but unfortunately the student who was supposed to play had an accident. We’re looking for a replacement, and then we happened to remember—you can play, right?”
Sheng Renxing reached out to take it. Director Li had been about to say more when he suddenly noticed Sheng Renxing’s arm.
Sheng Renxing had come in such a hurry that he hadn’t pulled down his sleeve. The watch Xing Ye had drawn on him, looking exactly like a tattoo, was displayed brazenly in full view.
Director Li choked on his words.
Sheng Renxing took the paper without even looking at it. “I’m not doing it.”
Director Li immediately grew anxious. “Hey, the principal recommended you! Didn’t he say you won some kind of award the last time you performed piano? This is an honor too!”
“I still have to prepare for the math competition and the monthly exams.” Sheng Renxing frowned.
“This won’t take much time,” Director Li said. “You can use class time to practice.”
“?”
Was that really something a dean was supposed to say? They went back and forth for a while before Sheng Renxing finally nodded and picked up the sheet music from the desk.
Director Li kept staring at the “tattoo” on his arm, visibly wanting to say something. Sheng Renxing noticed and waved his hand at him. “Looks good?”
Cultural Notes
Senior-year assembly: The school’s motivational assembly is intended to encourage students in their final year, when preparation for the national university entrance examination becomes especially intense.
