I Treat You as a Brother - Chapter 16
When he finally came out of the club room, Zou Shun was in a trance.
He quietly floated downstairs, then suddenly grabbed Fang Mo, and said with a serious expression and a firm tone, “You better treat me to a meal. The expensive kind.”
Fang Mo nodded repeatedly, “Okay, okay. Anything you say.”
Xu Xiran interrupted from the side, “Let me treat you. I can treat you today, what do you want to eat?”
“No,” Zou Shun raised his hand to refuse without hesitation, “I want to eat alone with him.”
Xu Xiran was stunned for a moment, then blinked, as if he wanted to say something, but finally swallowed it back.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Fang Mo felt guilty, and in order to console his friend’s injured heart, he reached out and patted his shoulder, “I’ll treat you, I’ll treat you. It’ll be good. You can choose the place.”
Zou Shun let out an exaggerated sigh, “That was too terrifying. I’ve never been surrounded by so many girls in my life, chitter-chattering all around me. My head’s all dizzy.”
Fang Mo thought to himself, What you experienced wasn’t actually that bad. If you watched the anime, you’ll see several similar-looking girls wearing pleated mini-skirts, with their childish voices and their boobs swaying with every move. Then you’ll understand what real dizziness is.
Xu Xiran had also specifically said that in such a high-precision animation work, every chest movement was worth a thousand in gold, which was a manifestation of the authenticity and ability of the production team.
When Xu Xiran said those sentences that caused him physical discomfort, Fang Mo felt that Xu Xiran’s attractiveness had decreased by at least 20%.
Thinking back on it now, it still made him hard to breathe.
While Fang Mo was immersed in the unbearable memories of the past, Zou Shun’s phone rang. He glanced down, and then his lifeless eyes immediately lit up. Before answering the call, he deliberately took two steps away.
Unfortunately, this distance was not enough to prevent others from hearing. Fang Mo pricked up his ears and could easily hear what he was saying.
“It’s okay, it’s convenient, now is convenient. Mn, I’ve tried it, it’s pretty good, I like it a lot. You have a good eye for this. Really, oh… okay, next time I’ll spray it on for you to smell.”
His expression and tone were completely different from yesterday’s shouting and murderous intent.
Seeing Fang Mo secretly getting closer, Zou Shun was alerted and backed away further. He gestured at Fang Mo and Xu Xiran with the expression of “as long as the green hills are the same and the crystal-clear water still flows, do not come closer”.
After Zou Shun took his phone and ran away, only Fang Mo and Xu Xiran were left on site.
“I have a question, and it might be a little impolite.” Xu Xiran said to Fang Mo.
“What is it?” Fang Mo was curious.
“You two have a good relationship, right?” Xu Xiran said.
Fang Mo hesitated for a moment, then nodded cautiously. Zou Shun had been his closest friend since he entered university, and it was not an exaggeration to say that he was still his best friend. He was the type of friend that Fang Mo could joke around freely with, without having to worry about him taking it to heart.
In addition to being able to talk to each other, their sense of identity with each other was also one of the important reasons for their deep friendship. Fang Mo, being the pretentious person he is, had no other friends in the circle and Zou Shun was one of the very few people who knew his orientation.
Although he had been valuing love over friendship lately, Fang Mo still deeply valued this friend in his heart.
It was only because Xu Xiran knew Zou Shun’s orientation that Fang Mo felt very uneasy when he wanted to admit his genuine closeness with Zou Shun. If he exposed his sexuality because of this, it would really be a failure in the middle of business, and he was afraid that from then on, he would never be able to get close to Xu Xiran.
Xu Xiran looked at him deep in thought.
“What, what’s wrong?” Fang Mo felt extremely lacking in self-confidence.
Xu Xiran frowned slightly, pondered for a while, then waved his hand dismissively, “Nevermind, it’s nothing.”
Saying only half of it was tantamount to torture to the curious person. Fang Mo immediately asked, “What do you want to say, can’t you just say it?”
After hesitating for a moment, Xu Xiran asked, ”Oh right, did our class beauty contact you yet?”
He noticeably changed the topic.
Fang Mo felt tangled and uneasy in his heart, afraid that Xu Xiran had guessed the truth and found it too hard to say it out loud. But since he didn’t say it directly, there was still room for redemption. The question he threw just now was a good opportunity.
“Yeah,” Fang Mo nodded, “Last night we talked for a bit and it felt okay. I don’t know how she thought.”
The truth was that they talked for a bit, and the conversation naturally fizzled out.
The girl probably wanted to play hard to get and took the initiative to add him as a friend a while before greeting him, then politely said a few words before saying goodbye shortly after. Fang Mo specifically looked at her Moments and saw that she had posted a selfie half an hour before she reached out to him.
She was indeed quite pretty. She looked comfortable with a relaxed and natural smile, and was a type that Fang Mo could appreciate. He almost wanted to give her selfie a like, but he was afraid of causing a misunderstanding, so in the end, he pretended like he never saw it.
Fang Mo felt bad for hurting this beautiful young lady.
But now, he had no choice but to use her as a cover for himself.
Xu Xiran smiled at him when he heard the words, “If it works out, you have to treat me to a meal.”
“…We’ll see if it really works out,” Fang Mo faked a sigh, “I’m not that good at talking to girls. Yesterday, we talked for a bit, and then she ignored me. Maybe I said something wrong and scared her away.”
Xu Xiran agreed and immediately nodded, “Girls are indeed hard to deal with, they can’t be figured out.”
Fang Mo glanced at him cautiously, “Whereas Xiaoyao is like…”
Before he finished his sentence, Xu Xiran put his arm around his shoulders, “Xiongdi1, you understand me.”
Fang Mo’s feelings were complicated. He didn’t know whether he should be glad that he chose the correct bonus item, or feel sad for the otaku in front of him.
While he was still speechless, Xu Xiran made an otaku declaration, “But you should not steal your friend’s wife, no matter how good you are to me, my wife is still mine, do you understand?”
Fang Mo didn’t understand. Based on his observation, according to this standard, Xiaoyao must have tens of thousands of husbands all over the world. Xu Xiran’s warning was meaningless.
~
When he returned to his dorm, he found out some news that he didn’t know was good or not.
The two remaining roommates had finally arrived. Now Fang Mo didn’t have to worry about sharing a room alone with a 1 like Liu Xiaochang.
However, because of this, he could no longer have a reason to go to Xu Xiran’s room to sleep on his bed. Xu Xiran’s body was constantly on his mind, and he wanted to fully examine it over and over again, even if it meant that his blood could swell up and cause another embarrassing scene.
The two new roommates looked ordinary, their personalities seemed pretty good, and they didn’t seem to be difficult to get along with. One of them even called Fang Mo a handsome guy when they met, which made Fang Mo very happy and doubled his affection for him.
This harmony lasted for about 48 hours.
It was until a roommate pointed at Fang Mo’s computer screen in surprise and hollered, “So you like this kind of stuff!”
Fang Mo was watching a video clip that Xu Xiran had sent to him.
On the screen, Xiaoyao was shyly lowering her head and rubbing her feet together, with her hands together behind her back in a bashful manner. The shot was moving vertically from top to bottom and happened to be right at the close-up of her chest when his roommate yelled.
An expensive jiggle that represented the authenticity and strength of the production team.
Xu Xiran also had some issues. He prohibited people from stealing his wife, yet he also couldn’t help but constantly promote how cute his wife was. Probably because there were very few people in the world who could endure this, he took the initiative to find Fang Mo eight times a day.
The suffering in Fang Mo’s heart was incomparable.
He didn’t know whether the strategy route he had chosen was correct or not; he only knew that when he couldn’t see Xu Xiran’s face, the image of this person in his mind was gradually getting more and more ugly.
It was a pity that they were able to meet every day, and when they did, Fang Mo’s spirit and soul would still be flipped upside down by the body of this otaku.
And now, he has finally been regarded as an otaku himself.
“Xiao2 Liu and I were secretly thinking about this yesterday. You’re so handsome, you like maintenance so much, you buy so many clothes, and yet you don’t have a girlfriend, so we thought you might be gay” the roommate laughed, “Turns out this is what you like!”
Fang Mo glanced at Xiao Liu, who was leaning on the bed and playing on his phone.
BigAwesome1·MrLiu was unfazed and didn’t raise his head, and had no change of expression on his face as if he didn’t hear his name at all.
“Wow, this girl’s chest is huge! It’s so extreme!” The roommate yelled, “I couldn’t tell that your taste is actually quite heavy!”
Fang Mo silently glanced at the screen. The screen had since switched, and the QQ icon in the lower right corner was bouncing up and down. He opened it and saw it was a message from Xu Xiran.
[“Adorable right? Isn’t she super cute?”]
Fang Mo thought to himself, yes, I also think my taste is really fucking heavy.
Author’s note:
In this setting, Fang Mo is actually more handsome in the eyes of the public. Xu Xiran is not bad looking in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the eyes of certain people, he is a celestial being. There should also be girls who like his type, but because he is an otaku, it’s a -1 for the opposite sex.
Brother like in brotherhood or like how you say “my good brother”. It’s also the same brother in the title of the novel. Just like how it feels a little weird to use brother instead of gege, I will use xiongdi to denote this from now on
Xiao is a prefix meaning junior or little and is used as a nickname when used in front of a name