I Treat You as a Brother - Chapter 37

37 – I Don’t Understand You Straight Men

Translator: tamago

This trait was too distinctive that anyone could identify this person in an instant.

Fang Mo slightly narrowed his eyes.

Seeing his unfriendly expression, Liu Xiaochang added, “Don’t get mad yet, your person was actually telling her to to not be like this… It’s just that it wasn’t very effective…”

Fang Mo felt that Liu Xiaochang had bad intentions. From his description, Xu Xiran seemed like he was playing hard to get. While Liu Xiaochang said that this was unacceptable, he must have felt happy inside.

Seeing that his air pressure1 was dropping, Liu Xiaochang began to feel embarrassed, “You… How about you ask him yourself? I probably saw it wrong.”

As soon as he said this, there was a knock on the bedroom door. Fang Mo had trouble moving, so Liu Xiaochang took the initiative to open the door.

“How is it? Are you still unable to walk?” Xu Xiran strode in, “Has the swelling died down?”

Fang Mo stared at his face, then lowered his head, “I still can’t walk. It hurts.”

He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but he felt that Xu Xiran’s cheeks were unnaturally red.

Fang Mo didn’t wear socks, and he was wearing a pair of loose sports pants. Xu Xiran walked up to him, lifted the hems of his pants, and looked at his bare ankles with focus.

“It doesn’t seem swollen,” he said while putting his hand on it, “Will it hurt if I touch it like this?”

Fang Mo pulled back his feet in panic, then gasped in pain caused by that movement.

“What are you doing? Are you ticklish?” Xu Xiran looked at him not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

“…Don’t touch me.” Fang Mo was extremely embarrassed.

Back when Zou Shun came to bring him food, he saw and touched the same place, and it didn’t feel like anything at the time. But now when Xu Xiran touched his skin, the feeling was entirely different. He couldn’t tell what was going on, and it seemed as if his ankle had become a particularly private part.

Xu Xiran frowned, “What’s wrong?”

Before Fang Mo could think of an excuse, Liu Xiaochang suddenly stood up and left without saying a word. After the door closed, Fang Mo realized later that this guy had misunderstood. He probably thought that Fang Mo didn’t let him touch because he was angry and wanted to argue with his boyfriend, so he wanted to give them some space to be alone.

Of course, it was also possible that he didn’t want to hear a lovers quarrel.

Xu Xiran didn’t care about Liu Xiaochang’s actions at all. He sat next to Fang Mo and asked again, “What’s the matter?”

Fang Mo bit the bullet and replied, “It just… feels ticklish.”

Xu Xiran laughed, “So you are ticklish?”

He looked eager to try, and after saying that, he lifted up his hand, looked right at Fang Mo’s face, and blew on his palm. Fang Mo immediately panicked and dodged backward with his whole body.

When Xu Xiran saw this, he seemed very proud for some reason, and put down his hand with a big smile, “I’ll let you go first, we’ll talk about it when your foot is better.”

Fang Mo was a little flustered. He wasn’t very ticklish, but he was afraid that if Xu Xiran wanted to tickle him, he would come out in a very tragic way. Even though he had acquired a certain degree of immunity due to the amount of contact he had with Xu Xiran lately, the part that belonged to instinct would not be able to resist this type of test after all.

In particular, it was also not long ago when Zou Shun sat where Xu Xiran was sitting now, and provided him with some suggestions on how to express his apology in the future, forcing a lot of useless space in his brain to be active.

Fang Mo was trying to persuade himself to stop thinking about it, when Xu Xiran suddenly frowned and leaned forward. He went up in front of Fang Mo, stared at Fang Mo’s face, and said, “Why is your face so red?”

Fang Mo immediately turned his head, then took the opportunity to ask, “Your face also looks pretty red, did something good happen to you?”

“Is it red?” Xu Xiran backed away, tilted his head, and thought for a while, “Maybe it’s because I was in a hurry to come back and ran up too fast.”

It didn’t seem like he had any other urgent matters, so there was only one reason to come back in a hurry.

Fang Mo felt a bit happy and started to increasingly care more. This was because Xu Xiran was obviously avoiding something. The two were not in a real relationship, so no matter who else Xu Xiran was intimate with, he was not obligated to report to him. Perhaps for Xu Xiran, being hugged by a boy dressed as a woman with fake breasts was a very difficult thing to talk about, so he was not willing to take the initiative to mention it to others.

However, Fang Mo cared about this matter to an incomparable amount. He wanted to know what was going on with them at that time, and whether Xu Xiran was actually secretly happy when he felt embarrassed. And most importantly, he wanted to know what was wrong with that boy dressed in women’s clothing, why he was so shameless, what kind of heart he had, and if he had thoughts about Xu Xiran. Fang Mo wanted to meet him head-on and fight him 300 rounds.

Zou Shun also had another point that was especially true. If you’ve decided to pursue him, don’t think about whether you’re worthy or not. If Fang Mo was not worthy, then couldn’t other people still be worthy?

If those other people didn’t exist, then he was Xu Xiran’s best choice.

“What are you doing? Do you have something on your mind?” Xu Xiran looked at him suspiciously, “You keep changing your expression without saying a word, what are you thinking about?”

“Staying in the dorm all day makes me feel a bit cooped up.” Fang Mo spewed nonsense.

“That can’t be helped,” Xu Xiran comforted him, “Get some more rest so you can heal faster. Once you’re better, you’ll be able to go out and about. If you’re bored, then tomorrow I’ll… oh no, I won’t be free tomorrow.”

“Do you have a packed schedule?” Fang Mo asked.

“No, I don’t have class tomorrow afternoon, but we have our club’s first official rehearsal, so I have to help out,” Xu Xiran said, “Everyone has to be there. I already told Zou Shun ahead of time.”

“Everyone?” Fang Mo asked, “Then the boy I saw last time, the one in the skirt, will he be there too?”

“He will,” Xu Xiran nodded, suddenly alert, “Are you that interested in him?”

“No, just asking,” Fang Mo said, “I want to watch your rehearsal, I’ll go tomorrow too.”

Xu Xiran looked at him suspiciously.

“I can do it,” Fang Mo emphasized. “It doesn’t hurt too much now, so I’ll definitely be able to go on the ground tomorrow. It’ll be fine if I’m careful and walk slowly.”

“Are you simply curious about him, or…” Xu Xiran hesitated to speak.

“I already said before, I don’t like that kind of over-the-top type,” Fang Mo said with a look of disgust, “What were you thinking about?”

Xu Xiran made no comment, then asked, “Then what type do you like?”

Your type.

In his heart, Fang Mo answered in seconds. But on the surface, it was naturally inconvenient to say. After pretending to think for a while, he said, “I don’t have any particular preference. I’m probably the type of person to follow my feelings more. As long as it feels right, I’m not picky.”

“You’re the type to be the most picky,” Xu Xiran said. “If you have clear requirements, no matter how high you set them, there will always be people who can meet them. But if you don’t have any set standards and are just basing off of feelings, you may not ever meet this person in this life.”

Fang Mo looked at him, “Then what if I do meet them?”

Xu Xiran shrugged with a displeased expression, “The person you meet might also not necessarily like you.”

“……”

When those words came out of Xu Xiran’s mouth, Fang Mo felt as if his face was hit by a club. Even though he knew it was unintentional, Fang Mo’s heart couldn’t help but twitch.

“I’m just kidding, what are you doing,” Seeing Fang Mo’s face immediately darkened, Xu Xiran resentfully patched up his own words, “They may not necessarily like you, but it’s possible that they might like you too, right? You’re so handsome, just take the initiative and a girl will certainly… wait, don’t cry?”

Xu Xiran looked at the suddenly reddened rims of his eyes and he was entirely at a loss, “That’s not it, you… I… I’m sorry, I talked nonsense… that…”

“No,” Fang Mo widened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, “I suddenly want to sneeze, but I can’t, I’m holding back.”

The bedroom door suddenly opened a crack.

Outside the door, Liu Xiaochang glanced in with caution, and after looking at the tearful Fang Mo for a second, he quickly closed the door again.

~

The next day, Fang Mo’s ankle looked completely unrecognizable from before. He tried to rotate it a bit, and he felt a slight pull when the range of motion was small, and only felt sore when the angle of movement was large. Walking a few steps on the ground was no problem.

Because the rehearsal required an empty venue, Xu Xiran’s club did not meet in the activity room this time. Xu Xiran himself did not really want him to come over, and thus he did not cooperate well and his explanation was vague. Luckily, however, Fang Mo still had Zou Shun as an insider, so he was able to successfully find the location of the meeting. It was not too far, which was good for a half-cripple like him.

When he slowly walked to the dance room, the rehearsal had already started. The performers weren’t dressed up and wore everyday clothes. Everyone walked up and down the middle of the room by command, and appeared to be memorizing their formations.

Fang Mo watched for a while, but couldn’t find his way. There were more people than imagined, and it was completely impossible to guess who played which role just based on their daily appearance. Fang Mo found Zou Shun in a glance, but by all possible means, he couldn’t find that cross-dressing boy.

At first, he thought that the boy wasn’t wearing women’s clothes today, but after checking around, he saw that there were only two boys in the group, including Zou Shun. The other one was quite tall and had rough facial features, which obviously didn’t match his type.

After carefully looking around again, he finally realized that there was a blind spot in his thinking.

He was trying to find him by looking for those breasts. However, those breasts were detachable. Not to mention, people could also easily change their hair.

Upon another careful look-over, Fang Mo seemed to have found the person. The wig that the boy was wearing today was much shorter than last time, with his hair falling just below his shoulders, and he was wearing skirt pants that were easy to move in, and had a chest as flat as a horse can gallop across. But because of his exquisite makeup, he still looked like a cute girl.

In all honesty, for Fang Mo, this appearance was much easier to accept.

Xu Xiran didn’t participate in the performance, and was standing by the side holding up a video camera to record. Fang Mo quietly walked to his side, approached slowly, and then blew on his ear.

The preview screen of the video camera suddenly flickered.

Xu Xiran turned around in surprise. After seeing Fang Mo and his smug little expression, he shook his head not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and then turned his head back and continued recording.

If he said anything right now, it would be recorded. So it was inconvenient for him to speak at the moment.

A girl, who looked like the director, stood in front of the crowd and clapped her hands over her head, “Alright, that’s about it. Let’s rest for five minutes now. When we come back, I won’t remind you the steps when we go over it again, okay?”

The crowd immediately dispersed.

“You came here by yourself?” Xu Xiran asked after turning off the video camera, “Is your foot okay?”

“Yeah, it’s doing fine.” While Fang Mo responded, his eyes were still on the boy.

The boy had walked to the edge of the rehearsal room and was sitting on the ground chatting with a few girls.

Xu Xiran followed his gaze, then raised his hand and flicked it on his forehead.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

Before Fang Mo could respond, he was suddenly startled by the view in front of him.

The boy who looked like a cute girl put his arms around another girl beside him, and even kissed her on the cheek.

“What are they doing?” Fang Mo’s eyes widened.

Right when he asked, the girl who was kissed turned her head with a smile, and the two quickly pecked each other on the lips. The atmosphere was sweet, the scene was picturesque, and they looked quite harmonious, but it seemed like something was not quite right.

“That’s his girlfriend,” Xu Xiran was speechless, with a bit of disdain in his tone, “I’ve already said it before, so don’t think about him like that, he’s straight.”

“……”

Seeing Fang Mo dumbstruck, Xu Xiran looked very happy, “Cute2 right? They’re so cute!”

Meaning that his mood was dropping

Loanword for moe in Japanese