In the Same Boat - Chapter 14

Qu Yiheng sent a message to Yao Zhan early the next day, asking if he was still taking classes in that place, or if it was the end of the day.

He was quite conscious of “making up” for the other person.

Yao Zhan looked at the message sent from Qu Yiheng and felt much better.

He received a phone call from his mother early in the morning, and she was nagging him about finding a girlfriend, so much that he couldn’t eat breakfast.

He replied to Qu Yiheng: ‘I’ve half a day off in the afternoon. If you are not busy, I will see you after noon?’

Dou Yucong went to work and Qu Yiheng was alone at home. He looked around and saw that the rest of the house was fine, but his room was…..messy. The table was a mess, painting tools were everywhere, the bedsheets and covers and even the cupboards were covered in oil paint.

Before, Dou Yucong could not stand to look at it and wanted to clean it up for him, but Qu Yiheng refused, saying that he would not be able to find his stuff after cleaning it up.

Now he regrets it a little.

Qu Yiheng hated other people intruding into his life. For those who were not deeply involved, he would never want them to come to his house, but for Yao Zhan, it was a little different. He and Yao Zhan were “deeply involved” in a way.

To put it bluntly, he wanted Yao Zhan to come over.

But in the current situation, if he really let Yao Zhan come, he felt it was too humiliating to roll on the greasy bedsheets.

He glanced at the desk calendar on his desk, calculated how many more days Yao Zhan could stay here, and then sent the other party: ‘I’d better go find you, I’ll wait for you after class.’

When he went over there, Qu Yiheng had the feeling that he was a student who was dating for the first time again. At that time, he was in a sweet relationship with his first love. By the end of his third year of college, the other party was working part-time at a painting studio, and he traveled halfway across the city every day to find the other party after his busy schedule at college and it was also a particularly hot day then. Occasionally he couldn’t afford to take a taxi, so he took a bus. At that time, it didn’t feel like hardship at all. On the contrary, he was quite happy in his heart.

It’s been so many years, almost ten years since he broke up with that person.

It’s surprising that after ten years, he feels that way again, nevertheless on the way to find his fuckbuddy.

This feeling is quite interesting.

He looked at his phone and Yao Zhan asked him: ‘Have you arrived yet?’

Qu Yiheng smiled, it felt good to have someone looking forward to waiting for you.

The two of them met at noon and Yao Zhan deliberately complained to him, “I see you’re in a better mood now.”

“What’s wrong?”

Yao Zhan’s words were a bit ambiguous, but they sounded sweet and sour to Qu Yiheng’s ears, and he was suddenly embarrassed to look at the other man.

“That brother of yours, he doesn’t know your sexuality, right?”

Qu Yiheng nodded, “We haven’t talked about it.”

Yao Zhan smiled, “But he is, right?”

This reminded Qu Yiheng of what Dou Yucong had said yesterday about “radar”, and he looked at the other man in surprise, “How did you know?”

“I could see it.” Yao Zhan smiled, “Sometimes you can tell.”

Qu Yiheng didn’t know how to respond, so he simply stopped talking.

“So, is it still convenient for you two to live together?” Yao Zhan felt that he had gone too far after saying this, and hurriedly explained, “I didn’t mean anything else, don’t misunderstand.”

Qu Yiheng didn’t think much of it, but he felt a little unhappy that Yao Zhan was so interested in Dou Yucong.

“What’s wrong with you today?” He changed the subject, “In a bad mood?”

“Hey, my mum called early in the morning to ramble on about that.” Yao Zhan said, “I haven’t come out of the closet with my family yet.”

Qu Yiheng stopped dead in his tracks.

His previous experience made him very sensitive to this kind of thing. Although he knew that he was in no position to tell Yao Zhan what to do, he just felt like something was caught in his throat.

“What’s wrong?” Yao Zhan took two steps out and noticed that the other man had stopped and looked back at him.

“Nothing.” Qu Yiheng’s good mood was all gone as he retraced his steps to Yao Zhan’s side and asked as if nothing was wrong, “So what are you going to do? Get married later?”

Yao Zhan laughed, “I’m not that bad, I don’t want to do things that harm others and benefit myself.”

Qu Yiheng looked at him and suddenly felt that although Yao Zhan had changed a lot, he was still the same pure person at heart as he was when he was young, so that’s good. At least he didn’t disappoint him in this aspect.

“Well.” He said, “You did the right thing.”

Yao Zhan smiled, “You talk like that, just like our old chemistry teacher.”

Qu Yiheng also smiled and said with some embarrassment, “What? I don’t even remember that much.”

He hurried forward, reaching out to hail a taxi at the roadside, Yao Zhan stood behind him and suddenly asked, “What do you remember about the past?”

In an instant, the image of them hiding and doing that kind of thing flooded into his mind again. Qu Yiheng swallowed and looked back at Yao Zhan: ” I remember everything that should be remembered.”

Although the two were unspoken fuck buddies, no matter what, they couldn’t just snog each other as soon as they met.

After lunch, Yao Zhan offered to go for a casual stroll.

Since it was a casual stroll, Qu Yiheng recited the homework he had prepared in advance for him to choose from.

However, Yao Zhan said, “You went to college here, right? Take me to your college for a walk.”

This took Qu Yiheng by surprise, he never thought Yao Zhan would want to go to his school.

Since graduating, Qu Yiheng hasn’t come back once. It wasn’t that the college was bad or that he didn’t have any affection for it, but he had too many unpleasant things happen to him there, and one of them had almost ruined him, and it was only in the last two years that he started to get better.

Most of them are unpleasant experiences, so why revisit the old places?

But Qu Yiheng didn’t refuse, just like he couldn’t refuse Yao Zhan’s caress/touch before.

The Academy of Art was in the south of the city, and they went there from the north.

On the way, Yao Zhan chatted with Qu Yiheng, and the two talked about some useless topics. Afterwards there was nothing to say, and Yao Zhan fell asleep relying on Qu Yiheng.

The summer was really hot, even with the air conditioning on in the car Qu Yiheng still felt hot.

Because Yao Zhan was leaning against him, he didn’t dare to move around. He straightened up and looked out the window. Occasionally when the car was driving unsteadily, he would stretch out his hands to protect him.

The two of them are in the middle of the night, but they are not sure what to do.

Yao Zhan’s breath would hit his neck, and the sensation tickled his whole body from his neck.

He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d been this close to someone, not in a sex/love kind of way, but the kind of closeness that came naturally in life.

He thought that he was very resistant to this sort of thing, but to his surprise, he was actually enjoying it somewhat, even wishing the car had driven slower to make the road last indefinitely.

Yao Zhan didn’t actually fall asleep much, he just closed his eyes to pass the time, but the feeling of leaning on Qu Yiheng’s shoulder was so good that he didn’t want to get up.

Although it felt good, his neck hurt after a long time, after all, he was half a head taller than Qu Yiheng.

After getting off the bus, he rubbed his neck and looked at the big letters on the college gate and said, “Your college is magnificent.”

Qu Yiheng smiled, “After all, it’s a major art Academy.”

As they walked together, there were occasional students passing by, each dressed up in their own way.

Yao Zhan looked at them, then at Qu Yiheng, and asked him, “Were you like this in college?”

“What?”

“Long hair, pierced ears and jewellery.” Yao Zhan imagined a Qu Yiheng like that and said, “I’ve never seen you like that.”

Qu Yiheng laughed, “I’m the more impersonal kind.”

“But you have quite a lot of pierced ears.” Yao Zhan suddenly moved over to count them, his lips close to Qu Yiheng’s ear, and the voice that came into his ear became extra sexy, “I think I saw you wearing earrings just once.”

That voice gave Qu Yiheng goose bumps, and he raised his hand to rub his earlobe and said, “I don’t wear them much anymore.”

Yao Zhan nodded and suddenly lifted his hand to gently wrap it around the back of Qu Yiheng’s head, his fingers even teasing the already red earlobe.

“Actually, you haven’t changed much compared to when you were in high school.”

Because of Yao Zhan’s movements, Qu Yiheng already felt his legs go weak.

He didn’t know if it was because the sexual relationship between the two was a little deeper, so he couldn’t stand the other person’s physical contact very much. It was as if this person was an aphrodisiac specifically for him, so that he could lose his temper at any moment.

Despite this already, Qu Yiheng had to pretend to be okay, “Really, but I’m over thirty, I’m still old.”

“Is that so?” Yao Zhan suddenly stepped in front of Qu Yiheng, forcing him to stop in his tracks as he leaned in slightly and looked at Qu Yiheng, “Let me see where you’ve aged.”

Qu Yiheng blushed, from his face to his neck.

Some of the students passing by were giving them sideways glances. In fact, in a college like this, homosexuals are very common and no one makes a fuss about it. It’s just that they are all young guys in their early twenties.

And two of them together did not look like old friends hanging out here, but as lovers on a walk, or a extraordinary story of teacher-student love.

“You don’t look much different from those students.” Yao Zhan said, “Even better looking than them.”

As they looked at each other, Qu Yiheng suddenly remembered a time when he had given Yao Zhan a handjob when his whole body was encircled in the other man’s arms, when they were hiding in a toilet cubicle of the library and Yao Zhan whispered in his ears, “You’re so beautiful.”

Originally, Qu Yiheng had forgotten about this incident, but unexpectedly, today, at this time, he remembered it.

“What are you staring at?” Yao Zhan had already turned around and walked two steps forward, he called back to Qu Yiheng, seeing that the other party did not move, he simply reached out and pulled the other party.

“Why are your hands so cold?” It was summer, but Qu Yiheng’s hand was cold.

Yao Zhan held him by the hand and unconsciously clasped his fingers together.

Qu Yiheng had already come back to his senses and knew that he was being held by someone’s hand at the moment. But he didn’t ask too many questions or shake it off. He let the other party pull him along, walking slowly and leisurely towards the front.

In the past, he always thought that holding hands was confession and kissing was love.

But now, no one is that innocent anymore, knowing that it’s not only lovers who hold hands, and that it’s not only lovers who kiss.

The adult world is full of things that can’t be defined, and if one had to define all behaviour, it would be pretentious.

Qu Yiheng doesn’t want to be a pretentious person, he knows that all he has to do is play this game with Yao Zhan all the way through.

Until one of them got tired of playing.