To Burn On Touch - CH 7

“Ri ri ri — diu diu — Super Digivolution! Block, dangdang, dangdang, dangdang — block, dangdang! Fangzhaomon!”

Before the second physical education class in the morning, the newly promoted high school student Yu Ran forcibly led Fang Zhao to play the role-playing game of “Digimon”, where he played the part of the “DigiDestined Child” and personally sang the digivolution theme song, while Fang Zhao was reluctantly forced to become a Digimon, who angrily condemned this behavior as childish like that of an elementary school student.

“You’re just purely trying to take advantage of me, right? Do you have the ability to make me digivolve all at once?” Fang Zhao was indignant, “Hold on. Do you even have a Crest and a Digivice that lets me super digivolve?”

Yu Ran said earnestly: “Yes, I’ve the Crest, it’s engraved on my heart. It doesn’t need to have a physical form to make you super digivolve.”

“Then what does your Crest represent?” Fang Zhao stared at Yu Ran’s face and saw that the other party obviously hesitated, “You hesitated! I figured it out! You really don’t have a Crest at all, you fake DigiDestined Child!”

The two of them mimicked the dramatic and exaggerated tone of the anime while chasing and fighting. Yu Ran kept walking backwards as he resisted Fang Zhao’s dark attacks and almost hit the person passing behind him. He subconsciously turned his head to apologize: “Sorry… Ai? You still need to attend this class?”

Seeing that Chu Mian didn’t ask for leave in physical education, Yu Ran felt it was very novel.

Chu Mian nodded looking straight ahead, avoiding the two of them and walking towards the green football field. As he walked, he found Yu Ran and the others following him.

Fang Zhao asked curiously: “Chu Mian, did you need to take physical education for the high school entrance examination?”

“Yes.”

“How many points did you get?”

“Thirty points.”

“Full score? Really…” Yu Ran interjected, “You didn’t fall asleep that morning?”

Chu Mian did not bother responding. He did not understand how this matter was worth questioning. It goes without saying that the human brain gets excited when exercising, so physical education was the easiest of all the subjects to keep him awake.

Fang Zhao: “Yu Ran, how much did you get?”

“Huh, do you even need to ask?” Yu Ran sneered loudly, pretending to arrogantly stretch his collar a few times, “I got thirty points, that’s because the full score is only thirty points.”

Fang Zhao raised his hand to stop his movement, “Ok, ok, I kind of know what your Crest represents, it’s ‘Deceit‘.”

The physical education teacher blew a whistle and paced unhurriedly to the running track with a stopwatch, calling for the boys of Class 1 and Class 2 to gather for roll call.

“Class 1 in the front and Class 2 in the back. Stand in four rows according to your height,” Teacher Dou put down the roll call register, “Sports Committee members of the two classes, step forward.”

The Boys’ Sports Committee of Class 2 stepped forward, but no one in Class 1 moved, “Is there no Sports Committee in Class 1?” Teacher Dou looked at them, “Whoever wants to be in the committee, come out. If not, I’ll pick someone pleasing to the eye.”

After waiting for a while, no one volunteered, so Teacher Dou simply pointed to the boy at the end of the first row: “You, standing without a proper posture, you should practice well as a Sports Committee member.”

Yu Ran was caught off guard: “Me?”

“What’s your name?”

“Te Ejc.”

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He ran a little faster, and everyone had to speed up after him; he shouted “one, two, three, four,” and everyone yelled the slogan in unison. This feeling of “the rhythm of others is under my control” allowed Yu Ran to find the joy of being a Sports Committee member in just a few seconds and he ran even faster.

It was only when he reached the bend did Yu Ren remember about the classmate who had a special condition. Chu Mian was the tallest in the class, so he was running in the front of the team. Yu Ran asked him in a whisper: “Can you still run? If not, you can now switch to the inner circle to run.”

Chu Mian frowned, “I’m fine.”

“I’m afraid that you would fall asleep and get into an accident. ”

“Even if I get sleepy, it’ll be after the run,” Chu Mian’s expression was as usual, “I’m very much awake now.”

“Oh,” After a pause, Yu Ran spoke again, “Why didn’t you follow me after I shouted ‘one, two, three, four’? What’s the matter? Are you dissatisfied? Is there some dark corner in your heart that is planning to snatch my position as a Sports Committee member?”

“…” Chu Mian, who was at the end of his patience, took a deep breath and gave Yu Ran a sidelong glance, “I advise you to talk less, it’s easy to get side cramps.”

Chu Mian was actually admonishing the other party, but he didn’t know that Yu Ran didn’t pay attention to other people’s expressions and tone, and only listened to the literal meaning. The corners of Yu Ran’s mouth rose, and he smiled and said to Chu Mian, “Thank you for your concern.”

— Where am I concerned about you?

Chu Mian was speechless.

After running 400 meters, Yu Ran’s fair and clear profile had turned red, and his body became a little hot. He kept shaking the hem of his T-shirt to let the cool air in. Teacher Dou asked everyone to enter the gymnasium for a Sit and Reach Test. Before he left, Yu Ran didn’t forget to look back at Chu Mian to confirm that he was not sleepy.

The Sports Committee members of both classes took the test first, and then they recorded the data of the rest of the class. The Sports Committee members of Class 2 were tough and stocky, and coupled with the fact that they had never exercised after the physical education exam on high school entrance examination, their test results were quite mediocre. Yu Ran, on the other hand, had a slender figure, explosive power and flexibility that were very outstanding compared to the people of the same age. As soon as he bent his waist, the cursor was directly pushed out to 23.5 cm.

“Ok,” Teacher Dou laughed, “You’re like a flip phone.”

Yu Ran was very proud of himself. Afterwards, he was next to his classmates analyzing whether their sitting posture was standard or not and enthusiastically shared his skills and pointers.

Soon it was Chu Mian’s turn, and he leaned down neatly — the cursor slid to 24.1 cm.

“Ooh,” Teacher Dou couldn’t help but sigh. Yu Ran’s performance was already considered quite high among the boys, and he didn’t expect Chu Mian to easily break his record. Teacher Dou patted Chu Mian’s back, “Get up. Next, Zhou Weixi — ”

The boy whose turn was next had already come over but Chu Mian was still sitting on the ground with his back bowed, with both his arms hanging down weakly.

Teacher Dou pushed him without thinking, and the teenager’s body tilted to the side with a force because of the push. Yu Ran reacted quickly by kneeling down to support Chu Mian, and he looked down and saw that Chu Mian had already fallen asleep with his eyes closed.

Teacher Dou realized something and asked incredulously, “Is he the one your Teacher Bai told me about having… umm ‘sleeping sickness’?”

Yu Ran nodded his head.

“How long will he sleep?”

“Maybe until the end of this class.”

Teacher Dou got up and went to the equipment room to drag out a dark green mat, “Let him lie down and sleep on this, it’s cold on the ground.”

Yu Ran and the other Sports Committee members lifted Chu Mian up, but their movements did not disturb his sleep. Many people were curious about Chu Mian, after all, there were many classmates who snoozed in class, but it was really rare for people to just close their eyes and fall into a deep sleep without saying a word, anywhere, anytime like Chu Mian. Fang Zhao recounted his impression of the homeroom teacher’s words, and briefly introduced Chu Mian’s narcolepsy to them.

A boy in Class 2 remembered something and said: “There was also a girl in my middle school who slept every day, and couldn’t wake up at all. We all used to call her ‘Sleeping God’.”

“The same disease as Chu Mian?”

“I don’t know… she shouldn’t have gone to the hospital to have it checked. We all thought she didn’t want to listen to the lecture. Teachers scolded her but it was all useless,” the boy thought for a few seconds, “Maybe she really did have this disease.”

Fang Zhao sympathized and said, “Didn’t that mean she was scolded by the teachers in vain? She couldn’t help herself when she fell asleep. So tragic.”

Yu Ran, who was quietly sitting on the edge of the mat where Chu Mian was sleeping, turned his face to look at him.

Initially, he felt Chu Mian’s strange illness to be mystical, but after paying attention to it yesterday, Yu Ran found that Chu Mian had slept for at least five hours in class. Even during the times when he felt lazy, Yu Ran would take a nap for one or two classes at most, because he would only end up feeling tired if he slept for too long. Thus, he quickly realized the detrimental impact of “narcolepsy” on Chu Mian. Chu Mian wasted all his time sleeping all day long, and was often out of touch with the real world.

In the second half of the class, Teacher Dou took them to review the radio exercise “Dancing Youth”. Just as the class ended, it was recess. As soon as the bell rang, the boys were dismissed and left the gymnasium immediately, while Yu Ran, as a Sports Committee member, stayed back to take care of Chu Mian, who was still sleeping.

Before leaving, Teacher Dou told him: “If he still doesn’t wake up even after the exercise is over, you can go back to the classroom. I’ll call the teacher from the PE group to come and watch over him.”

Yu Ran nodded, and as soon as Teacher Dou left, he unceremoniously pushed Chu Mian to one side of the mat to make room for himself to sit.

The two of them were the only ones left in the large gymnasium, and the music outside was too loud, so Yu Ran took out his earphones and put them on to listen to songs. Recently, firms and shops in the streets and alleys had been crazily playing the song “Gangnam Style” in a loop. Yu Ran had listened to it a few times casually but hadn’t liked it, but once his mind calmed down, the melody of this song lingered in his mind. The song was very magical, and he added it to the song list on a whim.

Yu Ran was paying close attention to the lyrics to savor their meaning, when suddenly his back was tapped lightly, startling him.

“Woke up?” Yu Ran pulled off one side of the earphones and turned around to look at Chu Mian.

Chu Mian’s eyes hadn’t fully opened yet, and he looked at Yu Ran in a daze, breathing a sigh of relief, as if relieved of a heavy load.

In just thirty minutes, he had several complicated and bizarre nightmares in a row, and even though his consciousness had already returned to reality, his body had not still freed from that sense of terror, with his heart palpitating wildly.

Yu Ran saw Chu Mian raise his hand to lift the hair on his forehead, revealing neat and sharp eyebrows. He was lying lazily on the mat, and his expression seemed a little impatient.

Chu Mian looked at the ceiling, his voice was a little hoarse: “Where’s this?”

“The gym,” Yu Ran stared at him in bewilderment, “Have you lost your memory?”

Chu Mian closed his eyes and endured the anxiety in his heart. After adjusting his breathing, he slowly sat up. His hair was a bit messy. He combed his fingers through to straighten it. When he opened his eyes again, his gloomy gaze shot straight at Yu Ran.

“Who are you?”

“Huh?” Yu Ran froze and felt that something was wrong, “Holy shit, it’s over, it’s over, you really have amnesia!”

He muttered in a panic, and immediately grabbed his mobile phone in a hurry, and tried to run out to inform the homeroom teacher of this serious situation.

“Yu Ran,” Chu Mian’s voice sounded from behind again.

Yu Ran turned his head and saw that Chu Mian was breathing a little bit heavily, and had a very helpless expression as he spoke, “Can’t you use your brain?”

“Hmm?” He was half a beat slow to realize that the other party had played a trick with him just now. Yu Ran had a false alarm, and he returned to Chu Mian’s side angrily, and pushed him hard on the shoulder, “You fucking scared me! I even thought — it couldn’t be that you’re schizophrenic and awakened your second personality…”

Chu Mian heard that his tone was extremely serious, “You don’t just casually run into this kind of thing in real life, do you?”

“What if I run into one?” Yu Ran had no doubt about his luck, “The protagonist was originally enjoying a beautiful school life every day… But he didn’t expect that the boy sitting behind him turned out to be a cold-blooded murderous demon! This person slept during the day, but when night fell, he — ”

“Shut up,” Chu Mian rubbed his temples and raised his eyebrows. “If I were a murderous demon, would I want your money or your looks?”

“Who knows, maybe you just want to suck the men’s essence.”

“…” Chu Mian didn’t want to continue this inexplicable topic with the other party anymore. He stood up and patted the folds of his clothes, “Is the classroom door locked?”

“Maybe. Don’t worry, anyway, the exercise is almost over. Now it’s probably the time for jumping exercises,” Yu Ran listened carefully to the words on the radio exercises playing outside, “Hey, if you’ve to sleep for so long every day, why don’t you just hire a tutor to teach you, and save yourself the trouble of coming to school.”

Chu Mian asked him back: “If it were you, would you be willing to stay at home alone every day?”

“I… probably won’t be willing,” Yu Ran thought, “Although I don’t want to listen to class and do homework, I can still play with everyone at school. My middle school was too chaotic, students always quarrelled and fought, and there was no fun. However, Chengjun is more like a school.”

“You don’t get it,” Chu Mian retracted his gaze and walked out of the gymnasium, “If I am at school, at least the environment is lively. If I stay at home by myself, I’m more likely to get more sleepy.”

Yu Ran tucked his phone inside and followed him, “Then why don’t I see you taking the initiative to talk to others? Are you shy, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk to others about meaningless things. If one has time to play, might as well do more questions.” When Chu Mian came outside,the bright light stung his eyes and he squinted, “Where is the nearest snack shop?”

“I’ll take you there!” Yu Ran was very active, and led Chu Mian to the small shop behind the cafeteria. He went in and familiarly picked up fried potato chips, noodles and AD calcium milk from several shelves. Once he turned his head, he found that Chu Mian hadn’t taken anything and was standing in front of the cashier waiting for him.

“If you want to eat something, I’ll find it for you,” Yu Ran said.

Chu Mian shook his head, “I’ll pay for the bill.”

“That’s ok. I’ll pay it myself.”

“I don’t want to owe you.”

Yu Ran was surprised, “Owe me what?”

“You gave me candies yesterday,” Chu Mian replied, “so I’ll buy something for you today.”

“What’s there to pay back? Didn’t you say ‘thank you’ yesterday?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Chu Mian said, “Anyway, I don’t want to owe anyone anything.”

This statement made Yu Ran’s expression sink.

If it was a courtesy exchange between classmates, then Yu Ran would have gladly accepted Chu Mian’s kindness. But the other party had used the word “owe” to describe something that was not a big deal. Yu Ran couldn’t understand the other party’s psychological burden, so he could only say in low spirits: “You don’t like candies? Then I’ll give you potato chips.”

“No need,” Chu Mian lowered his head and took out his wallet, and said in a nonchalant tone, “Why don’t I just give you the cash. Yesterday’s — ”

“You’re really so boring,” Yu Ran directly interrupted his words.

When Chu Mian heard Yu Ran’s heavy breathing, he raised his head, and saw that the other party’s youthful and handsome face was obviously showing an expression of rage. However, Yu Ran didn’t throw a fit on the spot. He just glanced at Chu Mian deeply, then ignored him, and went ahead to the cashier to check out.

Just as Yu Ran failed to empathize with the insignificant feeling of indebtedness in Chu Mian’s heart, Chu Mian also could not understand the reason for Yu Ran’s anger.

In Chu Mian’s opinion, accepting a favor from someone meant that he had to repay a favor afterwards. At that time, a mere “thank you” was definitely not enough. Especially for classmates who were unfamiliar, it was only right to draw a clear line. His self-esteem did not allow him to take advantage of others.

However, since he knew that Yu Ran was angry because of this, Chu Mian also felt that there was no need to provoke him anymore. It was a better choice for them to ignore each other in this way. Chu Mian simply put away his wallet silently and walked away.

After that day, neither of them took the initiative to talk to each other again.