YA Ch39: The Reason

“So, did it happen or not?” Lu Yu leaned in, pushing Ming Yan back onto the bed. He leaned even closer, supporting himself with one hand on the edge of the bed, trapping Ming Yan between him and the bed.

Ming Yan looked at the guy, who was trying to act mature but had a flushed neck while playing the “kabedon” game, and said softly, “When we were in university, you visited the house I lived in off-campus.”

Lu Yu froze for a moment before he understood the implication. For a moment, he felt both excited and angry. “How… how could you? We slept together, how could we break up?”

Ming Yan was amused by him and reached out to pinch Lu Yu’s cheek. “Why can’t we break up after sleeping together? Why are you still so old-fashioned?”

“No, it’s just, we were so close, how…” Lu Yu stammered, unable to form coherent words. “How could we break up? How could you bear it? Was it because I felt abandoned?”

Ming Yan had only left to study abroad.

Lu Yu quickly went over the timeline in his mind.

Before going to the Lu family, he didn’t feel abandoned by Ming Yan at all. After all, he was still happily saving money, planning to follow Ming Yan to France.

When he broke off with the Lu family, it was because he felt they didn’t love him. He clung to the hope that there was still someone in this world who loved him, which gave him the strength to leave the Lu family. That person might have been his biological mother, father, or maybe a lover.

When his adoptive parents treated him differently, when his brother told him, “This is my home, you get out,” he consoled himself the same way. When he left the Lu family, he said the same thing to his adoptive parents: “My biological parents would never treat me like this.”

Although he hadn’t found his biological parents yet, he had found someone he liked, and that person happened to like him back. He had a lover!

Filled with hope, he planned to pay back the Lu family for raising him and then run to his lover. But then the Lu family told him that he had been abandoned by his mother.

And so Lu Yu went mad, broke down, and took it out on Ming Yan.

Was there a logical connection missing here? Maybe some information was still missing.

But Lu Yu roughly understood what Lu Dayu was thinking. He had spiraled into despair, believing that everyone would abandon him, so he decided to abandon others before they could abandon him. He did it to his adoptive parents and to Ming Yan as well.

Abandonment…

“Lu Yu!” Ming Yan suddenly called him, covering his ears with both hands, his expression serious but his tone gentle. “Don’t think about these things.”

Lu Yu shuddered, snapping out of his chaotic thoughts in an instant. He stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly pounced on Ming Yan, pinning him down on the bed, holding him tightly. “Yan-ge, Yan-ge…”

Earlier in the study, he had been restraining himself from thinking too deeply. He felt like that diary was a deep abyss with countless monstrous hands that would drag him into the darkness. Ming Yan’s appearance was like a beam of light slicing through the dark mist, his only lifeline within sight, and he had followed him back to the bedroom.

The scent of grass mixed with distant sandalwood slowly calmed and cleared his mind.

This time, Ming Yan didn’t struggle, just letting him hold on. After a while, he slowly raised his hand and gently patted Lu Yu’s back. “You’ve had too much to drink. Get some sleep, you’ll feel better.”

Lu Yu buried his face in Ming Yan’s neck, speaking muffledly, “I haven’t drunk too much. I only had one can of beer. The rest was Lao Yang’s.”

Since he could say that, it seemed he was okay. Ming Yan smiled and patted the furry head tickling his neck, telling him to get up.

Lu Yu grumbled, acting spoiled. “We’ve slept together. Can we…”

“No,” Ming Yan straightforwardly pushed him aside with his knee, “Sleep properly.”

After dimming the aroma lamp, Ming Yan sat by the bed, making rustling sounds as he tore the packaging of an eye patch.

Lu Yu felt uneasy in his heart. Pouting, he knelt on the bed and hugged Ming Yan from behind. “Yan-ge, can we get back together?”

The sound of tearing stopped. Ming Yan didn’t move or say anything.

“You like me too, don’t you?” Lu Yu said pitifully, rubbing his head against Ming Yan’s back.

Since there wasn’t a fundamental mistake, and since Ming Yan still liked him, still cared about him, could he possibly give him another chance?

Ming Yan remained silent for a long time, then sighed.

He didn’t say yes, nor did he say no. He just started to talk calmly about the day they broke up.

“That day it was raining heavily, and I had to deliver a design draft from the south of the city to the west. Traffic is always terrible on rainy days, and after an hour in the taxi, I had only moved three kilometers. There was no other option, so I had to get out and walk.”

Ming Yan’s voice carried a hint of comfort, like telling a bedtime story, but to Lu Yu, this story wasn’t comforting at all; it was more like a horror story from a late-night radio show.

“That city, though prosperous and romantic, also had its rough sides. As I walked through the crowd, I didn’t know when my wallet was stolen. All my cash, bank cards, and ID were in there. I was still young at the time, inexperienced, and didn’t know what to do.”

Lu Yu’s heart tightened as if he were a prisoner awaiting the judge’s call for key evidence.

“At that moment, you called me.”

Ming Yan took a light breath, recalling the scene from that day, still vivid in his mind.

He answered the call, feeling a bit aggrieved, wanting to tell his lover about his misfortune. “Lu Yu, it’s raining here today.”

Lu Yu didn’t catch the nasal tone in his voice and just said blankly, “Ming Yan, I’m not going to find you. Not this year, not next year either. Let’s break up.”

At that time, he was holding an umbrella with one hand and a thick design draft with the other. To answer the phone, he tucked the umbrella under his arm, but in that moment of distraction, the umbrella slipped.

The heavy rain poured down on his head, soaking the design draft in his hands. He frantically tried to shield the draft under his coat, and in his frustration, anxiously asked Lu Yu what was going on. His mood was terrible, and he was exasperated. “Lu Yu, say that again. You want to break up with me?”

On the other end, Lu Yu only responded with a simple “Hmm.”

“Fine, break up then. Lu Yu, you said it. You better never regret it!” He gritted his teeth, struggling to hold back the lump in his throat.

After hanging up the phone, he was utterly devastated. The umbrella was soaked inside and out, muddy water seeping in. He couldn’t let the design draft get wet, so he had to take shelter in a red phone booth by the river under a stone bridge.

The rain poured down, the river surged, and the arched bridge stood empty. He stood alone in the phone booth, crying for a long time.

Lu Yu couldn’t imagine that scene, but he couldn’t help thinking about it, so he could only hold onto Ming Yan tighter, listening to his voice, hoarse, delivering the final verdict.

“I understand your breakdown, but I really can’t endure such consequences again. Lu Yu, it might sound cliché, but this is the truth. You’re a writer, and I’m an artist. We’re both too sensitive, too thoughtful, and emotionally unstable. I do like you, but what does that change? We’re not compatible.”

A tear fell onto Lu Yu’s hand, which was wrapped around Ming Yan’s front, and the pain pierced him to his very soul.