FLME Ch15: Being Alone

At the company headquarters, Yu Wen was dripping with sweat from exhaustion after painting a coat of paint.

The weather was muggy and hot. The room under renovation hadn’t had air conditioning installed yet, and restless factors floated in the air. Xie Heyu was responsible for a wider area. Sweat had already soaked his bangs, which hung wetly in front of his eyes. His sleeves were rolled up above his shoulders, revealing well-defined, solid biceps.

He handed Yu Wen a bottle of water. Afraid he was hot, he took off the small paper hat on Yu Wen’s head. But worried he might need it later, he hesitated for a moment and put it on his own head instead.

“Go downstairs to the dance studio and rest for a bit.”

Yu Wen saw him wearing the paper hat askew. Sweat soaked his entire neck and lingered on his bobbing Adam’s apple, glistening. While exuding intense hormones, the sharp contours of his face were softened by the paint-stained little boat hat, resulting in a kind of handsomeness where bluntness and aggressiveness coexisted.

He sincerely praised, “Teacher Xie, you are really sexy.”

“…”

Xie Heyu gazed at him intently for a moment, pursed his lips, and the base of his ears beneath his chopped hair turned a bit red.

“Let’s go.” He silently shifted his gaze away and poked Yu Wen’s shoulder with his finger, signaling him to hurry up.

The dance studio had an advanced fresh air system installed. In no time, it cooled down.

Yu Wen lay flat on the floor like a sun-dried fish.

Xie Heyu came over carrying a plastic bag containing plump, rosy strawberries.

Yu Wen remained motionless, only rolling his distinct black and white eyes to peek at him. “Strawberries? Where did they come from?”

“I bought them, put them in the fridge, and already washed them.”

Yu Wen closed his eyes, did half a minute of mental preparation, and finally did a carp kip-up, rolling up into a sitting position.

He touched the plastic bag, and his eyes lit up. “They’re icy cold.”

“Mn.” Xie Heyu took a towel to wipe his sweat, opened the plastic bag, and casually picked out the rosiest one. “The flavor is even better after being refrigerated—that’s what the salesperson said.”

Yu Wen took the strawberry he picked and giggled happily. “Actually, there’s no difference, but the iced ones are more thirst-quenching… Do you usually not eat them?”

Xie Heyu: “Occasionally.”

Yu Wen: “Then why did you suddenly think of buying strawberries?”

“You holed up at home for a week without stepping out of the house. I went to check on you and bought them in passing when I walked by the supermarket.” Xie Heyu paused and added, trying to cover it up, “Xie Jiamao told me to go.”

Yu Wen stared at his reddening earlobes, thinking to himself that people with muscles were indeed different; even their heat dissipation was slower than others.

“I’m a bit lazy, I don’t really like going out.” Yu Wen changed his posture, hunched over slightly, and lay on his stomach to have a staring contest with the bag of strawberries.

If you said he was diligent, he was too lazy to lift his hand; if you said he was lazy, he purposely lay on his stomach just to avoid lifting his hand.

“Are these what the boss told you to supervise me eating? I don’t think I’ve ever told the boss I like eating strawberries,” Yu Wen muttered.

“I picked them, not Xie Jiamao. At the last dinner gathering, the only thing on your dietary restriction list was sour strawberries.” Xie Heyu saw a few remaining strawberry leaves, picked them out and plucked them off. Noticing that Yu Wen’s fingertips were still pinching a half-eaten strawberry, he thought for a moment and reached out his hand towards him.

“Give it to me.”

Yu Wen pushed the plastic bag in his direction. “You eat it.”

“I’m talking about the one in your hand.”

“…” Yu Wen’s gaze repeatedly jumped back and forth between “Mommy, there’s a pervert” and “This must be a misunderstanding.”

Seeing his conflicted expression, Xie Heyu organized his wording and said in a low voice, “I can eat anything. If you don’t mind, you can give me what you don’t want to eat.”

Actually, it wasn’t that deep, but Xie Heyu’s expression was just too serious. Yu Wen even had an illusion—that the other party had mustered a hundred thousand points of courage, and if rejected, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his cool guy aloofness; his eyelashes would droop, and he’d start shedding golden beans (tears).

His brain blanked out, and he handed it over.

Xie Heyu chewed expressionlessly. His Adam’s apple slid, and the half-bitten strawberry was swallowed down. Yu Wen’s scalp instantly felt as if an electric current had shot through it. A massive amount of yellow waste (dirty thoughts) popped out from nowhere, densely occupying his entire mind.

Improper, highly improper.

He woke up as if from a dream.

“I’m not eating anymore, not eating anymore.” He rolled up from the ground, avoiding the plastic bag like a fierce flood and savage beast, pushing it towards Xie Heyu. “I ate a lot of snacks before going out, I can’t eat anymore. Teacher Xie, you eat it, haha, haha.”

He was uncharacteristically flustered, his language system acting like it had been attacked by a virus. After stammering “this” and “that” for a long time, he finally squeezed out a sentence, “Teacher Xie, I want to go home first.”

The reception room’s paint wasn’t finished yet. Xie Heyu was puzzled by his sudden farewell but still said tolerantly, “Okay.”

Then he got up and picked up the strawberries. “I’ll take you back.”

The car Xie Heyu drove was parked in the basement. As they took the elevator down, Yu Wen earnestly and patiently advised him not to bother taking him back, even bringing out the excuse that his little electric scooter couldn’t be transported together. After stepping out of the elevator doors, Xie Heyu asked, “Where’s the vehicle?”

Yu Wen pointed to the shared electric scooter outside the glass doors.

A “loading…” circle vividly popped up on Xie Heyu’s face, and he asked doubtfully, “You want to take this shared bike… home?”

Yu Wen: “…”

Xie Heyu didn’t understand, but he respected it. His eyes measured the dimensions of the shared electric scooter. “It should be able to fit in the trunk.”

Yu Wen fell silent for a while. He was amused by his own stupidity and also amused to the point of exasperation by Xie Heyu’s tolerance.

He didn’t even understand what he was so nervous about. It was just sharing a strawberry, it wasn’t like they were kissing, making it so… Patooey, stop thinking about these things.

He chased those weird thoughts out of his mind, took a deep breath, and relaxed.

“I was joking. I just suddenly wondered if a shared electric scooter could fit into the trunk and inexplicably wanted to test it. Now I’m not interested anymore, it’s so boring, let’s hurry up and go home.”

Xie Heyu didn’t say anything. He nodded and raised his hand to press the down button for the elevator.

Yu Wen couldn’t stay quiet for even a minute.

“Teacher Xie, can your car turn into a convertible?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s too bad hahaha.”

“You want to ride in one? I’ll drive it next time.”

“No need, no need, it was just a sudden whim. Don’t mind me.”

Having cast aside his inexplicable sense of shame, Yu Wen fell asleep directly after getting into the car. When he woke up, he found Xie Heyu’s jacket draped over his face, presumably to block the sunlight for him.

“Teacher Xie…” He rolled his shoulders and stretched lazily. The jacket had a faint scent of detergent, clean and cold, just like its owner. Yu Wen found it smelled very nice and took a deep sniff.

“Phew, are we there?” He pulled down the jacket and hugged it in his arms. The short ten-minute nap had fully recharged his body, which was tired from painting, and even his voice became cheerful.

Xie Heyu looked at him sideways. “Mn. Eat properly, remember to take your vitamins, don’t get sick.”

“Yes, sir!”

Yu Wen gave him a salute, took the strawberries from his hand, pushed open the car door, and bounced happily into the apartment building’s main entrance.

The paper hat was left behind in the passenger seat.

Xie Heyu picked it up, examined it for a moment, and wavered for a split second between throwing it away and not throwing it away.

Forget it, I’ll keep it.

Xie Heyu flattened the hat, wrapped it in a tissue, and properly placed it in the storage compartment.

Just in case he wants it next time.

“Teacher Xie!” Having done all this, Xie Heyu was just about to drive away when Yu Wen came sprinting out in a flurry. The clear, bright voice startled him so much that his hand trembled. Like he had done something bad, he inexplicably felt a guilty conscience.

“…What’s wrong?”

Yu Wen panted slightly, leaning against the car window. Meeting Xie Heyu’s eyes, he felt that Teacher Xie’s eyes were wider than usual, giving off a feeling of a thief with a guilty conscience.

He was amused by his own wandering thoughts again. He knocked on the car window, waited for it to roll down, and popped half his head inside, his eyes bright.

“Come up and sit. I’ll treat you to dinner tonight to thank you for taking care of me for so long.”

Xie Heyu: “…”

Yu Wen claimed he was going to cook personally. Xie Heyu didn’t seem to look forward to this and was very quiet the whole way.

Entering the elevator, Yu Wen finally noticed that his neck was red.

“Teacher Xie, are you very hot?” Yu Wen pointed at the light pink side of his neck, then looked at his ear tips that were red enough to drip blood, muttering softly, “College students are just full of energy and bursting with vitality…”

Completely forgetting that he himself had also just graduated from college.

“It’s fine, it will pass in a bit.” Xie Heyu draped his jacket over his shoulder as a cover-up, slightly concealing his physiological reaction. With both hands stuffed in his pockets, he leaned diagonally against the elevator handrail. After a long while, he mumbled, “Isn’t it a bit inappropriate for me to go to your house?”

“Huh? What’s inappropriate? Weren’t you planning to come check on me in the first place?” Yu Wen scratched the back of his head. “Besides, I also went to the boss’s house for dinner last time…”

If they really had to talk about it, that was even more inappropriate.

Xie Heyu didn’t make a sound. As the elevator numbers kept rising, his hands stuffed in his pockets clenched nervously, veins even faintly showing at his wrists.

Seeing him looking up and staring at the elevator numbers without any intention of explaining, Yu Wen had no choice but to speculate himself.

“Hmm… Teacher Xie, are you gay?”

Xie Heyu stiffened all over, like a robot that had crashed.

“Ah, it might be a bit presumptuous to ask like this… anyway, I am not gay. If Teacher Xie has a boyfriend, please tell him not to worry. The relationship between you and me is an open and aboveboard brotherhood.”

Yu Wen gestured between the two of them, his expression so upright he could immediately join the Party.

“…”

Xie Heyu buffered for half a minute, then mechanically turned his head to look at him.

Yu Wen’s face was full of solemnity, radiating his firmness and sincerity.

“…Oh.”

Xie Heyu gave a sound of acknowledgement.

From his low tone, Yu Wen heard what seemed like a trace of disappointment, like an illusion.

Opening the door to his home, Yu Wen rummaged out a brand-new pair of slippers and squatted by Xie Heyu’s feet to measure.

“Seems a bit small.”

Xie Heyu pulled him up. “It doesn’t matter, I can wear them.”

It could only be so. Yu Wen took off his shoes and socks, stepping barefoot on the porcelain tiled floor, and ran thump-thump-thump over to turn on the air conditioner. While adjusting the temperature, he said, “I’ll go to the supermarket tomorrow to buy a pair, so they won’t squeeze your feet the next time you come… Oh, I don’t mean for you to come often, please tell your boyfriend not to worry.”

Xie Heyu approached carrying the slippers, grabbed his ankle, and shoved it into the shoes.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Yu Wen’s brain spun, and he quickly changed his tune, “Please tell your girlfriend not to worry.”

Xie Heyu: “…Don’t have one either.”

“Then…” Yu Wen hesitated, his voice lowering a bit, “I have no improper thoughts, so please don’t worry either, Teacher Xie.”

Xie Heyu: “…”

He looked up and met Yu Wen’s eyes.

After a long moment, the young man’s expression loosened. With an almost indulgent sigh, he said, “You don’t need to worry either.”

This meant he was straight.

Yu Wen felt relieved.