Between Us : Chapter 8: Making Do for the Night

Long, drawn out breaths blew against Xu Jue’s nose bridge. He held his position braced above Chen Qian in the darkness, not daring to move, afraid of being wrongly accused by the person beneath him again.

Until his eyes adjusted to the dark and he confirmed Chen Qian had really fallen asleep, he finally rolled over to lie on one side, exhaling a long breath of exhaustion.

The heat from running slowly receded like a tide, and his heartbeat gradually calmed. Xu Jue sat up, pulled the blanket and casually threw it over Chen Qian, then got up and walked out of the bedroom.

Finding the wall switch, Xu Jue turned on the living room light, took out his phone and sent Qiu Yuanfei a message: “Fei, you awake?”

Five minutes later Qiu Yuanfei sluggishly replied: “Look at what time it is, my mom just flipped the breaker on me, forcing me to sleep.”

Xu Jue teased him: “I see you’re online in the game.”

Qiu Yuanfei fell for it hook line and sinker: “You’re so annoying! I was carrying Wei Xiaoduo to rank up!”

Xu Jue: “Carry me too.”

After two rounds Qiu Yuanfei messaged him privately: “Bro let’s talk about this, next week I’ll bring you breakfast, can you go matchmake on your own? When you come Wei Xiaoduo follows you instead of me.”

Xu Jue tossed over a week’s meal plan and got offline in a flash.

Chen Qian’s place didn’t have any other tables. Xu Jue bent over the sofa armrest and finished his physics and chemistry homework. This posture twisted his lower back sore, so he leaned against the backrest and silently memorized vocabulary.

He had played games, done homework, and though he couldn’t memorize many words he had at least tried. Yet Xu Jue still felt no sleepiness at all. The string of out of character events today kept replaying in his mind, completely pushing the recent unpleasantness into the most inconspicuous corner of his heart.

How did he get aroused.

And how the hell did he get aroused twice.

The bar atmosphere was one thing, but what was up with Chen Qian’s bed, it was seriously off.

A sudden dull thud interrupted Xu Jue’s wandering thoughts. His heart jumped, and he looked up toward the ceiling above him.

The sound insulation in this old building was terrible. Even arguments from upstairs could be heard clearly through the ceiling.

“You still have the nerve to come back, why weren’t you chopped to death by those people outside! Don’t bother rummaging, there’s no money at home! Get out, get out!”

“You lousy woman, how dare you wash your hands of this! Who the hell proposed investing in that losing business back then! Whose fault is it!”

“I invested with money from my own family, what business is it of yours!”

“…”

Being woken up in the middle of the night was already normal for Chen Qian. He couldn’t even open his eyes, felt hot and peeled off two layers of outerwear, then got out of bed with a groggy head, feeling his way along the wardrobe toward the door.

The light stabbing through his eyelids left his mind blank for a moment. He sluggishly realized there was someone in the living room, and his eyes snapped open: “How did you end up at my place?”

Xu Jue was so startled by the suddenly awake Chen Qian that he forgot the words he had just memorized: “You really know how to black out, the footage you lost could provide material for next year’s New Year blockbuster.”

Chen Qian’s mouth moved faster than his brain: “Would that footage pass review?”

“It almost didn’t.” Xu Jue didn’t care about mainland film censorship standards, but he had to avoid Chen Qian’s interrogation. While Chen Qian stood there in a daze, he dodged into the bathroom to relieve himself, thinking as he went about which point Chen Qian’s memory had cut out from.

He probably couldn’t remember those few minutes of collapsing onto the bed right?

After finishing up he stood at the sink washing his hands. Chen Qian knocked on the door outside asking if he was done.

“Done.” Xu Jue turned off the water. When the door opened, Chen Qian who had been waiting outside handed him a hand towel.

“If you’re sleepy go sleep in the study. The bed is a bit small, just make do for one night.”

Xu Jue lowered his head to dry his hands: “Okay, I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

Chen Qian was still blocking his way: “Passion, do you know it?”

Xu Jue reacted strongly. What did he know about passion or not passion, what happened on Chen Qian’s bed just now was already deadly enough: “What passion? I don’t know.”

“Then don’t memorize English in the middle of the night next time, it doesn’t sink in.”

Xu Jue’s false alarm passed, never imagining Chen Qian was testing him on vocabulary: “Not memorizing anymore, I’m going to sleep right now.”

He hung the hand towel on the wall hook, lifted his foot to leave, but Chen Qian turned and called out to him: “Why won’t you look at me?”

Boys this age hated being looked down on the most. Xu Jue immediately stared straight into Chen Qian’s eyes: “I’m afraid you’ll test me on vocabulary again.”

Chen Qian had laid all that groundwork, but facing Xu Jue’s gaze he still couldn’t let himself hold onto wishful thinking: “That content you said almost couldn’t pass review, how explicit was it?”

Xu Jue kept silent, thinking the scale wasn’t big, but the size definitely wasn’t small.

“Hugged, or kissed?” Chen Qian’s legs went weak from standing too long, that feeling of weakness making him feel like he had just run three thousand meters, “It couldn’t have been sex right?”

Xu Jue took the out he was given: “Yeah, I just did two hours of homework, now I’m dead tired.”

Chen Qian’s heart relaxed. Thank goodness no major mistake had been made, and his tone lightened: “Then get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to spell passion, and next time don’t write cheat notes on your desktop for dictation.”

He went to the bathroom, and while washing his hands saw from the mirror that the area around his lower lip was red, probably from alcohol irritation.

Actually his alcohol tolerance was average, and he usually controlled his intake, but today he said he was taking Xu Jue who had been scolded to relax, when really the one in a bad mood was himself.

Carefully removing the plastic stud and switching back to the less infection prone pure silver one, Chen Qian dried his hands and returned to the bedroom. Passing the study he glanced in, it was dark inside, maybe that clueless little kid really was dead tired.

But turning into the bedroom, he saw the supposedly dead tired Xu Jue bent over searching on his bed. He remembered his missing underwear: “What are you looking for?”

“I’m taking my school uniform back.” Xu Jue peeled apart the school uniform and suit jacket that had gotten tangled together.

The room light wasn’t on. Chen Qian’s heart which had just settled down was suspended again: “How could your school uniform be on my bed?”

Xu Jue finally regained some of his momentum: “You have the nerve to ask. You went crazy drunk, put on my school uniform and ran off. The whole way you spoke completely normally, but the moment anyone mentioned taking off the uniform you got mad at me. My room key was still in the uniform pocket, did you want me to sleep on the street or under a bridge?”

Watching the other person lift the uniform and pull out a room key, Chen Qian’s ears burned hot: “I really did run three thousand meters.”

“Words alone don’t count, go check your phone’s step counter.” Xu Jue was genuinely tired by now, and went to the study hugging his school uniform to sleep.

The study was small in area, filled up by just two cabinets and a single bed, but the bedding smelled more comfortable than the motel’s. Xu Jue practically fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

In his dream he was also chasing after Chen Qian. Chen Qian refused to return his school uniform, insisting it was his own. Xu Jue looked down, his school uniform was still properly on his body. He looked up again, the surrounding scene had changed. He and Chen Qian were both on the Xianzhong sports field’s rubber track participating in the men’s three thousand meter race. Qiu Yuanfei was shouting himself hoarse “Xu Jue is absolutely amazing,” which sounded like a stutter. He ran until dizzy, about to catch up, but veered off course and crashed into Chen Qian’s back. The impact caused both of them to fall to the ground.

The ground was soft like a bed. Xu Jue looked closely, and it really was a bed. Chen Qian who had rolled over was wearing a silk robe with a very open collar, biting a lady’s cigarette at the corner of his mouth, and the smoke drifting out smelled of black tea.

He said lying down to smoke was too dangerous. Without waiting for Chen Qian’s agreement he took it away and stubbed it out in the ashtray on the bedside. Chen Qian wasn’t annoyed but smiled instead, blowing a mouthful of smoke at his face: “So you’re just going to leave my mouth idle?”

That feeling came again. Xu Jue was familiar with it yet resistant to it, because tonight it kept visiting him for no apparent reason.

He woke to a noisy alarm. The unfamiliar environment left him dazed for a moment.

Morning light squeezed through a gap in the curtains and climbed onto the blanket, just passing over a bulge on the quilt. Morning wood was a normal phenomenon for most men, but Xu Jue this time felt somewhat ashamed to face it.

The alarm ringing again reminded him that if he didn’t go to the art studio he would be late. Xu Jue tidied up simply, washed his face and rinsed his mouth. Seeing the master bedroom door was still tightly shut he spared waking Chen Qian, and just popped a message in the chat as a goodbye.

When hurrying downstairs Xu Jue bumped shoulders with a man coming up the stairs. He turned back and said sorry, but the other person was also walking quickly, turning at the stairwell the next second. He only caught a glimpse of the other person’s obviously high end pointed leather shoes.

Chen Qian was used to sleeping in. Being poked at his hair while deep asleep felt very unpleasant. He stretched an arm out from under the blanket to swat away the other person’s hand: “There are frozen dumplings in the fridge, cook them yourself if you want to eat.”

“It’s me.” Jiang Linsheng caught that wrist and pressed it beside the pillow, “Why do you reek of alcohol?”

Chen Qian lifted his eyelids, his whole body relaxing: “Went to ‘Murmur’ for a few drinks last night.”

“Alone?”

“Brought a pure innocent little kid,” Chen Qian confessed voluntarily, “he slept here last night, in the study next door. Probably not up yet, he was doing homework until after two in the morning last night, more hardworking than I used to be.”

“Nobody in the study.” Jiang Linsheng released Chen Qian’s wrist, “You stayed alone with him until two in the morning?”

“In my dreams, I was woken up by the upstairs neighbors in the middle of the night and then…” Chen Qian stopped mid sentence, his half closed eyes opening fully, “Jiang Linsheng, are you suspicious of me?”

Jiang Linsheng didn’t answer, but the probing gaze he couldn’t retract in time had already conveyed the fact to Chen Qian.

Chen Qian felt like someone had suddenly grabbed his heart, all the blood in his body freezing solid. The tie hanging at Jiang Linsheng’s neck swayed before his eyes. He grabbed it and pulled the person close: “You can check right now.”

These words were spoken softly and slowly, not a trace of gritted teeth to be heard. If you didn’t look at the dimness in Chen Qian’s eyes, you would mistake it for flirting.

The two stared at each other for several tens of seconds. Finally Jiang Linsheng grasped Chen Qian’s hand to free his own tie, then rubbed the bracelet on Chen Qian’s right wrist twice: “Check what, did I say half a word of suspicion? I just thought you stayed up half the night accompanying someone with boring homework, when usually you get sleepy early when keeping me company for overtime work. Can’t your boyfriend even be a little jealous?”

That word “boyfriend” was bitten heavily on the syllables, but Chen Qian didn’t want to circle around on this pointless argument. He pulled out the suit jacket that had been warmed by his embrace in the blanket: “I’ll return the clothes after I wash them.”

“If you like it just take it, baby pretending to be grown up is quite eye catching.”

“Whose eyes am I catching? Aren’t you afraid someone will be eaten up by jealousy?” Chen Qian pulled out a bottle of perfume with a brand new body from his pocket, “Didn’t we agree to buy it when we go to Paris, how come you hid one in advance?”

Jiang Linsheng smiled: “There’s still some time before departure, use this one to make do for now. Didn’t expect I hadn’t found a chance to give it to you before you discovered it.”

But the perfume was a spicy fragrance type. Chen Qian only pulled off the cap and sniffed once before setting it on the nightstand: “When I have time I’ll make it into a scented lamp and put it in your office.”

Jiang Linsheng didn’t stay long. He had an appointment with a project client at eight thirty, and before that needed to drop off his cousin for class.

A few minutes before eight, Xu Jue pushed open the door to the art studio. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet. Everyone was in the storage room preparing the art supplies needed for class. Some were squatting in front of wastebaskets sharpening pencils, and those who came earlier were leaning against cabinet doors eating breakfast while chatting.

Xu Jue stuffed his backpack into his own locker, had just picked out drawing paper when the adjacent locker door also opened, and the locker owner took out a mirror, smoothing down the hair that had been blown messy before entering.

“Why are you still wearing your school uniform,” Song He tucked one side of hair behind her ear, “does your Xianzhong have an event today?”

“No, left in too much of a rush, forgot to change.” Xu Jue closed his locker door, his gaze pausing for a moment when it brushed past Song He’s earlobe.

Noticing his attention, Song He lifted her face: “Pretty or not, new earrings, this side is a gingerbread man,” she turned the other side of her face for Xu Jue to see, “this side is a holly wreath, very Christmas atmosphere.”

Xu Jue didn’t say whether they were pretty or not: “Your ear piercings healed?”

“Healed long ago, tried several kinds of anti inflammatory ointment before finding one that worked.” Song He put the mirror back and pulled out a tube of ointment with a blue casing, “This one, apply it for two days and it’s fine. I can’t bear to throw it away, I’ll use it for a belly button piercing next year.”

The ointment packaging was all in English. Xu Jue wasn’t great at memorizing vocabulary, but perhaps because Chen Qian said memorizing in the morning sinks in more easily, he glanced twice and temporarily remembered it.

Halfway through class, Xu Jue wasn’t confident in his memorization ability, so he secretly took out his phone again. Using his drawing board to block the teacher’s line of sight, he typed that long string of English into his memo.