This kiss wasn’t very different from the previous one. Fang Chi’s breathing was somewhat heavy, his probing somewhat urgent, the clumsy yet domineering entanglement…
But there was also a fundamental difference, this time Fang Chi hadn’t been drinking.
He had only drunk a little high-purine hotpot broth.
He wouldn’t fall asleep halfway through the kiss.
And he wouldn’t break it off halfway in that half-real half-fake way.
His lips pressed tightly against Sun Wenqu’s, his tongue tip tangled with Sun Wenqu’s, his hand resting on Sun Wenqu’s waist, he was completely clear-headed.
Sun Wenqu was somewhat passive. Even though every movement Fang Chi made now, every breath he took, made the fire inside his body leap upward, once an opening appeared it could immediately blaze into a full inferno, he still turned his head away.
For a normal man who had been holding back for several years, Sun Wenqu felt he was practically about to become a Buddha. Golden light must already be shining above his head, enough to illuminate an entire street.
But his worry wasn’t unnecessary. Just as Fang Chi’s hand slipped into his clothes, he heard someone outside ask, “Excuse me, waiter, where’s the restroom?”
The curtain moved slightly and then stopped. The waiter’s voice sounded just outside the curtain: “Go straight, then turn left. It’s on your right.”
Fang Chi seemed to have heard the voice too, but after pausing for a moment he still didn’t move. His lips remained on Sun Wenqu’s earlobe.
Sun Wenqu pressed hard on his shoulder and shoved him, then also bumped him with his knee. Fang Chi had been kneeling on the small platform; his center of gravity was unstable, and he swayed backward, knocking open the dining board and falling flat on his back into the pit behind him full of thick plush cushions.
“Hello, I’ve brought your after-meal fruit,” the waiter said outside, then lifted the curtain and walked in holding a tray.
“Thank you,” Sun Wenqu said, then raised his hand to touch his own mouth.
The waiter looked at the knocked-open dining board and Fang Chi lying on his back in the pit hugging a cushion, stunned for a moment. “Shall I help you put the dining board away and place the fruit beside you?”
“Okay,” Sun Wenqu said. Fortunately Fang Chi had moved all the cups to his side’s dining board. The one that had been knocked open was empty.
The waiter put the board away, placed the tea and fruit beside the pit, and left.
The whole time Fang Chi remained half-lying there hugging a cushion without moving. Sun Wenqu slowly ate a small slice of orange. He hadn’t even seen when Fang Chi grabbed the cushion.
After finishing two slices of orange, he glanced at Fang Chi. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.” Fang Chi’s voice was a little hoarse, no one knew whether from fright or embarrassment.
“You okay?” Sun Wenqu glanced at the cushion Fang Chi was holding over his crotch. He wanted to laugh a little but forced himself not to.
“I’m fine.” Fang Chi sat up a bit, frowning. “Just… got startled.”
“You don’t have to feel embarrassed with me.” Sun Wenqu handed him a slice of pineapple.
“I’m not.” Fang Chi took it and stuffed it into his mouth to chew.
Sun Wenqu didn’t speak. He ate fruit slowly and methodically. Fang Chi sat there in the pit in a daze for a moment, then sighed softly and climbed back up, leaning beside him again.
After a few more minutes of silence, Fang Chi seemed to come back to his senses. He turned sideways with his back toward Sun Wenqu, drew his legs in a bit, and said very quietly, “F*ck, that scared the h*ll out of me.”
Only then did Sun Wenqu finally lose control and burst out laughing, holding a piece of papaya and laughing so hard he almost couldn’t breathe.
“Stop laughing,” Fang Chi said in a muffled voice.
Sun Wenqu laughed while patting his arm. “Don’t overthink it. The waiter didn’t see anything.”
“I just feel embarrassed,” Fang Chi’s voice was still muffled.
“What’s embarrassing about that?” Sun Wenqu put the papaya into his mouth and pushed the fruit plate toward him again. “At this age who hasn’t been burned by a few sparks? Eat some fruit.”
Fang Chi seemed to relax a little. He took a piece of pineapple from the fruit plate and chewed it. After thinking for a moment he turned his head to look at him again, hesitating slightly. “I just feel… pretty awkward. You… are you okay?”
“What would be wrong with me?” Sun Wenqu looked at him, paused, then glanced toward his own crotch. “Oh… the hooligan came too fast like a tornado… too sudden. I didn’t even have time to stand at attention.”
“…That’s not what I meant.” Fang Chi choked on the pineapple and quickly turned back around with his back to him. “Ah f*ck, forget it. I won’t say it.”
Sun Wenqu leaned back on the cushion and laughed for quite a while.
After finishing the fruit and resting a bit more, Sun Wenqu checked his phone. It was already past nine, so he called the waiter over to pay the bill.
Only then did Fang Chi finally sit upright. The awkward atmosphere around him gradually faded.
“I’ll take you back,” Sun Wenqu said. “It’ll probably be past ten when you get home.”
“Mm.” Fang Chi stood up and grabbed his coat to put it on. “You…”
“What?” Sun Wenqu responded while putting on his own coat.
“Nothing.” Fang Chi rubbed his nose and walked out of the booth with his head lowered.
He had wanted to ask where Sun Wenqu would stay tonight, but when the words reached his mouth he didn’t ask after all.
A little embarrassed.
Very embarrassed.
Actually the question was quite normal, completely normal, but in the current situation if he asked it, it would feel like it could make people imagine all sorts of things, even though what he was imagining wasn’t that extensive.
The waiter led them outside. After walking two steps Fang Chi turned back to glance at him. Sun Wenqu, who was following behind, smiled and quickened his steps to walk beside him.
Only then did Fang Chi notice the scarf around Sun Wenqu’s neck was his.
“Is that mine?” he asked.
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu adjusted the scarf. “It’s warm and matches clothes well. Do you want it back?”
“You keep it. I have another,” Fang Chi quickly said.
“Grandma gave me a pair of knitted slippers she made,” Sun Wenqu whispered near his ear. “Were you the one who told her my shoe size?”
“Yes. Your shoe size is the same as mine.” Fang Chi smiled. “Are they comfortable?”
“Very comfortable,” Sun Wenqu nodded. “I flattered Grandma a bit and she said she’d knit me a scarf too.”
Fang Chi clicked his tongue softly. “…The old lady really defected.”
After getting into the car, Sun Wenqu turned on music and set the volume fairly low. A faint, gentle melody drifted in and out. Fang Chi leaned against the window watching the street scenery outside.
It felt quite comfortable.
The embarrassment and nervousness brought by his earlier burst of madness had finally disappeared.
“You don’t listen to the Ten Great Tortures anymore?” he asked.
“Hm?” Sun Wenqu glanced at him.
“I mean those songs you always used to listen to, the ones that make you feel like life isn’t worth living as soon as they start,” Fang Chi said.
Sun Wenqu laughed. “Of course I do. But you’re in the car. Someone preparing for exams should listen to something relaxing. How are the songs I saved for you?”
“They’re pretty good,” Fang Chi smiled. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll fall asleep listening to them while studying?”
“Did you fall asleep?” Sun Wenqu asked.
“No.” Fang Chi said.
By now there were fewer cars on the street and traffic wasn’t heavy. Sun Wenqu didn’t get lost either. Under Fang Chi’s directions he drove smoothly to the entrance of the residential complex.
“Can I drive in?” Sun Wenqu glanced at the guard booth.
“Yes,” Fang Chi said. “It’s not some fancy gated community. Nobody cares.”
Sun Wenqu drove all the way to the building entrance.
After the car stopped, Fang Chi didn’t move. Sun Wenqu didn’t speak either. The two of them just sat there.
After a while Fang Chi finally spoke. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“A hotel or at Ma Liang’s place.” Sun Wenqu glanced at him. He could tell Fang Chi was hesitating, which surprised him a little. He had thought Fang Chi wouldn’t hesitate about asking him to stay.
“Then…” Fang Chi thought for a moment. “How about… you drive out and take another couple laps.”
“Alright.” Sun Wenqu smiled and started the car again.
Beside the residential area was a river that had almost dried up and an old broken bridge that was about to be demolished. Sun Wenqu drove onto the bridge and pulled over to the side.
There wasn’t much to see here during the day, everything looked gray and dusty, even dirty, but at night when looking out from the car window, scattered lights dotted the darkness, giving the feeling of floating in the night sky.
Sun Wenqu pushed the seat back and leaned against it.
Pretty beautiful.
After silently watching the lights with Sun Wenqu for a while, Fang Chi cleared his throat and said softly, “Originally… originally I was thinking… maybe you could… stay at my place.”
“Mm,” Sun Wenqu responded.
“But after thinking about it… better not,” Fang Chi scratched his head and turned to look at him. “It’s not that I don’t want you to stay. I just…”
“Don’t dare,” Sun Wenqu said with a smile.
“…Mm. I don’t know how to say it, just…” Fang Chi spoke with difficulty. He had never been good at expressing himself, and now it was even harder.
“Once something like this starts, you’ll keep thinking about it,” Sun Wenqu curved his lips. “A box full of things, when it’s closed nothing happens. But open it and stir it once, it’s hard to close again. Once a little virgin gets a taste of meat it’s not easy to hold back… your self-control is pretty good.”
“…What the h*ll are you even talking about?” Fang Chi glared at him. After a long moment he suddenly shouted, “That’s not what I meant!”
Sun Wenqu laughed uncontrollably. “Then what did you mean?”
“I just… you definitely understand what I mean.” Fang Chi looked a bit helpless.
Sun Wenqu smiled without speaking.
Fang Chi looked at him. After a moment he clicked his tongue as if remembering something. “You seem to know a lot about this.”
“I’m not fifteen,” Sun Wenqu said with a smile.
“Then you…” Fang Chi didn’t know why his courage suddenly flickered on for a moment. “You’ve had a boy… friend before, right?”
“Oh wow, listen to that question,” Sun Wenqu looked at him. “I’m already thirty. If I hadn’t dated anyone I’d have to see a doctor.”
“You’re not even thirty yet,” Fang Chi laughed.
“Thank you,” Sun Wenqu said.
“When’s your birthday?” Fang Chi asked.
“When you came to acknowledge me as your dad I had just finished celebrating it,” Sun Wenqu said. “After your college entrance exam you can celebrate my birthday.”
“Okay.” Fang Chi nodded. Then after thinking he asked, “Do you usually celebrate your birthday with friends?”
Sun Wenqu stared at him for a moment. “If you want to celebrate it just the two of us, that works too.”
“Mm,” Fang Chi responded.
“Then we’ll celebrate it just the two of us,” Sun Wenqu said.
He didn’t have any special requirements for birthdays. In the past he would just gather with friends. For their group, a birthday was simply an excuse for a gathering. Now that things had turned out like this with Li Bowen and he had cut off contact with the others, it was better to just celebrate with Fang Chi.
The heater in the car was running strongly, warm and cozy. Fang Chi felt a fuzzy warmth on his face and body, but when he realized it wasn’t only coming from the heater, a wave of heat suddenly exploded through his whole body, making his breathing a bit unstable.
The space in the car was quite small. If it were Ma Liang’s broken van, he definitely wouldn’t feel like this.
Now he had turned sideways and was basically face-to-face with Sun Wenqu. Sun Wenqu was still leaning sideways against the seat. The places where Fang Chi’s lips had rested an hour earlier, Sun Wenqu’s mouth corner, his earlobe, were right in front of him.
He turned his head away with some difficulty, staring toward the front of the car.
Unfortunately there was nothing to look at there.
After staring for two seconds, he turned his head back again, as if using the momentum of the turn to lean a little closer toward Sun Wenqu, but then stopped.
Sun Wenqu looked at him and smiled, then leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth.
Fang Chi paused. As Sun Wenqu leaned back against the seat, he followed and kissed him lightly on the lips.
This kiss was gentle and soft, like a test, and also like savoring.
Sun Wenqu, who had already prepared himself to face Fang Chi’s storm-like, wild-dog-snatching-food style of kissing, froze for a moment, suddenly unable to react.
Fang Chi lightly rubbed against his lips, the tip of his tongue tapping at them, as if he had forgotten how kissing worked, or how he himself had kissed before.
“But,” Sun Wenqu leaned back a little, “is it tasty?”
“Shut up and don’t talk.” Fang Chi looked at him, both eyeballs almost crossing toward the bridge of his nose.
Sun Wenqu couldn’t hold back his laughter when he saw him like that.
“My eyes went cross, right?” Fang Chi blinked.
“…They did.” Sun Wenqu nodded.
“I know why people close their eyes when kissing now, easy to go cross-eyed,” Fang Chi glanced aside and adjusted the focus of his eyes. “Can you not talk?”
“I can,” Sun Wenqu said. “Please continue.”
Fang Chi’s breathing approached again, warm as it brushed across the tip of Sun Wenqu’s nose, then slightly damp lips pressed up.
Again the fine, light rubbing, the friction, the slide of a tongue tip.
He missed none of the places on Sun Wenqu’s lips. It didn’t seem like kissing so much as enjoying, or… memorizing, memorizing the contours, memorizing the feeling, memorizing every place he passed over.
At last he slowly stopped, no longer moving, but he didn’t pull away either.
Sun Wenqu had never received a kiss like this. Even when he had been a fresh, green little virgin, he had never exchanged a kiss like this. Yet for some reason, Fang Chi’s somewhat inexplicable but extremely serious kiss made his heartbeat lose control a little.
The fire of desire didn’t seem to ignite, but his heart raced and his breathing tightened, carrying a kind of excitement and unease of a first experience. The feeling suddenly made him want to blush a little.
As a thick-skinned snake, he hadn’t blushed in many years.
And now he was actually caught inside a clumsy, somewhat clueless kiss from a young boy.
Time slipped by between those lips that seemed to hold their breath.
Only when a car came from the opposite direction across the bridge, headlights on, bright light sweeping over the two of them, was their flushed, breath-held kiss interrupted.
Fang Chi leaned back against the passenger seat, wiped his mouth, and stared blankly ahead.
Sun Wenqu leaned against the seatback and didn’t speak either.
“Turn the heater on,” Fang Chi said after staring for a long while, turning his head. “It’s a bit cold.”
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu started the car and turned up the heat.
“Really polluting the air,” Fang Chi sighed.
“Then get out and run a couple laps,” Sun Wenqu clicked his tongue.
Fang Chi laughed. “If I run from here back home it won’t take ten minutes, faster than you driving.”
“Then run,” Sun Wenqu said.
“No.” Fang Chi answered quite decisively.
The heater quickly spread through the small space of the car, wrapping around the two people who sat there staring ahead in a daze.
Fang Chi didn’t want to go back; Sun Wenqu knew that very clearly.
But he still glanced at the time. It was late. He lightly cleared his throat. “I’ll take you back?”
Fang Chi stayed silent for two seconds before nodding. “Mm.”
Sun Wenqu turned the car around and drove down from the bridge. On the way back neither of them spoke; Fang Chi just leaned against the car door and turned his head to look at him.
“I’ll head back tomorrow morning,” Sun Wenqu said. “Depending on how the work on my side is going these days, if I need to find Liangzi, I’ll swing by to see you again on the way.”
“Mm,” Fang Chi responded, then after thinking a moment added, “This time when you came, my grandma actually didn’t make you bring food for me?”
“I did bring something,” Sun Wenqu glanced at him. “A lunchbox of beef jerky. She said you like it a lot.”
“Ah,” Fang Chi looked at him too. “Where’s the beef jerky?”
“I… ate it,” Sun Wenqu suddenly laughed after saying it. “Sorry. I finished it on the coach on the way here…”
Fang Chi froze for a moment and then laughed as well. “You can really eat.”
“It wasn’t much, just that small round lunchbox,” Sun Wenqu said with a smile. “I left home without breakfast, got hungry as soon as I got on the bus… somehow I just finished it.”
“Then compensate me with another box,” Fang Chi clicked his tongue. “When it’s my birthday my family usually doesn’t specially give gifts. This time the only thing was a box of beef jerky and you even snatched that…”
“Tell me what you want to eat,” Sun Wenqu smiled.
“I’m full now, don’t want anything,” Fang Chi patted his leg. “I’ll tell you when I’m hungry.”
“Alright.” Sun Wenqu nodded.
Before long the car reached downstairs. Fang Chi sat without moving.
Sun Wenqu glanced at the time but didn’t rush him.
“Then I’ll… go upstairs,” Fang Chi scratched his head.
“Mm,” Sun Wenqu said. “About studying, you have to push yourself, but you can’t push too hard.”
“Hm?” Fang Chi looked at him.
“You’ve gotten thinner, though your spirit still looks pretty vigorous,” Sun Wenqu flicked his finger lightly under Fang Chi’s chin. “But your chin’s sharper.”
Fang Chi didn’t speak. He grabbed his hand and looked down at it.
“You’re really interested in my hands?” Sun Wenqu said.
“Mm,” Fang Chi replied. “I’ve always thought your hands look good. I first thought your hands looked nice, and only later thought you as a person were pretty good too.”
Sun Wenqu laughed.
Fang Chi squeezed his hand again and again. “No one’s ever complimented your hands?”
“No,” Sun Wenqu shook his head. “You’re the first.”
“The first, huh.” Fang Chi smiled.
“Yeah, the first,” Sun Wenqu clicked his tongue. “Also the first person I’ve traveled a long way specially to celebrate a birthday for.”
“You didn’t come specially. You were passing by,” Fang Chi corrected him.
“Is that really the point?” Sun Wenqu sighed.
Fang Chi chuckled twice. Suddenly he opened the car door, one leg already outside, then turned back, hooked an arm around Sun Wenqu’s neck and pulled him closer, bumping their lips together briefly.
“I’m going. Drive safe. When you leave tomorrow give me a call, I can answer even during class,” Fang Chi rattled off in one breath as he pushed the door open, got out, and shut it, then patted the car window. “Good night!”
“Good night!” Sun Wenqu shouted back with a smile.
Fang Chi turned and ran into the building entrance.
Sun Wenqu waited until the lights upstairs came on before driving away.
There was a message from Ma Liang on his phone.
—Where are you staying?
He plugged in his earphones and called Ma Liang.
“You asleep yet?”
“You… you actually didn’t manage to mooch a bed?” Ma Liang laughed.
“Kept myself under control,” Sun Wenqu smiled. “I’m heading over now.”
“Come,” Ma Liang said. “Yuanyuan already cleaned up a place for you. Said you’d definitely come… come sleep here.”
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu hung up.
There were no pedestrians left on the street, and only a few cars. Sun Wenqu drove quite fast. Looking at the empty road lit only by streetlights, he felt a little unsettled.
Fang Chi had surprised him once again. Although he hadn’t planned to stay the night at Fang Chi’s place, the reason was simple: once things started, it would be impossible to calm down, he hadn’t expected that Fang Chi, who had been so delighted by his arrival he could barely speak properly, hadn’t even thought about asking him to stay overnight from the start.
He clicked his tongue softly. Didn’t expect this kid to have such self-control.
