Just in Time Chapter 99
Translated by Sylver (ko-fi)
Chapter 99 Bathing
Yi Chenliang was reassigned by Old He to Class 4, senior high school.
Ji Shumo, who thought he would never see his brother Yi again in this lifetime, hugged him for a long time but couldn't shed a tear. "Wu wu wu, my brother Yi, my brother! You finally came back!"
Yi Chenliang pushed him away. "That's enough."
Ji Shumo immediately stopped wailing and said with a smile, "But I really miss you!"
Just as Yi Chenliang was about to speak, someone embraced him from behind. "Oh my, my dear little brother Liang Liang! You finally came back! You left me, your younger brother Yun Fang, the orphan and widowed mother with such a cruel heart!"
Yi Chenliang looked blankly at Qi Huo. "Where did the widowed mother come from?"
"Orphan." Qi Huo pointed at Ji Shumo. "Widowed mother." He then pointed at Yun Fang.
Ji Shumo, suddenly labeled an orphan, said, "Brother Qi, your statement is a bit off!"
The group laughed and joked around, while Shen Zhouzhou sitting in the front suddenly threw her pen.
Chen Qianyang turned to look at her. "What's wrong, Zhouzhou?"
"Nothing." Shen Zhouzhou had a poker face. "I'm just a bit too happy."
Chen Qianyang: "..."
"It's getting cold. It's time for those evil cult CPs to break up." Shen Zhouzhou took out her phone from her bag. "Heh."
Chen Qianyang: "...Although I don't quite understand, I feel it's very impressive."
This woman who was now ranked first in the grade, it still hard to figure out this mysterious and unpredictable new desk mate.
Yi Chenliang sat back in his designated seat.
Yun Fang took out a stack of notes from his desk and placed it on Yi Chenliang's desk.
Yi Chenliang opened it and looked. "What's this?"
"Notes from various subjects in the second year of high school," Yun Fang said.
During the break, the class was noisy. Yi Chenliang leaned back against the wall, opened his notebook, and flipped through it.
Every stroke was neat and tidy, detailing every minor point of knowledge. Yi Chenliang knew his own study methods and thought processes; Yun Fang didn't need to write so meticulously.
The handwriting on the notes was clearly from a year ago.
Yi Chenliang lowered his head and looked at it carefully for a while before asking, "What if I hadn't come back?"
"I would have gone to bring you back," Yun Fang said as he corrected the science paper, circling an A with a red pen.
Yi Chenliang smiled at the familiar handwriting on the notebook. Suddenly, a clenched fist appeared in front of him. Before he could turn to ask, the fist opened, revealing a White Rabbit creamy candy in the palm.
Yi Chenliang picked up the candy and looked at Yun Fang.
Yun Fang's gaze remained fixed on the test paper. He retracted his hand and continued working on the questions as if nothing had happened.
Yi Chenliang unwrapped the candy and put it in his mouth. Resting his head on one hand, he looked out the window at the purple-leaf plum tree. The sweet, creamy taste of the candy spread in his mouth, making his eyes suddenly redden.
Yun Fang's eyes stayed on the circled A option, never moving.
Time could be very daunting.
Even though they were once so close that they felt like one person, the unfamiliarity brought by time and distance couldn’t be erased instantly. This unfamiliarity, which neither of them could immediately dispel, was even more distressing than when they first met and didn’t know each other.
They were both trying hard to recapture the familiarity of the past.
The school day passed quickly. Yi Chenliang felt dizzy from the classes. He found it hard to keep up with the senior year curriculum and became agitated. On the way home after school, he sat dejectedly on the back seat of the scooter, holding Yun Fang's waist in silence.
Yun Fang also rode in silence, navigating through the familiar streets in the night before finally dropping Yi Chenliang off downstairs.
Yi Chenliang got off the scooter with his backpack, noticing Yun Fang also got off and locked the bike.
"Let's go, upstairs," Yun Fang said, putting the key in his pocket.
Yi Chenliang was taken aback. "Aren't you going home?"
"I’ll sleep with you here," Yun Fang said, grabbing his wrist and leading him into the building. "I've already told my parents."
Yi Chenliang was pulled up along the stairs. The sensor lights flicked on with their footsteps. The rusty red-painted stair railings were covered in a thick layer of dust.
Yun Fang opened the door and switched on the living room light.
Yi Chenliang followed him inside, tossing his backpack onto the sofa. After running a thousand meters in PE class today, he was sweaty all over. He lifted his school uniform and sniffed it before saying to Yun Fang, "I'm going to take a shower."
"Go ahead," Yun Fang replied. He still had a few mistakes to correct, so he sat on the sofa and resumed working on his papers.
Yi Chenliang bent down to take a change of clothes from the wardrobe and shouted towards the door, "Do you want to wash up too? Should I get you a change of clothes?"
"Sure," Yun Fang's voice came from the living room.
Yi Chenliang rummaged through his clothes, took out a white T-shirt and black pants, hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed an unopened pair of underwear for Yun Fang. He placed it on top of the clothes, thought for a bit, and then sandwiched it between the clothes.
He took his change of clothes to the bathroom. "I put your clothes on the bed."
"Okay," Yun Fang responded without looking up, busy writing on the test paper.
Yi Chenliang glanced at him and then went in to take a shower.
The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Yun Fang finished the last problem, tossed his pen, and leaned back on the sofa with a sigh.
When Yi Chenliang came out, he saw Yun Fang looking down at his phone. While drying his hair, he asked, "Are you going to shower now?"
Yun Fang put down his phone. "No rush, come here."
Yi Chenliang walked over and sat beside him. Yun Fang took the towel from his hand and started drying his hair. Yi Chenliang closed his eyes comfortably.
"Xiao Yi."
"Yeah?"
"You don't have to be exactly the same," Yun Fang said as he dried his hair. "You know that, right?"
Yi Chenliang pressed his lips together.
"People change. You're just growing up." Yun Fang put down the towel and smoothed Yi Chenliang's hair with his hand. "If I came back twenty years from now, wouldn't I be completely different from you?"
"Yeah," Yi Chenliang replied, then added, "But some things would still be the same."
"I have my own twenty years of memories that you weren't a part of," Yun Fang said seriously. "And now you have a year of memories that I wasn't part of, but you're still you."
Yi Chenliang's voice was a bit muffled. "I'm afraid if I change, you won't like me anymore."
Yun Fang smiled and patted his head. "No matter how you change, I'll still like you."
"What if I become bad?" Yi Chenliang's eyes held a hint of unease.
Yun Fang leaned in closer, a meaningful smile in his eyes. "Have you forgotten? I'm the real bad guy."
Yi Chenliang lowered his eyes and squeezed Yun Fang's hand. "You're not bad."
"At the beginning, I missed you so much I went crazy. All I could think about was finding you, locking you up so you couldn't go anywhere, and no one else could find you," Yun Fang said slowly. "So you could only see me."
Yi Chenliang replied, "That does sound... a bit bad."
Yun Fang chuckled softly.
Yi Chenliang reached out and hooked off his glasses.
"Don’t make a fuss." Yun Fang reached out to grab them back but was pushed down onto the sofa by Yi Chenliang.
With one hand pressing Yun Fang's shoulder, Yi Chenliang looked down at him and asked, "Do you know what I thought at the beginning?"
Yun Fang lay on the sofa, squinting uncomfortably. "What?"
Yi Chenliang's fingers traced over his collarbone, his eyes darkening. He leaned in and whispered a few words in his ear.
"You're quite bold," Yun Fang said dismissively with a lazy smile, but his expression changed the next second. "You—"
Yi Chenliang turned his head and kissed him.
He missed this person so much he was nearly driven mad. He was sent to a completely unfamiliar country, surrounded by people speaking a language he couldn't understand. Chu Xia's control over him had reached a perverse level. Whether he went to school or out, someone was always watching him closely, and he couldn't even use his phone.
He thought about this person, but the more he tried to recall, the more he couldn't remember his face. He couldn't even have a photo, and besides the red string with a stone tied around his wrist, he had nothing tangible to focus his longing on.
Yi Chenliang had recalled countless times in the dark the scenes of being kissed by him, remembering all the details of their time together. But it was like drinking poison to quench his thirst, only causing a more intense and crazed longing to spread from the depths of his heart.
He had imagined their reunion countless times. But when he finally saw this person, he was terrified to find that he couldn't muster those hysterical emotions. He could only rush up to hug him to hide his panic.
He had never been so afraid; it was even harder to accept than not seeing Yun Fang at all.
It wasn't until Yun Fang held his hand, guiding him to confirm step by step that he was back in a familiar environment. Those feelings he thought had vanished surged back like a tidal wave, even more intense and uncontrollable.
Turns out it didn't disappear at all——
Yi Chenliang thought.
They had just been carefully locked away, waiting for this person to unlock them and let them pour out.