Chapter 108
T HE ACCEPTANCE LETTER listed the registration date as the ninth.
Gu Fei suggested they get there a couple of days early to familiarize themselves with the surroundings, but Jiang Cheng never gave his opinion on the matter.
And since Jiang Cheng had said he would buy the tickets, Gu Fei did not continue to bring it up.
In the end, it was only under the threat of tickets being sold out that he finally bought tickets for the eighth at the very last minute.
Looking at the reservation information on his phone, Jiang Cheng felt a stuffiness in his chest. The explosion of misery about the impending goodbye was so overwhelming right now that it completely and utterly squashed any joy he felt at finally getting to go to his chosen school.
There wasn’t a single drop of happiness left over.
“Cheng-ge.” Gu Fei stood in front of the closet as he took out Jiang Cheng’s clothes one by one. “You really don’t want to pack your own clothes? What if I packed something you don’t like…”
“I don’t care.” Jiang Cheng sat cross-legged on the bed, playing stupid Aixiaochu on Gu Fei’s phone. He hadn’t really played for Gu Fei for a long time, so Li Yan had overtaken him by several levels. The game had even gone through three new updates in the interval.
“Then don’t yell at me later when you don’t like the clothes,” said Gu Fei.
“Mm.” Jiang Cheng glanced at him. “Let me take that T-shirt of yours, the stupid one that says ‘F-U-C-K’ on it.”
“But that stupid shirt is really old,” Gu Fei said.
“I’ll wear it as pajamas.” Jiang Cheng put his head back down and returned to the game.
“All right, then. I’ll go home to get it later.” Gu Fei gave Jiang Cheng a little smile.
“And those track pants you have with the stripes down the sides, and your black hoodie,” Jiang Cheng added. “Oh yeah, and the gray jacket… Oh, and, uh, why don’t you grab a few pairs of your…your underwear, so I can take them with me?”
“How about this, sir?” Gu Fei propped one hand on the closet door and looked at him. “We press pause on packing here, and you can come get all that stuff straight from my house.”
“That’s all.” Jiang Cheng paused for a moment before laughing. “Let me have this. It’s not like you’re going to miss a few clothes.”
“The ones the esteemed gentleman ordered are all pieces I wear on the daily,” said Gu Fei.
“Oho.” Jiang Cheng glanced at him sideways. “Never mind, then. If I took them all, I guess you’d be forced to run around naked, huh?”
“Jeez.” Gu Fei cracked up. “Anything else you want? I’ll grab it all in one go when I go home later.”
“Gu Fei,” said Jiang Cheng.
“Hm?” Gu Fei looked at him quizzically.
“Gu Fei,” Jiang Cheng repeated.
“Huh?” Gu Fei asked again.
“Gu. Fei,” Jiang Cheng insisted. “What, have you suddenly gone stupid?”
“…Oh.” Gu Fei started laughing. “Got it.” He walked up to the bed and gently kissed Jiang Cheng’s forehead. “You don’t need to pack Gu Fei to take with you. Gu Fei’s already yours. You won’t lose him wherever you put him—he’s yours no matter what.”
Jiang Cheng swiftly reached up and bit Gu Fei on the chin.
“Fuck.” Gu Fei flicked Jiang Cheng’s forehead. “You better fix this problem of yours. I’m probably the only one who can…”
“What, who else?” Jiang Cheng tutted. “Should I bite Pan Zhi? Or Li Yan? Or Wang Xu?”
Gu Fei laughed the whole way back to the closet and went back to packing Jiang Cheng’s clothes. When he got to the underwear, he picked up a pair and asked, “Why does this one have a hole in it? From your farts?”
“I hung it on the hook the other day while I was showering, and somehow it got caught and ripped when I took it off , ” Jiang Cheng said. “You could’ve asked if you were the one who poked a hole in it.”
“I’m not that powerful,” Gu Fei said, laughing. “Or maybe we can try it tonight.”
“Oh, yeah.” Staring at him, Jiang Cheng suddenly slapped the mattress. “I just remembered something extremely important.”
“What?”
“Since we don’t have any plans for the next few days, we better hurry to get in some rolling around between the sheets in the time we have left,” Jiang Cheng said with a frown. “Once I go away to school, we’ll have to wait until National Day on the first of October before we have time again.”
“…Ah.” Gu Fei nodded. “That truly is a very serious and important matter.”
Once they got into it, rolling around between the sheets was a never-ending activity.
They would sleep whenever they got tired out, only to get back to it as soon as they woke up.
Young people were filled with the fire of life—if ever they felt emptied out, all they needed was a good night’s sleep to feel as good as new again.
“Cheng-ge.” Gu Fei lay on the bed, looking through the ticket information on his phone. “Since we’re leaving for the train station early tomorrow morning, should we hit pause on the great and important endeavor? It’s just that we’re running low on lube and condoms and stuff—”
“Why are you so shameless?” Jiang Cheng turned to him. “Do you seriously not feel at all embarrassed saying things like that out loud?”
“…You’ve done it like a hundred and eight thousand times already and you wanna tell me you’re embarrassed?” Gu Fei chortled. “Do you know how loud you get when you—”
“You bastard!” Jiang Cheng lunged over to cover Gu Fei’s mouth with his hand. “Even if I’ve done it two hundred and sixteen thousand times, I’m still not as brazen as you, running your mouth like this!”
Behind Jiang Cheng’s palm, Gu Fei kept on cackling so hard his eyes were nothing but curved slits.
“Well? Are you sorry?!” Jiang Cheng glared viciously at him. Gu Fei mumbled something incoherently. “Talk properly!”
Gu Fei didn’t make a sound this time, just stuck his tongue out and licked the center of Jiang Cheng’s palm.
“Shit.” Jiang Cheng immediately felt like his heart had been filled with a hundred fluffy bunnies, suffused with soft and fuzzy tenderness. Moving his hand away, he leaned in and licked Gu Fei on the lips. “I already miss you so much that it’s killing me.”
“I’ll come visit you whenever I can.” Gu Fei held him. “No need to wait until October.”
“Yeah.” Jiang Cheng sprawled himself on top of Gu Fei and buried his face in the dip of Gu Fei’s shoulder.
They didn’t go out for dinner that day. After they’d brought Gu Miao to the store, they cooked and ate together.
They hadn’t told Gu Miao that Jiang Cheng was going away to school.
Gu Fei thought that it was best she didn’t know.
She could go a long time without seeing Jiang Cheng, but if they told her that Jiang Cheng was leaving and that she wouldn’t be able to see him for months, she’d get angry and refuse to accept it.
“Would be great,” Jiang Cheng sighed gently, “if this was also her attitude toward you.”
Gu Fei smiled. “Well, I am her big brother.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything. Gu Miao has a mom, but you’ll never catch her getting upset just because she doesn’t see her mother.
He knew it was a moot point, though.
Gu Fei’s presence meant something unique to Gu Miao, something unquestionable.
There were likely only two kinds of people in Gu Miao’s world—her brother, and everyone else.
The place where she was born and raised and the only support she’d had all her life were the two things that could never change, and she could never lose them.
Gu Miao took Jiang Cheng’s hand and drew a bunny on the back of it, coloring it in green. “That looks great,” said Jiang Cheng.
The praise put Gu Miao in a pretty good mood, so she drew another one exactly like it right beside the first one and colored it in the exact same way. Just as she was about to draw a third, Gu Fei intervened.
“Hey, that’s a permanent marker. How’s your Cheng-ge supposed to go out tomorrow like this?”
“It’s pretty cool,” said Jiang Cheng, looking at the back of his hand.
Since Gu Fei had to take Gu Miao home for the evening, Jiang Cheng returned to his apartment by himself. He was planning to keep the lease here, since he still needed somewhere to live over the summer. Besides, this way, Gu Fei would have a place to stay if he ever wanted to be by himself.
Jiang Cheng pulled open a drawer, took out an envelope, and counted the money inside.
He then repacked the bills into a lucky red envelope.
Since he’d told Gu Fei to hold on to his modeling paychecks, Gu Fei had kept the money safe for him until a few days ago, when he’d withdrawn all of it and given it to Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng had taken eight thousand yuan out of that, planning to leave it for Gu Fei.
It wasn’t much, but there was no way Gu Fei would accept more.
Jiang Cheng wasn’t even sure why he wanted to do this.
Maybe it was because he was reluctant to leave Gu Fei, or maybe he just wanted to do something for his boyfriend—to shoulder a little of his burden.
He opened the closet and put the red envelope in the pocket of one of Gu Fei’s jackets.
He stood there giggling into the closet for a while, imagining Gu Fei’s face when he put on this jacket one day and discovered the red envelope inside.
***
In the end, Gu Fei’s worry that they might oversleep and miss the train the next day proved completely unnecessary. It was quite impossible for them to miss the train when neither of them really slept the entire night.
Jiang Cheng kept a tally of the number of times Gu Fei tossed and turned.
Gu Fei even rolled over to him a few times in the middle of the night to gently stroke his cheek.
Whenever that happened, Jiang Cheng would grit his teeth and try his damnedest to hold still.
He didn’t want Gu Fei to worry when he found out that he couldn’t sleep, didn’t want his boyfriend’s heart to throb the way his did knowing Gu Fei hadn’t caught a wink the whole night.
When the sun was almost up, Jiang Cheng finally couldn’t bear it anymore. He rolled over and pulled Gu Fei into his arms.