Chapter 115
A REAL LIVE Gu Fei.
A real live Gu Fei!
Live, in front of him, in the flesh! And warm! Warm and fuzzy!
A Gu Fei that could be touched, could be smelled, and could fill his mouth in one bite!
After a few weeks at university, Jiang Cheng thought he had gotten used to this life—he no longer missed Gu Fei so much that he couldn’t fall asleep at night; he was no longer reminded of Gu Fei with everything he saw.
Surrounded on all sides by bustling overachievers, he couldn’t help but adapt to their hurried pace as well, and eventually, the yearning didn’t feel as crushing as it did before.
But the moment he saw Gu Fei’s waving arms, he felt a rush of levity; if he got enough of a running start, perhaps he could even fly.
Sure enough, now that he was comparing what he viscerally felt in that moment to how he felt at school, he could figure out whether he’d truly adjusted, whether he really was happy.
Just as he tilted his face to kiss Gu Fei’s cheek, Gu Fei grabbed the back of his head and gave it a little tug. “Cheng-ge, Cheng-ge! Calm down!”
“Ah.” Jiang Cheng paused for about two seconds before he regained his senses and awkwardly pushed Gu Fei away. He quickly scanned their surroundings out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, fuck.”
“Your thirst is kind of shocking.” Gu Fei laughed as he took Jiang Cheng’s bag. “Don’t tell me you were hard the whole way here.”
“Oh, shut up.” Jiang Cheng laughed. He didn’t move, just stood there and stared at Gu Fei.
It hadn’t even been a month—not long enough for the buzz cut Gu Fei had gotten before he left to grow out. When he looked at Gu Fei now, though, it felt like it had been a whole year since they’d last seen each other.
The refreshing feeling of seeing Gu Fei live and in person was impossible to replicate, no matter how good the photos were or how high-definition the video calls.
Every little detail was crystal clear in front of him: Gu Fei’s pretty eyebrows, the eyelashes that fluttered when he blinked, the corners of his lips curving up, his own face reflected in Gu Fei’s eyes.
He’d missed Gu Fei to the point of madness when they couldn’t see each other, but the feeling didn’t go away now that he was here. He still missed him.
“Shall we go?” Gu Fei came closer and bumped Jiang Cheng’s shoulder with his own. “Wanna eat something first, or do you want to go straight back?”
“Let’s go back first.” Jiang Cheng didn’t hesitate for a second. “Did you buy condoms and lube?”
“…Yes.” Gu Fei looked into his face. “Cheng-ge, are you good? Can you hold it in until we get back? It’s about a twenty-minute ride from here.”
“I can.” Jiang Cheng nodded solemnly. “I can even hold it until after I take a shower.”
“Let’s go, then.” Gu Fei laughed. He turned and started walking away. “I parked the motorcycle under that tree over there.”
“You look really good with a helmet on,” Jiang Cheng said.
“Then I’ll keep it on while I fuck you later.”
Jiang Cheng whipped his head around and looked at him.
“What?” Gu Fei laughed.
“Sure,” Jiang Cheng said. “You can even pull silk stockings over your head while you fuck me—as long as you’re the one doing it.”
Gu Fei snorted as he slung his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders. “What, what happened to those great aspirations of you fucking me?”
“That’s on hold for now.” Jiang Cheng sighed and ran his hand over Gu Fei’s side. “To be quite honest, I didn’t really understand until we were apart, but nothing else matters as long as I get to see you right now. To hell with aspirations.”
Gu Fei couldn’t stop laughing.
The motorcycle wasn’t far. Gu Fei walked over and straddled the seat, put his helmet on, then handed one to Jiang Cheng.
“Why is yours black,” Jiang Cheng said as he glanced at the helmet in his hands, “and mine red?”
Gu Fei looked at him. “Because that one is Er-Miao’s helmet, and she picked a red one.”
“I want the black one,” Jiang Cheng said. “The black one looks cooler.”
“Cool people look cool no matter what color they’re wearing.” Gu Fei exchanged helmets with him and put on the red one. “What’s cool is the person, not the helmet.”
Jiang Cheng stared at him.
It was true—Gu Fei didn’t just look cool when he had an icy expression on his face; he looked cool even when he was smiling with glasses on. He had an innate air about him that was one part roguish, one part lethal, and one part something else.
No. Not innate. It was honed, sharpened over the years.
“Get on,” Gu Fei said as he turned on the engine and passed Jiang Cheng’s bag back to him, “cool Chengcheng.”
Jiang Cheng clicked his tongue.
“Cheng-ge,” Gu Fei called to him.
Jiang Cheng slung the bag over his shoulders and climbed onto the back seat, wrapping his arms around Gu Fei’s waist. Gu Fei revved the engine, and the bike shot out.
There was a teeny-tiny mini-square in front of the train station, mostly ignored by city authorities and thus haphazardly packed with parked cars and food carts.
Compared to the train station Jiang Cheng had departed from only a few hours ago, there was no order here; chaos reigned.
And yet as he sat on the back seat with his arms around Gu Fei, he didn’t feel an ounce of annoyance or revulsion.
On the contrary, he even felt a hint of affectionate familiarity when he looked at them now.
No matter how bleak the life or how unkempt the surroundings, they all filled him with affectionate familiarity because of their connection to Gu Fei.
The street beside the mini-square took them directly to the main road, but Gu Fei chose to cut slowly across the square instead, driving through the disarray of parked cars and carts.
“Why are we going this way?” Jiang Cheng asked.
Gu Fei didn’t answer. He rode diagonally across the square and behind the bus stop on the other side. Then, with a roar of the engine, he rode onto the bus stop’s waiting platform.
“Yikes.” Jiang Cheng glanced at the people on either side jumping out of their way and said quietly, “Watch out, or the traffic cops will come and get you.”