Dan City in June was already hot and humid.
There was no air conditioning in the bedroom. A small electric fan in front of the desk was blowing towards Ethan Gu's face, and his messy hair was flying in the wind.
If the wind is too strong, even the most rational mind will be confused. For example, he is now calling his unreliable cousin Liam Qiu, wanting to make him the first person to know about his love life, especially since the person he likes is his male deskmate.
He was told because this was a big matter concerning S3xual orientation, and Ethan Gu urgently needed to find a mature and trustworthy person to discuss it with. Excluding his parents, the only option was his cousin who was in college.
Ethan Gu casually picked up a pen from the table and twirled it aimlessly between his fingers. He didn't twirled it well and the pen didn't draw an arc in the air, so it fell to the ground with a "pop". Ethan Gu bent down to pick it up when the call was connected.
Liam Qiu must have been taking a nap. He was still sleepy when he answered the phone. He didn't check the caller ID. After being woken up, he asked in a bad tone, "Who are you? What time is it? You're calling someone!"
Ethan Gu was a little nervous. He just held the pen in his hand, but he threw it back to the ground. He was silent for two seconds. Before the other party hung up the phone with anger, he replied, "Ethan Gu, 13:25 Beijing time."
Because of nervousness, his throat was a little dry, he cleared his throat and continued to ask, "Brother, how are you doing recently?"
There was silence for a while, Liam Qiu's daze was over, and he asked cautiously: "I'm fine, what's wrong, Xiaojue, did something happen?"
No wonder Liam Qiu was cautious. Every time a conversation started like this, it was bound to be nothing good.
Ethan Gu was in no mood to beat around the bush with him, and he wanted to get to the point anyway.
"Brother, I may have fallen in love with a guy."
His fingers slid in circles along the pattern on the cup. The cup was very cold, and the astringency between his fingers could not hide the thundering heartbeat of Ethan Gu at this moment.
Liam Qiu didn't answer, but it sounded like someone was getting up from the bed or something like that, so the noise was quite loud. In the background he could hear his roommates' angry remarks, but Liam Qiu ignored them.
Why didn't he answer? Was he surprised? Couldn't accept it? For this top student who had "seen a lot of things", was liking someone of the same S3x also something shocking?
The more silent the other end was, the more nervously Ethan Gu guessed his possible reaction, and he felt quite regretful in his heart.
I shouldn't have told him.
Liam Qiu walked out of the room, took a deep breath, but his tone was quite relaxed. "Oh, I thought it was something. I went to the balcony to tell you. It's my brother's secret anyway. So what? Does he like you?"
Does he like me?
Good question. Ethan Gu thought it was probably not that kind of liking.
He was about to think of a euphemism to make himself appear less miserable, but a hurried knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
Emily Jiang yelled: "Ethan Gu! It's time to go to school!"
All the pain of youth was gone, leaving only the double oppression from the school and Emily Jiang.
"Ethan Gu, open the door, don't hide inside without making any sound. I know you didn't go to school!" Emily Jiang didn't hear any noise and shouted again from outside. It was so embarrassing that the sound went straight into the bedroom through the door.
"No more chatting, Emily Jiang is banging on the door!" Ethan Gu was in a hurry to hang up the phone, but then he remembered that he hadn't answered the question yet, so he said, "Maybe he doesn't like her. I don't think she likes men. I'm hanging up. Bye!"
"Hey, hey! I got out of bed just to continue chatting tonight!" Liam Qiu seemed more enthusiastic than Ethan Gu, which made Ethan Gu suspect that this brother wanted to watch the fun instead of caring about his brother. He ignored him and hung up the phone directly.
Ethan Gu and Emily Jiang grew up together. When they were young, the adults joked that Emily Jiang was the daughter-in-law of the old Gu family, a child marriage.
Xiao Jiang was greedy for his mother Gu's food. Before he was six years old, he always called his mother "Grandma" sweetly. Later, when he was older and knew what "Grandma" meant, Xiao Jiang never called her that again and changed to "Auntie Gu".
Fortunately, Ethan Gu has a crush on someone now, and they are probably really gay friends. Emily Jiang also fell in love with someone not long after the start of the first year of high school. Otherwise, their growth model is completely heading towards childhood sweethearts and getting married as adults.
Ethan Gu picked up his schoolbag from the chair and walked out, worried that Emily Jiang would break in if he was a second late.
Before going out, she glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only half past one. The girl was extremely anxious.
"What are you in such a hurry for? It's not even 1:50 yet."
He opened the door, Emily Jiang raised his hand high, almost slapping Ethan Gu in the face, but luckily he stopped in time, looked at his watch, and said, "It's almost time to walk over."
Emily Jiang didn't know what she was thinking about, her face turned a little red. It was probably not because of the hot weather, or because it was too hard to break down the door.
"I didn't finish the questions at noon, so I wanted to go to Oliver Xie's class. I asked him to come to the classroom on the 35th today."
After saying that, she smiled quietly to herself with a shy face.
"I've finished my homework too, why don't you copy mine? You copy homework next to Oliver Xie every day, and today you copied it right next to him. What if people think you don't like studying?" Ethan Gu found her shy look funny and teased her on purpose.
This little girl doesn't stand being teased. She gets angry when her secrets are exposed.
"Oliver Xie is the oldest, who wants you! I asked him for help with the questions, why don't you like studying anymore!" She glared at Ethan Gu, turned her head and mocked him, "Aren't you also checking the answers to Ryan Ji's questions! Do you feel embarrassed to see the red tick and your own revision marks together?"
Well, nothing to say. Arguing with Emily Jiang is just asking for trouble. You don't know what's going on but still like to stab people in the heart.
Ethan Gu thought that she was openly showing her love for Oliver Xie by asking him to discuss the problem, while he was secretly in love with Ryan Ji by asking him to discuss the problem under the pretext of brotherhood. In comparison, he was still embarrassing and boring.
After Emily Jiang finished her retort, she walked ahead with her ponytail swinging proudly, praising Oliver Xie without caring at all whether her childhood sweetheart behind her fell into self-denial in life.
*
The high school department of No. 1 Middle School is located in the southern suburbs of Huidan City, a bit far from the urban area. Ethan Gu's family and Emily Jiang's family rented two houses nearby to avoid running back and forth and wasting their rest time.
It's a pity that the school is rectangular in shape, and the first-year teaching building is very far from the residential area on the back street. When Ethan Gu quickly followed Emily Jiang to the classroom, he was already choking with the heat.
There were only two or three people in the classroom at this time. The temperature inside was lower than outside. There were few people and no one turned on the ceiling fan, so it was extremely quiet around.
Oliver Xie was sitting in the second to last row by the window on the far right, sleeping soundly. Emily Jiang had been noisy all the way but when she entered the room and saw Oliver Xie sleeping there, she suddenly fell silent. She also stopped her careless steps and walked in with a delicate and graceful manner.
However, before she took two steps inside, Oliver Xie slowly raised his head and looked forward with squinted eyes.
Ethan Gu, Emily Jiang, and Oliver Xie looked at each other, and only Ethan Gu felt embarrassed.
Emily Jiang ran towards Oliver Xie in small steps. They were both in the first group, and Ethan Gu was in the fifth group at the innermost part.
Alas, he should be on the roof instead of in the car.
Ethan Gu lit a stick of incense for himself in his heart and thought that he could change his name to Gu Duoyu.
"Ethan Gu, your hair is sticking up at the back." He had not taken two steps when a smiling voice came from behind him, passing through the sultry summer air and drilling into his ears.
The back of his head was suddenly pressed down, and one could feel that this guy was trying very hard to tame the flying hair, but this behavior was a bit foolish.
Ethan Gu didn't even turn his head, but reached out to slap his claws away, "You can straighten your hair with your hands? Are you stupid?"
The next second, Ryan Ji's face appeared beside him.
Ryan Ji is fair-skinned, with three-dimensional features and light-colored eyes. At first glance, he looks a bit like a mixed-race. He sometimes jokes that his ancestors are of mixed blood from eight countries, and it has been diluted a bit in his generation. However, the most attractive thing is his pair of peach blossom eyes, and every inch of the arc at the end of his eyes is full of affection. But Ryan Ji can't sit still, and he won't keep looking at others. He will glance at people occasionally, smile, and then look away.
Except for the initial moment when he found out he liked him, when he would unconsciously get nervous, after a while Ethan Gu was able to adjust his mentality very well. He would sneer when necessary and hit when necessary. They were all boys, and there was no need to be sad when liking someone.
Ryan Ji habitually gets in front of Ethan Gu to seek a sense of existence, teasing him all day long, and Ethan Gu is the number one victim.
He smiled even after being confronted. In order to provoke Ethan Gu, Ryan Ji reached out and rubbed his head. Originally, there was only a tuft of hair that was sticking up, but it became messy. After rubbing, he was afraid of being beaten, so he took a step back, turned around and fled in the opposite direction. There was not much space in front of the podium for walking, so he had to put one hand on the blackboard and the other hand on the podium to use the force to jump out.
When Ethan Gu turned around, he could only see the chalk dust in the pen tray being suspended in the air by the chirping of summer cicadas, then falling quietly, as well as the sweaty palms leaving prints on the blackboard.
The blackboard was suddenly slapped, startling a classmate who was taking a lunch break. Before he could swear, Ryan Ji ran past him and accidentally bumped into the corner of the table. He rubbed his waist in pain, but he still took the time to put his hands together and apologized, "Sorry, brother, I'll buy you some water later."
When the classmate saw who was coming, his frown smoothed out, and he smiled and muttered that it was no wonder that Brother Ji practiced martial arts every day and was so strong.
Ryan Ji walked a long circle from the first group and ran back to his seat, but he walked faster than Ethan Gu.
It was fate. Two months after the start of the school year, in addition to Oliver Xie, who had made all-round and stable progress, the class also had two other extremes: Ryan Ji on the science side and Ethan Gu on the liberal arts side, with an English bridge in between.
In order to achieve balanced development, the head teacher arranged the two people to sit at the same table. No matter how everyone's seats were moved around, they were firmly nailed together.
In fact, Ethan Gu is okay. His science grades are not bad but not as amazing as his liberal arts grades. That's why he was assigned to supervise Ryan Ji in learning liberal arts subjects. The more a person likes something, the more he should learn it. He can finish two math, physics and chemistry exercise books in his spare time, but he is unwilling to say a few words "you are a Zhihu person".
Chinese is relatively okay, after all, he doesn't dare to be really bad at the main subjects. Politics and history are the real trouble. It is obvious that they are waiting for the major division in the second year of high school. If he goes to the science department, he will have no chance to compete with them.
He gave up politics and history early, but the teacher could not give up on him, so he was called to the office by two teachers in turn to study in person. The head teacher felt that this was too troublesome and might also delay other main subjects.
Ethan Gu, this obedient, useful, honest and warm-hearted man appeared on the scene. He arranged a good desk mate to take the place of the teacher and locked Ryan Ji in the classroom, asking Ethan Gu to recite and punch in every day.
Don't people become familiar with each other just by spending time together every day?
The two returned to their seats one after the other.
Ethan Gu sat inside, leaning against the tiles. The tiles were relatively cool, and just for the sake of temporary coolness, but too lazy to get up and turn on the electric fan, he just rested his elbows on the tiles.
Comfortable! Cool!
The weather in June was too hot, and the collision of hot and cold made Ethan Gu shudder even though he knew it would be exciting. With a knee-jerk reaction, he stretched out his leg and gently kicked Ryan Ji's leg that was resting on the side.
Ryan Ji was tired after running a lap. His seat was right at the end, so he pushed the chair back as far as possible, and lazily placed his long legs on the horizontal bar under the table. He leaned against the back of the chair, and slid down a few centimeters before he sat down. He put his hands on his stomach. At first glance, he was a doctor of Beijing paralysis studies who had learned from Ge You.
Ethan Gu's kick scared him and he tried to dodge reflexively. When he raised his leg, his body lacked support and he was about to fall. Ryan Ji quickly tensed his waist and abdomen, and used the force to grab Ethan Gu's leg. He turned around to avoid being knocked over. At this moment, he was in shock and stared at Ethan Gu with round eyes.
Ethan Gu was a little embarrassed at first for kicking someone, and just as he was about to apologize, he was amused by Ryan Ji's silly look. He had originally leaned against the wall with one elbow on the table, but now he covered his mouth and laughed, drooping his eyelids to avoid Ryan Ji's gaze.
Is Ryan Ji angry?
not at all
He looked at Lin Jue and grinned too.
It was a summer day and Ethan Gu was obviously sitting much straighter than Ryan Ji. Although he was leaning against the wall, his back was straight. He had also sat on the side close to the wall and knew that this was the coolest spot on the tiles. Seeing Ethan Gu lazily cooling off, he felt itchy in his heart, always feeling that the fan on his textbook was not comfortable enough.
The smile on his face had not yet disappeared, and he had to get closer to Ethan Gu. He stood up, leaned forward with a sense of oppression, and leaned over Ethan Gu. He didn't get close to him, but put his fingertips against the wall, and moved closer to the wall with a smile.
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