Ch43 - Ryuusei (2/2)
Yu Hao studied the dormitory that had been emptied out. He and Chen Yekai sat on opposite ends of the dining table, and within this empty world, only sunlight remained. Chen Yekai never looked at Yu Hao from the start, he only stared at the table in a trance.
“Isn’t there anything you want to say?” Yu Hao suddenly asked.
Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.
Chen Yekai answered, “My flight’s at 12:50. I wanted to find you at 9:30 to say goodbye, but you came early.”
Yu Hao, “What if I had class?”
Chen Yekai, “You have no classes today.”
Yu Hao, “What if I went out?”
Chen Yekai, “You wouldn’t have left the college. You would have watched your phone all day, waiting for my message.”
After their simple conversation, they quietened down again. Chen Yekai smiled a bit sadly, “Thank you very much for that night.”
Yu Hao couldn’t help but joke, “You’re welcome. This tablecloth looks quite nice.” After all, ever since the two of them met today, they have just been staring blankly at the tablecloth.
Chen Yekai knew what Yu Hao meant, so he began to laugh after he heard his words. He had a handsome countenance, his laughter was very infectious, and he even had small dimples on his cheeks. Even if Yu Hao didn’t like him, he still felt quite happy to see such a handsome guy. If he had an older brother like him, then it would’ve been something he could have been very proud of ba.
The two of them looked at the tablecloth on the dining table again. Chen Yekai said, “A skilled expert is like a magician. Once they grab a tablecloth, they can pull it away with one swift and neat movement. Everything on the table remains, but the tablecloth would be gone.”
“Are you talking about love?” Yu Hao said.
“A moment in your life, a memory, these should all be like that ba.” Chen Yekai finally looked at Yu Hao, “Yu Hao.”
“The world is much bigger than you think. Once you leave college and enter society, I believe that you’ll meet someone who likes you, who you will also like in return. This path is very difficult, but it’s not as difficult as you imagine it to be. The important thing is, you definitely shouldn’t torture yourself.”
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Yu Hao’s heart began jumping wildly. He knew that Chen Yekai could tell he likes Zhou Sheng.
“Chen Laoshi.” Yu Hao looked at Chen Yekai, “May I ask a question? Why are you resigning? Can you tell me the truth?”
After a brief silence, Chen Yekai answered, “Because in this lifetime, there are too many things that I don’t have the power to change. It made me gradually realise that changing an environment didn’t mean that everything could restart from scratch.”
“For example?” Yu Hao said, and tried to suppress the questions that Zhou Sheng told him to ask about the truth behind Liang Jinmin’s incident.
Chen Yekai said, “For example, Nakagawa Ryuusei. You should’ve heard of that name before ba?”
Yu Hao, “!!!”
Yu Hao didn’t expect Chen Yekai to actually take the initiative to raise this issue, so he became nervous at once. Yet Chen Yekai smiled as he said, “It’s okay, it’s not something that can be concealed. Did you search me up online?”
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Yu Hao’s face looked blank, “I didn’t ah.”
Now it was Chen Yekai’s turn to be a little surprised.
What Yu Hao was most worried about wasn’t Ryuusei, but the extreme action Chen Yekai was about to take with his scalpel that night. But Chen Yekai clearly didn’t want to mention it again and being trapped in such a mental state was quite dangerous.
“You really didn’t?”
Yu Hao recalled the past and said, “I have, I remember now. I’ve searched before, but I only found out that your English name is Nicky, and how you used to be the……hottest guy at Columbia University.”
“It has been a lot of years since then.” Chen Yekai answered, “I was still an undergraduate then.”
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“I really didn’t find anything else.” Yu Hao felt about for his phone and flipped through its search record as he showed it to Chen Yekai. Chen Yekai smiled as he waved his hand, “I trust you.”
“Who’s Ryuusei?” Yu Hao said.
He had just finished asking his question when the doorbell suddenly rang. Yu Hao got up to open the door, Zhou Sheng walked in with breakfast from McDonald’s. But it seemed as if Chen Yekai had expected this beforehand, and he smiled, “And I was wondering why you didn’t come, turns out you went to buy breakfast.”
“And you knew that I would come?” Zhou Sheng took out a coffee and a breakfast with the M mark on it and passed it to Chen Yekai.
“The two of you are inseparable.” Chen Yekai said, “If Yu Hao’s here, there’s no reason for you not to come.”
“Originally I really didn’t want to come, I thought that yesterday was our farewell.” Zhou Sheng removed the lid from his coffee cup. After he added some sugar and milk in it, he handed it to Yu Hao.
“Today doesn’t count either. I don’t like to say goodbye so seriously.” Chen Yekai smiled, “As long as you don’t say goodbye, it’ll seem like it’s not over yet.”
“It’s only after you say ‘see you again’, that we really will see you again.” Yu Hao said, “So we’ll still need to bid farewell with the words ‘see you again’.”
This sentence seemed to have touched Chen Yekai, who once again fell into silence.
“If you want to talk, then let’s chat ba.” Yu Hao answered, “Don’t try to bottle it all up.”
These were the words that Chen Yekai had said to Yu Hao when they first met. After Zhou Sheng finished his breakfast, he cleaned everything up and said, “I’m going to class.”
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“Sit ba.” Chen Yekai said, “You don’t have classes today either, who are you putting on an act for?”
Zhou Sheng threw the rubbish away and sat down at the dining table. Chen Yekai once again fell into a long period of silence.
“I believe you.” Yu Hao suddenly said. This was also what Chen Yekai had said to him the first time they met.
“What do you know? What’s there to believe? Yet you still say that you’ll believe me just like that.” Chen Yekai smiled as he spoke.
Yu Hao answered, “We’ll believe whatever you say.”
They all held a cup of coffee in their hands. Chen Yekai took a sip of his black coffee, “When I look at you sometimes, it’s like I’m looking at Nakagawa Ryuusei. Both of you are about the same height, and during our first meeting, you were both like melancholic princes. He was my junior, majoring in anthropology. He was Liang Laoshi’s student, an undergraduate, Liang Laoshi seldom takes undergraduates under her wing……”
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Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng listened quietly.
Chen Yekai’s father is a very famous barrister, while his mother is a housewife. Since childhood, Chen Yekai has always had the best educational resources and by the time he was 17, he had already completed all of the courses in high school and had been admitted into Columbia University. His parents expected him to study abroad before returning to the country to get married, to look for a wife that he could live with in wedded bliss and have a happy life.
And ever since he was a child, he had never seriously been in a relationship with anyone. He bore in mind what his family had taught him——to leave all the feelings he had in this lifetime for the person that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Although he had never lacked suitors, Chen Yekai spent most of his time reading and learning instead.
Within just two and a half years, he graduated from his undergraduate course. He became Lin Xun’s postgraduate student when he was 20-years-old, and after he got to know Lin Xun and Liang Jinmin, he became Liang Jinmin’s assistant teacher.
He’s practically that kid you see in the newspapers — the perfect example of an outstanding person. When Yu Hao heard Chen Yekai’s history, he couldn’t help but think this in his heart.
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When he was an assistant teacher, Chen Yekai often helped Liang Jinmin grade papers and read her students’ papers, which was how he came to know the name ‘Nakagawa Ryuusei’. Ryuusei’s father was Chinese, while his mother was Japanese. She was the daughter of the chairman of a multinational corporation, and coincidentally, his father was an employee of said corporation who was in charge of receiving the charmain and his family. That was when he and Ryuusei’s mother fell into the river of love.
After she returned to Japan, Nakagawa Tenshu gave birth to a very good-looking mixed-blood child, and Ryuusei also acquired another identity — a son born out of wedlock.
Ryuusei was a lonely child. His parents’ transnational marriage, coupled with his maternal and paternal families’ hostility, their scorn for his father, the mockery and disdain for their love, his relatives’ gazes, and everything else, had caused him to seal his heart. In the end, his maternal grandfather forked out a sum of money and made arrangements for him to study abroad, and Ryuusei finally managed to escape that ‘suffocating place’.
Chen Yekai then walked into his life, but he didn’t realise how his existence had illuminated Nakagawa Ryuusei’s world. After they got acquainted, Chen Yekai began to take care of Ryuusei in his capacity as a senior, and gradually, the feelings between them grew deeper and deeper.
It was not until Chen Yekai realised that Ryuusei was in love with him before he knew it was too late. He had already begun to be infatuated with Ryuusei’s melancholic and quiet temperament, as well as his dependence on himself — that kind of feeling where he was the only one in his whole world.
Zhou Sheng, “……”
Yu Hao suddenly had a vague realisation of the hidden meaning behind Chen Yekai’s remarks today. This wasn’t just his memory of his old lover, but also a message to Zhou Sheng, telling them to face their feelings directly.
It was as if Yu Hao was getting to know Chen Yekai again. A violent undercurrent of gratitude surged through his heart for Chen Yekai.
He wanted to thank Chen Yekai, but Chen Yekai seemed to have understood it from his eyes, and he gave him a simple smile in return.