ASSHKHME Chapter 36
by VolareZhao Jiashu and Li Ang were sleeping like dead pigs.
The little noises that Chen Zhuo and Xie Yu made on the balcony were drowned out by the rise and fall of snores, completely negligible.
His pajamas were chilled through by the night breeze. Chen Zhuo climbed into bed and burrowed under the covers.
His body was cold, but his face was hot, and a faint fragrance of wine seemed to linger between his lips and teeth.
Chen Zhuo’s head sank into the soft pillow. Everything that had just happened felt like a dream, tinged with embarrassment and annoyance. He couldn’t tell if it was anger at Xie Yu’s offense or displeasure with the unknown woman’s perfume.
Maybe it was both.
If he wasn’t worried about the two living people in the dorm, Chen Zhuo would have given Xie Yu a beating.
Coming back to the dorm after drinking outside until the early hours of the morning, covered in the scent of women’s perfume, and then daring to kiss him! That bastard!
Rustling sounds came from the opposite bunk. Chen Zhuo felt his blanket being gently tugged twice. He kicked his foot impatiently, hitting the wooden bed with a “thud.”
Xie Yu hastily withdrew his hand from the horizontal bar representing the “38th parallel.” Even Zhao Jiashu’s snores were startled into a three-second pause before resuming.
Chen Zhuo pricked up his ears. There was another rustling sound from across the way. Xie Yu seemed to have lain down, no longer daring to provoke him.
The warm quilt brought on sleepiness. Chen Zhuo yawned, and just as he closed his eyes, his phone, lying next to his pillow, vibrated twice.
He squinted and reached for it. It was a WeChat message from “Rude Wild Boar.”
The first message was a screenshot of a friend request that had been rejected, with the verification message: [Hello, Xie Yu, I’m XXX from the Art Department, Class XX.]
The second message was: [Is this the senior you were talking about? I didn’t go on a date. I just accidentally ran into a crazy person (male) and there was some physical conflict. It took a little longer to resolve the problem, so I got back late.]
The light from the phone screen illuminated half of Chen Zhuo’s face as he repeatedly read the two messages.
Based on his understanding of Xie Yu, this message could probably be translated as: Xie Yu went to a bar and was harassed by an annoying bottom. His homophobia kicked in, and he beat the guy up.
Was Xie Yu explaining himself to him? An indescribable feeling welled up in Chen Zhuo’s heart.
There were only four messages in his chat window with Xie Yu.
The first was the system’s automatic message after they first added each other as friends.
The second was on the first day of the National Day holiday, October 1st, when Xie Yu asked him, “What time is it? Why haven’t you come back yet?”
The remaining two were the ones Xie Yu had just sent. Only a month and a half had passed between them, but unknowingly, something had quietly changed.
Chen Zhuo lay on his side, propped up on his arm, until the phone screen automatically went dark. Xie Yu’s fifth message never arrived.
Xie Yu didn’t give him a single bit of explanation for that impulsive, reckless kiss that shouldn’t have happened.
He sensed that Xie Yu was running away, perhaps because he was confused and at a loss, or perhaps because he didn’t want to face it at all.
Chen Zhuo put down his phone, turned over, and stared blankly at the broken fan in the dim light.
The tidal waves rising and falling in his chest gradually calmed down after the hormone rush subsided.
He thought, he seemed to like Xie Yu a little, but today’s incident could only be treated as an accident.
He was an orphan with no parents and no one to back him up. He had to save his feelings and not take the whims of a pampered young master seriously.
Whether Xie Yu had gone crazy after drinking or suddenly become interested in men, they had to pretend that nothing had happened after dawn.
Otherwise, if the other person was just looking for novelty and using him as a lab rat, and then waved his sleeves and left with a sentence like, “I still like women,” then he would really become a clown, a clown who lost everything.
Those who have nothing cannot afford fearless love.
Chen Zhuo simply threw away the tangled mess in his head that he couldn’t find the starting point of.
There were less than four hours until he had to get up for his 8 AM class. Chen Zhuo put on his Bluetooth headphones, listened to sleep-inducing music, and forced himself to close his eyes and sleep.
Xie Yu waited anxiously for Chen Zhuo’s reply, but in the end, he only heard the other’s steady breathing, which made him so angry that he wanted to climb over and yank Chen Zhuo’s blanket off.
How could he be sleeping?
They had kissed! Had this guy kissed so many people that he didn’t care about his kiss at all?
Or did he not believe his vague and euphemistic explanation after cutting out the important parts?
Xie Yu opened his phone and read the passage he had sent to Chen Zhuo twice.
Okay, it did seem a bit like he was trying to justify himself and lying.
But he couldn’t very well tell Chen Zhuo frankly:
“What’s up, actually, the reason I came back so late is because I was harassed by a bottom in a gay bar.
Why did I go to a gay bar? Well, I’ve been having these spring dreams, and I’m sorry, I always end up sleeping with you in my dreams.
I wanted to know if I was still straight, so I wanted to go to a gay bar to broaden my horizons. I didn’t expect a guy to touch my thigh.
At that time, I felt like I was unclean, so I just shoved the bottom’s head into an ice bucket. Coincidentally, his suitor saw it, and that guy wanted to smash a beer bottle over my head. I beat him up without any suspense, and in the end, we were both taken to the police station…”
It was too embarrassing. Xie Yu decided to keep this to himself and never tell Chen Zhuo.
The two guys should have been students from a nearby university as well. They didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, and Xie Yu hadn’t hit them too hard. He insisted that they were just friends who were drunk and messing around, not fighting.
In addition, Xie Liangjun brought a lawyer over in the middle of the night to smooth things over. In the end, the three of them were lectured for two hours and released after signing a guarantee.
This was also the reason why Xie Yu stayed in the country while his friends were sent abroad by their parents. They were afraid that he would be like the Monkey King escaping from the Five Finger Mountain and turn the world upside down, so they had to put a restraining spell on him.
After Xie Yu repeatedly explained that he was acting in self-defense and wouldn’t cause any more trouble, Xie Liangjun reluctantly agreed not to tell his mother in order to maintain that precarious maternal love. Otherwise, he would be beaten with a feather duster again.
To prevent Cheng Tangyu from finding out, he definitely couldn’t go home to sleep. Xie Yu lied and said he was going back to his own place.
When they parted, his dad suddenly asked him, “What was that ‘gay bar’ the police officer was talking about? Is it different from a regular bar?”
Xie Yu’s hair stood on end. “There’s no difference. It’s just the name of the bar. People give things very unique names these days.”
Xie Liangjun didn’t understand and vaguely threatened, “If you cause any more trouble, I’ll open a small account with your mom and split up your inheritance.”
Xie Yu’s expression changed slightly.
Xie Liangjun thought his trick had worked and was about to give him a sweet date as comfort.
However, his good son’s eyes lit up. “Dad, hurry up and open one. Men go downhill at twenty-five. You’ve been downhill for almost twenty years. If you wait any longer, you won’t be able to give birth.”
Xie Liangjun smiled. “…Get out.”
Xie Yu: “Okay.”