The high-altitude ordeal left Fang Juexia feeling dazed. The rope was untied, and his feet returned to the ground. He couldn’t find solid footing; each step still felt like he was walking on clouds, rising and falling, deep and shallow.
“How are you feeling now?” Pei Tingsong walked over to him in a few steps. “Are you not as afraid anymore?”
Scared.
After this ordeal, he finally understood the weight of these dangers. Nothing compared to Pei Tingsong; he was the greatest and most uncontrollable risk.
“Much better,” Fang Juexia replied, looking at his shadow on the ground.
He had only vague memories of the subsequent trip to the amusement park. Half of his soul seemed to have remained twenty meters away in the sky. He seemed to have participated in the activities in a daze. Even the director joked that Fang Juexia had been scared out of his wits. Later, more and more fans gathered to watch, so they had to end the filming early.
After a day of filming and an early wrap-up, everyone was in high spirits. Lu Yuan returned to the company to meet with the choreographer, and He Ziyan accompanied him to discuss the music arrangement. Jiang Miao’s younger sister was about to celebrate her birthday, so he enlisted Ling Yi—who was always good at handling such matters—to accompany him to buy gifts and order a cake, preparing a surprise.
Fang Juexia’s plan was to go back to the dormitory, take a shower, rest for an hour, and then go to the practice room to dance. But when he came out, there were only him and Pei Tingsong left in the dormitory. The other person was about the same as him, having just finished showering, wearing a white cotton-linen pajama set, and taking a bottle of iced water from the refrigerator, drinking it down in big gulps.
He hadn’t fully recovered from his cold, yet he was wearing so little.
He didn’t voice this nagging thought, as it seemed none of his business. Fang Juexia closed the bathroom door and returned directly to the bedroom, picking up the little yellow Minion doll that Ling Yi had dropped on the floor and placing it on the table before getting into bed.
The orange-red glow of twilight crept from the balcony onto his navy blue blanket. He set an alarm clock and burrowed under the covers. The dizziness from the high-altitude aftereffects was most pronounced when he closed his eyes. It was very uncomfortable. He rolled over onto his stomach, burying his head in the pillow, hoping to alleviate the sensation of weightlessness and dizziness, but it had little effect.
[You’re an adult now, brother. ]
Pei Tingsong’s voice kept repeating in his ears, making his heart race and preventing him from sleeping.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps. Fang Juexia turned his head and saw a pair of long legs by his bed. He was a little scared and instinctively pulled the blanket over his head.
“What are you doing?” Pei Tingsong tried to pull the blanket off him. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was about to sleep,” Fang Juexia said in a muffled voice.
“Did you forget what you promised me?”
Right. He really had forgotten. He was completely overwhelmed by the bungee jumping and the so-called coming-of-age ceremony.
Fang Juexia was afraid to face Pei Tingsong, but every time he tossed and turned, Pei Tingsong would appear, always with a compelling reason, leaving him no way to avoid him.
He gave up struggling and let Pei Tingsong pull back the blanket. Half-closing his eyes, he saw Pei Tingsong and the medical kit he was holding.
Now he was getting more and more delicate. Back then, even when he was bleeding from a fall, he would stubbornly refuse to let anyone bandage him.
Never mind, it was his own fault for biting it open, so he had to take some responsibility. Fang Juexia pulled back the blanket, sat up cross-legged, took the medical kit, opened it, and searched for the powder for oral ulcers, trying to maintain a calm, professional demeanor. “Sit down.”
Pei Tingsong sat on the edge of the bed and noticed a strand of hair sticking up on his head, making him look a bit silly.
“Are you going to sleep now and not sleep at night?”
He found it. Fang Juexia took out the box of powder and shook it. “I’ll take a nap and go to the practice room. I won’t be back tonight.”
“Aren’t you afraid of damaging your back if you keep practicing like this every day?”
“I already have a back injury,” Fang Juexia said casually, pulling out a long cotton swab and dipping it in the powder.
But Pei Tingsong didn’t feel good about it. He had been with Fang Juexia for two years and didn’t even know about his back injury. He glanced at his waist and thought back to the time he saw him changing clothes in the apartment. Pei Tingsong looked away, “Then you should rest more.”
“Everyone wants to rest. But with dancing, if you take a day off, your body gets sluggish. If you rest too much, you’ll get rusty and become clumsy on stage.” He leaned in closer, “Stick out your tongue.”
Pei Tingsong did as he was told. Afraid of blocking the light, Fang Juexia tilted his head closer, his eyes fixed on the small white spot on the tip of his tongue—the source of all evil. Thinking about how that small white spot was caused by his own teeth biting it and then becoming infected, Fang Juexia felt an odd emotion. He couldn’t describe it.
He couldn’t dwell on it, for fear of returning to that fateful night.
The cotton swab dipped in medicine powder touched his tongue very gently and slowly. Seeing his tongue twitch, Fang Juexia looked up to observe Pei Tingsong’s expression. “Does it hurt?”
Pei Tingsong retracted his tongue and stared blankly at the person in front of him. He felt he had made a mistake. He had originally intended to tease Fang Juexia, but now it was he who felt uneasy. Seeing Fang Juexia lying on the bed made him instinctively walk more softly, and hearing him mention his back injury filled him with guilt and concern.
When he saw him lift his eyes, his heart skipped a beat. The twilight made his eyelashes translucent, flickering slightly.
The tip of his tongue wasn’t some magical elixir, just a butterfly as light as a cloud. It paused for a moment, then flew away.
“Does it hurt?” Fang Juexia asked again.
Pei Tingsong blinked nervously, “A little.”
“Bear with it.”
He could only extend his tongue again, his gaze fixed on the face mere inches away. When Fang Juexia was serious, his eyebrows would slightly furrow inward, his lips slightly parted, revealing the moist interior. It was a familiar place, after all, he had once explored it.
Pei Tingsong felt he should endure it, so he tried to shift his gaze.
The tip of his tongue was stimulated by the powder, like a fine needle pricking his heart. He gradually grew addicted to this subtle pain. Fang Juexia’s shower gel smelled pleasant, clean, and comfortable, like anesthesia.
Even though he had seen many open and free ways of making friends, Pei Tingsong knew that friends shouldn’t kiss, let alone deep kiss. Friendship should be simple and natural, talking, chatting, understanding each other’s preferences and lifestyles, sharing joy and pain, interacting without any burden, hugging like left hand holding right hand. That’s what friends are.
But alcohol repeatedly clouded their judgment, leading to an unexpected kiss, then another unexpected kiss, repeating over and over. This friendship seemed impure from the start.
But he truly liked Fang Juexia and really wanted to build a friendship with him.
His gaze drifted back, and Pei Tingsong accidentally saw Fang Juexia’s pajama collar fall down, revealing a clear view of his snow-white chest. He withdrew his tongue and turned his head to cough violently a few times.
“Is your throat uncomfortable?” Fang Juexia asked.
Pei Tingsong uncomfortably straightened his body and helped Fang Juexia sit up, “Don’t hunch over like that. Doesn’t your back hurt?”
Fang Juexia also sat up straight, his tone indifferent, “Why do you keep worrying about my back?”
“Who cares about your waist?” Pei Tingsong denied it, his voice growing louder.
His clothes were too loose, and when he lowered his head, everything was clearly visible. He didn’t even bother to cover up when changing clothes, and he kept staring at others with that kind of look, completely unaware.
As he listed Fang Juexia’s many faults, Pei Tingsong seemed to have found an outlet for his frustration. Yes, it was all his fault. If Fang Juexia hadn’t gotten drunk and kissed him in the first place, he wouldn’t have kissed him back when he was drunk. Without the entanglement of lips and tongues, he wouldn’t be so fixated on the purity of their friendship.
He had always been carefree and unconcerned about anything, but now he was troubled by such trivial matters.
It was all Fang Juexia’s fault.
“Alright.” The unwitting instigator gently fanned the air with his palm to ease Pei Tingsong’s tongue pain. “Drink plenty of water and take some vitamins.” He bent down, retrieved some vitamin B and C from the box, and handed them to Pei Tingsong along with the medication powder.
He didn’t want to apply the medicine himself; he wanted Fang Juexia to do it for him.
“Apply this medicine three times a day. If it hurts badly, you can apply it more often.”
But what right did he have? They were both adults.
“Alright.”
Hearing Pei Tingsong say “Okay,” Fang Juexia was a bit surprised—it was rare for him to be so obedient.
“Go to sleep.” Pei Tingsong stood up and took the first-aid kit, but heard Fang Juexia say from behind, “I don’t think I can sleep either. My head is spinning, and closing my eyes feels uncomfortable.”
Pei Tingsong said, “It might be a side effect of acrophobia. If you sleep, you might dream about being in a high place, which will make you feel even worse. Don’t sleep yet. Find something relaxing to do.”
After saying that, he left. Fang Juexia’s room suddenly felt empty, so he got up as well, walked to the balcony, and picked up the watering can to water his plants. He had bought a cactus from the side of the road a long time ago—not the spherical kind, but the tall, slender variety. He knelt down and gently touched the spines on the cactus.
He had rarely watered it before and had never paid much attention to it. Fang Juexia lifted the watering can and poured a little water, not daring to pour too much.
Do something to relax.
Fang Juexia took out his Sudoku book, sat on the lazy sofa on the balcony, and did the puzzles in the fading sunlight. This method of calming his mind and focusing his energy had always worked for him. Holding the pen, the numbers began to sway, dancing in the blank spaces.
Was he too tired lately?
He closed his eyes and opened them again. His eyes scanned the first row and first column, trying to calculate the answer. But he couldn’t help but drift off, his soul losing control as if it had suddenly fallen.
By the time he snapped back to reality, something had already been written on the notebook—not numbers, but a person’s name.
Pei Tingsong returned to his room and turned on the computer. He wanted to finish the lyrics he hadn’t completed earlier, but as soon as he opened it, he saw the fjx folder and couldn’t resist clicking on it again, putting on his headphones and looping the demo of his ballad.
He had never written the lyrics to a love song before, and he was too lazy to do so. In his eyes, most love song lyrics were unoriginal, repeating the same clichés over and over again, leaving nothing but dregs.
But this song was a love song, wasn’t it?
Even if it wasn’t a love song, he could hear the feeling of a love song in it.
Pei Tingsong held the pen, listening quietly to Fang Juexia’s voice. Suddenly, an image of him smiling appeared before his eyes, in a sunlit amusement park, telling him, “This is your first time. Are you happy?”
The piano music and humming flowed slowly, and his subconscious controlled the pen, scratching away on the paper.
[The Dreamland is full of wonders.
Wooden horses chase each other, old dreams come true.
Sunlight is included with admission.
Leave a kiss mark on the corner of his eye for me.]
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