Luo Zhiyu had never been someone with much sense of collective honor, from childhood to the present. At school celebrations, he did the bare minimum; at sports meets, he ran away. Just because he got along well with the people around him didn’t mean he was willing to represent them and fight for some kind of glory. Director Wu’s inspirational speech about collective pride hadn’t even managed to get a single chicken feather stuck to him.
Xiao Yan, on the other hand, had taken advantage of the perfect combination of timing, location, and circumstances to obtain the last room card from the competition organizers.
The situation was as follows: there was only one room left, and No. 1 High had only one omega remaining—himself—and one alpha, Xiao Yan. If he wanted to avoid sharing a room with Xiao Yan, there were three possible solutions to this problem—
1\. Convince the two directors that he and Xiao Yan were dating, without getting their evaluation points deducted.
2\. Immediately kidnap Xiao Yan and drag him downstairs to the hotel to fight.
3\. Hide the hotel room key card.
Solution One was the most difficult. The pheromone compatibility diagnostic report was an insurmountable obstacle. The two directors were absolutely, positively convinced that the two of them would never start dating.
Solution Two was of moderate difficulty. The other person involved certainly wouldn’t cooperate, making it rather difficult to tie him up. Rope would also be hard to find. Besides, getting into a fight wouldn’t produce the desired results. Most unbelievably, their day and a half of “cold war” had led the teachers to believe that the two of them had briefly made peace.
Solution Three—
The room card was in Xiao Yan’s hands, and it had never once left his sight. Luo Zhiyu had followed him all the way without finding an opportunity. Every time he tried to reach for it, Xiao Yan smacked his hand away. In the end, all he could do was stand outside the room and watch Xiao Yan swipe the card to open the door, carry their luggage inside, and then gently push him into the room and shut him in.
“Come up with Solution Four yet?” Xiao Yan turned around and locked the additional bolt on the inside of the door.
“Solution Four…” Luo Zhiyu had only gotten halfway through his sentence when he realized something was wrong. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
Xiao Yan’s expression seemed to say, What do you think? “Someone spent the entire journey staring at the room card in my hand. Every so often, he’d press himself against me, and he even deliberately stepped on my shoes twice while sneaking in a little personal agenda.”
“The first two solutions were to tie me up and drag me off to fight, and to prove that we’re dating. Am I wrong?”
Luo Zhiyu suffered a complete defeat. He pushed his suitcase into the corner, kicked off his shoes, threw himself onto the large bed in the middle of the room, buried his face in the soft bedding, and ignored Xiao Yan’s words.
Although he had spent the entire journey sleeping against Xiao Yan’s shoulder, the swaying, bumpy bus ride had hardly been comfortable. The moment he made intimate contact with the bed, Luo Zhiyu felt himself come back to life. He even came up with a new solution—
“Dig out the textbook for the Physical and Psychological Safety class and have a proper argument with these people about what constitutes common sense.”
But he and Xiao Yan seemed to exist outside the boundaries of common sense?
“Luo Zhile.” Xiao Yan sat down beside him and nudged him, trying to comfort him gently. “Stop being angry. What’s the point of continuing the cold war? Your boyfriend wants to experience making up after a fight with his boyfriend during a teenage romance as soon as possible. Is that okay?”
“No.” Luo Zhiyu’s muffled voice came from inside the quilt. “Stay away from me, Green-Skinned Tangerine.”
“There’s only one bed, and you’ve taken up half of it. Now you’re telling me to stay away?” Xiao Yan flicked him on the waist. “You’re being unreasonable.”
Only then did Luo Zhiyu realize that the hotel really must have been short on rooms. This wasn’t a twin room. It was a double room, with only one bed—the very one he was lying on.
“And can we please have a normal conversation for once? You call me Green-Skinned Tangerine every single day.” Xiao Yan’s hand came to rest in his hair. He sounded as though he were talking to himself, yet at the same time, he seemed to be warning Luo Zhiyu. “You’ve gotten all the benefits out of this. It shouldn’t be unreasonable for me to let you experience what a truly sour tangerine is like, should it?”
Luo Zhiyu didn’t understand what his boyfriend meant.
“You…”
An unripe tangerine was just like Xiao Yan had been at lunchtime yesterday. What else could it mean?
Before he could finish speaking, he felt that familiar pheromone pressing toward him. It came at him aggressively: the scent of tangerines with just a hint of sourness.
Luo Zhiyu rolled over to dodge, but a quilt came flying down over his head, enveloping both his head and his entire upper body.
“What are you doing…?” Luo Zhiyu was caught completely off guard and swallowed up by the quilt.
He sat up on the bed but couldn’t free himself. While struggling, he kicked at Xiao Yan. Before his foot could even make contact, Xiao Yan caught his ankle and gave it a gentle tug, sending him tumbling back onto the soft bed. He didn’t land in a daze, because Xiao Yan had anticipated the movement and caught him around the waist. It seemed that he had fallen straight into Xiao Yan’s arms, quilt and all.
“You little hooligan.” Xiao Yan’s voice sounded somewhat muffled through the quilt. “No kicking. Otherwise, when you grow up, what am I supposed to use to coax you?”
Luo Zhiyu: “?”
“Fuck, you’re always setting me up. You’re the real—”
Luo Zhiyu instantly caught on. Xiao Yan was afraid he would suffocate under the quilt, so he pulled Luo Zhiyu’s head out. However, the rest of Luo Zhiyu’s body, from the neck down, remained tightly wrapped in the quilt, severely restricting his movements.
The air outside the quilt was fresh. Luo Zhiyu planned to take a couple of breaths before arguing back, but Xiao Yan was quick-witted. Taking advantage of those ten-odd seconds, he pulled a tie from the pajamas provided by the hotel and, together with the quilt, wound it around Luo Zhiyu’s arms several times. Then he tied a little bow, binding him securely.
Luo Zhiyu: “…”
Wasn’t this part of Solution Two that he had just thought up? How had Xiao Yan managed to recycle it and turn it against him?
In the blink of an eye, he had fallen into the other man’s hands.
With both hands restrained and his range of movement limited, Luo Zhiyu sat obediently at the head of the bed, wrapped up like a rice dumpling. When he tried kicking his boyfriend a second time, Xiao Yan found another pajama tie and wound it around his ankles again and again, completely restricting his movement.
Xiao Yan only knew how to tie bows. As a result of Luo Zhiyu’s refusal to behave, the bow turned into a proper knot.
“Brother Yan…” There seemed to be a glimmer of moisture in Luo Zhiyu’s eyes. “Stop messing around.”
He was experiencing Xiao Yan’s affection for him in the most literal sense.
“You said yourself that if I caught you, I could bully you however I wanted. That was your own promise, wasn’t it, little second-year student? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.” Xiao Yan tugged at the knot resting on the quilt. Luo Zhiyu tipped toward him, and Xiao Yan pushed him down onto the bed. Pressing against the gland hidden beneath the skin at the back of his neck, he shifted some of his weight onto Luo Zhiyu to keep him from moving and asked quietly, “Now this is an unripe Green-Skinned Tangerine. How’s that for an experience?”
The Green-Skinned Tangerine was far too intense.
“I’ll change your contact name tomorrow, okay? I won’t call you that anymore.” After being thoroughly bullied by the Green-Skinned Tangerine, Luo Zhiyu could feel Xiao Yan’s breath right against the back of his neck. The pressure made the area ache and tingle, and even the slightest sensation traveled downward like an electric current, sending shivers through his very soul. Luo Zhiyu raised the white flag. “Let me go already.”
“Are we still having a cold war?” Xiao Yan asked. “That’s fine too. You can stay right here, and I’ll watch you wage your cold war all by yourself.”
Luo Zhiyu couldn’t escape anyway. Besides, he had been the one to entertain mischievous thoughts first. Having been in the wrong from the start, he didn’t have much confidence left to argue back.
“No, no, no.” The cold war had turned out to be a terrible user experience. Luo Zhiyu gave up and began pleading for mercy. “Cold war over. Let me go, please, big brother.”
Xiao Yan loved hearing the term big brother. Luo Zhiyu had come up with far too many insulting nicknames for him over the years, so he was particularly fond of this ordinary form of address, which existed simply because of their age difference.
The cold war that had begun because of a temporary mark had lasted a day and a half. Now, it was officially over.
Luo Zhiyu, one of the parties involved, considered it a very pointless cold war.
“Then let’s go through the reconciliation process.” When Luo Zhiyu knew he was in the wrong, he could be so obedient that it made one’s heart ache. Despite the countless times he had proven that the moment he got an opportunity, he would immediately show his claws, Xiao Yan still let him go.
He gently tugged one end of the bow, and the quilt fell away. Luo Zhiyu’s hands were finally free. After flexing them a few times, he reached for the knot around his ankles, but the strip of fabric had become tightly wound during all his earlier struggling.
“You’re so stupid.” After wrestling with the knot for ages without success, Luo Zhiyu couldn’t beat Xiao Yan, so he tried to win back some ground verbally. “Do you only know how to tie bows? You look like a bow yourself.”
Xiao Yan: “?”
“Cicada.” Xiao Yan brushed Luo Zhiyu’s hands aside and helped untie the fabric. “Shouldn’t you be grateful that bows are the only knots I know?”
Luo Zhiyu: “?” What did that mean? He didn’t understand.
“Wait…” Xiao Yan loosened the fabric in his hands. He had originally intended only to tease Luo Zhiyu. The ties had been fastened quite loosely, but Luo Zhiyu was unbelievably restless. Not only had he managed to struggle himself into a proper knot, he had also rubbed a ring of red marks around his ankles.
Xiao Yan looked at the red marks and shifted his gaze away somewhat awkwardly. “I actually do know another kind.”
“What?” Luo Zhiyu asked.
Xiao Yan’s expression grew unfathomable.
In their Physical and Psychological Safety class, they had learned that when an alpha performed a final mark on an omega, there was a stage known as knotting.
“You were talking to me perfectly normally and peacefully, so what kind of dirty things are you thinking about?” Luo Zhiyu caught on immediately. He grabbed a pillow and hurled it at Xiao Yan’s head. Then he pushed himself up onto his knees and shoved Xiao Yan down onto the bed. Deciding that still wasn’t imposing enough, he went one step further and straddled his Yan-ge’s waist. “I’ll beat you up!”
“Tangerines only come in two colors.” Xiao Yan caught the pillow and tossed it aside. “Cicada chose this for himself.”
“You think you’re justified in making dirty jokes?” Luo Zhiyu raised another pillow and threw it at him to express his strong condemnation.
He had been trapped under the quilt by Xiao Yan earlier and had worked up a little sweat while struggling. The sweet, peach-like scent of his pheromones began drifting out uncontrollably, quietly testing Xiao Yan’s nerves.
“Maybe you should reflect on yourself. Have I ever said anything to you?” said the double-standard hypocrite. “Have I ever done anything to you?”
Xiao Yan reflected on that. Then he turned around, went into the bathroom, and turned the water on full blast.
A day and a half was enough time for Luo Zhiyu to figure out why Xiao Yan had been acting a little strangely over the past two days. His friends who had transferred over from No. 19 High were constantly hanging around him, inviting him out to fool around every few days. They also kept going on about “super-masculine alphas” right beside his ears. Someone had gotten jealous.
Luo Zhiyu might not have been entirely innocent, but his school uniform was truly blameless.
Luo Zhiyu knocked on the bathroom door. It didn’t open, but the sound of running water inside stopped. He leaned against the door and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor, blocking the bathroom entrance.
“What are you thinking about now?” Xiao Yan’s voice came from behind the frosted glass.
“I’m thinking about how our pheromone compatibility is so low that maybe we can’t complete the final mark between an alpha and an omega.”
It was a question Xiao Yan had considered but had never voiced. Now, Luo Zhiyu had asked it aloud.
Xiao Yan’s hand, which was holding a towel, froze in midair.
It was a good thing that Luo Zhiyu had learned about his worries. But at the same time, his heart ached for him.
Luo Zhiyu had never been someone who thought about the future. Yet because of Xiao Yan, he had begun to consider it.
“Maybe we can’t,” Luo Zhiyu said to himself as he sat on the floor. “Sometimes I wonder what pheromones actually mean to us. I might not be very good at saying nice things, but if pheromones can’t… well, that’s a pheromone problem. The pheromones are the ones without any sense. I only want you. If that means I can’t have anything else, then I don’t want anything else.”
“Secondary gender is something you can’t change. But before the two limited labels of alpha and omega, I’m an independent person. I’m not some creature imprisoned by pheromones. My decision to fall in love with you was made by Luo Zhiyu, a person with his own thoughts and opinions. It wasn’t a decision made by my pheromones.”
“I don’t hate tangerines. Ripe or unripe, they’re both fine with me. I’m willing to accept them.”
“Am I really that bad at expressing myself? You might as well let me insult you a couple of times. Then at least I wouldn’t feel sleepy anymore.”
The glass door behind him slid open. Luo Zhiyu lost his support and nearly fell backward, but Xiao Yan caught him and lifted him to his feet. Wearing his pajamas, with water still dripping from his hair because he hadn’t even had time to dry it, Xiao Yan carried Luo Zhiyu all the way back to the bed and dropped him onto it.
“Third-year Xiao Yan.” Luo Zhiyu raised a hand and wiped a droplet of water from his neck. “Dry your hair. You’re practically making it rain. You’re getting water all over me.”
“I don’t want to think about the future anymore.” Xiao Yan bent down and kissed him. “Luo Zhiyu just needs to make the most of the present.”
They could talk about the future when it came. Once they got to university, perhaps they could ask more questions about pheromones.
Luo Zhiyu’s school uniform jacket hung open, and the shirt at his waist had been lifted slightly, the hem curling up in a shallow roll. He didn’t know how to kiss, so all he could do was restrain his urge to bite and let Xiao Yan guide him.
“What about you?” Luo Zhiyu asked during a brief pause to catch his breath.
“I’ll love you, and then I’ll wait for you to grow up.”
Luo Zhiyu gave a disdainful snort, but he couldn’t hide the smile in his eyes. “You’re still a little kid yourself. An immature little kid who’s one year older than me.”
“Not for much longer.” Xiao Yan sounded proud of himself.
It had been almost nine o’clock in the evening when they arrived at the hotel. The organizers had arranged activities for the following day, and the two of them had spent the evening bickering and fooling around. By the time they finally lay down, it was already past midnight. Normally, they were in different classes at school and could only talk during breaks. With such a rare opportunity to spend time together, neither of them particularly wanted to sleep.
“Are you still angry?” Xiao Yan spread out the quilt and laid it neatly over the bed.
“A little.” In the darkness, Luo Zhiyu held up a hand and demonstrated just how little with his fingers. “I wasn’t in heat, but you bit me just because you wanted to. You can’t expect me not to be angry for two days.”
“It wasn’t entirely just because I wanted to…” Xiao Yan said. “You seemed pretty happy about it too.”
“Fine. I’m just bad-tempered.” Luo Zhiyu couldn’t be bothered to explain himself. He simply laid all his cards on the table. “You figure out what to do.”
“Go to sleep.” Xiao Yan lit up his phone screen to check the time. “Don’t wake up tomorrow with panda eyes, or the director will think we’ve been fighting again.”
“I’ll do my best in the competition.” Luo Zhiyu rolled over. “I probably don’t have much collective pride, but wherever you are is where I want to be.”
In their room, no fight had broken out. But in the room next door, the two omegas from No. 9 High really weren’t getting along. The one whose pheromones smelled like grilled fish thought he was more unique, while the one who smelled like barbecue thought he was more versatile. The two students argued about their pheromones for the entire night. When everyone assembled the next morning, each of them had a pair of dark circles under his eyes.
“Luo Zhiyu and Xiao Yan really know how to behave. You can tell that students from our municipal No. 1 High are much more outstanding,” the teacher accompanying the team from No. 1 High said with satisfaction at the sight. “Both of them look full of energy today. Nothing happened last night, either.”