Qin Zui hung up the phone, finished the remaining half of his cigarette by the hallway window, and turned to go back to the dorm.
He ran into Kang Che again coming out of the dorm room, holding a basin in his hands and a towel draped over his shoulder. Seeing Qin Zui, Kang Che asked him casually, “Going to shower? Hot water will be gone in a bit.”
“Sure.” Qin Zui nodded, went in, and changed into a tank top and shorts.
“Don’t bother taking shampoo or anything. It’s a hassle to carry. Just use mine.” Kang Che waited for him at the door.
Qin Zui tucked a pair of underwear into his pocket and walked with Kang Che towards the bathhouse.
Around ten o’clock, the bathhouse and restroom were bustling with people coming and going, noticeably much livelier than at noon.
Guys got familiar quickly. Almost everyone crossing the hallway was shirtless, shuffling around in flip-flops, and occasionally a burst of singing would erupt from a dorm room.
“Your brother again?” Kang Che asked.
“Repeating freshman year, you must have nothing to do, huh?” Qin Zui looked at him.
“How do you figure?” Kang Che smiled.
“You’ve been studying my phone calls all day.” A skinny guy, like a little chick, was wobbling forward carrying a bucket of hot water. Qin Zui leaned a bit towards the wall to let him pass.
“Do I need to study them?” Kang Che matched his pace and even reached out to grab the towel that had slipped off the skinny guy’s shoulder. “You have the most calls in the room. Mao Sui and the others were just betting it’s your girlfriend.”
If Mao Sui had said this, Qin Zui wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Mao Sui wore his emotions on his sleeve, and his curiosity was genuine.
But Kang Che saying it, even though his tone was natural, gave Qin Zui a feeling of being “hinted” or “reminded.”
“Thanks, thanks.” The skinny guy put down his bucket, took the towel, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and thanked Kang Che twice in a row.
Kang Che casually lifted the corner of his mouth at the skinny guy and continued walking with Qin Zui toward the bathhouse. He held the hand that had touched the towel across his chest, cradling the basin, and subtly spread his fingers wide, trying his best not to touch anything else of his own.
“What are you doing?” Qin Zui couldn’t help but laugh.
“His towel was all sweaty.” Kang Che sighed softly and shook his fingers again, a bit uncomfortably.
“Must be really tough living on campus with your cleanliness thing.” Qin Zui glanced at him.
“Just a reflex.” Kang Che smiled and shook his fingers again.
The first few days of the semester were pretty relaxed. Register today, get your physical tomorrow. Only one thing to do each day.
But time, whether it felt slow or fast, passed quickly.
Between going through the procedures and getting familiar with the environment, Gao Xia had nothing to do and would come find Qin Zui to hang out or grab a meal, talking about his long-distance relationship with Lu Yao… the days flipped by, marked by the nightly phone call to Jiang Chu.
From mid-September until just before National Day, the remaining two weeks were spent entirely on military training.
The weather this September was good, very friendly for training.
It rained for a few days at the start, immediately scattering the tension of training. Every day, it was just goose-stepping and turning left and right. It wasn’t even that tiring.
It was just boring.
Whether standing at attention or goose-stepping, the instructors would watch them for hours. Every time Qin Zui felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, he knew it was probably a message from Jiang Chu, but he couldn’t pull it out and look right away.
Even though the topics were meaningless: Da Ben farted while eating; or Jiang Chu kept forgetting to give Zhou Teng a can of food, feeding him dry kibble for half a month until the ungrateful beast got bold enough to knock his entire bowl of kibble over with his head.
He even sent a picture as proof.
Qin Zui had lived with Jiang Chu for two years, and they’d never exchanged this much pointless chatter.
But he liked this feeling. These small, trivial updates gave Qin Zui a sense that he and Jiang Chu weren’t that far apart.
Sometimes, after dragging through half the day and finally getting a rest break where he could pull out his phone, if it wasn’t a message from Jiang Chu, but from Gao Xia or someone else, Qin Zui couldn’t be bothered to reply.
Gao Xia’s mindset now was pretty similar to Qin Zui’s.
Before, he used to think distance was a hurdle, but now he was gradually leaning towards “distance creates beauty,” feeling that the small flame of his relationship with Lu Yao wasn’t dying down at all, and was even adding the joy of extra longing.
If a person could be satisfied by endless pointless chatter and daily phone calls, then maybe distance wasn’t really a problem.
But being mentally satisfied was one thing. Qin Zui didn’t know what the dynamic was between Gao Xia and Lu Yao before they separated; but for him, phone calls and messages were far from enough.
The most obvious manifestation was the lack of space to decompress.
Four people living in one dorm room. At night, they’d all be staring at each other. Xu Bowen’s headphones leaked sound; if he turned up the volume a bit while watching a video, the other three could vaguely hear the dialogue.
In a dorm like this, without the privacy of even a private bathroom, and with everyone still being thin-skinned at the start, Qin Zui didn’t know how Kang Che and the others handled it when they had urges. But sometimes, when he missed Jiang Chu especially badly at night, all he could do was close his eyes and tough it out.
The consequence of toughing it out was that the next evening, when it was time to call Jiang Chu, Qin Zui thought about it for a moment and changed the call to a video call.
Jiang Chu had gone to his mom’s place for dinner that evening and stayed a bit longer chatting afterward. When his phone rang, he had just changed his shoes and walked into the house.
“Why a video call today?” he asked, holding the phone with one hand while the other hand was holding a cup to get water, the camera shaking wildly.
“Where’s your face?” Qin Zui asked from the other end, able to see only a small section from Jiang Chu’s shoulder to his chin.
“Hold on.” Jiang Chu gulped down most of the cup of water, then leaned back into the sofa, holding up the phone. “Finished training for today? Where are you right now?”
“The hallway balcony.” Qin Zui enlarged Jiang Chu’s window. “Can you see me?”
“Mostly.” Jiang Chu smiled as soon as his eyes met Qin Zui’s. “You’re almost blending into the depths of the night.”
“That exaggerated.” Qin Zui smiled too, leaning his arms on the railing and holding up his phone, using the light from outside. “Next time I’ll turn on a beauty filter.”
“Next time, just find a place with a light.” Jiang Chu hadn’t seen Qin Zui’s face for half a month. Seeing him suddenly made a wave of warmth rush straight to his heart.
“Why did you think of video calling today?” He placed a cushion behind his lower back to get more comfortable and asked Qin Zui again.
“I wanted to see your face,” Qin Zui said.
Jiang Chu was putting the cushion in place, the camera shaking again, sweeping across his pants.
When he finally held the phone steady towards his face, Qin Zui looked at him and asked, “Just got back?”
“Yeah. Went to my mom’s for dinner. Just got home.” Jiang Chu said.
“Not changing clothes?” Qin Zui asked again. “Take them off.”
Jiang Chu was about to say he’d change later after hanging up, but right as he opened his mouth, he caught a different meaning in Qin Zui’s words. Immediately, his forehead felt like it was about to burst into flames.
“What are you thinking about?” He clicked his tongue at Qin Zui, his brain burning with irritation.
Qin Zui lowered his eyelids slightly and smiled.
“Alright, hurry up and get back to your dorm.” Jiang Chu sighed. “Military training isn’t tiring you out enough.”
“I miss you,” Qin Zui said.
“I know, yeah.” Jiang Chu ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what else to say at this point. “You miss me every day, don’t you.”
“Yeah.” Qin Zui moved his thumb, gently swiping across Jiang Chu’s face on the screen.
After the easy first half of the training passed and the rain finally stopped, the instructors put all the energy they’d been saving up for that little week to use.
“Kang Che is so lucky, eating melon in the dorm every day, never getting sunburned or tired.” Mao Sui said this from the day it cleared up, every day when he got up and before he went to sleep.
Kang Che really was eating watermelon in the dorm.
He had already trained a full year before, so this year he just got an extra half-month vacation. He either went out with his friends from the previous year who were now sophomores, or he bought half a watermelon and came back to watch them burn off their time long-distance from the dorm.
When in the evening the whole building of half-dead people came dragging themselves back, scrambling for late-night snacks, scrambling for the bathhouse, he would casually call out, “Going out for BBQ?”
“I’m exhausted, you guys go ahead. Bring me back something.” Mao Sui lay face down on the bed, legs dangling off the edge, listlessly reciting dishes like a menu.
“I don’t want to move either.” Xu Bowen was sitting on a stool, applying mosquito repellent while pulling out a book to read. “You go with Qin Zui. He doesn’t look tired.”
“Where’s Qin Zui? Didn’t come back with you guys?” Kang Che looked out the door but didn’t see him by the window making his usual phone call.
“Probably making another call.” Mao Sui was still hanging off the bed, dangling his leg, and let out a bunch of “hehe” laughs for no reason. “Oh, he must just be in a new relationship with his girlfriend. Even calling every day isn’t enough.”
“Did he tell you that?” Kang Che asked.
“No, Qin Zui is crazy. He told me it was his brother.” Mao Sui even laughed as he said it. “Like I’m gonna believe that. Who else could he call every single day like this, and even answer the phone in private?”
“He’s just messing with you, you idiot.” Xu Bowen flipped a page and added.
“Exactly!” Mao Sui agreed wholeheartedly.
Kang Che smiled but didn’t say anything.
“Hey, Brother Kang,” Mao Sui, a delicate flower who had been single from elementary school through university, always got excited whenever the topic of girlfriends came up. He stopped claiming to be tired, turned over, propped his face on his hand, and winked at Kang Che. “What about your girlfriend? I see you sending plenty of messages every day too, and you’re pretty mysterious when you answer your phone.”
“You guess,” Kang Che said, not taking the bait. He sat down at his desk and turned on his computer.
“Damn it, why are you just like Qin Zui?” Mao Sui stared at the back of his head, not wanting to talk anymore.
“What am I like?” Qin Zui happened to walk in, holding his camouflage military training jacket.
“I said you’re just like him.” Kang Che smiled and started a game.
“How am I like him? I’ve never taken a leave of absence.” Qin Zui smiled too, tossed the camouflage jacket onto his desk, and lifted his hand to pull his black t-shirt off.
“You guys are no fun!” Mao Sui shouted at them from across the room. “So boring! Both of you!”
It wasn’t until after the military training ended that Mao Sui finally realized the boring “excuse” of Qin Zui using his brother as a cover was actually true. He had really been messing with him.
It happened by chance that day. The entire class went out for a group dinner. After eating, the class monitor organized a karaoke session. A bunch of guys, like wild boars let out of a cage after being locked up for half a month, drank and raised hell, not trickling back to the dorms in small groups until almost midnight.
When Jiang Chu’s video call came in, Qin Zui was propping up Kang Che while pulling out his phone to check the time.
Kang Che looked like he could hold his liquor, but in reality, he wasn’t much better off than Jiang Chu. After a few bottles of beer in the afternoon, he was still somewhat lucid, but he couldn’t walk in a straight line and kept bumping into streetlights.
If he hadn’t checked the time, Qin Zui would have missed the video call entirely. His phone was on silent. When he pulled it out, he saw Jiang Chu had already sent him several messages, plus two missed calls.
He hesitated for a moment, then declined the video call.
Jiang Chu leaned against the headboard, frowning at the declined video call screen.
Qin Zui usually called him around nine or ten at night. He hadn’t called today, his messages went unanswered, and now he’d directly declined a video call!
Had his phone been stolen?
Just as he was about to call again, and if he still couldn’t reach him, he’d call Gao Xia, Qin Zui’s call came in.
He picked up quickly, and the first thing he said was, “Where are you?”
“Went out to eat, just got back.” Qin Zui’s voice sounded like he was walking. “You’re still up?”
“Where did you eat all evening without even looking at your phone?” Jiang Chu’s tone was not great.
Qin Zui paused on the other end, not saying anything.
Jiang Chu felt he’d overdone it a bit after he said it. Actually, he was relieved that Qin Zui was okay, but he’d relaxed too much and hadn’t been able to pull himself back in time.
He was about to say, “I thought your phone was stolen,” and “It’s okay, just get back to your dorm.”
Before he could speak, another voice, slightly hoarse, came from the other phone. “Who is it?”
Jiang Chu was stunned.
A guy.
Sounded a bit like Kang Che.
Kang Che, who had been drinking.
That wasn’t even the main point. The main point was that this drunk Kang Che’s voice was extremely close. It sounded like he was right next to the earpiece. A couple dozen different positions that could bring a voice that close immediately flashed through Jiang Chu’s mind.
“It’s my brother. Don’t move.” He heard Qin Zui explain.
“You…” Jiang Chu wanted to say more, but Qin Zui said to him, “Gotta hang up first, bro. I’ll tell you when I’m back at the dorm.”
The line went dead with a click.
