“I never thought even you would see me that way. Does no one understand me? I’m doing this for your own good.” Xia Jia Zuo said, growing increasingly agitated.
“Did we ask you to do us any favors? Did we ever ask for your help?”
“You make it sound so noble. Weren’t you and Zhi Li fighting because of me? After all these years, your relationship is still this fragile. Come with me instead. I won’t fight with you.”
“It was because of you, and it wasn’t because of you. He misunderstood why I went to see you, and I misunderstood his attitude toward you as coldness toward me. That isn’t weakness. We argued because we’re human—living, breathing people. We get upset when we see the person we love with someone else. We get angry when hurtful things are said to us. It’s only because we like each other. Because we like each other too much. Of course, I should reflect on my own actions too. How could I sit there pouring my heart out to someone Zhi Li hates? And then give him a slice of cake from someone he dislikes? What the hell was I doing? I was acting like an idiot. And another thing—don’t talk about me following you. Just standing here wasting my breath talking to you makes me sick. Don’t think I’m going to sympathize with you. Who doesn’t have a sad past?”
Ke Bu left Xia Jia Zuo behind and walked into the clubhouse.
“Does anyone know where Zhi Li is?”
No one answered him.
A long moment passed, and still nobody replied.
“Hey, I’m talking to you guys.”
“Shhh!”
“What do you mean, shhh?”
“Zhang Luo put a transmitter on Xia Jia Zuo. Keep it down. He just ran into Zhi Li.”
“Where did you even get something that belongs in a spy movie?”
“How old-fashioned. What can’t you buy online these days?” Zhang Luo replied.
When Xia Jia Zuo saw Zhi Li, he didn’t seem particularly surprised.
Zhi Li smiled faintly. “Finished playing around?”
“Another lecture? I’m already sick of hearing them. And now you people are pretending you’re righteous? You’re all shameless and filthy. All you ever talk about are breasts, fighting, and bullying the weak. Do you remember what I whispered in your ear back then? I said I would take away everything filthy around you. Unfortunately, they’re beyond saving. They’ve willingly fallen into depravity.”
Zhi Li punched Xia Jia Zuo in the face. The blow was far heavier than the last one.
“Then I’ll tell you why I’m hitting you,” he said calmly. “They may be filthy, but you don’t get to call them ‘things.’”
That somehow wasn’t very flattering.
Zhi Li grabbed Xia Jia Zuo by the collar.
“Show me just how clean you are.”
“I’m not going to fight anyone. I’m not like you people.”
“That makes things easier for me.”
Zhi Li drove his knee into Xia Jia Zuo’s stomach.
“Then let me show you just how filthy I am.”
He hurled Xia Jia Zuo into the school’s drainage ditch. The narrow channel was cramped even for a grown man. Zhi Li forcibly shoved him down into it, wedging his shoulders between the concrete walls so tightly that he couldn’t climb out or even move.
Chu Hao Yu, Ying Xiu Jie, Gong Zhu, and even Zhou Xin He gathered above the ditch and began tossing scraps of paper down at him.
“To think you’d say things like that about us. We were even planning to let you off easy.”
Without another glance, Zhi Li turned and walked away.
Before chasing after him, Ke Bu suddenly turned to Su You Yan.
“You Yan, why didn’t Zhi Li undergo a dark transformation this time?”
Even now, that was what worried him most. He was probably afraid that by the time he caught up, Zhi Li would already have undergone a dark transformation. If that happened, there would be no chance to talk.
“You already know the answer,” Su You Yan replied. “Being hurt and being irritable are two different things.”
“You Yan, thank you.”
Ke Bu immediately ran after Zhi Li.
He spotted the retreating figure ahead of him, blending into the darkness while somehow standing out against it at the same time. The sight of him was painfully beautiful.
Ke Bu sprinted forward and grabbed his arm.
Zhi Li turned around.
“Do you need something?” he asked coldly.
“Yes. A lot of things. A lot of things I need to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I shouldn’t have said those hurtful things. But you shouldn’t have done that either—telling me to be with someone else and all that.”
The apology seemed to have little effect.
Zhi Li remained expressionless as he removed Ke Bu’s hand from his sleeve.
“I know those were words spoken in anger.”
“Then why?”
“You still don’t understand?”
“Understand what? Haven’t you already won this time? You should be laughing at me mercilessly.”
Zhi Li stared into the depths of the night.
“I have things I can’t tolerate too.”
A bad feeling settled in Ke Bu’s chest.
His throat went dry.
“W-What things?”
“You.”
Ke Bu felt like he couldn’t understand what Zhi Li was saying, and he didn’t want to understand it either. The place where his heart should have been hurt so much that even his body could no longer bear it.
“Are you going to leave me behind?”
Zhi Li said nothing.
Ke Bu hated that silence.
“Say something! Say something! What is this supposed to mean? What am I supposed to do? Didn’t you say it yourself before? That even if we fought, you’d still forgive me? What about now? Liar. Zhi Li, you’re the biggest liar in the world. What are we supposed to do from now on?”
“Yeah… what are we supposed to do from now on?”
The moment the words left Zhi Li’s mouth, the wind tore them apart and scattered them throughout Ke Bu’s mind. He had thought that if he simply apologized obediently, everything would be fine and he and Zhi Li would return to how things had been before. How could feelings that had accumulated over such a long time be so fragile? Zhi Li turned around and looked at Ke Bu. His dark eyes shimmered faintly in the night, and beneath his calm tone was a trace of bitterness.
“You’re afraid of me, Ke Bu. You’re afraid of me.”
“That’s a different matter.”
Ke Bu didn’t deny it.
Zhi Li let out a powerless laugh.
“What do you want me to do? Keep someone who fears me by my side? Would that be torturing you, or torturing me?”
Ke Bu couldn’t clearly see Zhi Li’s expression, but he could feel his loneliness. White spread through the darkness—that was Zhi Li’s color, the same presence Ke Bu had sensed the first time he saw him. Ke Bu had forgotten something important. He had been so consumed by his own pain that he forgot. He remembered the people who had called Zhi Li a monster, who looked at him with fear in their eyes. Even the girls who liked him were afraid of him as well. Because he seemed unattainable. Because he seemed too far removed from ordinary people. They could only look at him from afar with those eyes. Zhi Li had grown up in loneliness and isolation. He had spent his childhood and adolescence under those gazes until he met Ke Bu. His loneliness had attracted Ke Bu’s loneliness. Ke Bu had been saved. Zhi Li had been saved. Ke Bu had stood in his line of sight without fear or inferiority, smiling as he told him he liked his personality. And now… had he become just like those people too? Had he changed little by little over the years as well? Had the person who once pulled Zhi Li out of loneliness now become the reason for his loneliness?
Zhi Li turned and walked away.
Ke Bu opened his mouth, but no sound came out. So this was the real problem between them. The moment he had flinched away from Zhi Li’s outstretched hand. The moment he had trembled in front of him. What had Zhi Li been thinking then? How much had it hurt?
Damn it. Damn me.
It was true. He really had been afraid. At the time, he hadn’t been able to sort through those emotions. The words wouldn’t come out, and both of them had been dragged into pain like quicksand—the more they struggled, the faster they sank.
Ke Bu broke into a run and threw his arms around Zhi Li from behind.
“Stop. Stop walking. Zhi Li, don’t go. Zhi Li, don’t go.”
For a moment, it felt as though he had returned to the first two times they met. Back then, he had also asked Zhi Li to stay. What was the same was his desire to keep Zhi Li with him. What was different was that the desire now was far stronger than before, making Ke Bu’s chest rise and fall uneasily.
“I’m an idiot. I’m hopeless. The things I couldn’t say back then, I’ll say them all now. I’m sorry. I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice that Zhi Li has weaknesses too.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“Bastard, let me finish. Yes, I’m afraid of you. I’m very afraid. I’m afraid because you talk to me in that cold tone. I’m afraid because you yell at me. I’m afraid because I can see disappointment toward me in your eyes. I’m so afraid. I’m afraid you’ll hate me. I’m afraid you’ll stop wanting me. I’m afraid you’ll leave me. What I’m most afraid of is that you won’t love me anymore, damn it!”
Ke Bu’s voice turned hysterical.
“Do you understand the difference now? I love you so much that I’m afraid of you.”
Zhi Li felt the warm dampness soaking through the back of his clothes.
His voice softened into a teasing tone.
“Aren’t you Ke Bu? Ke Bu would never cry over Zhi Li.”
“The one here now isn’t Ke Bu.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Zhi Li, let’s never fight again, okay?”
“Do you mean not fight with Ke Bu, or not fight with you?”
Ke Bu bit Zhi Li lightly from behind, but because it was winter, he only ended up biting Zhi Li’s clothes.
“There are still two left,” Zhi Li suddenly said.
Ke Bu blinked in confusion.
“What?”
“What you owe me. Let’s count this as repaying one of them.”
Ke Bu hugged Zhi Li even tighter.
“Zhi Li, do you like me?”
“I do.”
Of course Zhi Li would say something like that so directly. But Ke Bu wanted to hear it. He wanted to hear it very badly.
Like.
Love.
So very much.
Futile Devices Scans 
Leave a comment