A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 011 – Sick

If You Keep Typing Without Actually Sending Any Goddamn Thing, I’ll Go Knock on Your Door.

Sheng Wang was someone who did not enjoy chatting on WeChat at all, as typing was really too troublesome.

He would not bother with opening notifications like “Friend successfully added”, not to even mention actually sending a message to ‘start chatting’. Really, if you are already on good terms, you would not care about these steps, if your relationship is just so-so, the moment you speak, the remaining steps would be as follows—

You would first warm the scene with a couple of emojis, and then an entire series of small talk, stretching the conversation on with fluff to make yourself seem close, and when it’s stretched to the point of being utterly cringeworthy, you may then exit after a sending a couple of stickers or something.
This procedure would take at least 20 minutes, or even up till half a day. He saw it plenty of times from Sheng Mingyang, looking at it alone was already tiring.

It was currently 2.33am, Beijing time. Only idiots would choose to make small talk at this time.
As Sheng Wang thought so, he already exited from the WeChat interface, and switched back to a new round in his game. Maybe his feel for the game was interrupted, or maybe he reached the point of drowsiness, he was sacrificed to the heavens only after three minutes.

Sheng Wang lost the mood to game. Still, he did not want to put his phone down. He dully went through the applications on his phone like he was the emperor on an inspection tour. After he inspected all his frequently used apps, before he knew it, he was on WeChat again.
The chat for that full stop next door over was still taking up the top spot of his chat list, and yet when he tapped on it it was completely barren.

The emperor, sprawled on his stomach under the blankets, bit his lips. After some pondering, he opened up the emoji section, and did not find a suitable one after a long while of picking through. He closed the emoji section unenthusiastically, and instead tapped on the profile picture.

Jiang Tian’s personal information was very simple, he only had a punctuation for his nickname, his WeChat number was still the default keyboard smash it came with, and there was not a single Moment posted.
It was simple to the point of looking like an abandoned account, a single glance and he got all the information there was. It was boring.

The emperor yawned, and was about to sleep. Before he could exit the app, his phone suddenly bzz’d, the notification panel stuck its tongue out, displaying ‘. has transferred money to you.’
Sheng Wang: “???”

Any drowsiness he had was scared away by this. Sheng Wang opened his Alipay. He was not seeing things, the person next door was not sleeping in the middle of the night, he really transferred money to him.
He jolted up, glared at the wall they shared for a few seconds, and opened his WeChat.

Canned: What are you doing?

The sound of slippers shuffling around could be dimly heard from next door, he probably walked from the table to the bed.
Sheng Wang’s phone vibrated again, the chat was now filled with another line.

. : ?
Canned: Why are you transferring money to me in the middle of the night?
. : Water money.
Canned: What water money?

Sheng Wang did not catch what was happening at first, and glanced at the wall in doubt. The footsteps next door stopped. Perhaps Jiang Tian was standing at a random area and looking at the message, or he was purely just speechless.

. : The water you placed on my desk.

Sheng Wang started keying in: It’s just a bottle of water, do you really need to pay? I

He was halfway through typing the reply when he stopped. He abruptly became aware that he was not anywhere near to being familiar with Jiang Tian. In school, they only just became classmates for four days, and for the past three days they did not even meet each other’s eyes. Then when it came to being at home…… that was way more awkward. No matter how he looked at it, it was not the type of relationship where they could silently acknowledge that it was a treat, it was only natural to return the money.

Sheng Wang deleted the words he already typed, and replied: Ok.

He then saw the top of the chat display ‘the other person is typing……’. He switched to sitting cross legged, and propped his elbow on his lap and waited.
The other person typed for more than ten seconds. The status then disappeared, and there was no new reply in the chat.

Canned: ?
. : ?

Sheng Wang stared at the two question marks, and felt that maybe there’s something wrong with him. But, it was not like the person next door was any better either. He rolled his eyes, and typed word by word: Whatever, it’s nothing, I’m going to sleep.
The top of the chat once again displayed ‘the other person is typing……’
Sheng Wang said internally: if you keep typing without actually sending any goddamn thing, I’m going to go knock on your door.

A few more seconds later yet again, there was finally a new message in the chat.
. : Mm.

Sheng Wang wanted to hit someone.
He lowered the air conditioner by three degrees in order to cool his fury, and went back on his stomach in his bed, continuing the emperor’s inspection tour. The inspection went on all the way up till he was about to sleep and that was when he could not resist it anymore. He tapped open the WeChat information of the person next door, and changed the personal remark to ‘Jiang Tian’. When that person chatted with that full stop as his name alone, he was asking for a beating a hundred times more than usual.

The morning next day, Sheng Wang woke up from the freezing cold alone.
After an entire night of the AC blasting at 18 degrees, the young master’s head was aching, his nose was clogged up. He sneezed four times in a row, his hair messily stuck up everywhere, and the tip of his nose was red. He sat, dazed out and cloaked by his blankets for five minutes straight, then ferociously spat at the direction of the person next door over.

For the first time ever, he willingly put on his school jacket. He swiped away the alarm clock in his phone that was squawking non-stop, took two pieces of tissue and headed downstairs.

Sheng Mingyang’s business ran into some minor trouble, and he did not return from his business trip yet. However, the house was unexpectedly lively this early in the morning.
Sheng Wang stuck his head out to look below—
The housekeeper, Auntie Sun, was early today. She was following Jiang Ou while wearing a pair of gloves. The two of them went in and out of the kitchen, and would sometimes make small talk. Sheng Wang listened for two lines; it seemed as if Auntie Sun was teaching Jiang Ou to make something.

Jiang Tian stood next to the couch, and was placing the practice papers and pencil pouch into the bag.
Just as Sheng Wang was about to step downstairs, he heard a sudden loud crash in the kitchen, like something was broken. Next, he heard Jiang Ou let out a low hiss.

“Aiyoyo, go run it under cold water, quick,” Auntie Sun’s voice spreaded over. “This is scalding hot. You go ahead and run it first, I’ll get some ointment for you.”
Jiang Tian tossed away his bag, and strided into the kitchen. From Sheng Wang’s angle, he could see half of his figure from the back.

He heard Jiang Tian ask, “Are there any blisters?”
Jiang Ou replied with a smile, ‘It’s not that bad, I just accidentally touched it because I wasn’t careful enough. Auntie Sun even reminded me earlier to not touch it with my hands, I zoned out for a bit, and forgot.”

“Why are you suddenly baking this?” Jiang Tian asked, perplexed.
“It isn’t exactly sudden, it’s just that I was chatting with your mom and I casually mentioned that Xiao-Wang likes this particularly much, back then—” Auntie Sun rushed over with a small round jar, and said, ‘Come, let’s apply this. This ointment is very useful, I bring it wherever I go, I use it every time I get burned and I always healed.”
As she applied the ointment, she also softly spoke, “His mom always made that for him when he was a kid, Ou-jie said that she wanted to learn.”
Jiang Ou was a little embarrassed, she sighed, “I’m not very adept at this, I can’t really grasp it.”

Sheng Wang’s foot, about to step down, shrunk back. He was a little dumbfounded as he stood at the top floor. In that moment his emotions were a little complicated, he could not tell what he was feeling.
The bedroom door behind him was left ajar, a night’s worth of built up cold air came gushing out, and embraced him from behind. He suddenly felt a little empty on the inside.

Jiang Tian’s voice tightly followed up, and it reached all the way upstairs, “Why are you copying other people.”
That line from Auntie Sun seemed to have offended him somehow, his tone was both cold and curt.

Jiang Ou was startled, “Huh?”
“I said—” Jiang Tian’s brows tightly knitted together, his shoulders and back were extremely tense, just from his sideview alone one could tell how displeased he was.

After he said those two words, he momentarily paused. His fingers, dangling at his side, clenched and unclenched, cracking sounds could be heard. One could tell he was somewhat agitated.
A while later, he said, “Whatever, I’m going to school.”

Jiang Ou awkwardly patted his shoulders, and then quickly turned to wink at Auntie Sun, attempting to diffuse the tense atmosphere.

Jiang Tian’s eyes were downcast. He strided back to the sofa, grabbed his bag and headed to the entryway.
When he changed his shoes, his peripheral gaze caught view of the staircase. He briefly paused while lacing his shoes.

Sheng Wang stood there in the jacket, the spacious school uniform on top of the white t-shirt. The rolled up sleeves made layers and layers of wrinkles, highlighting the unique lithe and slender body of a young man in his growth spurt.

Jiang Tian looked up at him for a moment, and retracted his gaze again. His lips pursed into a straight line.
He stood up the next second, grabbed his bag and went straight out of the doors.

The weather in this city in August was unpredictable, a few flashes of lightning could lead to a torrential downpour. Sheng Wang dimly heard the low roll of thunder outside the house. He rubbed the tip of his nose as he headed downstairs, feeling like he was going to fall sick again.

TO BE CONTINUED.