A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 066 – “Vacation”

“Why Are Your Ears Red Again?”

The first half of the sentence was meant for Sheng Wang.
Because he saw the silence that barely lasted for two seconds before Sheng Wang spoke to comfort him, because he saw the traces of avoidance and upset in Sheng Wang’s slightly lowered gaze; he always seemed to see all these. For every pause, for every unspoken word, for all the laughing and joking around despite not being exactly happy himself, he could see them all.
Therefore, he wanted to let Sheng Wang know that he had stopped splitting hairs over that. He merely despised Ji Huanyu, it had nothing to do with other people.

As for the second half……
For quite an extended period of time, he always thought that he was sufficiently objective and rational. He had always been on good terms with Zhao Xi and Lin Beiting, he had no problem getting along with Gao Tianyang and the rest too. He thought that he found the perfect balance beyond the boundary itself. That was, until Sheng Wang appeared, and that balance was knocked over.

He knew for quite a while now, he understood clearly that to him, Sheng Wang wasn’t the same as other people. He was setting himself up against himself, that’s all.
Occasionally, he would reflect. He would recall many people and many things, but he would always avoid that point. He would deliberately look past certain unplatonic or other feelings, like as long as he didn’t think about it, those things wouldn’t exist.
Until today, when they met Ji Huanyu at Wu Tong Wai, and heard Ji Huanyu say what he said, he suddenly came around to it. The other person wants to pull him into the darkness? He’ll emerge instead. The other person wants to nauseate him? There is no way he’s getting his way.
Ji Huanyu wanted to make him hesitate and unwilling to take a single step forward, he’ll make peace with himself instead. He refused to fight himself anymore.
He liked Sheng Wang, that’s all. He has fallen for him for a while now.

Due to Zhao Xi and Lin Beiting’s relationship, he understood better than the average people this particular route. He had witnessed the unions and separations along the way. His rational side told him: Don’t drag the other person in, he is very precious. He wanted the person to smile more often.
However—occasionally, in extremely rare moments—he couldn’t hold himself back.
He longed to speak of them to Sheng Wang, but at the same time, he wished that Sheng Wang couldn’t hear him either.

Meaningless noise filled the dorm. A wave of people happened to charge up towards them from the neighbouring dorm, Old Mao and Tong-zi tugged at Sheng Wang as they greeted him, saying that the training camp begins tomorrow, all the best for them, and bring some glory to Fuzhong.
He knew that Sheng Wang couldn’t hear him.

He could stand on the road by himself, wishing for Sheng Wang to stop by the road, take a breather and leave. It’s best if he didn’t say hello to him at all; he wasn’t as unaffected as people imagined, he was afraid he couldn’t hold himself back.

*
The training was held in another city, a river separated them from Fuzhong.
According to Jing-jie, they picked an especially remote school, separated from the centre of the city by thousands of miles. It would be too troublesome to keep changing transport, so Fuzhong, in order to reduce all the troubles that came with transferring again and again on the journey, arranged for a private car for them. As the teacher in charge of the team in Fuzhong, Yang Jing was the one who would be bringing them there.
The place to board the bus was the same one where they usually waited for the school bus.

“I get a spare day away from marking scripts for once, and I still have to get up so early for cold wind in my face? The sun isn’t even up yet!” Yang Jing wore a thin woolen coat outside of her sweater and lacquered shirt, long enough to cover her ankles. As the wind blew, she stomped her feet, cursing Big Mouth Xu: older people could wake up early, they don’t even spare a thought for young people’s need for sleep when they arrange for transport.
After she cursed out Big Mouth Xu, she started scolding Sheng Wang instead, as Sheng Wang was wearing fewer layers than her.

Young master Sheng was feeling quite sorry too. He initially took a thicker outer jacket this morning. Now that he no longer needed to wear school uniform the entire day as he was out of Fuzhong, those simple and stylish clothes of his could finally be worn. For some reason, his brain shortwired upon leaving the dorm, and changed into a thinner one.

Yang Jing scrolled through her phone, saying that the temperature would drastically drop today. As Sheng Wang froze his reddened ears off, he wouldn’t stop moving about before his Ge with his jacket completely unzipped. Jiang Tian side-eyed him several times with a furrow in his brows, and asked him, “Do you know what temperature is it today?”. He stuffed in his earpiece, pretending to not hear a single word.
The fourth round Sheng Wang moved before Jiang Tian, Jiang Tian finally couldn’t hold back anymore, and pulled up his zip for him like last time. He then removed an earpiece from him, saying, “Are you having fun with the cold?”
Sheng Wang internally said, of course I’m not having any freaking fun, my tears are literally going to fall out from the cold. I’m just making sure if you’re okay from yesterday, hello?!

Very fortunately, whatever unhappiness caused by Ji Huanyu—that scumbag—seemed to remain behind last night. His Ge would still reprimand him with a frown, he did not reject him or avoid him no-homo style. He would even pull up his zip for him, showing that what happened did not affect him as heavily as he thought.
Still, he was a little worried.

This concern surpassed all and any other feelings, to the point that he even forgot what Zhao Xi said yesterday, and forgot the fact that Jiang Tian knew everything too. All he cared about was to make sure Ji Huanyu did not cause any further trauma for him.
Of course, it was possible that he subconsciously wanted to ignore all that too.

Sometimes, the student mindset worked in strange ways: like as though everything that happened in school stayed in school, everything would be different the moment they left the school gates.
They were heading for training soon, they were on the way for another city, leaving Fuzhong for a brief period of time. Those secretly blossoming feelings that sprouted in the corner of the classroom, the balcony at the dorm, beside the sports ground, or even beneath the shade of the tree, could quietly come out for air for a bit. There was no need for tip-toeing around.
Take it as a limited time vacation, that’s all.

However, the beginning of said vacation did not go as well as he would like; Sheng Wang had a rare case of motion sickness, unlike the one he faked last time.
The car just went past the tollbooth, and he felt his stomach churn. There was a light scent of leather in the car; usually, he wouldn’t really notice, but now the scent was making its presence especially known, and tunnelled into his nose with all its might.

He was chatting with Jing-jie at the start, and looked for every opportunity to tease Jiang Tian too. With that, he finally settled down, saying “I’m sleeping for a while”, and leaned back against the seat. He even took the hood from a hooded sweatshirt in the inner layer to cover his head and block out the light.

He felt that he had an especially strange disposition: last time he faked being carsick, he could say it out so easily. This time round, now that he was genuinely feeling terrible, he ended up being obstinate about it, as though saying a single line would make him appear frail and weak or something.

Jiang Tian was good at pissing people off and not good at casual talk. Once Sheng Wang shut his mouth, Yang Jing lost the interest to chat either. She went through her phone, and planned to prop her head with her hand and sleep too. The car soon quieted down. In the midst of his discomfort, Sheng Wang half-opened his eyes, and saw Jiang Tian with a white earpiece stuffed in, his head lowered as his hands speedily flew across the screen, typing. Who knew what he was searching for.

The nausea was getting to him. Sheng Wang didn’t keep looking, and hurriedly shut his eyes again.
With motion sickness, every second that went by felt like an eternity, it was hard to keep track of time. He did not know how long his head tilted upwards for, and suddenly he felt the person beside him shuffle, like he leaned forward.

Jiang Tian called out to Yang Jing with his voice lowered, saying something. Sheng Wang’s eardrums were buzzing, so he couldn’t really catch anything. Yang Jing’s pitch was higher, saying, “Around 2km.”
Next was the sound of a zip; she was possibly looking for something.

A moment later, the leather seat slightly shifted again; the person next to him leaned back.
The next second, Sheng Wang felt something touch the corner of his lips. Jiang Tian’s deep voice rumbled next to him, “Open your mouth.”
Sheng Wang: “?”

He opened his mouth on instinct before he finally opened his eyes.
There was a newly opened packet of preserved plums in Jiang Tian’s hand, the one he just took out was already stuffed into Sheng Wang’s mouth.

“It’s Jing-jie’s,” Jiang Tian said.
Yang Jing turned around from the front passenger seat. “Why didn’t you say so earlier about being carsick? There will be a rest stop later, we’ll get the driver to pull over for a bit. There’s still at least three hours before we can reach there, you’re telling me you can hold on until we reach?”

Who knew where she bought her plum candy from, either way the sourness was overwhelming. It was probably for motion sickness. The nausea was instantly suppressed by a lot, and some life finally went back into Sheng Wang.
He pushed the candy to the side of his cheek, and said to Jing-jie, “I usually don’t get sick.”
Jiang Tian side-eyed him. “You were last time though.”
Sheng Wang: “……’kay.”

Yang Jing was amused, the driver meanwhile couldn’t hold himself back, and asked, “Is my driving really that rough?”
Sheng Wang said, “No, you’re pretty steady. It’s just that I woke up too early, the blood supply to my brain was insufficient.”
Yang Jing saw the opportunity, and began to curse out Big Mouth Xu again. She thus sent the person a long voice message, completely fearless, harshly criticising the anti-sleep measure of his.

She attacked the leadership like a rattling gun, the driver was amused as he listened. Sheng Wang pulled down his hood, and leaned back against the chair again, wanting to close his eyes and rest for a bit. However, his eyes weren’t tightly shut, and he spaced out as he sneakily watched his Ge through the miniscule gap between his lids.
Jiang Tian still held onto the packet of preserved plums, who knew if he couldn’t find a place to put it down or if he thought that Sheng Wang still needed another one. His other hand hovered in the air, his pointer finger and thumb slightly crooked. They were probably stained with powder from the preserved plum.

There were tissues on the car, but they were placed by the windshield in front of the car. Jing-jie was busy, and had no time to deal with the people behind for the time being.
Sheng Wang metaphorically munched on popcorn with his eyes barely open, withholding the mirth bubbling in his heart. He always found joy in watching Jiang Tian being helpless and resigned, his motion sickness even felt much better because of that.
The lady in the midst of complaining was deaf. Jiang Tian called Yang Jing twice before he gave up again. He leaned back against the chair in surrender, and took out another plum from the packet. He ate it himself, and licked the remaining powder on his fingers away.

Sheng Wang lost his joy all of a sudden.
He silently closed his eyes, internally saying, what the…….fuuuuck.

A moment later, Yang Jing finally tossed Big Mouth Xu aside, turned around and retrieved the packet of preserved plums. She asked, mystified, “Sheng Wang, is the car too cold?”
Sheng Wang opened his eyes. “Hm?”
Yang Jing said, “Why are your ears frozen red again?”
Sheng Wang: “……”

He gritted his teeth and said, “Yeah, it’s cold. Can we turn on the air conditioning?”
The driver turned on the heat without a second word, and Sheng Wang felt his motion sickness worsen again.

This car ride was a total of three and a half hours. They stopped by a rest stop halfway through, and ate something, walked around, got some air. By the time they boarded the car again, Sheng Wang had completely recovered.
Around noon, they finally stopped their car at the destination.

When Sheng Wang alighted, he lamented, “How is this only a little remote, this has to be in the middle of the jungle, right? Why a place like this?”
Yang Jing said, “To pen you guys in, duh.”
“We’re not here for labour reform though?”
“A few years ago, it wasn’t that remote. Every summer and winter camp for every subject were all held in schools in the city. Do you know how troublesome is it to take care of you unruly kids? You think that just because you’re not in school, you can get up to any mischief. I remember a year when 12 were caught climbing over the wall to go use the internet in a single night. They couldn’t even directly name and shame, and had to send the training camp office notices about not staying in dorms at night.”

Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian met each other’s eyes, feeling like the scoldings their seniors never went through, were all about to be materialised on them.
“Okay then,” he said, having submitted to fate, and followed Yang Jing to the office to report in.

The school was bigger than they thought, it was divided into two zones by a hill, the front and the back, The one behind was the main school campus, the one in front was slightly smaller, and thanks to the generosity of the school, they carved out the zone in front of the hill all for the training camp.
“Lessons will be conducted in the experimental block in front, as for the lodging, hm, it will be the staff residence block over there. The conditions definitely wouldn’t match up to hotels. They also have double decker beds, but they are much better than normal student residences. Two students to one room.” The teacher in charge of logistics gave Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian two cards, saying, “The dorms are assigned according to school. You two are quite lucky, just nice for a room. There are no lights out at night, no limit to electricity and hot water usage either. However—”

He emphasised, as though he was still reeling, “Past experience tells me I still have to say this, so…try to follow the school rules, okay? You are not here for a vacation.”

Sheng Wang recalled what he was thinking earlier, and suddenly felt a little called out.

TO BE CONTINUED.