A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 085 – Shifting Den

He Said: Let’s Rent a Place Together.

The Wall of Honour was in an area of the corridor that everyone had to pass by, with the strikingly outstanding red piece of paper as well as the newly-pasted photographs, the passing-by students would all stop and take a look. Barely half a day passed before there was already an extra line of heart shapes next to Sheng Wang’s photo, nearly identical to the one next to Jiang Tian’s. This was probably a tradition among Fuzhong girls.
Sheng Wang was filled with some mixed feelings when he saw them, thinking, the one in this photo has been so cowardly lately, you can still bear to draw your heart shapes?

He took a look back at his behaviour for the past few days after he finally escaped the caught defenseless state he was stuck in, and only felt that the him for the past few days was so goddamn silly. His mindset upon facing exams was clearly more stable than stable, why did he fumble around and panic so much upon having something like this happen to him?

Weakling, immature, can’t withstand a single hit, he mocked himself.

People are often like this — the incoming storm was a fearsome foe to them, and as they managed to get away without doing anything, they would think whatever they felt was utter bullshit.
Thanks to previous experiences, a normal ordinary event made him feel very insecure as long as Qi Jiahao was dragged in. Sheng Wang attempted to look for him and try to wring a little information out of him, but the other person unfortunately had only grudges and not friendship with him. He couldn’t find an appropriate way to start the conversation, so he could only go to Gao Tianyang for an indirect answer.

“He found the bag, got it back yesterday. Didn’t really lose anything. Old Song, who was just being nice as a class comm member, even tried to show a little concern, but got ugly words in return instead. He said that Old Song was being fake.” Gao Tianyang did not catch a whiff of anything unusual at all, and the moment he was asked, everything came pouring out of him like a waterfall. “I didn’t catch anything unusual about him though. Ever since he sabotaged you, hasn’t he always been half dead like that. Apparently, he was hit by his mom after his grades dropped in last week’s exam, and recently, his behaviour has been more…peculiar.”

Sheng Wang then found an excuse and made two trips to the administration office on his own. The group of teachers were talking as per normal, and Big Mouth Xu, due to his overly excellent mood, kept cracking jokes with him; he didn’t act like he was hiding anything from him. He found out from Big Mouth Xu that the other students that lost their stuff had all found their items one by one, there wouldn’t be any more people who would have a lightbulb appear on their head and go check the security footage.
As such, this accident that rudely cut in had seemingly passed over just like that.

It was evening by the time he left the administration office, the last period in the afternoon just so happened to end. Jiang Tian descended the stairs from the other end of the corridor, turning into Class B on the third floor. Sheng Wang spotted him from afar, and had the feeling of having a great burden lifted off his back for some inexplicable reason. Like his childhood days, when he would be lost in the maze of alleys outside of White Horse Alley, and had made countless twists and turns before he spotted the gate to his house.
He crouched and ran over, wanting to launch a sneak attack and jump onto Jiang Tian’s back. However, he stopped in his steps upon getting nearer to him. A moment of hesitation, and in the end, he simply snapped his fingers next to Jiang Tian’s left ear, before dodging to the right with a devilish grin.

*
Finals were approaching, yet another major exam involving the changing of classes. The entire student population was up to their heads in the mountain of revision.
Qiu Wenbin and Shi Yu packed their luggages, and got their asses back from home to the school at last, ready to join the army of students revising. What happened instead was on the very first day they moved back in, Shi Yu experienced for himself the fickleness of the human heart, and how friends could turn on you in a blink.

It began with Sheng Wang chit-chatting with him during interclass-break, starting with how it was more difficult than ever to fight for food in the cafeteria anymore, the convenience store would close shop in advance randomly, the water meant for showering wasn’t quite enough, all the way to how the bed was much bigger at home, better food too, the freedom to choose the timing for lights out, and the kind and earnest concern from parents, etc etc.
As they talked, Shi Yu also went on non-stop like flood water being released from a dam. The conversation ended, and Shi Yu suddenly realised in retrospect that every single line in-between Sheng Wang’s words was instigating him to continue his stay at home.

This person was relatively more tactful, but Jiang Tian was different. He asked Shi Yu directly, “Why are you back?”
Shi Yu said, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve stayed home for so long.”
Jiang Tian said “oh”, continuing, “I thought you’re going to stay until the next semester.”
Shi Yu: “……”
He pondered and wrung his brains out, and figured that he was being ostracised.

With the time the two got to be alone together being cut short once more by the return of their dormmates, the days of mucking around suddenly came to a stop.
Recently, Jiang Tian could obviously feel that young master Sheng was being kind of clingy — not the mushy type, more like the kind where he had a following pet.

In the level exercise lessons before, what happened at the very most would be Class A and B roughly playing basketball on half court, the two would bump against and touch each other in the guise of the competition, and whoever was switched out got to sit by the side to watch the competition, waiting for the other to leave the court too before they head to the cafeteria for dinner in advance.
As of late, Sheng Wang hardly participated enthusiastically; as long as Jiang Tian left, he was guaranteed to claim that his wrist or his ankle was abruptly sprained, and jog out of the court while swiping away the bead of sweat gathering at the tip of his hair.

In the night self-study before, Sheng Wang would usually head to the lecture theatre by himself first. Jiang Tian headed downstairs occasionally early, occasionally late. Once he arrived, Sheng Wang would then shift the bag on the chair next to his seat away, making a spot for Jiang Tian.
It was different these days — the moment day students ended self-study, he would head upstairs, going against the flow of the crowd, and wait to go down with Jiang Tian, crossing his arms.
These two days, it had gotten to the point that as Jiang Tian headed to the washroom during night self-study, Sheng Wang would even set his pen down, saying “I need to go too”.

Yet, all he did was to simply be there, no moves made whatsoever. In every environment under supervision, he paid much attention to his behaviour — like a cat that went around a person’s legs in circles, but still keeping a few centimeters away.
It was only during the nights when they walked across Magpie Bridge, under the mottled dark shade the trees provided, a place with tree branches and twigs obscuring them, then they would relax a little; the tip of their noses touched as they kissed each other.

Jiang Tian could actually feel the inner conflict Sheng Wang was going through — the intimacy he expressed on instinct, the occasional smugness that reared its head, and the restraint that came from a place of rationality. Right at the start, during the camp, he already knew: as long as they left utopia, things would definitely end up like this. It wasn’t a problem caused by anyone in particular.
They had no rightful name or place for their relationship, they were doomed to keep this under covers. A relationship that had to be kept under covers was thus bound to cause anxiety in people. With that build up, everything either avalanches into no return, or they would gradually drift apart.

To be honest, he was able to accept gradually drifting apart at the start. Countless people had said love during teenage years mostly came to no fruition — the timing wasn’t right, hell, the person themself might not even be right. He was actually a little similar to Sheng Wang in this regard — sometimes they would be more impulsive than other peers their age, sometimes they were both well aware in much unspoken synchronicity.
Therefore they said “I like you”, but none of them ever said “I’ll like you for the rest of my life.”

A lifetime was too long, these words were too heavy.

Before, what he thought was “I’ll travel alongside with you for a while, until you don’t like me anymore”, but now he was a little greedy — he wanted to walk with him a little longer.

His aptitude lies in simplifying complicated science topics, lies in using formulas, but in no way was he an expert in dealing with these issues. He could only come up with ways to reduce elements of instability, so they could have at the very least a place to let it all out; a den of their own.

*
The night self-study wasn’t exactly pure silence. After all, the entire level’s residential students were all gathered in a single lecture theatre, with only a single teacher on duty.
Oftentimes, there were students who would run down with a book in hand, getting the teacher to answer questions that bugged them. Some who didn’t manage to get in the queue would consult students with better grades. Business was basically blooming over here where Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang were.

Jiang Tian wasn’t good at going through the solutions, he would skip a lot of common-sense steps, highlighting the keypoint. Those who understood would think “Oh, turns out it’s this easy all along”, but the moment they run into a similar question type, they still wouldn’t know how to do it. As for those who didn’t understand, they wouldn’t dare to say “can you repeat that” to Jiang Tian’s face.
Therefore, everyone usually wouldn’t consult him; instead, they would borrow. They would borrow his test papers, his notes, all sorts of things they could borrow from him. Once they acquired said objects, they would make their way to Sheng Wang instead.
Jiang Tian thought that this sequence of actions was honestly mystifying, and had mocked them a couple of times to Sheng Wang, only to get howls of laughter in return. He no longer cared afterwards.

As such, their usual state during night self-study would be this: Sheng Wang taught the other students, Jiang Tian focused on feeding questions to Sheng Wang.
The meaning behind feeding was simple: he was helping Chu-ge make the lecture notes for the supplementary class, and needed to sweep through all sorts of guide books and question banks. When he stumbled upon a question worth doing, he would mark it with a post-it for Sheng Wang.

The rate he was feeding questions to Sheng Wang was increasing, showing with all his might that he was letting his boyfriend touch the tiger’s butt during finals. Sheng Wang had absolute faith in his choice of questions, and he basically did whatever he was fed without any fuss. He wasn’t picky at all.
This day, Sheng Wang spent a little too much time guiding a girl, and by the time he finally managed to send the girl away with much difficulty, he turned to see seven post-its stuck to his table.

“This many?” Sheng Wang was a little confused, but he still tore one out and matched the question to the book, doing all of them. As he did them, Jiang Tian was still sticking post-its onto his table, appearing that he intended to take up his entire night self-study.

He did four questions as he mumbled under his breath, and finally started revolting, throwing his pen aside. He put a hand on Jiang Tian’s neck, saying, “Three out of four questions have repeated question types, are you messing with me?”
Jiang Tian looked down and chuckled. He stopped bullying him at last, and slapped the post-it he was just done writing on to the back of Sheng Wang’s hand.

“There’s still more?” Sheng Wang asked.
Jiang Tian pointed at it with his chin. “Last piece.”
Sheng Wang lowered his head and looked, and saw that whatever that was written on the post-it wasn’t the page and question number, but a single line.
He said: Let’s rent a place together.

Sheng Wang’s heart skipped a beat, and looked up to face him.
Jiang Tian asked, “Do you want to?”
“I do, but —” Sheng Wang said, shellshocked, “your luggage……”
Jiang Tian checked the surroundings: a few students were discussing a tricky question a few rows away, their voices weren’t too loud or too soft, like a buzz enough to cover the two’s hushed words.

He asked Sheng Wang, “Will you one day suddenly stop opening the door to me, and lock me outside?”
“No!” Sheng Wang said, “What are you even thinking about, no way that’s happening.”
“Then why should I worry about the luggage?” Jiang Tian said.
Sheng Wang was left speechless. A while later, he squeezed out, “If there’s nobody else beside us now.”
Jiang Tian: “Hm?”
Sheng Wang was about to say something, but stopped. He wrote the second half of his sentence on the post-it on the back of his hand: I’ll kiss you so hard that your lips turn swollen.
Jiang Tian: “……”
Sheng Wang ripped the post-it out with a cheeky grin, crumpling it and tossing it away.

Sheng Mingyang doesn’t check his expenditure every month, how much he spent and saved was entirely up to him. Jiang Tian had some savings of his own too, so the two had zero problems when it came to the rent.
If it was before, they would have definitely asked for Zhao Xi’s help. However, Sheng Wang had some qualms this time, so they were the ones who reached out to look for a place. There were a lot of suitable places in the west and north gate, they filtered three out, and planned to go take a look on a day.

Coincidentally, Old Man Ding would be discharged on Thursday. Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian asked for leave from two periods in the afternoon and night self-study, and headed to check the house out by the north gate, before going to fetch the old man in the hospital.

Sheng Mingyang was already at the hospital. He was actually quite tolerant towards his son taking leave, but he still said nonetheless, “We could have fetched him ourselves.”
The “we” referred to him and Jiang Ou. After all, to Old Man Ding, Jiang Ou could still be counted as his “grandson’s” mom, and Sheng Mingyang was half an outsider, only that he got along particularly well with this half-outsider.

Jiang Tian helped the old man pack his belongings. He scanned around the ward before asking, “Where’s my mom?”
Sheng Mingyang pointed above his head, “Just now, she said she bumped into an old classmate in the hospital, she’s paying a short visit and will be back soon.”

TO BE CONTINUED.