A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 055 – Again and Again

Sheng Wang Choked on a Mouthful of Wangzai, and Coughed Till He Nearly Passed Away on the Spot.

For the next few days, Sheng Wang didn’t get a good sleep.

He was actually quite normal in the day. High school students may be missing anything except for new conversation topics as well as idiotic moments. Even an error of the mouth could cause the whole class to cackle in laughter. With this atmosphere, as long as Sheng Wang didn’t think about it, he wouldn’t recall anything.

Gao Tianyang and Song Sirui would often enthusiastically perform an ensemble cross-talk show with a bunch of dolts, and once in a while, he would be foolhardy enough to attempt to drag Sheng Wang along. Sheng Wang would instantly try to drag Jiang Tian down with him too. With one of them being warm, the other one being cold and echoing each other, they were always able to snark Gao Tianyang until he slapped himself. “This mouth of mine, why does it always ask for a spanking.”

And then Sheng Wang would laugh loudly as he leaned against his chair, fistbumping Jiang Tian behind him without looking back.
It was in these moments that he felt that that moment his heart fluttered in that early dawn was just an illusion; he was so unrestrained and free, no different from Gao Tianyang, Song Sirui as well as the surrounding classmates.

But, he had never been able to keep up that gusto for too long. It would slowly retreat away in the thoughtless eye contacts as well as moments their skin touched, replaced by some other nameless emotion. Like the turbulent undercurrent beneath the peaceful surface of the ocean.

It was even more dangerous at night.
There would be teachers conducting spot checks on the dorms after lights out in Fuzhong, whichever dorm that found itself missing someone, whichever dorm that was being too noisy, would find themselves on a notice board hung up by the residence manager, therefore the campus at night was always quiet. It was so quiet, that it was left with the teacher on patrol’s occasional coughs and murmurs, exactly the same as the alley that night, exactly the same! Exactly the same……

Therefore, three days later, two patches of black grew beneath young master Sheng’s eyes.

He had a pale complexion, and looked like he was meticulously cared for on a regular basis. The occasions where he appeared tired then became particularly conspicuous.
This morning, Sheng Wang went to the classroom to catch up on his sleep without even buying breakfast, and somehow still managed to have two weird dreams with that span of 20 minutes. He only broke free of it when the school bell signalling to start prepping for class sounded.

He vaguely felt something lightly brush past his clothes, and thought that Gao Tianyang was there to dig out his papers from his desk again. However, the next second he heard Gao Tianyang’s loud voice ringing from a few tables away. “Chilli, gimme chem, quick! Old He is going to be here real soon!”

“This is the last time,” Chilli said this for the Nth time.
“Last time last time, quick!”
“If you copy again tomorrow, your surname wouldn’t be Gao.”
“Not Gao anymore not Gao, if I copy tomorrow again I’ll call you daddy.”

Gao Tianyang, that bastard, could really say anything for the sake of papers.
Sheng Wang complained as he was half awake and half asleep, and next he startled awake; if it wasn’t this bastard who was digging for his paper, who was that just now???

He frowned and looked down with bleary eyes and a drowsy mind; the paper was still inside his desk, and other than that, an additional plastic bag appeared. That bag was printed with a dark blue logo, one look and it was apparent that it was the one used in the school cafeteria as well as the supermarket.

Sheng Wang took out the plastic bag and opened it up. Inside it, was a cup of beancurd, a hard boiled egg as well as a can of milk.
There were two floors in the school cafeteria, with the flavours not being entirely the same. The second floor has a shorter queue, with a stronger alkaline taste to the beancurd. There were more people on the first floor, and they would sprinkle peanut and walnut bits onto the beancurd.
Sheng Wang liked the flavour from the first floor, but he bought from the second floor more often, as he was truly too lazy to queue up.

The beancurd came from the first floor, a layer of toppings fully covered the milk-white beancurd, it was steaming hot too.
It was the hard boiled egg that somewhat caught Sheng Wang by surprise, because he refused to eat hard boiled eggs without any condiments. However, if it was take-away, hardboiled was indeed more convenient than fried.
As for the milk, it was a familiar little red can, the exact same as his previous profile picture.

As long as Jiang Tian was the one who brought him breakfast, there would definitely be this can of Wangzai. Initially, Jiang Tian did it to get back at him for a mocking line on WeChat, and intended to tease him with Wangzai in return. Afterwards, it somehow became a habit and a symbol.

When Sheng Wang saw the small red can, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

There were two tiny figures fighting each other with blades in his mind. One said, “Thank god, there’s zero change in any habits, Jiang Tian probably hasn’t discovered anything yet.”
The other said, “No shit, there’s nothing to be discovered in the first place.”
One said, “I didn’t mean anything else, I was referring to that biological reaction that morning.”
The other one: “Fuck off, what kind of guy wouldn’t have a bit of reaction in the morning.”

“That’s still pretty awkward.”
“It wouldn’t be awkward if you forget about it.”
“Another way to resolve this is to know that the other person was more awkward than you.”
“So, that morning, did Jiang Tian also—”

Before the two could keep nagging on, they were all squashed out by Sheng Wang.

When Gao Tianyang returned to his seat, he saw a complete poker-face on Sheng Wang. He was shook. “The fuck? Sheng-ge, what’s with your giant eye bags?”
Sheng Wang said, “Insomnia.”
Gao Tianyang was still confused. “Then why are your neck and ears flushed too?”
Sheng Wang: “……”

He pointed in front of him, “Old He is here, are you screwing off or not?”
Gao Tianyang shrunk his neck, and scrammed on the spot. After he was done scramming, then he found out that his Sheng-ge was messing with him, there’s nobody on the platform at all. The bell hasn’t rung, and neither was Old He here yet. Therefore, he stubbornly turned around, and asked relentlessly, “No she ain’t, why are you losing sleep for no good reason?”

Sheng Wang internally said, you’re asking me this, but who do I ask. Before he could think of an explanation, Gao Tianyang—that idiot—opened his mouth again. “Tian-ge—”
He asked Jiang Tian, over Sheng Wang’s shoulders, “Did something happen in the dorms again? Sheng-ge seriously lost his sleep even with that giant heart of his?”
Sheng Wang almost vomited blood, saying on the inside, thank you so freaking much.

His entire back tightened up, he was quiet for a few seconds before he realised that he was seriously waiting for Jiang Tian’s answer too. Although, the question was a bit nonsensical, he pretty much wouldn’t be getting an answer at all.

Just as expected, Jiang Tian sent Gao Tianyang away with a offhand “No”, as Old He had also entered the classroom right on the dot of the school bell ringing. No matter how mischievous Gao Tianyang was, he wouldn’t dare to chit chat right in front of the homeroom teacher. He pouted as he sat up straight, and listened to the lesson.

They were already through with the syllabus for year two, Old He and the chemistry teacher have been going through specific topics for lab work, and began the lesson with a few clips of hands-on experiments first. When they were through with lab work, they would be starting year three content soon, finishing within an estimation of a month and a half. After that, it would be all sorts of competitions and revision.

In order to facilitate the watching of videos, the light-blocking curtains on both sides were let down. The classroom was cloaked in darkness, with the lights coming from the experiment projected onto the screen flashing and dimming.
The person behind him no longer spoke. Sheng Wang waited for a while more, and his tense back finally gradually relaxed.

Jiang Tian didn’t bother further chatting with Gao Tianyang, neither did he ask about his insomnia along with Gao Tianyang, avoiding an even more awkward situation. Rationally, he ought to be relieved, and he was relieved, really. But, for some reason, he felt a little let down.
Not much, just a little bit, seriously.

Perhaps it’s because…for something that even Gao Tianyang—that careless dolt— noticed, Jiang Tian didn’t even show any concern at all.
Sheng Wang lazily leaned against his seat, his right hand settled on his table, a pen listlessly spinning around his fingers. His gaze quietly rested on that screen, but on the inside, he mocked himself: get over it, how prissy can I be.

Just as he was about to toss out these random useless thoughts and note down the key points of the experiment on the notebook with the aid of the light from the screen,something lit up within the bag inside his desk.

With his pen unstopping, his left hand reached inside his bag and dug his phone out. He swiped across the screen to pull down the notification panel, and saw a new notification from WeChat, indicating that Jiang Tian just sent him a picture.

A picture?
A meme?
He tapped open the chat that he rarely used for the past three days, and saw the picture Jiang Tian sent.

It was a screenshot from baidu encyclopedia or some other online encyclopedia. It was mostly some instruction in text, saying that hard boiled eggs can get rid of dark eye circles, even specifically instructing how to apply it, and to make sure to not get burned etc.

Sheng Wang’s pen slipped, and accidentally dragged it all the way to the edge of the notebook. He finally knew what that hard boiled egg that wasn’t up his alley in his breakfast was for.
So Jiang Tian did notice all along, way earlier than Gao Tianyang.

Sheng Wang pursed his lips, and entered a “thank you” in the chat box, then felt like it was overly polite, unbefitting of his usual style. Therefore, he deleted it and changed it to a “k”, but that felt too perfunctory.
In the end, he sent a “makes sense, I was thinking why you gave me an egg”, personally thinking that it was casual, relaxed, and not too cold either.
Jiang Tian replied: Yeah.

On the platform, Old He opened the last video. The lights and shadows from the new colour palette spreaded from the front. Sheng Wang swiped his screen in utter boredom, and just as he was about to lock his screen and keep his phone, another line popped up in the chat.
Jiang Tian asked: Why couldn’t you fall asleep?

Sheng Wang’s brows twitched, his finger stopped on the screen lock button.
For a split second, he suspected that Jiang Tian could tell something was up despite having nearly zero evidence at all, or that that morning Jiang Tian was awake. But, he rationally calmed down with a passing thought, thinking that it’s not very likely.

His eyes were lowered as he silently read the message Jiang Tian sent. A moment later, he sent back an excuse that did not overly sound like it was made up.
Sticker: nothing much, just that I didn’t sleep well from nightmares recently
Sticker: i wasn’t really getting insomnia

He learned that from Sheng Mingyang, that the best way to lie was to mix it in with some truths. It wasn’t exactly a good thing to do, but doing so once in a while can cause one to avoid some awkward situations.

Jiang Tian did not instantly reply; he did not know if he bought the excuse either.

Sheng Wang waited for a while, and until the screen darkened by itself and turned to black, then he realised belatedly that he was hungry and thirsty. He dug out a small red can from the table, slowly turned that pair of side eyes towards the direction of Jiang Tian who was behind him, and then took two drinks with a lift to the corner of his lips.

When he reached his third mouth, he suddenly felt someone lightly tapping on his shoulders from behind. He briefly froze up, and immediately naturally leaned behind too, the edges of the can still touching his lips, held in his mouth.

He slightly tilted his head upwards, and drank in tiny sips. His senses, however, were all concentrated behind his head. He could feel Jiang Tian leaning forward, and murmuring next to his ears, “That night at Beyond Parasol Trees, were you spooked by something?”

“………………………”
“Cough—”
Sheng Wang choked on a mouthful of Wangzai, and coughed till he nearly passed away on the spot.
His ge probably doesn’t want him to live anymore.

TO BE CONTINUED.