So You Like Me Too

He nodded in satisfaction, “Good. Now close your eyes and then think about the thing that you wanted the most today. It should only be within today.”

Shen Lin did not know what he was going to do, but he still obediently closed his eyes. However, his mind was a bit confused all of a sudden, as he had no idea what he wanted.

He stood there on the corner of the street with his eyes closed. There were so many people passing by, but he could clearly distinguish the sound of Fu Xueyan’s footsteps among all of them.

Fu Xueyan walked up to him and asked with a smile, “Have you finished thinking about it?”

Shen Lin nodded solemnly.

“Then that’s good. Now, open your eyes.”

Shen Lin slowly opened his eyes to see a small, delicate mug in front of his eyes. The surface of the pure white cup was painted with two simple small patterns. Even though there was nothing much special in it, Shen Lin had glanced at it several times when he saw it at the shop. He originally wanted to buy it, but he was too embarrassed to make Fu Xueyan wait for him.

Fu Xueyan looked at him with a smile and asked, “Is this the one?”

Shen Lin took the cup and courageously asked, “How did you know?……”

“I saw you glancing at it several times, looking like you really wanted to buy it. But Boss Shen, let me tell you this. We are already friends. Aren’t we? So you don’t have to be so shy with me. I noticed that you like it. So I thought to help you buy it. Don’t you think this is so much like making your girlfriend happy?”

“I ……” Shen Lin’s face suddenly burnt up. The redness of his face can be felt in the warm yellow street light. He was nervous and scared. He was a bit embarrassed at heart as he felt sweet because of Fu Xueyan’s words. He wanted to thank Fu Xueyan confidently, but he felt a bit guilty.

Fu Xueyan looked at him and helplessly tapped on his head lightly, “You ah. Just tell me if you want anything in the future.  You have to talk to me. Like ‘Hey, Fu Xueyan, did you see that cup? I think it’s pretty good. How about we buy ten of them?’ “

***

Shen Lin was confused during these two days. He received a gift from Fu Xueyan for the first time. So he will take it out every day to look at it. He only sobered up when he received a phone call from Xiang Fei on Saturday night. It seemed like he had missed something important. He asked somewhat dumbfounded, “Mountain climbing? When did you say that?”

“When we had dinner that day.”

“How did I not know about it?……”

“Because you were absent-minded the whole time. Get up early tomorrow, I will go there with Zhang Ziyi to pick you up!”

That day they went out to have the meal, he really was a bit distracted. He had put all his attention on the dishes that Fu Xueyan placed on his plate. Shen Lin rushed to pack stuff after putting down his phone. But all of a sudden, he forgot he needed to pack for mountaineering.

Early in the morning the next day, he went to the meeting place that they agreed upon. The gate to the scenic area was closed and the sky was still dark. He looked at the time and it seemed like he came there a bit too early.

At about 5:30, Fu Xueyan came along with some of his colleagues. He wore a set of neat climbing clothes. He had dressed quite professionally.

He saw Shen Lin standing alone at the side, so he rushed to him, “Are you alone? Where are Xiang Fei and the others?”

Right after the words came out, Xiang Fei ran all the way from a distance and pounced on top of Shen Lin. Then he rubbed his head with a grin, “Didn’t I tell you yesterday that I will come along with Zhang Ziyi to pick you up! You came so fast! Now tell me! When did you get here?”

As Shen Lin saw Fu Xueyan standing there with a smile on his face, he couldn’t help dodging Xiang Fei’s hands with a blush “Just a little bit earlier than you guys.”

Fu Xueyan saw that Xiang Fei was still trying to get his claws on Shen Lin’s head. So he hurriedly tried helping Shen Lin, “Let’s use this time to go up. What if we can get a chance to watch the sunrise from there too?”

Xiang Fei profoundly swept a glance at that group of those white-collar workers, ” The sun will rise before we get there.”

Hearing this, several people began going up the mountain already. Fu Xueyan wanted to go with Shen Lin, but he could not leave behind his colleagues. He looked at Shen Lin who was walking in front with a backpack on his back. He wanted to call out to him, but Shen Lin walked away really fast.

After walking for a while they stopped in between to take a rest. Halfway through the climb, most of the people were already tired and panting. Fu Xueyan was slightly better than them as he was quite good at sports during his school days. But when he left the campus as he got busy with his internship, he simply did not get any time to practice sports anymore. He looked up again to find that Shen Lin’s figure was nowhere to be seen as he had already reached far up above. He started regretting it a bit. He wanted to play cool in front of the little fool. But it seems like he has to wait until the next time.

Just after a while, they saw the sun slowly rise. Xiang Fei turned his head to look at them, “Didn’t I tell you that it will be useless. But it’s okay, we can still go up there. It is cool up there now. But ain’t good boy going up a bit too fast?”

Zhang Ziyi held his hand and replied, “He always had a good stamina.”

Halfway up the climb, several people had sat down again to take a rest, Fu Xueyan wanted to look for Shen Lin. So he called out to his colleagues, “You guys rest for a while. I’ll wait for you guys up there.”

Xiang Fei and Zhang Ziyi also followed them and sat down to rest for a while. He looked at the figure of Fu Xueyan who was going up the mountain alone and whispered to Zhang Ziyi, “Fu Xueyan is really interested in a good boy?”

“Perhaps.”

Fu Xueyan walked up slowly as he was also feeling tired. Just after a few steps, he could vaguely see the top of the mountain. He could get to the top by making a little bit of effort. 

When he reached up to a corner of the hill, he suddenly heard a rush of footsteps. He looked up at the narrow mountain road and decided to stand aside to avoid any collisions. When Fu Xueyan found a place to stand, he saw Shen Lin running over while panting. There was a layer of thin sweat on the corners of his forehead. He froze after seeing the people below. Fu Xueyan saw his silly look. He raised his hand to help him wipe the sweat on his forehead, “Why did you come back down? “

 Shen Lin did not expect to see Fu Xueyan here, he cheered himself over and over again on the mountain before deciding to come over. He thought for a while and stammered, “I …… I …… I feared ……”

Fu Xueyan thought that something had happened so he instantly became nervous, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Lin calmed down his breathing. Even though his eyes looked firm his tone contained a bit of nervousness, “I …… I feared that you wouldn’t be able to make it up to the mountain on time …… So I helped you shoot the sunrise ……”

***

When Fu Xueyan was returning from the mountain, he had forwarded the video of the sunrise that Shen Lin had helped him shoot to his own phone. He loafed on the job in his office for a while and then watched the video a few more times. His mood was a bit complicated.

When he first met Shen Lin, he thought that he was very cute. And then he slowly found that Shen Lin would blush on seeing him and that he would occasionally stammer too. He felt that Shen Lin might like him. He had a lot of admirers since he was a child. He will date someone if he is comfortable with that person. But on that day when Shen Lin stood with his back to the light, with the gentle light covering him, he felt a bit dizzy from the glow. Can he fall head over heels for him within just a month? Fu Xueyan wasn’t a fool. The strong liking in his eyes couldn’t be concealed.

Fu Xueyan admits that he had good feelings for Shen Lin, but these feelings were negligible when compared with Shen Lin’s strong liking. Fu Xueyan was a realistic person and didn’t care if both people have the same amount of feelings for each other. If you like me, I like you too.

When he first saw his glance, it was like he was giving him his whole world. When he saw such an overflow of emotions, for a while he didn’t know how to face it.

Before even when he was busy at work he would find time to send a message to Shen Lin, but even after having two free days, he still hasn’t messaged Shen Lin. Liu Zhi walked in with a letter in his hand, and waved it twice in front of his eyes, “Fu Xueyan?”

Fu Xueyan heard the voice and looked up: “What?”

“What are you doing? I saw that you were in a daze when I came in.”

“Ah, nothing.”

“Here is your letter.”

Fu Xueyan thanked him and opened it in front of Liu Zhi. It was an invitation letter inside.

Liu Zhi swept a glance at it, “An invitation to the twentieth year school celebration of Sanqing Middle School? You are really invited to all the school celebrations from everywhere.”

Fu Xueyan laughed and teased himself: “I can’t help the dazzling.”

Shen Lin has been suffering during these two days. It has been two days since he lost contact with Fu Xueyan, starting from when he came down from the mountain top. Was I a bit too obvious? Did he expose his true feelings for Fu Xueyan? But when Fu Xueyan said he wanted to see the sunrise, he only wanted to take the picture of the sunrise and show it to him. 

Did he overdo it? Or was it because of his nasty thoughts being discovered?

He just wants to make Fu Xueyan happy, was expecting this too much?

Fu Xueyan did not contact him even after waiting for one more day. He hovered his fingers over Fu Xuyan’s name for a long time, but he did not press it at the end. 

He closed the store at around 7 pm and walked back alone, but somehow he reached the night market where the two of them had walked together before. He was walking aimlessly. He stopped in front of a wandering artist, who was singing a really sad song with his guitar. Shen Lin stood there quietly and listened to him sing, he suddenly thought of Fu Xueyan who was in his student days. 

 Fu Xueyan was a really outstanding person. He played basketball very well, was good at sprinting, sang well, and his guitar playing was also very good.

The first time he heard Fu Xueyan sing was on the stage of the school’s anniversary celebration. Fu Xueyan came to the stage with his guitar in hand. The whole auditorium cheering was enough *to overturn the rooftop and he was also there in the crowd. Hearing him strum the strings, he felt as if he was strumming his heartstrings. He looked up at Fu Xueyan, who was naturally blocked out by everyone. He pretended that the song was sung just for him.

He looked at the wandering artist being dazed. While he stood there distracted, he unexpectedly saw Fu Xueyan coming over. He thought he was hallucinating and that it was really a nice one. He really missed him after three days of no contact. How did he get through those many years before? He didn’t dare to smile in front of Fu Xueyan, but he wanted to smile at this hallucination even if he would be treated as a fool.

As he calmly looked at the illusion of Fu Xueyan, the corners of his mouth slowly rose, but he felt sadder and sadder in his heart when he thought about his own nasty thoughts.

Tn

[1] Overturn rooftop: very loud.