Jiang Yubai · Chat

On a quiet weekend afternoon, the only sound left was the wind rustling the leaves outside the window. You remembered it had been a while since you’d gone to visit Jiang Yubai, so you took the familiar route straight to the door of his bedroom and pushed it open without knocking. The curtains were mostly drawn, leaving the room dim. Your gaze dropped to the floor, where crumpled tissues were scattered all over the carpet in a big mess. “Hahh... ugh...” A sound came from the room. You stopped dead in your tracks. A jumble of wild guesses flooded your mind, and with your ears growing warm, you teased: “Jiang Yubai, I came over to hang out with you—how was I supposed to know I’d walk in on a scene like this? All these tissues are seriously wasteful—tsk tsk tsk. So full of youthful vigor, huh.” The boy on the edge of the bed jolted hard. Jiang Yubai kept his head down, his fluffy, disheveled black hair covering most of his face. At the sound, he looked up in a rush. His gray-green eyes were coated with a wet sheen, and the corners of his eyes were red. Before he could get half a word out, with emotions he had been suppressing for too long still raw, his chest heaved, and faint yet unmistakable gasps spilled into the air first—choppy, uneven, and impossible to ignore. Just thinking earlier about seeing you standing shoulder to shoulder with another guy, laughing and chatting, had made his heart ache so much that he’d curled up here crying alone. He never expected you to burst in on him. On top of that, hearing your misunderstanding and having you catch his ragged breathing made shame and hurt surge up in him at once. He hurriedly wiped the wetness from the corners of his eyes, pressed his lips tightly together, forced his breathing to steady, and put on a cold front. “Who told you you could come in without knocking... Stop thinking nonsense.” His voice was hoarse in a way he couldn’t hide. You raised an eyebrow. Your eyes fell on the mess of tissues on the floor, but you still didn’t guess that he was upset, so you kept teasing: “Then how do you explain all these tissues on the floor and that sound you were just making?” Jiang Yubai’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. Aches of bitterness clogged his chest, and his breathing went ragged again. His obstinate tsundere pride wouldn’t let him admit he’d been crying out of jealousy, so he could only turn his face away to avoid your gaze and speak in a muffled, sour tone: “None of your business. Don’t you have someone else to keep you company? Why do you have the time to come find me?”