Time Has Grown Dim, And Evening Has Already Fallen - Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Cheng Xun found him annoying; seeing him lingering without any intention of leaving, he tried to shoo him away.

“Go home once you’re done eating. You’re scaring away all the customers.”

“?” Xie Qiubai cried out in protest, “How is it my fault that business is slow at your bakery?”

Cheng Xun knew well that the lady boss wasn’t short on money. She had opened this shop purely to fulfill a dream from her youth. As for why she hired him, in her words, it was because he was “easy on the eyes.”

Business in the shop came in waves. Hiring a handsome young guy helped attract girls to buy milk tea and cakes.

Xie Qiubai checked his watch, looked at the sky outside, and gave Cheng Xun a cheeky grin. “You’re off work soon. How about I treat you to dinner tonight?”

Cheng Xun wanted to say “no thanks,” but thinking about the awkward atmosphere at home lately due to the situation between him and Lu Xingshu, he nodded.

However, after changing clothes and locking the shop door, he changed his mind.

“Let’s go to your family’s internet cafe,” Cheng Xun said suddenly.

“What’s so great about that old place?” Xie Qiubai scratched his hair. “I just bought a new game. Let’s go to my room.”

Cheng Xun: “Sure.”

Xie Qiubai’s home was on the second floor above the internet cafe. When they were kids, Cheng Xun thought the place was decorated beautifully. Now, years later, the equipment was dated and the building looked quite aged.

But his father had caught the right wind; he’d made a fortune in the early days of internet cafes. Recently, he’d been planning to renovate the first floor and turn it into a more modern “e-sports lounge” that served milk tea and snacks.

Cheng Xun originally intended to just buy instant noodles at the counter for dinner, but Xie Qiubai had already ordered takeout. While Xie was having the time of his life playing on his new PC, Cheng Xun sat at the second-hand computer, aimlessly browsing the web.

The takeout was Malatang. When Xie Qiubai brought it up, he looked like a starving ghost.

While eating his noodles, Cheng Xun suddenly asked, “Xie Qiubai, let me ask you something.”

Xie Qiubai, preoccupied with his hunger, replied absentmindedly, “Ask away.”

“What do you think of… being gay?”

“Cough, cough, cough—!” Xie Qiubai thumping his chest, feeling like he was about to choke to death. “I don’t really have an opinion. I’m ‘straight as an arrow’ myself, that’s all.”

Cheng Xun felt that asking his degenerate best friend was a waste of time. He poked at a meatball in his bowl listlessly, looking like he’d lost his appetite.

“Why are you always asking me these things lately? Last time it was about being kissed by a guy, now it’s about being gay…” Xie Qiubai hissed as he bit into something spicy, his expression turning odd. “You’re acting sus!”

“The English teacher just showed us a movie about it. We have to write a reflection,” Cheng Xun lied through his teeth, coming up with a lame excuse. “I’m struggling with it, so I wanted to know what people around me think.”

Could an excuse get any lamer? Probably not.

Unfortunately, Xie Qiubai was truly simple-minded. He looked enlightened. “Oh, I see.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Classes get reshuffled in senior year; you won’t even know which teacher you’ll get. Don’t sweat it,” he laughed.

After dinner, Cheng Xun put on a movie—the kind of genre he’d just mentioned to Xie Qiubai. Xie wasn’t interested at first, but having finished his game and feeling bored, he rolled his swivel chair over.

The movie featured fresh cinematography and a somewhat melodramatic plot, ending in a crushing “Bad Ending.” Even though it was just a movie, Cheng Xun felt a sense of melancholy.

“As expected, there’s no happy ending,” Cheng Xun murmured.

Xie Qiubai blurted out without thinking, “It’s just a movie. And it’s not the same era as the movie anymore. We’re the only ones around here who treat this like some big secret. I see online that big cities are pretty inclusive.”

S-City was a “new first-tier” city, home to the century-old S-University and many prestigious colleges. But C-County, where they lived, was just a fringe suburb absorbed by S-City long ago—and their neighborhood was even far from the county center.

Xie Qiubai spent a lot of time online and knew more about the world than Cheng Xun, including being more open to new information. He told Cheng Xun that men marrying men was already legal in some places. Cheng Xun wouldn’t have believed it if the search results hadn’t shown the regulations clearly.

“No matter how good or inclusive big cities are, it doesn’t matter. Our place is just like this,” Cheng Xun thought for a moment and added, “Poor and broken.”

“And narrow-minded and small,” Xie Qiubai finished for him. “That’s just how it is here. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have only one KFC in the whole county center and no McDonald’s!”

“But word is they’re opening a second one soon, not far from here. I’ll treat you all to delivery when it opens,” Xie Qiubai said with a greedy look, appearing quite foolish despite his handsome face.

“No thanks,” Cheng Xun rolled his eyes. “The fried chicken I make is delicious, too.”

“What’s the point of telling me that? I can’t eat it anyway. It’s Lu Xingshu who gets all the benefits,” Xie Qiubai grumbled.

Seeing him mention Lu Xingshu again, Cheng Xun ignored him.

“You asked for my opinion earlier. Anyway, if a friend of mine came out… I don’t mean just some random acquaintance… I wouldn’t look at them differently,” Xie Qiubai said casually, cracking open a Coke. He drained it and let out a satisfied burp. “If they’re a friend, I’d support them unconditionally.”

Cheng Xun was surprised to hear him sound so serious, but the gravity lasted less than three seconds.

“That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about them stealing the pretty girls from me.”

Cheng Xun: “…Plenty of girls like you, but you never agree to go out with them. You just talk.”

“I believe in love at first sight. If there’s no feeling, there’s no feeling. I won’t settle.”

Cheng Xun said speechlessly, “Get lost.”

It was late when Cheng Xun returned. The light in the family shop was still on. Walking in, he found Lu Xingshu watching the shop.

He pursed his lips and gave a stiff greeting: “Why aren’t you asleep yet? It’s late.”

Lu Xingshu looked over, his voice cold and clear. “Not sleepy.”

“Oh.” Cheng Xun couldn’t meet his eyes, feeling a sense of guilt. “I’m going to shower then.”

Lu Xingshu replied softly, “Mm.”

Cheng Xun ran off so fast he might not have even heard it.

Lu Xingshu sat behind the counter, leaning his face on his hand, absentmindedly watching the TV. On the screen, a female lead was gathering her courage to confess to her crush, only to be ruthlessly rejected. Lu Xingshu turned off the TV with a cold expression.

Cheng Xun quickly showered, dried his hair, and lay in bed contemplating life. Being on the top bunk, he was close to the ceiling, which gave him a strange sense of being squeezed. He had earplugs in, playing soft instrumental music to help him sleep. He’d been struggling with insomnia lately.

He had taken Xie Qiubai’s words to heart. Big cities were inclusive and diverse; everything seemed better there. Lu Xingshu had come from S-City to this small county, where he was inherently out of place.

S-University, S-City, S-City Normal University…

These names swirled in his head until he finally fell asleep. If what they were facing wasn’t the chaotic storm of senior year, but rather a settled university life, Cheng Xun felt he might have said “yes” to Lu Xingshu.

But not now. Not like this.

The persistent awkwardness and the accidental distance—even the way two boys interacted now felt filled with unspoken thoughts.

Throughout the summer break, Cheng Xun worked hard at his job and worked even harder to maintain the peace between them. He tried his best… to stop noticing, to stop stealing glances at Lu Xingshu.

It wasn’t intentional; it was an unspeakable awareness.

He would notice the sliver of lean, pale waist exposed when Lu Xingshu was changing. He would notice the way Lu Xingshu pensively twirled his pen and the shape of his long fingers while studying. He would notice those impossibly long legs and the baffling height difference between them…

Cheng Xun realized how strange this fixation was, which made him suppress the urge to look even more. It was normal for adolescent high school boys to have impulses. They might look at suggestive things to stimulate fantasies and find release.

But what if the subject of those fantasies became a boy? And what if that boy was someone who had confessed to you, and whom you had rejected?

Cheng Xun felt like he was going crazy. He was falling into a whirlpool of “straight, yet bending” misery.