"Are you buying anything? I'll go with you to look." Having gotten the book, Xia Zhixu was in a particularly good mood.

Song Yu shook his head, indicating that he didn't need to bring a gift back. But Xia Zhixu wouldn't believe him and insisted on dragging him around. In the back of the bookstore, they found a place that made handmade notebooks. Xia Zhixu went inside and refused to leave, spending two hours making a small inspiration journal, even hand-stitching the leather cover himself.

As for Song Yu, he made a sketchbook with a lead-gray leather cover. The owner said they could hand-carve letters or patterns on it. Song Yu hesitated for a moment before drawing a triangular piece of cheese with holes and carefully carving it on.

The two of them, whose brains were sharp enough to solve problems at lightning speed, became exceptionally clumsy when it came to handicrafts. They were never satisfied, and in the end, were almost late to meet up for the airport.

A nap later, the plane landed. They boarded the same bus they had taken on the way there. Song Yu hated flying and couldn't sleep well on planes, so he continued to sleep as soon as he got on the bus. The bus swayed as it moved, and with his headphones on, his senses were blurred.

The feeling of apprehension that comes with returning home gave rise to a dream. There were no specific images in the dream, only the faint sound of Yue Zhishi's voice coming through radio waves, relaying problems he knew how to solve but pretended he didn't. A girl in the back row pulled open the window curtain, and the light was blinding. The dark dream became clear, and Yue Zhishi was standing in the light not far away, just standing there.

In his hands, Song Yu held the sketchbook, the second of which he would probably never make in his life, and walked towards him.

At least in his dreams, he couldn't just stand still.

As they were nearing Jingjian High School, his surroundings suddenly became noisy, so much so that even the music in his headphones couldn't block it out. Song Yu frowned slightly and heard Xia Zhixu's voice.

"Class 4? What's wrong with Class 4?"

"I don't know if it's true either, but this post is written in a rather... sensational way, and it's all over QQ Zone now..."

Song Yu opened his eyes and saw that something was off with Xia Zhixu next to him. He was browsing a webpage on someone else's phone, but his hands were trembling slightly, and his brows were tightly furrowed.

"What's wrong with you? What are you looking at?"

Xia Zhixu didn't respond at all. Song Yu felt even more that something was wrong and took off his headphones. "Hey, what happened?"

After he spoke, Xia Zhixu reached out his other hand to grip the back of the seat in front of him, his eyes dazed. He blinked several times. Song Yu rarely saw him like this. No matter the situation, Xia Zhixu always exuded an unusually sunny disposition, but at this moment, he looked as if he was on the verge of collapse.

Song Yu saw the worried expression on the face of the boy in the seat behind Xia Zhixu; the phone was probably his. So, he turned his head to ask what had happened.

He was a junior from Jingjian. The boy was also a bit confused. "There's a post going viral in our school today, it's all over QQ. I just showed it to my senior. I don't know what happened either." Feeling uneasy, he leaned forward and patted Xia Zhixu's shoulder. "Senior, are you okay? What's wrong?"

A post?

Just as Song Yu was wondering, the bus stopped. The teacher in charge reminded the Jingjian students that they had arrived. Without even grabbing his bag, Xia Zhixu rushed off the bus under everyone's confused gazes.

"Xia Zhixu!" Song Yu grabbed the bag and followed him off. In that short amount of time, Xia Zhixu had already run through the school gates, but Song Yu was stopped outside.

"Excuse me, you're not wearing our school's uniform, are you?"

Song Yu stood outside the gate and called Xia Zhixu's name again, but he seemed not to hear at all, running desperately towards the academic building.

"Senior Song Yu." The junior who had been sitting behind Xia Zhixu hurried over. "Let me take the senior's bag back for him."

Lowering his head, Song Yu looked at Xia Zhixu's bag. It was heavy, containing the book he had been so eager to give and the handmade notebook. Yet he had even forgotten to take them with him.

The bus didn't wait for him. Song Yu stood alone at the entrance of Jingjian, lost in thought.

He thought of the post the junior had mentioned, so he took out his phone and tentatively opened the QQ Zone he almost never looked at. Many of his junior high classmates had gone to Jingjian for high school, so their two schools' social circles had a lot of overlap. He scrolled down, browsing quickly, until he saw a repost. Only then did his finger stop moving.

He was stunned for a second.

The title of the reposted article was as eye-catching as something from a tabloid. If he had seen it on a normal day, he would have scoffed at it. But the subject of the article just had to be Xu Qichen.

[Ambiguous Relationship Between Class 4, Year 3 Homeroom Teacher and Male Student. There's Photo Proof. Isn't the School Going to Do Anything?]

There was only one picture inside, hardly strong proof. It just showed Xu Qichen getting into a car, where a man who looked like their young male homeroom teacher was sitting. Other than that, it was all a list of various 'incriminating pieces of evidence' from the repost, such as special treatment, so-called abnormal after-school meetings, and even various awards obtained through improper means.

All the replies were reposted as well. Rumors were rampant, and everyone was eagerly discussing it, as if they had personally witnessed what they did, describing it in vivid detail.

Watching these people describe an aloof person like Xu Qichen as a ruthless character who induced an adult male to abuse his power for personal gain, Song Yu found it both absurd and real. He had a negative view of the world and wasn't too surprised by any bad possibilities.

Honors and achievements earned through talent could be distorted into the dirty products of illicit exchanges—an inevitable evil born from people's pursuit of sensationalism.

In the eyes of the audience, how could the truth ever be more important than the dramatic fates of others?

Though he considered himself indifferent, for a brief moment, Song Yu suddenly saw things from Xia Zhixu's perspective, reading those words and those harsh, mocking replies as if he were feeling it himself.

The students in the comments were all just gossiping bystanders. Few questioned whether the matter was true. The junior high classmate who had reposted it to his own Zone had only added a single sentence.

[Oh my god, a same-sex teacher-student relationship. So sensational, not even TV dramas would dare film this plot. This guy is finished.]

Staring at this sentence, Song Yu's emotions were complex. He felt as if he had been brutally peeled open, exposing the not-so-honorable heart within. Certain words in that sentence were replaced by those in his imagination, then transformed into a knife gleaming with a cold light, which gouged out this heart and threw it under the sun.

The bell for the last class of the afternoon rang, and students began to file out. Many were picking up takeout deliveries at the gate. Dressed in the uniform of another school, Song Yu stood out like an outsider.

He wanted to text Xia Zhixu to say something, but then he suddenly remembered that the poor guy had nothing left, not even a phone.

The traffic on the road was endless. Song Yu walked back to the roadside and hailed a taxi back to Peiya. The driver chatted enthusiastically the whole way, but Song Yu couldn't utter a single word. The driver felt a little awkward and ended the one-sided conversation. Song Yu paid, apologized before getting out, and after turning around, his steps faltered.

There weren't many people at the school gate. The junior high students, on their monthly holiday, had already left the school at noon. Only the Senior High Division students, kept in for an extra half-day of classes, remained. Yue Zhishi was wearing a cream-colored sweatshirt, sitting on a small stool in front of the newsstand outside the gate. His head was drooping as he looked down at a newly bought magazine.

He looked very focused. Song Yu knew Yue Zhishi was focused on everything he did.

But he had long forgotten that he was the one who had taught him this good habit.

From ten meters away, Song Yu watched him quietly, like a stranger. Sometimes, he wished he really were a stranger.

Perhaps it was telepathy, but as Yue Zhishi turned a page, he looked up and his gaze met Song Yu's, who was standing not far away.

"Brother Song Yu?" Yue Zhishi shot to his feet, a smile quickly spreading across his face. His hair, his expression, the clothes he wore, and even the way he ran towards Song Yu were all especially soft and joyous, like a puppy that had waited a very, very long time to see its owner. Every movement played in slow motion in Song Yu's mind, filled with endearing little details.

But at this moment, his mind was still filled with those harsh taunts, with violence glossed over by curiosity.

Standing in the wind, Song Yu hoped all those dark things would stay behind him, hoped Yue Zhishi would forever be in the light.

Running up to his brother, Yue Zhishi stopped, not even taking a breath before he spoke. "The bus from your training camp just stopped here. I thought you were back. I waited for a long time, but only one person got off. I asked the driver, and he said you got off early. I thought you weren't coming back to school."

'I thought you'd forgotten that I was going to pick you up.'

Song Yu could almost picture Yue Zhishi waiting by the bus door, peering inside. The corners of his mouth twitched. "And you still waited."

Yue Zhishi smiled at him. "I had a feeling you'd still come. Besides..."

His eyelashes lowered, and his face revealed a harmless, protectiveness-inspiring innocence. "You told me to wait for you right here."

After saying it, Yue Zhishi inexplicably felt that the words sounded a bit strange. He scratched his hair. "I mean, if I went to look for you... I wouldn't know where you are, and if I sent you a WeChat message, you..."

"Lele."

Song Yu interrupted him, using a nickname he had almost never heard since they grew up.

Yue Zhishi froze, looking at him blankly. "Hm?"

"I'm so tired." His voice was a little hoarse, and he exuded a sense of vulnerability that was completely incongruous with him, making Yue Zhishi both puzzled and sad. In all these years, he had never seen Song Yu so directly display his unease and negative emotions.

When he was little, Yue Zhishi felt that his heart was actually growing inside Song Yu. When Song Yu hurt his knee playing soccer and it bled a lot, he had no expression as he treated the wound. The only one who cried was Yue Zhishi.

Outside Peiya's empty school gate were lush plane trees, lining both sides of the street, so dense they seemed to devour the blue sky. A magnolia blossom fell silently to the earth. A huge, roaring truck drove past them from behind, carrying a cargo that was about to exceed its load limit.

The ground was vibrating.

Yue Zhishi took a step forward and hugged Song Yu.

He rested his chin on Song Yu's shoulder, pressed his soft palm against his back, and slowly stroked it up and down. "Brother, lean on me."

"Let me recharge you, okay?"

The author has something to say:

ps: The side couple doesn't have a bad ending; they get together a few years later. Their occasional appearances later are to stimulate the brother's emotional changes, not much more. This pair isn't actually that angsty; the most angsty part was witnessed by Song Yu

Let me say it again, the emotional development between Song Yu and Lele doesn't have major tragedy (like the broken relationship some readers are imagining), but there will inevitably be some minor bumps. This event is a stimulus for the older brother and has an impact on him.

The Allergen couple can be considered an age-gap, non-blood-related sibling romance. It's impossible for them to have an epiphany, confirm their relationship, and get married without any burden. There have to be some emotional changes and struggles in between (this is true for all my books), but there really isn't any major tragedy like a 'breakup and reconciliation' plot. (However, I do have plans to write a breakup-and-reconciliation story in the future, I already have the character concepts x)