With You Ch 35

Chapter 35: I’ll Just Worship, Adore,¹ You

No.192

Every afternoon, we’d go practice our songs for at least half a class period. Every day, as we sang the same two songs, Yu Huai very quickly became uneasy. The day of the competition was drawing near. He was working harder and harder to the point I kind of didn’t dare talk to him. In our most recent rehearsals, he’d sneak quietly out the door holding his notebook, only returning once class ended.

I forgot to say that Yu Huai borrowed Senior Sheng Huainan’s notebook again. I willingly took up doing Yu Huai’s cleaning work, because he said that if I behaved well, he’d let me return it.

In the beginning I thought that there wouldn’t be anyone who’d notice Yu Huai skipping out on rehearsal, because every time we rehearsed, the room inevitably got all chaotic, let alone that we sat in the very last row. But Wen Xiaoxiao discovered it very quickly.

“Where’s Yu Huai?”

Wen Xiaoxiao didn’t begin an interrogation during rehearsal in front of everyone’s faces. Rather, she quietly ran in front of my desk after it finished.

Wen Xiaoxiao was really invested in the competition. I was Yu Huai’s replacement for several class committee meetings, during which everyone’s whimsical suggestions and distracted-all-the-way-to-South Street chatter were, in the end, thrown to Wen Xiaoxiao to deal with. She took responsibility for all of them. She even asked her dad to help contact a certain small retail manufacturing company. The company just happened have a template for May Fourth youth suits, so with her dad’s face in mind, they agreed to use “pretty bad materials” to take on our small job.

So I was very ashamed when facing a literature and arts representative like this. Speaking selfishly, I could understand Yu Huai. It was true that this kind of boring group activity wouldn’t be affected at all if there were one or two people missing, and he was busy with a big event coming up in the future; but looking at it reasonably, his way of doing things wasn’t that great.

If our reason for sitting in this classroom was just to test into college, then why have Wen Xiaoxiao sacrifice her own time like this for the sake of other people?

I was agape.

“He seems to be very busy recently… but he can sing really well. Every time we rehearse, he’s really serious. He really had something to do these two times… When we start officially lining up to rehearse our singing, he definitely won’t be absent!”

Wen Xiaoxiao adjusted her glasses, nodded, and left with a trusting smile aimed at me.

I looked at her back with some guilt and let out a breath. Wen Xiaoxiao was like a girl living in the Republic of China. While it wasn’t like she was a great beauty, her eyebrows were delicate and her voice was gentle. Every time before she spoke, she shyly adjusted her glasses. When she was guiding everyone during rehearsal, she even needed Xu Yanliang at the side to use an iron-lunged lion roar and shake the entire place. Maybe it was because she was too gentle that I dared to use a lot of aggressive excuses to dodge her.

I looked away and accidentally caught a glimpse of Zhu Yao in the row in front, throwing out a look full of mockery.

A kind of idea suddenly hit me.

They weren’t similar to each other on the outside, but maybe there wasn’t any difference at all between Yu Huai and Zhu Yao when it came to their characters. It was only a question of how deep it was.

Both of them wouldn’t do useless things.

Unconsciously continuing to look, I got my water bottle and stood up to go out of the classroom. At this time, I received a text from Yu Huai.

“Help me bring two fountain pens to the top floor of the admin wing.”

No.193

In order to make it easier for students to go to an office and ask their questions, all of the teaching offices were in the teaching wings of Year 1 to Year 3. As a result, the only few offices left in the admin wing were those of the principal, the Youth League, Academic Affairs, so on. Most of the ones above the third floor were practically empty.

I climbed up to the fifth floor and saw Yu Huai sitting on the steps. He had his pad of calculation papers on his right leg, anxiously calculating something.

“The pens you wanted.” I stood several steps below, hand stretched out to give them to him.

“Well, put them next to me.” He didn’t even raise his head. “The one in my hand won’t write anymore, thanks.”

“What if I wasn’t willing to help you bring them just now? Why did you think I’d definitely run an errand to help you?” I wasn’t angry at all, just very curious, so my voice as I asked was calm.

He didn’t respond, nor was I anxious for him to. I quietly waited for him to finish calculating the very last bit. After Yu Huai wrote down the answer, he pulled out a piece of paper from the pile of them scattered around him and checked his answer. Then he revealed a relieved smile.

“I didn’t think of it.” At this he put down the fountain pen in his hand and looked at me. “I didn’t think that you’d be unwilling to help me bring it… would you?”

I didn’t know how to respond. In truth, it was only when I’d already got the fountain pens and was halfway there that I realized this issue as well.

“Why haven’t you returned to class?” I changed the subject.

“It’s really smelly in the class. It’s been too long since the windows have been opened and the heating is too hot. Also, it’s really noisy.”

“Are you avoiding rehearsal?”

He nodded. “I think there’s no meaning to practicing so many times.”

“But this is a group activity.” I looked at him. “This isn’t fair to Xu Yanliang and Wen Xiaoxiao and the rest. And, I have to thicken my skin and help give an explanation for you.”

“If I didn’t need to prepare for the competition right now, then I’d hold back my impatience and go participate seriously. There are different levels of priorities. You can’t force me.” Yu Huai looked straight at me without a bit of guilt.

I moved my lips. Deep within, I also knew that I didn’t have any grounds or reasons to criticize him. So I could only sit down next to him in dejection. 

“You don’t need to be this nervous for the this competition. Didn’t Zhu Yao say so? It’s really hard for Year 1s to qualify for recommendations through it, so in that case, why not face the battle relaxed? You’d be sure to make a profit without losing anything.”

Yu Huai loosened out of the state he’d been in just now, which had been with a little bit of guardedness and anger.

“If I don’t test well, I won’t walk on this road anymore. So my results this time are really important.”

“Huh?”

“The competition really uses up all of my energy. I’m not a genius, I’m not on the same level as Lin Yang, Sheng Huainan, the rest. And while Lin Yang has always encouraged me, I know very clearly in my heart my own capabilities.”

Yu Huai put his chin in his hand. His gaze had already passed the wall across from us toward somewhere unknown, far from here. 

When it comes to these words, if it were back when we’d first entered school, maybe the reverent and awe-struck me would’ve reacted even fiercer than Zhu Yao. You dare say something like this while looking at college textbooks every day? Trying to make me die? But day after day, I saw every type of bird while sitting here in class at my desk, in this forest besieged at Zhenhua. I matured quite a lot, too. One of the signs of this was that I no longer used my own standards of a warm and well-fed life to measure whether or not other people should be content.

The same uniform, a different leaping heart.

Not to mention that the other person was Yu Huai, who I couldn’t understand at all.

Yu Huai continued on to say, “In middle school, my moods were all over the place because of the competition. It held up my high school entrance exams and my results weren’t that ideal. Fortunately, with the high school entrance exams I could still get into Zhenhua, though it was just an ordinary class. But what should I do about the college entrance exam? My English and Chinese literature aren’t good, and I don’t have so much confidence to give my attention to both sides like Lin Yang. I thought that I should probably make my decision a little earlier on.”

In the open top floor, every one of his words echoed slightly, tremoring in the air to surround me.

I suddenly realized that beginning from somewhen, I’d truly become friends with him. Even if he wouldn’t call me that. He never explained anything to me; I’d even forced it with Chen Xuejun. Every day, he worked on problems that I couldn’t understand, was busy with things I wasn’t clear about, was worried about confusions I had no way of sharing. It was only he who helped me, during the times he had remaining strength.

But now he was willing to talk to me. While I was regretting his dilemma, inwardly I started feeling a sincere happiness for this kind of trust and intimacy.  

Suddenly bold, I turned to say to him, “But you don’t want to give up, do you?”

“Huh?” He was extremely puzzled.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be that interested in the competition, since I’d know that if I studied properly there definitely wouldn’t be any major issues with the college entrance exam. So I’d have given up a long time ago. I think that as long as there’s even a sliver of the thought of giving up within a person’s heart, they’ll definitely give up. But you don’t have any.”

Yu Huai didn’t make a sound. He quietly listened to me. I didn’t know what he was thinking.

“So that’s why you’re studying this hard. You’re hoping to give yourself the confidence and justification to keep going. You must really like the physics competition, don’t you?”

“I like physics,” Yu Huai corrected.

“So work hard! I believe in you.”

He laughed, replying with a polite thanks for these encouraging words of mine.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not saying it casually, these aren’t beautiful words. I truly believe in you.”

Yu Huai stopped smiling.

“You probably think that I’m being so nosy for asking you why you won’t properly participate in rehearsal. Actually, it’s not that… that I thought you were selfish, it’s that I… I couldn’t accept it.”

“You couldn’t accept what?” He was even more curious.

Even I didn’t know how I could speak this many words that seemed to be quite fluent. Seeing how serious he was as he listened to me, my heart suddenly started to drum.

“I couldn’t accept that you aren’t a person who can do all things.”

I stared at my toes. I felt a large rock in my heart finally roll down the stairs with a rumble with these words.

No.194

In my heart, Yu Huai was probably once that kind of boy:

Laughing all the time, with many good brothers, with sharp opinions. Not minding anyone and not caring about them, but a warm-hearted person. He could test first place in our whole class while angering teachers with his responses during class and playing basketball arm-in-arms with his brothers after class. He was active in the middle of every activity, like nothing at all troubled him.

Even if Lin Yang was a Super Saiyan, even if Chu Tiankuo was first place in our grade, even if Sheng Huainan was so hot that I wanted to open my mouth for a casual confession… In my heart, Yu Huai was even more amazing than all of them.

Unreasonably amazing. Anyway, just amazing.

I had too many expectations for him. At one point, I even depended on the thought that as long as he sat next to me, I’d have a private tutor who could carry me up with him to a place we could get into a good university.

So that’s why I felt particularly complicated that he skipped chorus rehearsals to prepare for the competition.

Actually, I was the one who was wrong.

I told Yu Huai about my own sorts of unrealistic expectations and unreasonable blaming, despite the fact that next to me his face had already become as red as a tomato.

“You’re not wrong.” Yu Huai straightened his neck, but didn’t dare look at me. “You’re right, this Young Master is very amazing.”

I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. Yu Huai held it back before a while before laughing aloud in embarrassment, too.

“Hey, you won’t look down on me in the future, will you?” He laughed for a while, then pinched his eyebrows together to stare at me.

“Huh?”

“Geng Geng, remember that even if Classmate Yu Huai isn’t as great as you imagine he is, he’s still pretty great. He’s a lot more amazing than you are. You should keep on worshiping him.”

Seeing that he was looking completely serious, indescribable happiness overflowed from the bottom of my heart.

“Of course.” I seriously nodded.

I’ll just adore you.

No.195

Yu Huai was really efficient as he studied in the stairwell of the admin wing and I didn’t want to disturb him, so I went back to class for the final period of self-study. On the way, he entrusted me to pass Sheng Huainan’s other notebook along to Lin Yang.

On the way back, I suddenly felt that Zhenhua’s teaching buildings looked different. Every single floor tile, every single corner, became really intimate. It was like I had a somewhat greater understanding of them.

I was really happy.

No matter whether it was Yu Huai, or if it was this school, they were no longer faraway places in my vision that I could not chase down. We were in our own respective ranks, worried together and working hard together.

I went to the floor that Class 2 was on and reached out to stop a long-haired girl who was about to go out the door of their classroom. When I took a proper look, it turned out to be Ling Xiangqian. 

When her pair of beautiful phoenix eyes looked at me, even I as a girl was a bit nervous.

“Classmate, what’s up?” she asked with a slight smile.

“Uh, oh, can you help me call for Lin Yang?”

“Yeah, just hold on a bit.”

She turned to call out into the classroom. That sound of “Lin Yang, come out, there’s someone here for you!” revealed a true familiarity. It was completely different from what the malicious joking of the big sister who guarded the door while wiping down the glass felt like, the day I went to find Sheng Huainan.

After she called for him, she smiled at me then went off. Ling Xianqian was holding a book and wearing a baggy sports uniform just like me. Inside was a wine-red hoodie whose hood was turned inside-out; below she was dressed in a deep-gray pair of skate pants, the texture of which looked really good. She was wearing a pair of Nike sneakers. At first glance, it looked like a very casual student style, but somehow even if it was her back, it was even prettier than everyone in the hallway.

I lowered my head to look at myself.

Hair half-long, not short, a few strands always standing up, my daily hairstyle dependent on my sleeping posture from last night; a red wool sweater with a bear cub on the chest, jeans, and hiking shoes.

I thought that it wasn’t an issue of just the face.

Once more, I looked up at Ling Xiangqian’s back.

Even if you chopped off the heads both Ling Xiangqian and me and put them next to each other on the ground, everyone would definitely still be able to differentiate which one was a beautiful girl. Why on earth was that?

“Niece-in-law? Niece-in-law?”

Lin Yang appeared in the doorway with a snicker.

I quickly looked back and handed over the notebook. “Oh, this notebook. Yu Huai got me to help pass it to you.”

Lin Yang took it and thanked me. “That guy can really order people around. Hey, what were you just looking at?”

As he squinted his eyes as he looked down in the direction I’d just been looking at, I nervously looked along with him. I was afraid for my life that he’d discover the beautiful girl I’d been staring dead at — but every day may bring either fortune or calamity, and Ling Xiangqian hadn’t gone far at all. She was stopped around the back door of the class next door, offering the book she’d been holding to her chest to Chu Tiankuo.

“It’s not that I’m gossipy. As long as there’s a good-looking person, everyone wants to look a little more.” I rushed to explain myself.

“Ah.” Lin Yang let out a breath.

Yes. I sighed for Lin Yang in my heart, too.

Snatching your first place, snatching your class’s small ensemble, even snatching your class’s class flower. How truly immoral.

“Can I ask you a question?” Lin Yang suddenly spoke.

“Ask away!”

“If you have a good friend who likes someone, but you’ve always felt that in fact there won’t be a conclusion and they’ll also get hurt, should you advise them off of it or not?”

“You’re saying that Chu Tiankuo likes Ling Xiangqian but Ling Xiangqian doesn’t like him, but Chu Tiankuo won’t listen to anything anyone says so should you advise him or not? Or are you saying… that it’s the other way around?”

“No no, no, it’s not, you you— answer the question first.”

I didn’t even have to think to answer: “You don’t need to advise them.”

“Why?” Lin Yang tilted his head to look at me from a height.

“If I advised you to not go stalk Yu Zhouzhou, would you listen to me?”

Lin Yang’s face instantaneously turned blue-green. “Who are you saying is stalking… My situation is different…”

“Everyone thinks that their situations are different.”

Lin Yang didn’t say anything. Only after a long while did he smile and say, “Thank you, Geng Geng.”

No need for thanks. I waved my hand in farewell to him.

A heart that likes someone won’t listen to advice. Do you think that while I was suffering the cold treatment, I didn’t try to advise myself away?

No.196

Yu Huai only came back when school was just about to end. I said hello to him and that I was leaving first as soon as I packed up my things, and I was nearly at the school entrance by the time I remembered that I’d left the lock-lunchbox of fruits that Auntie Qi had given me this morning on my desk. I quickly ran back to get it. While going up the stairs, I looked up to see that Yu Huai was on his way down. He was only a little ways away from me.

Just as I was about to say hello, a girl chased Yu Huai from behind and grabbed him.

It was Wen Xiaoxiao.

I slowly made my way up against the flow of people with my head lowered. Because there were a lot of people going down the stairs, I walked particularly slowly.

I really didn’t do it on purpose, really.

When I slowly passed them, I heard Wen Xiaoxiao’s gentle smiling voice. It was serious yet nervous.

“I went to ask your deskmate where you went today, but it wasn’t that I’m trying to blame you. I don’t know what you heard, I just hope that you won’t misunderstand.”

Actually, I didn’t tell Yu Huai anything at all, Wen Xiaoxiao.

“I heard that you’re going to be busy with the competition, so you don’t need to participate in rehearsal. If I don’t say anything, there won’t be anyone who’ll notice. I’ve always thought that you’re especially hardworking, you… work hard. The competition is important. Yeah, work hard.”

I didn’t hear Yu Huai’s reply. Even if I walked even slower, right now I gradually wouldn’t be able to hear it.

The weights of Wen Xiaoxiao’s teenage-girl heart were drowned in the noisy sounds of the stairwell. I don’t know whether or not Yu Huai could hear it.

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^{1 This is a word with two different meanings in Chinese, 崇拜, “worship” and “adore”. I racked my brain trying to come up with a translation, but couldn’t find a single English word that encompassed both these meanings. Anyway, please remember this for later in the chapter.}

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I adore the Lin Yang glimpses we get! I really think it helps flesh out his character and we get to see a different side of him than Hello, Old Times.