Chapter 9 – Cruel

Edited by: umamin

“Qi Qianze……”

Fu An felt that today what he’d said the most, repeated the most, was Qi Qianze’s name. He thought a bit, and said: “There’s no reason, I just……”

Halfway through his sentence, he stopped.

Just. He didn’t know what he just.

“Fu An.”

Qi Qianze interrupted him once more, reaching out and placing his hand on Fu An’s shoulder. He turned Fu An so that they faced each other, and said: “You like me.”

Fu An’s face went completely blank for an instant, then he lowered his gaze, avoiding Qi Qianze’s eyes.

“If you say you don’t love me anymore, I won’t believe it.”

Qi Qianze’s voice sounded very certain. If Fu An had any excuses or hidden troubles, he would listen to them all, but there was not a single reason that he would accept.

Fu An had had his own judgments, and had also thought about it for a very long time. Since he’d carried this love for Qi Qianze for over ten years, it wasn’t that he’d just suddenly broken up with him out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason. He had necessarily agonized over it for a long time, and finally felt that this way was better. Only then did he do it.

Fu An quietly said: “I don’t have anything to explain.”

“You don’t need to explain,” Qi Qianze’s attitude towards him wasn’t dissatisfied, “I just want to know why.”

Fu An said: “Isn’t the why that you want to know my explanation? Qi Qianze, you’re really inconsistent.”

In Fu An’s view, Qi Qianze was just waiting for a convincing rejection. He didn’t want to be cast aside for no reason. This was exactly what Fu An needed to explain, because he needed to make his own breakup seem reasonable.

“Okay then, Fu An, I know now,” Qi Qianze released his wrist, said: “It was all your fault.”

This complaint was quite coquettish and cute, making Fu An smile in his heart. If their relationship wasn’t like it was now, Fu An actually still quite wanted to say, How are you so funny ah, but Qi Qianze’s next words weren’t cute at all. He said: “You can’t say it, because you regret it now.”

Qi Qianze didn’t know when he’d unexpectedly learned how to see people’s hearts clearly: “Fu An, it’s not that you’re unable to explain to me, it’s that you can’t explain it to yourself. You realized that you did the wrong thing, and you regret it.”

Fu An was hit where it hurt. Biting his lip, he wanted to refute it, but Qi Qianze pulled him by the wrist further inside the house. Qi Qianze didn’t pause for a single second, and pointed at anything he saw, piercing through Fu An: “This is the kitchen, you bought a lot of pretty bowls and chopsticks and little trinkets. You said that they would put you in a good mood when cooking, and that in the future you would have the mood to cook for me every day. This is the flower stand you bought, so that if mom came we could take care of her flowers, and there would be some things to do, so that even staying at home for a long time wouldn’t be boring. This is the library that we tidied up, when we studied we could sit together and use the same table, like when we did homework when we were young. And there’s also the bathroom, all your things for washing up or brushing teeth were all matching sets with mine, you used the blue one and I used the green one, because you liked green so you wanted me to see your favorite color every day. And there’s also the bedroom……”

Qi Qianze pushed open the door, pushed Fu An in, leaned on the doorframe himself, and said to Fu An: “They were all things you picked yourself. You had so many opinions on what to buy or what not to buy, what’s good looking and what’s good to use, it was all according to you.”

This person, Qi Qianze, didn’t care if he had to say many words or a few. He always was a stubborn person. When he didn’t need to talk he’d keep his mouth shut, but when he needed to explain at length, he would explain. If it wasn’t clear enough he’d just continue talking. When he was younger, whenever he worked on homework questions, it would be just like that. Fu An really liked studying with Qi Qianze precisely because if Qi Qianze didn’t understand a question, he would always ask about it, and would end up saying lots and lots of words to him.

 “Fu An, you’d thought about these things so hard, why did you suddenly abandon them?” Qi Qianze watched Fu An with an earnest expression, “It was because of me, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t good enough at expressing my feelings, I let you down?”

“Or was it……” The black in Qi Qianze’s eyes was very deep, but also seemed very pure. He said, “Or was it something else……” He felt that Fu An clearly still had feelings for him, and couldn’t fathom why he wanted to leave.

Fu An was unable to speak. He shook his head, and only after a long while did he quietly say that it wasn’t either of those things.

“Then it’s that you have no conscience.”

Qi Qianze came two steps forward, suddenly reached out and placed his hand on Fu An’s chest. Fu An wanted to avoid it, but he pressed Fu An’s shoulder and didn’t let him dodge. His palm felt the soft fabric of Fu An’s shirt, felt the warmth underneath it, then felt that inside Fu An’s chest was only a normal, steady heartbeat. 

“Fu An, it’s that you have no conscience!”

Fu An’s heartbeat seemed to begin to speed up, his face became tinged with a layer of light pink, but his expression wasn’t shy, and on the contrary was full of repressed tension. He didn’t try to dodge Qi Qianze again, nor did he push him away. He just stood there unmoving, with the same fierce tidal waves in his heart as Qi Qianze.

“Qi Qianze, it wasn’t like what you’re thinking.”

“Then what was it?” Qi Qianze said, “The only other reason I can think of, is that you didn’t want to be with me anymore, why didn’t you want to?”

When it was said like this, then what could have made Fu An no longer want to continue? If he’d still loved Qi Qianze for all these years, then breaking up should have been for Qi Qianze’s sake. There wouldn’t be any other reason.

Thinking of it like this, Qi Qianze seemed to have had a thought, and said: “Or……Fu An, or was it that you thought that you’d been with me for too long, you thought you tied me down?”

Fu An suddenly raised his head and jerked backwards–––the panicked, unmistakable movements of someone who’d been found out. 

Qi Qianze confirmed it, and he continued: “So it was like this.”

He let go of Fu An, and seemed coolly indifferent on the outside, but in his heart there was something slowly emerging. He looked straight at him, and said: “You regret it, right?”

Fu An couldn’t respond to this sentence.

Because what Qi Qianze said was true. He couldn’t deny it.

If Fu An felt that he’d tied Qi Qianze down and made him unable to live a normal life, then it wasn’t without reason. Fu An’s desire for control was strong. He really couldn’t bear for Qi Qianze to associate with anyone else. Additionally, ever since he was young he was very smart, so he looked down on others, and naturally wouldn’t like just anyone to get close to Qi Qianze.

But if things were left like this, it would really be like Qi Qianze was trapped inside a cage, he probably wouldn’t be happy.

Aside from that, it was already a given that, in life, Fu An was picky and germaphobic––even the color of the toilet seat was according to Fu An’s likes. Even if Qi Qianze didn’t mind these small things, he would still undoubtedly feel pressured and suffocated.

Fu An had thought a lot about these things, but he himself didn’t know how to change them, wasn’t willing to tell other people, and was even less willing to tell Qi Qianze. He felt that if he were to say it, Qi Qianze would just choose to leave him. From these seeds of doubt, Fu An had thought for the better half of a year, and slowly started considering whether to break up or not.

But in the beginning they were just thoughts, the likelihood that they’d be acted upon was very low.

However it was precisely during that time, that there was also a change in Qi Qianze.

Qi Qianze had figured out his own feelings.

Their achievements weren’t bad and their personalities were passable, so in the future finding work wouldn’t be a problem. With regards to daily life, the two didn’t have conflicts, because everything was according to Fu An. Qi Qianze considered Fu An’s aesthetic taste very good, appropriate in all senses, and felt that it didn’t need his interference, and was happy to let him take the lead. And they both liked each other. Their feelings also had no blemishes, the biggest problem was probably that Fu An tended to eat some vinegar1 is all.

When Qi Qianze was working on projects, he would always hang out with others. If Fu An saw it, Fu An would be quietly unhappy, and would, intentionally or unintentionally, list their faults.

But Qi Qianze thought this wasn’t a big deal, and that it could be dealt with slowly. He could accept everything about Fu An, and with Fu An change for the better together.

But feelings are bound to be unreasonable and contrary to human desires.

“I went to your classroom before and waited for you at the door,” Fu An suddenly said, “You were all discussing something.”

“It was all things that I couldn’t understand. I just thought, I also want to hear you explain these things to me sometime.” Because the Qi Qianze who was talking about something that he liked, would give off sparkles of light.

But, the end result from that obviously wouldn’t be good, because Fu An wouldn’t understand a thing. In the end they would go off topic, then Qi Qianze’s face would no longer have that self-confident expression.

No matter what, when facing Fu An, he wouldn’t have that expression.

Fu An again went to the classroom entrance to look a few times, and thought for a very long time. The more he thought the more he felt that it was wrong for him to be with Qi Qianze.

He had been a selfish child, stubbornly wanting to keep all that precious love for himself, but one day he suddenly grew up. Only then did he realize how foolish he was.

Because he went so far as to let that bright, sparkling jewel be buried under dust for his own ends, had let the person he loved the most be bound.

At that time Fu An, with his hands on the doorframe, face half hidden behind the door, thought in a trance–––

How cruel am I, how laughable.

A saying commonly used in Chinese webnovels, meaning to be jealous