I Treat You as a Brother

Fang Mo felt emotionally drained.

“But if you’re like this, Yang Lin will definitely not be happy,” he patiently continued to reason with Liu Xiaochang, “Do you really want to make him angry?”

“Of course not, I…” Liu Xiaochang spoke halfway when he was suddenly alert, “How do you know?”

“With how you were like just now, it would be strange if he’s not mad. Who would be happy…” Fang Mo wanted to continue to explain to him but was interrupted.

“Wait, you know Yang Lin? Did he tell you? I don’t think I mentioned it to you…” Liu Xiaochang was puzzled.

Fang Mo was suddenly embarrassed. Liu Xiaochang did not mention this, and his source of information was all based on his eavesdropping. Even if it wasn’t intentional, it would still be hard to tell him this. 

After a brief moment of thought, he decided to avoid the important details and dwell on the trivial: “He’s Xu Xiran’s xuedi. We had dinner together before, so that’s how we know each other. I saw you two together a few days ago, so I just assumed.”

Liu Xiaochang nodded thoughtfully, then slightly frowned, and asked, “He knows Xu Xiran?”

Not only did he know him, but he even pursued him before. This sort of truth, even if it was already in the past, could still be a point of suspicion that could destroy their relationship. Fang Mo was now positioning himself as an emotional mentor, so he couldn’t become more of a hindrance than a help.

He tried to bring the topic back: “That’s not important; the key thing is what you said just now would 100% make him unhappy. But I’m sure your intention was not to make him mad, right?”

“…How do you know he’s mad?” Liu Xiaochang asked.

“Are you kidding,” Fang Mo thought, If it was me, I would be furious. “He told you he wasn’t mad, right? If he said he wasn’t mad, are you really just going to believe him?”

“To be honest, I also feel like he’s trying to be difficult,” Fang Mo couldn’t tell from Liu Xiaochang’s expression whether he felt guilty or wronged, “but I don’t know how to persuade him. It’s not like I don’t want to accompany him. Aren’t my actions more important than my words? And if he won’t admit he’s mad, what else can I do?”

“I can’t talk to you anymore,” Fang Mo lay back down, “You go and do what you want, infuriate him, I don’t care. When you two break up, I’ll help you celebrate.”

He should’ve known a while ago that this person’s brain circuits were not normal.

“…” Liu Xiaochang refused to leave, and looked at Fang Mo with a troubled expression, “What did I do now?”

Fang Mo sighed and stood up again: “I suddenly thought of something. Answer me honestly.”

Liu Xiaochang nodded: “What?”

“Back then, why did you eavesdrop on my calls?” Fang Mo asked.

Liu Xiaochang thought for a while before finally remembering: “Didn’t I say on that day, that you acted as if there was no one in the dormitory, and I was embarrassed to come out? But after waiting for a long time, I realized that I couldn’t go on like that…”

At this point, Fang Mo finally realized that this seemingly unreasonable explanation was actually the truth. Liu Xiaochang’s brain really had a hole in it, and most people would not be able to understand his logic.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “But you seemed so composed at the time, you didn’t look embarrassed at all?”

Hearing this, Liu Xiaochang cleared his throat and adjusted his expression: “Is that so?”

He had an indifferent expression, with a hint of a smile on his lips, and his gaze aloof. This calm and unperturbed look that made him want to beat him up was a look Fang Mo was familiar with.

Fang Mo hesitated for a while, then asked, “Do you think you look more handsome like this?”

Liu Xiaochang maintained this appearance and shrugged at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. A few months ago, Fang Mo would feel enraged whenever he saw him like this, but at this moment, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Are you sick or something?” Fang Mo said, “Are you tired of being this pretentious all the time?”

Liu Xiaochang immediately relaxed and smiled at him: “It’s okay, I’m used to it. Don’t you think it makes me look more like a 1?”

Fang Mo thought to himself, no, you look like a shameless, delicate 0 begging for a beating.

“I remember,” he coughed, and changed the subject again, “when I first entered this dorm, you even hit on me, you were so frivolous. Were you also putting on an act?”

Liu Xiaochang scratched his hair and no longer looked at him as he spoke: “We’re on good terms now, so I’ll be honest with you, don’t get mad, okay?”

Fang Mo thought to himself, so it turns out he already thinks he’s on “good terms” with me. The human mind is strange. Originally, there had been some distance between them, but hearing the unintentional expression of true feelings from the other person suddenly made him feel a sense of closeness. Fang Mo also began to feel that their current relationship was indeed quite good.

“At that time, I thought… Someone like you would definitely not be interested in me. Since I wouldn’t be able to get with you, I might as well take advantage of my verbal usage.”

“……”

“I’d be disliked at worst, and since I wouldn’t be liked by you anyway, I had nothing to lose.”

Fang Mo frowned: “Is that the reason why you touched Xu Xiran’s butt?”

Liu Xiaochang was taken aback for a moment, and then moved back with his stool: “I was wrong! It won’t happen again!”

Fang Mo did not mention this because he wanted to settle debts with him from past events.

“You seem to have something wrong with your mindset don’t you?” He said to Liu Xiaochang.

Liu Xiaochang didn’t say a word.

There was a second half of the sentence that Fang Mo didn’t say out loud. He felt that Liu Xiaochang probably had some self-esteem issues, or perhaps much more than just a little. Because of his lack of self-confidence, he bluffed in strange places to try to gain psychological balance.

Fang Mo sighed: “It’s unnecessary, really unnecessary. You see, like this, we can at least be friends now, right?”

Liu Xiaochang smiled at him but still didn’t say a word.

“And besides… don’t you have someone now?” Fang Mo said, “You have someone who likes you. You have to cherish that, you know?”

Liu Xiaochang lowered his eyes and nodded: “That’s why I really don’t want to make him unhappy, I want to get along well with him.”

“Just thinking about it is not enough, you have to take action,” Fang Mo said, “If you want to make him happy, tell him the things I taught you earlier, I guarantee he’ll like it.”

Liu Xiaochang’s face showed a look of embarrassment.

“When you hit on me back then, you were very smooth. Were you not embarrassed at the time?”

“How is that the same, I treated you…” Liu Xiaochang stopped halfway, unable to continue.

Implicitly, he meant that back then, it was easy to talk nonsense because he wasn’t serious, but now that he genuinely cared, he couldn’t find the right words.

“I really give up,” Fang Mo sighed, “If you can’t say it out loud, you can at least send a message, right?”

~

Liu Xiaochang held his phone for a while to type, delete, and rewrite, while stopping to think from time to time, with a serious and concentrated expression.

Fang Mo couldn’t help being curious: “What did you write?”

Liu Xiaochang didn’t want to show it to him, so he pressed the phone screen against his chest and retreated back to the bed, curled up in a corner with his legs crossed, and continued to type with his head down.

“I just want to help you check, okay?” Fang Mo made an excuse for his curiosity, “What if you make him mad again with your nonsense?”

Liu Xiaochang blushed a little, hesitated for a while, then shook his head: “No need, I will write it myself. It’ll be more sincere that way.”

Fang Mo felt that that was no fun. As he felt bored and lay back down in his bed, his own phone suddenly vibrated. With a glance, he saw it was a message from Xu Xiran.

Fang Mo impatiently opened it and was shocked.

Xu Xiran had sent him a long text.

The main gist of it was that he felt very happy with how today went. Although the second season of Love Story was trash, he still found it very fulfilling and meaningful to have Fang Mo there to watch it with him and to share his thoughts with. It seemed like no matter how unhappy things were, as long as he was with Fang Mo, they’d no longer become a big deal. For the two times in a row that he was sick, he was very thankful to Fang Mo for taking care of him. This was too sappy to say in person, but he was truly grateful from the bottom of his heart. It was not easy to have such a close friend in life, so this was worth cherishing, and he hoped that their friendship would last forever.

The original words sounded quite acerbic, which was in line with the style of his passionate small essays.

Fang Mo speed-read it over, then felt a mix of emotions. He felt somewhat happy and moved, but also couldn’t suppress the feeling of awkwardness. He wanted to roast how suddenly sending this kind of stuff to him was simply baffling, but at the same time, he thought that Xu Xiran was rather too cute.

He was so silly, too silly that Fang Mo couldn’t help himself.

However, there was a sentence in that paragraph that Fang Mo couldn’t agree with. What he held towards Xu Xiran was never friendship. Who cherished being just friends with Xu Xiran?

He hoped that their friendship would be over immediately, and then set the sails of love.

Just as he was about to read it again to savor it all, the large paragraph of text disappeared from the chat into thin air.

Xu Xiran pressed the recall button.

Did he realize that his behavior was very silly? Fang Mo thought it was a bit funny, and was just about to tell him “Too late, I saw already,” when that long paragraph of text appeared again.

[“Why are you sending it again?”] Fang Mo asked.

Xu Xiran quickly replied. 

[“There was a typo so I fixed it.”]

Fang Mo was stunned for half a second, then burst out laughing.

He carefully re-read the paragraph word by word again, but didn’t find any noticeable revisions for a good amount of time. However, the person on the other end had already grown impatient.

[“Aren’t you going to say something?”]

Xu Xiran urged.

Fang Mo looked at that line of text, and an instinctive phrase came to his mind. He put his thumb over the keyboard, hesitated for a long time, but eventually, decided not to type it.

He had something he wanted to say.

He wanted to say, Xu Xiran, I like you.

But now was not the time. He looked at the screen and tried hard to restrain his irrational thoughts, feeling flustered and with his cheeks turning red.

[“Forget it, pretend I never sent you that.”]

Xu Xiran messaged again.

Fang Mo panicked and was just about to quickly type something to appease him when another line of words jumped out on the screen.

[“Shit! Why can’t I recall it!”]

The time limit for recalling messages had long since passed. Fang Mo couldn’t help but laugh again. He took screenshots of the paragraph of text that took up two and a half screens and sent them back to Xu Xiran.

[“Recalling is useless now, I’ve already saved it.”]

[“You really have nothing else to say?”]

Xu Xiran seemed a little unreconciled.

Fang Mo sent him a voice message: “Your writing is not bad,  I’ll give you a score of 85 out of 100!”

A full 10/10.

~

Liu Xiaochang still ended up going to the exhibition this weekend.

He finally made some progress, and without a teacher, he prepared a small gift for Yang Lin and was in high spirits when he went out.

But this time Fang Mo did not feel envious. He was also very happy today because he was going to watch Xu Xiran’s basketball game.

There were quite a lot of teams that signed up, and the grouping was not done in any particular way and was all decided by lottery. Technically, there was a game on Saturday and Sunday, and if a team won today, they would compete tomorrow, and if they lost, they would stop here.

Xu Xiran seemed fully confident.

“It’s not that I feel good about myself,” he said to Fang Mo before the game. “We have a big brother from the school basketball team in our team. He’s 1.97 meters tall and his arms are as long as my legs. I’m just waiting to lie down and win.”

Fang Mo felt that he was being modest, since after all, Xu Xiran’s legs were quite long.

When he actually arrived at the game, he realized that Xu Xiran’s words were not exaggerated. Fang Mo had to raise his head to look directly at that older brother. If he had to talk to him for a while, he was afraid he’d get scoliosis. When he opened his arms, his whole body was like a wall, giving a feeling of oppression.

Even for Xu Xiran, standing next to him made him look like a little bird.

~

Not only was the opponent determined by lottery, but the venue was as well. The number of outdoor basketball courts in the school was far greater than the indoor basketball courts, and Xu Xiran’s team didn’t do well in the lottery so today’s game was outdoors. It was now late autumn, and it seemed pretty chilly for being in short sleeves.

Fang Mo was inevitably worried and feared that Xu Xiran would get sick again if he caught a cold.

Xu Xiran was full of energy, and after warming up, he couldn’t stop hopping at the sidelines, and when they greeted the players from the other team, he was still bouncing in place, clearly very excited.

The number of spectators on the sidelines was not very large, and 80% of them were the cheerleaders from the two teams, and it was quite awkward for Fang Mo to mix in.

To avoid being noticed, he sneaked in from the corner.

When he finally moved in from the side, he suddenly heard a girl’s voice from the front.

“You mean Xu Xiran?”

Fang Mo’s ears immediately perked up.

The game officially started, and there was a lot of noise on and off the court. The voice of the other girl’s answer was then completely covered and could not be heard clearly.

Fang Mo moved half a step in the direction of the voice and finally heard the other half of what the girl from before said.

“…Mn, he’s pretty good-looking.”