KMYB | Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Their teacher Jiang Die and Xu Wei had placed the focus of *Dance Girl* on the final act, specifically Scenes Four, Five, and Six, collectively known as the fourth act. It was also the most important and eye-catching part of *Dance Girl*.

The danseuse Nikiya is poisoned by the lover's confidant. In the fourth act, the warrior Solor finally comes to his senses. Opium numbs his mind, and in a dream he sees his beloved Nikiya in the underworld. The male lead in *Giselle*, Albrecht, also reunites with his beloved in the end, but Solor's beloved still refuses to forgive him and keeps away from him at every turn.

Xi Shui knew that dance was not something you could understand just by looking. You had to feel it with your heart.

At the end of the fourth act, the Solor played by Xi Shui had a difficult solo variation, then he had to support the female lead through a series of turns.

The girl playing the princess was called Li Weiwei.

The girl playing the female lead, the danseuse Nikiya, was called Hai Tinghua. According to her, her name came from the fact that her father’s surname was Hai, her mother’s surname was Hua, and her dad always listened to her mom, so she was called Hai Tinghua.

Afternoon classes were shared by boys and girls. Before class, the girls either stood or sat, pushing their feet into their shoes, rising onto their toes, and tying the ribbons above their ankles.

Boys generally did not need to wear pointe shoes, but if they were cast in a cross-gender role, they had to wear them too.

Li Weiwei held a bottle of water in each hand. She handed one to Xi Shui and one to Lin Xiaojin. "Take care of me, okay?"

"Ah, don't mention it," Lin Xiaojin said. "Anyway, I'm playing the king. Most of the time I'm just sitting there like some damn Buddha statue."

Li Weiwei looked at Xi Shui.

Xi Shui smiled. "Okay."

Li Weiwei looked at Lin Xiaojin again.

With all her hair slicked back and eyes big as cat pupils, Li Weiwei, while Lin Xiaojin silently scooted one seat away, sat down brazenly next to Xi Shui.

"I'll show you a few photos," Li Weiwei said, opening her album and holding it out to Xi Shui like she was presenting a treasure.

Xi Shui looked at the pictures and found they were photos taken of him running around Beijing Sports University two days ago.

And they were taken pretty badly.

"What's wrong?"

Li Weiwei bumped his shoulder. "What were you doing with those flowers?"

Xi Shui hemmed and hawed.

He kept looking toward Lin Xiaojin, but Lin Xiaojin was already rolling around on the floor with Zhao Mengzi. He couldn't count on Lin Xiaojin, so he could only count on himself.

Did that count as staking a claim?

"I'm asking you. Why do you keep looking at Lin Xiaojin? Do you like gardenias? You should've said so earlier. My whole yard is full of them. I'll have my mom cut you a bouquet. The gardenias outside school aren't fresh," Li Weiwei said nonstop.

Xi Shui nodded along. Li Weiwei was a chatterbox, and he couldn't keep up with her pace.

"I saved these from the forum. Let's look at the next one…" Li Weiwei swiped left with her finger. The image quality was even blurrier than the last one. "Oh, the next one, the next one…"

The photos went all the way until Xi Shui ran onto the road leading to Beijing Sports University.

"Why did you go to Beijing Sports University? With flowers? Are you dating someone?" Li Weiwei asked curiously.

Xi Shui wiped at the corner of his eye where no sweat existed. It was a fake move, and the heat on his cheeks almost burned him. He withdrew his hand sheepishly and placed it on his knee. "Yeah."

?

Li Weiwei slowly widened her mouth, stunned by Xi Shui's unthinking "yeah."

"What?"

"Who are you dating?"

Xi Shui licked his lips and was just about to say Zhou Zeqi's name when someone shouted from outside, "Xi Shui, someone's looking for you!"

"I'll be right back," Xi Shui said as he got up and left.

It was already close to the end of class.

As soon as Xi Shui walked out of the classroom, he saw Zhou Zeqi leaning against the wall and Wu Fengyi crouching beside him.

Zhou Zeqi was wearing black basketball gear underneath. Because of the rain and the drop in temperature, he had thrown on a short black windbreaker over it. The outline of his figure made him look even sharper. Before Xi Shui appeared, he had been keeping his eyelids lowered. It wasn't until Xi Shui walked out that he lifted his eyes, and his gaze landed on Xi Shui's face, making Xi Shui's heart twitch.

Wu Fengyi raised a hand, flashing a full set of white teeth. "Good afternoon."

Xi Shui smiled at him.

"Why are you here?" Xi Shui looked left, then right, then behind him.

Zhou Zeqi straightened up. "The basketball team is training these next two days, so we're staying at the gym."

Xi Shui said, "Oh, t-that sounds pretty good."

"You don't have anything you want to say?"

"I… I do."

"Say it."

Seeing that Zhou Zeqi wouldn't let it go, Xi Shui held it in for a long time before finally forcing out, "Is the food at the gym good? Don't let yourself go hungry."

"…"

Wu Fengyi looked at Zhou Zeqi's gradually cracking expression and burst out laughing like a pig.

Zhou Zeqi had almost never come out on the losing end. Wu Fengyi had played with him for so many years. Zhou Zeqi had been a bastard since he was a kid, and after entering university, he'd gradually started to wear the skin of a refined man. But with his nature, less than a year into college he'd already changed majors, snapped at the dean, and fallen into a cold war with his family. He lived exactly as he pleased, as if every day was just borrowed time.

Wu Fengyi looked at Xi Shui again and found that the latter had slightly furrowed his pretty, delicate brows. The little swan was really worrying that the gym food wouldn't be good, hahaha.

"Don't worry, it's excellent," Zhou Zeqi said with a fake smile. It looked a little unnatural.

"I went back to school to get something. I just happened to pass by the academic building…" Zhou Zeqi walked closer to Xi Shui and took two chocolate bars out of his coat pocket. "Dark chocolate. Take it. Break off a piece when you get tired from dancing. It won't make you gain weight."

Xi Shui looked at the foreign words on the chocolate wrappers and took them. His voice was barely above a whisper. "I didn't prepare anything for you."

Although he had been the one to suggest dating Zhou Zeqi, aside from that bouquet of gardenias that cost thirty yuan, he didn't seem to have given Zhou Zeqi anything at all. Xi Shui felt a little guilty. It was one thing for his motives to be impure, but he was also taking advantage of the other person.

"No need," Zhou Zeqi said briefly.

"When you want to prepare something, then prepare it then." Zhou Zeqi's tone seemed to carry a hidden meaning, but Xi Shui couldn't hear it. Xi Shui even nodded.

Xi Shui said, "You're really considerate."

Wu Fengyi: "…"

–

Before Zhou Zeqi left, he bent down and kissed Xi Shui's cheek. Xi Shui's fingers jerked, and the chocolate fell to the floor with a plop.

Zhou Zeqi bent down to pick it up, then broke Xi Shui's fingers open one by one and placed the chocolate in his hand.

There.

Now Xi Shui didn't need to run all the way to the gym to stake his claim.

Everyone knew.

There was no hiding it anymore.

No one knew who was that fast, but someone took photos and uploaded them to the forum, like a thunderclap tossed into an already unsettled lake, startling a strange bird called "CP fans," who flew and screeched everywhere.

[???]

[Who photoshopped this?]

[You people have mutated now, no wait, evolved, evolved to the point where you're photoshopping kissing pictures? That's not really okay, you know. You should just show us pictures like this in private.]

[It's real. Class just ended, and the hallway in the academic building was packed with people. When I came downstairs, the King of Hell was looking very pleased with himself, coming over from the direction of the ballet department's practice rooms with Wu Wings.]

[It's real, I saw it.]

[Damn! I ship CPs, sure, but if Xi Shui and the King of Hell are really together, why do I feel a little weird inside!]

[So sudden.]

[For a moment I didn't know whether to be envious of Xi Shui or Zhou Zeqi. Those two look like the really devoted type.]

[The King of Hell doesn't seem like it though. I always feel like he's about to cheat the next second.]

[Get lost!]

[Hope Little Xi can feed us sugar every day!!!]

[Uh, uh, uh, this picture makes Xi Shui look so thin. Feels like the King of Hell could snap him in half with one hand. Can it really, hehe?]

[What do you mean hehe?]

[Hehe]

[Hehe]

[…What the hell is wrong with you people, hehe.]

Xi Shui gave one of the chocolate bars to Lin Xiaojin.

Lin Xiaojin bit off half the bar in one go. "Going to the cafeteria for lunch?"

The food at the Beijing Dance cafeteria ranked among the worst in all of Beijing University.

Not because it was truly terrible.

It was because Beijing Dance students generally had to maintain their figures, so most of the cafeteria food was low-fat, low-carb, or some other kind of diet meal. There were also regular dishes, but not many, and most students didn't bother eating them.

Xi Shui took a box of salad, then looked at the spicy beef mix in the window.

Lin Xiaojin saw it and reached out to take a box. "We'll split it half and half."

"Okay!"

In the afternoon, the clouds in the sky thinned by a few layers. Sunlight traced a dazzling golden edge along the clouds, while everything else remained dull and gray.

Xi Shui stuffed big mouthfuls of vegetables into his mouth, but he chewed slowly, taking a long time with each bite.

He put down his fork and, while chewing, looked around.

Lin Xiaojin: "…"

"I don't need to stake my claim anymore now," Xi Shui said after swallowing the vegetables in his mouth and taking a sip of water.

Lin Xiaojin said, "Yeah, Zhou Zeqi already staked his claim early."

"He did?"

"You didn't notice?"

Xi Shui hadn't noticed.

He picked up his fork again and resumed eating. "He came to bring me chocolate."

"And to stake his claim by the way."

"Do you need to kiss me to stake your claim?" Why not kiss the mouth, but instead the cheek… it felt a little uneconomical. Although reason told Xi Shui it wasn't a good deal, emotionally, he had been so shy at the time that his heart had exploded with how fast it was beating.

"Of course. Otherwise what, were you supposed to swear brotherhood with him?" Lin Xiaojin smacked his lips. "Are we missing a staple food?"

Xi Shui nodded. "I forgot to bring it."

"I've got some in my backpack. I bought this loaf of bread last week and still haven't eaten it." Lin Xiaojin took a whole-wheat loaf out of his backpack.

Xi Shui said, "Last week? Is it still edible?"

Lin Xiaojin tore open the packaging and found the expiration date. "It doesn't expire until tomorrow. It's fine."

The bread was split in two, with Lin Xiaojin getting the larger half and Xi Shui the smaller. Xi Shui took the bread in his hand, his eyes bright with surprise. "This whole-wheat bread even has a layer of powdered sugar on top!"

–

Zhou Zeqi really wasn't home. The light in the apartment next door had never turned on.

Xi Shui woke up in the middle of the night and heard the soft sound of the wind outside. Before he could even check the time, a cramp twisted through his stomach. He clutched his stomach and curled over the edge of the bed, tears welling up, the uncontrollable urge to vomit surging up from his throat.

Xi Shui hung over the edge of the bed and threw up everything he had eaten that afternoon.

He had said so!

That!

Bread couldn't be eaten!

Xi Shui struggled several times, but still couldn't get up from bed. He had controlled his diet for years, so his stomach was already in poor shape. Once it hurt, it felt like it could kill him.

His phone rang beside the pillow.

Xi Shui was dizzy and seeing spots. He reached out and found the phone. Glancing at the time, he saw it was only one in the morning.

"Hello?" Xi Shui was weak and breathless. He still wanted to vomit.

"Meng Kewen said Lin Xiaojin has food poisoning and was sent to the hospital. Are you okay?" Zhou Zeqi's slightly low voice came through the receiver, and Xi Shui's vision gradually blurred.

In the long night, there was always someone who kept him in their thoughts.

"I'm not okay, I'm not okay…" Xi Shui pressed against his phone and repeated over and over, "Zhou Zeqi, where are you…"

——————–

Author's Note:

Little Xi: Wow, powdered sugar!!!