KMYB | Chapter 55

Lin Xiaojin finished a round of gaming and realized the call was still connected, so he gave a "hello?"

The answer came right away from Xi Shui on the phone. "This is so hard to put on."

"What is?" Lin Xiaojin was dying of curiosity, and instantly regretted not video-calling Xi Shui from the start.

Xi Shui bent over, fiddling with the two rings with both hands. It was very hard to fasten them. The ring hanging from the top of his sock, the one that fastened at the hipbone area of his underwear, hung lower and lower. "This feels like wearing nothing at all."

"Of course it does!" Lin Xiaojin couldn't tell whether Xi Shui was too innocent and honest, or whether Zhou Zeqi was just too damn savage.

Xi Shui started putting on the clothes, a very narrow little tank top. Beneath it hung a row of slender, light silver chains, like a sparkling curtain that swayed with movement, ending just above his navel.

"I do have a little bit of abs and chest muscle," Xi Shui said very seriously.

"Useless," Lin Xiaojin said over the phone. "Your boyfriend is Zhou Yanwang, so your little bit of muscle doesn't even count there."

"It's not like whoever has more muscle is automatically better," Xi Shui muttered back at Lin Xiaojin while lowering his head to fasten the little bell.

Lin Xiaojin heard the jingle.

He was so curious it felt like his heart was being scratched from the inside out.

"Take a photo for me later! I really want to see it. Why are there bells? Sunglasses?"

"No, only Zhou Zeqi gets to see it," Xi Shui said. "And they're not sunglasses."

After putting on the cat ears, Xi Shui lifted his head and saw himself in the mirror. His face immediately burned as if it were being roasted by nearby flames. When he was just holding it and looking at it, it had seemed fine enough.

"I'm hanging up now," Xi Shui said to Lin Xiaojin.

"You're treating me like a tool person!!!" Lin Xiaojin's indignation didn't even get fully shouted out before Xi Shui hurriedly apologized and hung up. He fumbled around in a flurry, and the sound of the bells and silver chains knocking against each other was enough to make anyone blush.

All that was left were the cat tail and cat mittens. The mittens were white, but the palms had five pink patches shaped like plum blossoms. They came down to two centimeters below the elbows. Once Xi Shui put them on, he couldn't pick anything up anymore. And that pearl thing, what even was it? How was he supposed to attach the tail? Xi Shui realized he still had so many things he didn't know or understand. He would have to study more in the future.

Zhou Zeqi was leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door, head down, scrolling on his phone.

Absent-minded.

The door beside him was gently turned open, and Xi Shui appeared in his line of sight. Zhou Zeqi froze, then his mind went blank with a sudden boom.

The little cat was holding a pile of things he didn't know how to handle, his face red. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

"Mm… which part don't you know how to use?" Zhou Zeqi walked up to Xi Shui, lowered his eyes, and asked him in a low voice.

Xi Shui had been dancing ballet for so many years that whatever was put on him looked good. Standing under the hallway ceiling light, he looked just like he was standing under the bright crystal lights of a stage.

"This, is it an ear clip?" Xi Shui held up a pearl with a metal clip and tried to attach it to his earlobe. "It's so weird."

Zhou Zeqi's gaze turned dark. Without saying a word, he took the "ear clip" from Xi Shui's hand and, in one motion, moved it downward. "It's here."

Xi Shui was standing on the cold tiled floor, his eyelashes trembling like the wings of a butterfly startled by danger.

He didn't need to ask about the rest. Zhou Zeqi took the tail from his palm and went into the bathroom. Xi Shui stood nervously in the hallway for a while. When Zhou Zeqi came back, Xi Shui subconsciously stepped back, lowered his head, and looked at the two small metal balls at the beginning of the tail, now smeared with something oily and shiny.

"Go to the bedroom." Zhou Zeqi put an arm around Xi Shui and dragged him toward the bedroom.

Xi Shui looked at the pitch-black bedroom that still had no lights on, and his heart tightened. He was almost half-dragged, half-carried into the room.

–

Xi Shui cried until his throat was hoarse, his face buried in the pillow as he sobbed.

"I hate the tail, wuuuu…"

Zhou Zeqi washed him clean, dried him off, and tucked him neatly into the blanket. Aside from the strength to speak, Xi Shui couldn't even lift his hands. Weakly, he said, "Next time it's your birthday, I'll still buy you clothes and stuff instead."

For once, Xi Shui, the big shot of the Beijing Dance Academy, admitted defeat.

"I can't handle this."

Zhou Zeqi wrapped his arms around him and laughed. "Didn't you say you don't like it when people call you weak?"

Xi Shui stayed silent for a long time, then said in a muffled voice, "Only do what you can. I've already tried my best."

Xi Shui slept until the afternoon of the next day, which was lucky because it was Sunday.

He was still soft all over and had no strength. After rolling over, he found that Zhou Zeqi wasn't there. But Xi Shui didn't feel like getting out of bed to look for him either. He lay on the bed and called out, "Zhou Zeqi."

No answer.

Could he be secretly studying behind his back!

Xi Shui suddenly burrowed out from under the blanket and met a pair of black eyes, round and bright, on top of the quilt.

It was a beautiful white lion cat. It still didn't look very big, but its fur had been taken very good care of, long and soft-looking. It was lying on the blanket without the slightest fear of strangers, and the tips of its ears twitched.

Xi Shui slowly moved closer and carefully stroked its head. "Where did you come from?"

He remembered that he had once told Zhou Zeqi he wanted to raise a white cat, and Zhou Zeqi had said that a classmate of Zhou Zezhi's cat had given birth to a litter of kittens, so they could bring one back. But after that, it was never mentioned again, and Xi Shui had forgotten too. He thought Zhou Zeqi had only been saying it casually.

So he had actually remembered all this time!

Footsteps sounded outside the door, and Zhou Zeqi pushed it open and came in. "Awake?"

"This cat…"

"Mm, Zhou Zezhi delivered it this morning. It’s already had two rounds of vaccines, everything's been checked, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a male kitten," Zhou Zeqi said as he walked to the bed and sat down. "You can name it."

Xi Shui was completely absorbed in the cat's soft fur. "I don't know."

Zhou Zeqi noticed a ring of pink-red marks on the wrist Xi Shui had left exposed. The color wasn't deep, but Xi Shui's skin was so fair that it stood out sharply. It was from last night, when things had gotten intense and a little out of control.

Xi Shui had no idea what Zhou Zeqi was thinking. He assumed the other man was thinking about a name for the cat with him, but Zhou Zeqi still hadn't said anything, probably because he hadn't come up with one.

"Then let's call it Zhizhi!" Xi Shui scratched the kitten under the chin, and the kitten flopped over into his palm. "On the day I confessed, I gave you gardenias, and today you gave me a 'gardenia.'"

Zhou Zeqi wasn't especially interested in cats to begin with, but since Xi Shui liked them, he cared because Xi Shui cared. "Okay." As for the name, as long as Xi Shui was happy and liked it, that was enough.

Xi Shui puckered his butt and crouched in front of Zhizhi, his eyes filled with nothing but this cat. "It's so cute, little cat, little cat."

"…" Zhou Zeqi stood up. "I'll make dinner. What do you want to eat?"

"Anything," Xi Shui said, stroking Zhizhi. "So soft."

Zhou Zeqi: "…"

Zhizhi was very much on the same wavelength too. When Xi Shui stroked it, it leaned over and rubbed its face against Xi Shui's.

Zhou Zeqi's birthday hadn't arrived yet. There were still two days left, but Xi Shui had already given the birthday present early. The day after Zhou Zeqi's birthday, Beijing University would start summer vacation. In the middle of the break, the Beijing College Student Swimming Competition would begin, and Xi Shui would leave here at the end of July, before Zhou Zeqi's competition, to start a year of training with the New Law Ballet Company.

Holding Zhizhi in his arms, Xi Shui thought that by then, Zhou Zeqi should take good care of it. After a year passed, Zhizhi would probably be a big cat too.

Animals have spirit. They know who likes them and who doesn't much. Zhou Zeqi didn't dislike it either, he just didn't feel much of anything.

So during dinner, Zhizhi kept circling around the legs of the chair Xi Shui was sitting in, its tail lightly brushing Xi Shui's ankle.

Xi Shui bit down on his chopsticks. "Let's go buy some cat toys and a cat bed later."

"Okay."

"What's the schedule for next week?" Xi Shui asked.

Zhou Zeqi paused. "Final exams."

Xi Shui: "…" Right, he'd almost forgotten about that.

After dinner, Xi Shui held Zhizhi and curled up on the sofa to reply to messages in the class group chat.

[Teacher Xu Wei: After next week's classes are over, it'll be summer vacation. Then the week after that, we have a performance at the Grand Theater, so before the competition, we need a lot of time for rehearsals. I hope everyone can arrange their time well for review, classes, rest, and rehearsals.]

[Received.]

[Received.]

For several scenes in *Dancer*, Xi Shui and Hai Tinghua had basically already gotten the pair work down. Their variations were danced separately, and the male lead's variation was at the end. Xi Shui mainly needed to strengthen the explosiveness and expressiveness of that variation.

Besides rehearsals, they also had exams in various subjects. Some were cultural subjects with written test papers, and a few were tests of professional ability.

Xi Shui was doing practice questions on his tablet. He was very focused. Efficient study sustained by complete concentration could last for more than three hours, something that Xi Buyao had taught him. Studying halfheartedly, playing around for a while and studying for a while, was worse than not studying at all. He had to focus, work efficiently, and stay focused on everything he did.

Zhou Zeqi was the same.

One of them was curled up on the sofa, the other sat by the dining table. In three hours, they only had one conversation.

"Baby, do you want some water?"

"Yes."

–

Monday.

Xi Shui had to take two exams, one for repertoire and one for ballet technique.

Lin Xiaojin was holding the key points he had printed out at a print shop. He looked at the book for a few seconds, then his mind drifted away. It drifted over to Xi Shui beside him.

"What's wrong with your hand?"

The ring of redness had already faded a lot. The color was nowhere near as deep as yesterday, but Lin Xiaojin had sharp eyes and still spotted it at a glance.

Xi Shui said, "The night before last. You know about it."

"?" Lin Xiaojin tilted his head and studied Xi Shui very seriously. "You're not embarrassed anymore?"

Only then did Xi Shui look at him properly. "What's there to be embarrassed about? I'm just answering your question."

"Then let me ask again, was it Zhou Zeqi who did that?"

"…"

Sure enough, Xi Shui's face visibly turned red little by little, then flushed all the way through. Lin Xiaojin's question wasn't actually anything too extreme, but it made Xi Shui remember what Zhou Zeqi had done to him that night before.

Zhou Zeqi loved biting people, loved leaving all kinds of marks on him.

"Speaking of which, your study abroad program is coming up soon, right?" Lin Xiaojin asked casually as he sat in his chair, listening to the teacher call out names one by one for assessment.

"Mm, at the end of the month. Just half a month left," Xi Shui answered.

Lin Xiaojin thought about it and said, "Are you reluctant to leave Zhou Zeqi?"

"I am." Xi Shui answered very quickly. He didn't need to think about that question.

Lin Xiaojin knew what kind of person Xi Shui was, stubborn and resolute. If he said he liked something, then he truly liked it. Everything beautiful that grew out of that liking, he would also hold onto firmly. That was his principle. If he said he couldn't bear to part with someone, then he really couldn't bear to part with them.

These past few years, Lin Xiaojin had never seen Xi Shui this determined and this immediate about anything outside of studying and dancing.

"Then what about Zhou Zeqi?" Lin Xiaojin asked again.

Xi Shui thought of Zhou Zeqi's tear-streaked face and lowered his eyes. "Zhou Zeqi can't bear to part with me either."

"He really loves me too much," Xi Shui said.