TA •Chapter 48

After saying that, Cheng Ke froze.

He had always felt that Jiang Yuduo might have some psychological or mental problem, but it had only ever been a guess. Even though he had already believed there couldn’t be any other possibility, when he heard Jiang Yuduo say that, his mind still went blank for a brief moment.

It wasn’t that his guess had finally been given a definite answer.

It was that… Jiang Yuduo seemed to mean he wasn’t unaware of his own condition.

But if Jiang Yuduo could recognize his own condition, then the fear, worry, and tension that had been so clearly felt coming from deep inside him before…

Cheng Ke clutched his phone, mouth hanging open for maybe twenty seconds, and still didn’t manage to say a single word. He didn’t know what to ask, and he didn’t know what he could ask.

He didn’t dare ask why, and he didn’t dare ask how.

In the end, he just closed his mouth. Still, no sound came out.

"I haven’t been here in a long time," Jiang Yuduo said. "I’m pretty resistant to this kind of thing. It feels like somebody’s reopening my wounds and poking around in them, one cut after another."

"If it’s… treatment…" Cheng Ke didn’t know if it was shock mixed with nervousness, but his throat felt like somebody had tied it off with a rubber band. It was hard enough to get the words out, and even then his voice went weird. "Then it must be… painful…"

"What’s wrong with your throat?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"Like a squeaky chicken, right? Yeah, I know, you don’t have to say it," Cheng Ke cleared his throat hard, then took a bottle of water from the mini fridge and drank a few mouthfuls. "Maybe because I just had a little alcohol."

"No," Jiang Yuduo said. "It sounds like a eunuch."

"…Fuck your damn ancestor!" Cheng Ke was speechless. "You have to say something to feel satisfied, huh?"

Jiang Yuduo laughed for a long time. "It really does sound like it."

Cheng Ke actually liked hearing Jiang Yuduo laugh, even though he rarely did.

It sounded especially good today. The heaviness and loneliness that had been pressing on his chest for nearly half a month seemed to have been pried open by a crack, and suddenly a lot of that pressure eased.

"You’re the one who sounds like it," he said.

"How do I sound like it?" Jiang Yuduo was still laughing. "It’s not like you haven’t seen it before."

The scene of Jiang Yuduo standing naked at the door instantly replayed in front of him at Blu-ray quality, uncensored and painfully vivid.

Cheng Ke had already downed two bottles of wine, and his breathing immediately got a little tight. After a long while, he finally squeezed out, "Fuck…"

"As for whether you look like me, I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t seen it," Jiang Yuduo seemed to be in a very good mood, and he added the line between bursts of laughter.

It was obvious Jiang Yuduo was just joking, and he was even enjoying himself quite a bit. That kind of fearless straight-guy spirit, making a dirty joke about his lower half with a gay man, left Cheng Ke utterly impressed. To avoid any unnecessary awkwardness, he could only grit his teeth and play along. "Then I’ll send you an invitation next time I’m taking a shower."

After laughing for a while longer, Jiang Yuduo suddenly cut himself off.

Cheng Ke let out a breath.

This kind of awkwardness, where someone made a joke about their lower half and then abruptly realized the other person’s sexuality, only to get an obviously sensitive response in return, was practically a guaranteed way to kill a conversation dead.

"What day?" Jiang Yuduo was quiet for a while before he spoke. "I thought you wouldn’t see me again."

"What?" Cheng Ke was baffled by the question. He never would have guessed that Jiang Yuduo’s ability to get to the point could veer off in a direction like this.

"I see my doctor almost every day," Jiang Yuduo said. "She said the results are still pretty good. Now I basically… can’t see them anymore."

Cheng Ke was still a little dazed and didn’t make a sound.

"I mean…" Jiang Yuduo paused. "After a while, I’ll be fine."

"Yeah, you’ll be fine." Cheng Ke was still a little foggy, but he immediately agreed.

"If I get better," Jiang Yuduo said, "then you won’t need to… avoid me like this anymore."

Cheng Ke froze again. This was the first time he had experienced Jiang Yuduo speaking in circles. For someone who had always been so blunt and direct, being able to loop around like this counted as extremely careful.

Suddenly, his heart ached a little.

Although he hadn’t had time to think carefully about Jiang Yuduo’s words, and he vaguely felt that something about them wasn’t quite right, he had no room to dwell on it right now.

"I understand," he said.

"I’ve never had… a friend like you before," Jiang Yuduo said. "Such… an excellent friend, even though you don’t even know how to use a gas stove and you talk in your sleep…"

"Can you stop bringing that up?" Cheng Ke said.

"I don’t know how to say it," Jiang Yuduo said slowly, as if organizing his thoughts took a lot of effort. "You treat me differently from other people."

"Mm." Cheng Ke gave a low hum. It was different.

"I’m not talking about your… whatever idea," Jiang Yuduo paused, still speaking with difficulty. "I mean… when I’m in front of you, I’m not Lao San, not Third Brother, and not some street thug…"

"You’re just a friend I’ve newly met," Cheng Ke felt like he understood what Jiang Yuduo meant, even if he himself hadn’t done everything Jiang Yuduo said he had. "You don’t have any label on you."

Actually, he did have a label.

Label: wild fantasies

Cheng Ke felt like his tolerance for alcohol really wasn’t great today. It was only two bottles of red wine, and his thoughts were already this unrestrained. At this very moment, some of his thoughts about Jiang Yuduo even outweighed the serious fact that Jiang Yuduo really might have a mental problem.

Author’s note:

See you tomorrow.

Uh, because the previous chapter was stuck in the backend pending high-level review and couldn’t be edited, the extra word count I needed to add could only be put into the new chapter… It’s a little short, so it looks kind of shabby. After all, it should have been included in the previous chapter as a gift to everyone, so I hope you won’t嫌弃 it… sob.