Winter was well underway. It didn't snow often in A City, but the damp and chilly air still pierced through his clothes.
Xie Yu put down his pen. He still wore the jacket He Zhao had passed to him over his shoulders. He smiled faintly and said, "That's all you want?"
Then, before He Zhao could reply, Xie Yu called him 'ge' without further thought.
Xie Yu had caught a light cold recently. After playing basketball and working up a sweat, he had stripped down to his thin undershirt and run about in the wind for half the class period. Now his voice was slightly hoarse and carried a hint of careless apathy.
But He Zhao was mesmerized by the simple, light word.
He buried half his face in his hand, leaned back in his chair, and sighed quietly, "Who's punishing who here, really?"
It was getting late. Xie Yu presed at his temple, then got up and started to leave. But before he could take two steps, He Zhao tightly caught hold of his wrist from behind, and Xie Yu heard him say, "Don't go."
He Zhao repeated, "Don't go back tonight."
Xie Yu stopped walking, letting He Zhao catch hold of him, and didn't struggle to get free. "I call you 'ge' and you'll let me go. Which idiot said that, again?"
He Zhao said, "Yeah, which idiot?"
The brightly lit dorm building now had all its lights off. The security guard walked back and forth downstairs, flashlight in hand, its light breaking through the darkness of night. Outside the window, the light flashed by from time to time.
The single bed was too narrow. Xie Yu took off his sweater and was skin to skin with He Zhao when he lay down.
He uncomfortably moved his leg, which was flush against He Zhao's through the fabric. His foot met He Zhao's and He Zhao gave a hiss of pain, then warned in a low voice, "Don't move around."
Xie Yu opened his eyes and turned to look at him.
They occasionally spent the night in each other's dorm rooms.
At lights-out they would say they needed to go, and then not move, never leaving even if they wanted to.
Erzhong's dorm rooms were very well managed. A student need only put in an application if they wanted to swap dorm rooms, and the procedures would be completed within three days. But Xie Yu and He Zhao's situation was different.
Before this, they had to worry about the pile of extracurricular study materials and mock papers they kept hidden. If one of them really moved in with the other, would they need to get up in the middle of the night to do practice questions in secret? Now, they no longer had this worry and had thought about switching dorm rooms again.
But when Mad Dog received the application, he was so angry his head could have ballooned to twice its size. He rapped on his office desk and said, "The two of you, what are you planning? Are you going to play video games into the middle of the night? I've seen more than my share of your kind of tricks, I'm telling you now."
He Zhao tried to explain himself. "Actually, we're going to study properly..."
Mad Dog threw the application straight into the trash can. "Forget that nonsense. Don't even think about it. There's no room for discussion. Go on, get back to class."
Xie Yu, having slept squashed in a single bed all night, was sore all over when he woke up the next morning to Mad Dog's announcement. He was supremely frustrated and nearly kicked He Zhao off the bed.
