Lovely Allergen

Chapter 37: An Imitation Life

Song Yu didn't respond to him, just like usual.

Most of the time, Yue Zhishi didn't need a response. He had been like that since he was young, always able to openly divulge his affection for gege at any time, any place, and never feeling that it was inappropriate to express his feelings.

But the current him had slightly changed — sometimes he hoped gege would be able to give him a bit of a response, even if the response was a decisive rejection like when they were children, telling him, "I don't like it when you say stuff like that. Don't do it again."

If Song Yu didn't say a single thing, then Yue Zhishi would want to guess. But he didn't like guessing.

He didn't get an allergic reaction, but he still decided to take an antihistamine just in case. That night, Yue Zhishi found it hard to sleep, tossing and turning until about 2am in the morning before finally falling asleep.

He had a very strange dream. He initially lay on a very beautiful meadow, the sky very heavy and clouds very puffy. He reached out a hand, and one dark cloud dropped to press onto his body without leaving any room for him to move. Yue Zhishi immediately had no way to breathe. He tried to break free, and the cloud gathered together and turned into a human figure — a tall male figure without a face, and yet it felt very familiar.

The cloud wrapped very tightly around him, almost completely airtight, and the sexually intimate-like embrace suffocated him. That sense of impending death felt just like an allergic attack, pressing and constricting all of his nerves. But the strange thing was — in the midst of this struggle for air, he was compelled to feel something wondrous.

At the end, the cloud in his dream turned into a pool of hot rainwater without any warning and drenched him completely. At 5am in the morning, Yue Zhishi was shocked awake from his dream.

In the many days after, Yue Zhishi kept trying to further understand his feelings through online searches. He didn't want to keep being caged in between ignorant curiosity and fear, so he read many articles, performed many tests and even watched many movies by himself. Most of them were art films, created very beautifully and were very emotionally affecting — but Yue Zhishi fell heavier into doubt the more he watched.

He looked at photos of many highly attractive men without much feeling. He did tests set by set and didn't get any clear results: not every test gave him the same result.

All of this left Yue Zhishi at a loss.

His bewilderment showed quite clearly as he was often lost in thought, frowning. When he watched television dramas with Lin Rong, he'd either stare blankly at the scenes with the male and female leads acting against each other or show a very serious, probing expression as he watched, as if he really needed someone to give him an answer. So on a certain day later, as the entire family spent a day outside, Song Yu looked at Yue Zhishi, who was staring blankly at a field of lotus flowers, and said, "Do you remember your fortune stick?"

Yue Zhishi looked at him a bit absently, his arms carrying a peaceful Cotton Candy.

"Let nature run its course," Song Yu said.

He vaguely felt Song Yu understood and knew why he was feeling so lost. And he'd always relied on Song Yu, never once erecting any barriers between them.

"I don't want to be different from other people." Yue Zhishi very honestly revealed his thoughts to Song Yu, his hand lightly caressing Cotton Candy's furry head. "It'll be really weird."

"Why?"

Cotton Candy sneaked out and away to Lin Rong's call.

Yue Zhishi sat on the grass next to the lake, grabbed a full lotus pod and started picking out a few tender lotus seeds. "People have always given me special attention since I looked different from everyone else when I was young. I don't want to stand out too much now that I'm older." He broke off the green shell around a seed, revealing the white and delicate lotus nut inside, and gave it to Song Yu.