LVLYA

Chapter 20: Brown Sugar Steamed Rice Cakes

"Me?" Yue Zhishi slowly blinked. "I'm waiting for senior Song Yu."

The girl's face was full of curiosity. "Are you guys really brothers? Do you live together?"

"We're not blood related." Yue Zhishi replied only to her first question, then looked down and opened his workbook. He said, lightly, "We should study..."

"Oh, yes, that's right," she answered in awareness. She glanced over at a senior who was facing the corner of a wall trying to memorise her studies and said to him very softly, "I'll go back now, I won't disturb you any longer. Let's talk next time!"

'Next time'? Did that mean she was able to study here every day?

After two seconds of thought, Yue Zhishi unlocked a new place in his map of self-study locations with a bit of envy. He tried to focus, but it felt too different studying in this room compared to his usual classroom. Whether he stayed behind in his classroom to work on his questions or paced back and forth in the corridor reciting his lessons while waiting for high school third year classes to finish — no matter what he did, they had all been simply his own one-sided actions. It couldn't even be called 'waiting', because waiting required two people: one to wait, and one to be waited for.

It was different this time. It was no longer an unauthorised, arbitrary waiting.

As he thought this, Yue Zhishi lifted his eyes and looked across at the girl. She was messaging on her phone, smiling very sweetly. She was likely chatting to her boyfriend. He was about to bite his pen while being lost in thought, but he suddenly thought of Song Yu's face and managed to hold back.

He and Song Yu... they weren't quite the same as those two.

The bell rang just as he finished his last question. Afraid Song Yu would need to wait for him, Yue Zhishi packed his stuff as quickly as he could, but next door seemed to be delayed with no one coming to the door. Yue Zhishi stood at the rear door of class 3-5, peering inside, and saw Song Yu reading a book with his head lowered, a silver pair of glasses perched on his nose. He was slightly near-sighted and usually didn't need to wear glasses, putting them on only when he needed to use his eyes for a long amount of time.

Yue Zhishi really liked Song Yu's occasional squints and frowns when he wasn't wearing his glasses. He couldn't explain why — he just liked it when Song Yu looked like that.

The students sitting near the back door noticed the junior high student standing near them, and they turned their heads to look at him, whispering. Yue Zhishi didn't notice anything at first until he heard someone softly say, "Isn't he Song Yu's little brother?" It was as though he was prodded by something, immediately going to cover his bruised eye. But he felt like standing there with his hand over his eye was also very strange, so he dodged away from the door.

"Why do you look more afraid than I do?" The girl from before stood openly outside the classroom, looking as if she wasn't worried at all about being caught by a teacher or a fellow student. "This place is part of Peiya. I'm a Peiya student, so it's perfectly reasonable for me to be here."

Yue Zhishi thought about it. "That's true." He moved to stand next to her, but before two seconds had passed, he took one step to the right and widened the distance between them.

Since class was technically over, the teacher soon came out and specifically gazed at Yue Zhishi's face. The students inside the room were all very enthusiastic about finishing class for the day except for Song Yu, who took his time packing away his things. A few senior sisters came out hand-in-hand and surrounded Yue Zhishi.

"You must be the little brother living with Song Yu."

"Are you mixed? You're very cute."

"Are your eyelashes real?"