Always behind you! [YiZhan FF] Short story. ✔️

-4- substitute for the professor

-4- substitute for the professor

Can you imagine that? Things are going really crappy right now and you think it can't get any worse? And you think that, although it also means that you should not praise the day before the evening! That's how it had been with me.

I got up in the morning, I bought an alarm clock, went to take a shower, got dressed and then made my way to the bus stop. I waited and was in a really good mood. The bus came, I got on, sat down in the back and thanks to my very old MP3 player I could finally listen to music again.

A few stops later my mood was so good and I thought, wow what a great day. And then the bus stopped and my day turned into a nightmare again. Because Wang Yibo got on. I never saw him on the bus before, because actually he always drives his car. Wang Yibo discovers me sitting in the bus, comes up to me with a grim look in his eyes and, takes out one of my earphones and asks me, "Did you tell your sister what I told you to tell her?"

I swallowed hard about three times, and almost swallowed my own spit when I just nodded my head. Yeah, I better not have done anything. Because he knew right away that I had lied. He said: "Why are you lying to me? I can see that the message is unread."

"I, um, I..." I stuttered and could not get beyond these three words, because there was complete emptiness in my head. So all of a sudden I forgot how to speak. Wow, a new low point in my life.

With a trembling hand I want to put my earphone back into my ear and he takes it away from me immediately. "Not so fast Xiao Zhan. I want to know why she's not reading the message."

"Where, how should I know?" I asked, knowing the answer all too well.

Then he sat down next to me, my brain was empty, my heart almost stopped in panic, my whole body was shaking and my face was red like a tomato. How do I know that? There is a mirror in the back of the bus and I could see myself in it. He looks at me, I look at the window and he says: "I'll give her time to read the message until Sunday. If she still hasn't read it by then, I'll get really mad."

I nodded. Got up, tripped over a woman's foot, and almost landed in the stinking armpit of a man standing in front of me. The only reason I didn't end up in it is because someone grabbed me from behind by my jacket and held me tight. I turn around, see that it is Wang Yibo, he looks at me in shock, lets go and I bang straight on both knees.

With the help of the woman, I crawled over her foot, went to the exit, the bus stopped and got out. And oh yes, I forgot my backpack on the bus. And then I stood there like this and saw my bus driving away, annoyed because I had to wait half an hour, and then I saw that my right knee was bleeding and my pants were already full of blood at that spot.

At that moment I felt like crying and my day was only 2 hours old. Luckily I always have my ticket in my jacket pocket and so I could take the next bus to the college. Chuyue took me to the nurse who cared for my knee wound and luckily I always have some change of clothes in my locker so I could change.

Sitting in the classroom and waiting for the professor, suddenly the head of the faculty came and explained that our professor could not be there for the next two weeks, but, we get a substitute. The substitute comes in, and with her Wang Yibo as her assistant. I immediately slid deeper into my seat, but he had already discovered me.

Chuyue pushed me, I looked to see what he wanted from me, and Wang Yibo stood next to me and handed me my backpack. I nodded and immediately looked in another direction. I could see him looking at me, my pants, then at me again and then he asked, "Is your knee okay?"

And then Chuyue was kind enough to say: "The nurse has taken care of the wound. Don't worry." Actually I don't like it when someone speaks for me, but at that moment I was really grateful to him.

Our classroom was big, but still Wang Yibo sat down at the table next to me. Couldn't he have gone to the professor as an assistant? Because of him, I could hardly concentrate until breakfast break.

Everybody sat there eating their breakfast, playing with their cell phones and I took my MP3 player, turned it on and put my head on my arms, closed my eyes and tried to be in my own world at least for a moment. Where everything is good and I can just be myself.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a bed in the nurse's room. Obviously I had not only fallen asleep, but completely passed out. Who took me to the nurse? I have no idea. Because when I woke up there was only the nurse there and she explained that I had a fever and had to go home.

She called my father, who said he would be there around noon. Then she brought me downstairs, I was limping, I was dizzy and cold. She put me on a bench, disappeared again and when my father came, he got out of his car in a bad mood, came stomping towards me angrily and was already scolding me from afar.

He grabbed me by the upper arm, pulled me up on my legs, screamed: "I can't believe that you still have to be picked up like a little child just because you have a fever. Do you realize that I had to beg my boss just so I could come and pick up my grown-up son?"

Saying nothing is the best strategy. And that would probably have worked, if Wang Yibo hadn't shown up again, who brought me my backpack for the second time today. My father looked at me angrily, grabbed my upper arm even tighter and shouted, "How many times do we have to tell you to stop bothering Wang Yibo?"

He pushed me against the car, opened the passenger door and almost pushed me into the car. Wang Yibo watched everything, shook his head and came to us. "Xiao Zhan never bothered me, I just wanted to make that clear. And it is unnecessary to treat him so roughly. After all, he's not sick on purpose."

"Oh yes, sick is the right word with him and his addiction." My father bitched, slammed the passenger door, went around the car and sat in the car. Then he got out again, looked at Wang Yibo and said, "Don't worry, he won't run after you anymore." He sat back down, started the engine and drove off.

When he got home, he dragged me out of the car, took me into the house and upstairs to my room, and before he left, he said, "Your mom and I will talk tonight about how we should proceed with you. You are disobeying the rule we are giving you. You just don't stop chasing that boy and it's time for harder measures." Then he closed the door with a bang and drove back to work.

Until my sister came home from work that evening, I was home alone. She came into my room, looked at me and asked, "Oh my God, what happened? Why do you look so bad?"

I still don't talk to her, even though it's been a week since the whole incident and I just turned around. I was just sore from the fever and she shook me and asked me: "Are you still mad at me? I said I'm sorry, what more do you want?"

Suddenly, my brother, who also came home, complained and said to her: "Because of you, they treat him like dirt and you act as if a simple apology was enough."

The two of them got into a loud argument, which my mother ended by yelling and blaming me for it. " Again, fighting because of Zhan, of course." She bitched and left.

They all ate downstairs together, I myself hadn't eaten anything all day and only got a small portion. But I wasn't hungry anyway.

Around 8 pm my parents announced that they would now retreat for an hour and think about what they wanted to do with me. My siblings looked at me confused, I forced down a spoonful of rice with tears in my eyes and said nothing.

And all this only because I fell in love with a boy and this love is unrequited.