Chapter 10: He Likes It Too
Niannian’s most frequent expression was a smile.
He had once picked up a line from a TV drama: “Life is already bitter enough, so when it’s time to smile, smile with all your heart.”
Thus, Niannian forced himself to learn how to smile. Whenever he faced his parents, he always wore a smile. If they had looked closely, they would have noticed that his smiles were strained and forced.
When Ji Suize wanted a smile from him, Niannian smiled without hesitation, this smile was completely genuine. Third Brother was also very good to him, and he wanted to fulfill his wish.
Ji Suize stared at Niannian with satisfaction for a long moment before finally lowering his hand and placing the Rubik’s Cube back into the cabinet.
Niannian was taken aback. “Brother, aren’t you going to teach me?”
Was his smile not genuine enough? Did Third Brother find it unsatisfactory, so he decided not to teach him or let him play with the Rubik’s Cube?
Ji Suize took off his shoes and climbed onto the bed, pulling the bewildered little one close to him and patting his pillow.
Niannian suddenly understood. “Sleep?”
Ji Suize nodded.
Niannian finally grasped Ji Suize’s meaning but still wanted to clarify. “Brother means it’s too late now, so we should sleep. After we wake up, you’ll teach me how to play with the Rubik’s Cube?”
Ji Suize nodded again.
Feeling slightly reassured, Niannian gave Ji Suize a sweet smile and slowly lay down beside him. As soon as he settled, a blanket was draped over him. It carried the familiar scent of lemongrass, just like his own blanket.
There was only one pillow in Ji Suize’s room, which was just enough for the two children. At first, Niannian didn’t dare take up too much space, lying only at the edge of the pillow. But the height made him uncomfortable, and he couldn’t fall asleep for a long time.
He quietly glanced at Ji Suize beside him. The bedside lamp was still on, and their eyes met in the dim, yellowish light.
Niannian nervously licked his lips and asked, “Brother, why aren’t you asleep yet?”
Ji Suize reached out, his palm brushing over Niannian’s eyelids, manually closing his eyes as if tossing the question back to him, signaling Niannian to sleep quickly.
Niannian held Ji Suize’s fingers and giggled. “I’ll sleep right away. Brother, you should sleep too.”
Ji Suize didn’t withdraw his hand. Instead, he placed it between them, holding Niannian’s hand in return, and closed his eyes.
After a while, Niannian listened to Ji Suize’s steady breathing and guessed he must have fallen asleep. Summoning his courage, he slowly inched closer to Ji Suize. Just as his little head was about to reach the middle of the pillow, the tightly shut eyelids suddenly opened. In Ji Suize’s light-colored eyes, Niannian saw his own startled expression.
“I… I wasn’t comfortable…” Niannian stammered. “I wanted to adjust a little…”
Having been in this world for less than a day, he still felt like an outsider. He couldn’t quite believe that he truly had two wonderful brothers now, so he remained cautious in everything he did.
Ji Suize stared at him without blinking. The extreme silence made Niannian panic. Suddenly, Ji Suize reached out, pressed his hand against the back of Niannian’s head, and pushed it to the center of the pillow.
“Better?”
It took Niannian a moment to realize that Ji Suize was asking him: Is this more comfortable?
“Yes, it’s comfortable,” Niannian whispered softly.
Ji Suize patted his head, then moved his hand down to pat his back, as if soothing him to sleep.
These two gentle actions instantly calmed Niannian, who couldn’t help but smile and tightened his grip on Ji Suize’s fingers. “Big brother.”
Ji Suize stared at Niannian’s dimples, his heart pounding wildly.
The little one had smiled at him on his own, he had succeeded.
“Brother.”
Ji Suize blinked in response to the little one’s call.
Niannian repeated, “Brother.”
Ji Suize blinked again in reply.
After Niannian called out “Brother” for what felt like the Nth time, Ji Suize finally broke his silence and spoke. “What do you want to say?”
The little one’s face drew closer, and a soft, milky kiss landed on his right cheek.
In a daze, Ji Suize heard the little one’s soft voice: “I like Brother.”
Niannian had already fallen asleep, but Ji Suize’s eyes remained open. When Niannian was awake, he dared to stare openly at him; now that Niannian was asleep, he continued to gaze unabashedly, as if he could never get enough.
Ji Suize was a peculiar child. While most children couldn’t resist toys, Ji Suize looked down on them. He preferred reading and spending time in his uncle’s laboratory, staring at bottles and jars all day, far more interesting than playing with toys.
Very few things captured his interest, but once something did, he would immerse himself in it completely.
After a long moment of contemplation, Ji Suize finally arrived at a response to the little one’s declaration of “like”,
He liked him too.
Ji Suize shifted closer to Niannian, narrowing the distance between them.
Their hands had remained clasped since the moment they first held each other. To prevent catching a cold while sleeping, the air conditioning temperature had been raised a few degrees. Children naturally run warm, and in no time, their joined hands grew sweaty, whether it was the little one’s sweat or his own, he couldn’t tell.
Ji Suize thought that if it were the little one’s sweat, he wouldn’t mind it at all.
He also felt a sense of relief, thinking that if it were his own sweat, at least the little one was already asleep and wouldn’t discover this secret.
Unconsciously, Ji Suize’s forehead nearly touched Niannian’s. Up close, he could see the fine, soft fuzz on the little one’s skin, much like the fuzz on a peach, white and delicate, yet a hundred times more adorable than any peach.
Having observed enough, Ji Suize finally closed his heavy eyelids and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the little one’s gentle breathing.
***
Everyone in the family knew that his older brother suffered from insomnia, but few were aware that Ji Suize also had sleep issues. He wasn’t tormented by sleeplessness but by nightmares. He could always fall asleep quickly, only to be jolted awake by bad dreams.
Ji Suize had never revealed this to anyone. From the very beginning, he believed there was no need to speak of it.
Tonight, he had another nightmare, as if trapped in a loop, reliving the same terrifying dream over and over.
During the day, Ji Suize and his friends had fed a little squirrel with the nuts they carried with them. The squirrel was completely unafraid of strangers and followed them back to their campsite. It retained a hint of caution, though, watching them from the nearest tree to their tent.
Late at night, Ji Suize was startled awake by a noise. Through the bright moonlight, he saw a small figure standing outside the tent, tearing at the fabric. Ji Suize quickly came to his senses and recognized the figure as the little squirrel from earlier that day. At the same time, he noticed that his friend, who had been sleeping beside him, was gone.
It was the middle of the night, a four-year-old child wouldn’t wander off for no reason.
Ji Suize hurried out of the tent to look for the teacher sleeping in another tent. The teacher’s tent was open, but no one was inside.
The once-cautious squirrel from the daytime grew bold in the darkness of night, darting over to tug at the hem of his pants.
In the silent night, the sound of a child crying echoed, intermittent and faint. If one didn’t listen carefully, it could easily be drowned out by the hooting of owls.
When the sound came again, Ji Suize followed it.
The bright moonlight illuminated his friend’s figure. He was hanging from the largest pine tree in the area. The moonlight clearly revealed his friend’s contorted face, his eyes wide open, his forehead bruised in multiple places, blood flowing from his seven orifices down to his toes, dripping onto a small mushroom that had just sprouted.
Earlier that day, Ji Suize had confirmed that this mushroom wasn’t poisonous and wanted to pick it to make soup, but his friend had stopped him.
“This mushroom is so cute. It just sprouted, it’s still a baby mushroom! Let’s not pick it. Let it stay here quietly and grow up slowly.”
Ji Suize stared blankly into those eyes, now filled with white. The phone in his hand had somehow connected, and the reassuring voice of the operator came through the receiver, but he could hear nothing and could make no sound.
“I heard it was revenge. That child’s grandfather did a lot of bad things in the past, schemed to seize his best friend’s family fortune. He thought the whole family was dead, but it turns out there was a secret illegitimate child still alive, hiding his identity and working as a teacher at the summer camp.”
“I met that teacher. He seemed kind and gentle. Who would have thought he’d do something so insane? If he wanted revenge, why take it out on a defenseless child?”
“The most pitiful one is that child from the Su family. I heard he was the first to discover it and was so scared he lost his voice on the spot.”
“At least the teacher had a shred of conscience, he didn’t harm that child and turned himself in…”
-
People often forget memories of traumatic events, but Ji Suize didn’t forget. Instead, he developed mutism.
Adults often say children have the worst memories and forget most of their childhood as they grow up. After the summer camp incident, Ji Suize’s greatest wish was to grow up quickly so he could forget that memory.
For half a year, he tried not to think about that night, pretending he had moved on. No one around him noticed anything unusual, but he knew that every night, the terrifying memory would resurface, dragging him into the vortex of nightmares.
Ji Suize’s eyes snapped open, filled with terror. The warm yellow ceiling came into view, easing a fraction of his unease.
After that incident, Ji Suize could no longer bear to look at white or red. The ceiling in his room had been replaced from white to a warm yellow, and everything in the room was stripped of those two colors, replaced as much as possible with warm tones.
Ji Suize sat up, his fingers tugged by a force. He looked down.
In his sleep, the little one still tightly held his fingers. When he had pulled away earlier, several fingers had slipped from the little one's grasp, leaving only his index finger still tightly encircled, as if it were a final plea.
Cold sweat trickled down Ji Suize's temple. He slowly steadied his ragged breathing, abandoning the idea of going to the bathroom to wash his face, and lay back down beside Su Younian. He slipped his fingers one by one back into the little one's palm, enveloped in warmth and stickiness, his unease gradually fading away.
He reached out and gently poked the corner of the little one's mouth.
Once wasn't enough, so he poked again.
Still not enough.
Just as he was about to do it again, Niannian drowsily opened his eyes and murmured softly, "Brother?"
Ji Suize stopped, his unease mingling with a sense of anticipation as he waited for the little one to push him away. The next moment, his finger was grasped tightly, and the little one's other arm wrapped around his waist. The small body snuggled closer into his embrace, and a tiny hand patted his back a few times, mumbling sleepily, "Go to sleep quickly."
Niannian wasn't fully awake, instinctively assuming the person beside him couldn't sleep, and instinctively using his own way to soothe him. His drowsy voice kept softly coaxing, "Niannian is here with you, go to sleep now..."
Ji Suize's entire body stiffened. The hand patting his back finally stilled, and the little one fell back into a deep sleep.
After a long while, Ji Suize finally regained control of his body. He pressed his forehead against the little one's, letting his sweat dampen the other's forehead, treating it as an adhesive, binding the two of them firmly together.
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