Want to Have a Relationship with You | Chapter 3 | Persistent | Novela.app

Su Jingming’s sleep that night was fitful. The searing pain in his back felt like a rhythmic pounding, a constant reminder of what had happened. Even though he had applied ointment, it still hurt. Su Jingming was never one to show weakness, yet every time Su Qicheng returned, he would always find some excuse to raise a hand against him. It had evolved from initial terror and fear to eventual numbness, and finally, to complete indifference. Once, Ren Wei had accidentally caught a glimpse of the bruises on Su Jingming’s body and had jumped up in a panic. "Who did this? Who dared to lay a hand on my Brother Ming?!" Su Jingming replied, "Brother Ming’s old man." He admitted it quite candidly, unbothered by the shock in Ren Wei’s eyes. Ren Wei had asked him why he didn’t report it. Su Jingming had said, " I have no standing to. He brought me into this world and raised me; consider this repayment." It was his misfortune to be born with the surname Su, to have Su Qicheng’s blood flowing through his veins. He hated his surname. And he hated the fact that the same blood as Su Qicheng’s ran through him. Su Jingming tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep the entire night. As the sky began to pale with the first light of dawn, the sounds of street vendors setting up their stalls drifted up from below. The commotion was quite loud—the sound of a bowl or plate shattering, perhaps. The silence of the night was broken at that moment. "You'll be the death of me! You don't earn a cent, yet you spend all day wasting what we have!" Su Jingming recognized the voice. It was the owner of the rice noodle stall downstairs, scolding his fifteen-year-old son who had already dropped out of school. Su Jingming knelt on his bed, clumsily applying ointment to the wounds on his back while watching himself in the mirror. The skin wasn't broken, but his otherwise smooth back was covered in large patches of deep purple bruising. It looked gruesome. After finishing with the medicine and washing up, Su Jingming grabbed his schoolbag, closed every window in the house, drew the curtains, and headed out. The noodle stall owner’s son felt a surge of irritation the moment he saw the perpetually gloomy Su Jingming. He wiped the tables and chairs with a surly expression. Su Jingming stopped in front of the stall and said to the owner, "One bowl, clear broth. No green onions, no cilantro. Add a fried egg." The owner worked quickly, and before long, a bowl of steaming rice noodles was ready. Su Jingming looked at the hot noodles with an expressionless face. In the midst of this noisy morning, they offered a small sense of domestic warmth. He took off his glasses, casually smoothed his slightly messy hair, and began to eat in small, quiet bites. After finishing, Su Jingming scanned the QR code to pay. The owner’s son kept his eyes fixed on Su Jingming’s school uniform, only snapping out of his daze long after Su Jingming had walked away. "Must be nice being a nerd, actually getting to go to school." Hearing this, the owner slapped the back of his son’s head. "He’s got good grades. Can you even compare?" In these old alleys dating back to the last century, all sorts of people wove through the cluttered lanes. The tireless cries of street vendors echoed through every street and corner. You never knew who you would encounter or who you would miss at the next turn. The October daylight came late. Su Jingming was the first to arrive at the classroom, flipping on the lights. The bright glare instantly illuminated every corner of the room. Su Jingming breathed a private sigh of relief and walked to his seat. The first thing he did was take out the homework he hadn't finished the night before. He rubbed his neck a few times; the pain in his back was noticeably better than it had been last night. If one looked closely, however, his complexion was several shades paler than usual. Su Jingming pursed his lips, frowning as he finished his math, physics, and chemistry assignments. Just as he was about to open his English workbook, a faint sound came from the classroom door. Su Jingming looked up in surprise, only to find Wen Yan looking back at him with equal astonishment. "...You're actually here this early." Wen Yan rested his hand against the doorframe. At this hour, most students hadn't even left their homes. Su Jingming gave a noncommittal grunt and lowered his head to continue his work. Wen Yan stood by the door for a moment, lost in thought, before quietly returning to his own seat. They weren't far apart, separated only by a single aisle. As soon as Wen Yan sat down, he took out his phone, found Su Jingming in the class group chat, and tapped to add him as a friend. The phone on Su Jingming’s desk vibrated. He reached out to unlock it and look. *Wen Yan requested to add you as a friend.* Su Jingming looked up at Wen Yan, who was sitting not far away. "What are you doing?" Wen Yan: "Adding you." "Why?" "To buy you an Ultraman." "..." Su Jingming had thought Wen Yan was joking, but he hadn't expected him to be serious. "Well? Aren't you going to accept?" Under Wen Yan’s urging, Su Jingming accepted the friend request. The next second, Wen Yan sent over a dozen pictures of Ultraman figures. Wen Yan said: "I haven't really researched this much. The only one I know is Tiga. See which one you like?" Su Jingming swallowed hard. He hadn't expected Wen Yan to be so earnest. So earnest that... he seemed even more of a *chuunibyou* than Su Jingming himself. Besides, wouldn't it be weird for one guy to give another guy an Ultraman figure? Su Jingming could already imagine the scene of himself personally accepting the gift from Wen Yan. The mental image was far too jarring. Su Jingming scrolled through the screen aimlessly before typing a few words into the chat box. *Actually, I was joking with you.* Wen Yan replied instantly: *Then how about I treat you to a meal?* Su Jingming: *...* A bizarre conversation began to unfold over WeChat. Su Jingming: *Seriously, you and your sister don't need to be this polite.* Wen Yan: *It’s not about being polite. It’s a heartfelt thank you.* Su Jingming: *No need for thanks... really.* Su Jingming wanted to shout at Wen Yan: *I am the incarnation of justice! I don't need the gratitude of mere mortals!* Wen Yan glanced over. Su Jingming was clutching his phone with a look of profound melancholy. Under the fluorescent lights, he looked somewhat... well-behaved. *Well-behaved?* Wen Yan was startled by his own choice of adjective, so much so that he promptly deleted the reply he had been about to send. Without Wen Yan’s interruptions, Su Jingming’s shadow stretched long under the white lights. The classroom was so quiet that the only sounds were the wind outside and the scratch of pens on paper. Wen Yan pulled out a random worksheet and finished more than half of it absentmindedly until he finally heard the person beside him set down his pen. Wen Yan looked over. Su Jingming didn't give him so much as a second glance; he simply slumped onto his desk to sleep. It seemed he had finished catching up on his homework. As the start of class approached, more people entered the room, and the quiet classroom gradually grew noisy. Ren Wei walked in just as the bell rang. Looking exhausted, he saw Su Jingming face-down on the desk, his black-rimmed glasses sitting at the corner of the table. For a moment, Ren Wei felt an urge to throw away those non-prescription glasses. He suppressed his mischievous impulse and sat down quietly next to Su Jingming. Once the bell finished ringing, Ren Wei whispered, "Brother Ming, class is starting." Su Jingming had been resting his eyes. Before he even lifted his head, his hand groped around the corner of the desk for his glasses. He fumbled a few times, but before he could catch the frames, Zhang Jia—who sat in the front row—moved her books so forcefully that the glasses fell to the floor. Zhang Jia heard something drop. She looked down, immediately picked them up, and turned around to apologize to Su Jingming. Su Jingming brushed the hair away from his forehead with his hand, revealing a pair of striking eyes. His gaze was somewhat cold and distant. With his weary expression, he looked unexpectedly alluring. In that moment of stunned silence, Zhang Jia realized something. She had seemingly never seen what Su Jingming actually looked like. Most of her impressions were limited to his black-rimmed glasses and the short hair that veiled his eyes. "What is it?" Su Jingming looked at the glasses in her hand. His voice was slightly raspy, carrying the fatigue of poor sleep. Zhang Jia’s face flushed red. She carefully placed the glasses on Su Jingming’s desk. "I'm... I'm sorry. I knocked your glasses down." Su Jingming gave a soft "mm." "It's fine." During the first period of the morning, most students were drowsy. It wasn't until the end of the second period, during the long break, that people started clamoring to go to the school convenience store for snacks to wake themselves up. Ren Wei let out a massive yawn and asked Su Jingming, "I'm going to buy a bun. Do you want anything?" Su Jingming looked down at his phone. "No thanks." During the long break, most of the students left the classroom. Su Jingming wanted to stand up and stretch his body, but the moment he straightened his back, a sharp, tearing pain shot from his spine to his brain. He instinctively hissed, bracing his hands on the desk. He took several careful breaths before the pain began to subside. Based on past experience, this level of pain would last for a week. Su Jingming cursed inwardly. His desire to move was forced into stillness. This time, Su Qicheng had been relatively sober while beating him. In the past, if he’d had a few drinks, he might have hit even harder. As long as it was within Su Jingming’s limit of endurance, Su Qicheng knew how to control himself. Throughout the morning, Su Jingming endured the pain in his back, listening to the lessons in a daze. Every time Su Qicheng returned, Su Jingming’s mental state in class the next day would be poor and unfocused. Sometimes, in the middle of a lecture, he would simply leave his seat and vanish. Wen Yan came out of the teacher's office carrying a stack of assignments, only to see that Su Jingming’s seat was empty. He placed an assignment on Su Jingming’s desk and asked Ren Wei, "Where did Su Jingming go?" Ren Wei looked up. "He was just here. Probably went to the restroom." Su Jingming was currently on the rooftop. The bell for yet another period rang in his ears. The October sun was neither harsh nor aggressive; it cast an unusually gentle warmth over him. He sat on the ground facing a wall, his body hunched over, his forehead resting against the concrete. The noisy campus gradually quieted down, replaced only by the muffled sound of teachers lecturing drifting through the windows. It was very peaceful. It was also very suffocating. The sunlight on his back felt like the best kind of balm, slowly plating the cracks in Su Jingming’s heart with layer upon layer of gold. He really loved the light. As long as there was light, all problems would eventually be resolved. The phone in his pocket vibrated several times in succession. Su Jingming wrinkled his nose, pulled it out, and unlocked it. It was a message from Wen Yan. Wen Yan: *Where are you? I brought you some food.* Wen Yan: *Where'd you go?* Wen Yan: *Su Jingming.* Su Jingming was terrible at dealing with people like this, and even worse at dealing with Wen Yan. He knew that if he didn't reply, the messages would never stop. Su Jingming: *I'm on the rooftop.* The moment he sent it, the other side went silent. Not long after, the rooftop door was pushed open. Wen Yan was holding a bag of small buns. The moment he opened the door, he saw Su Jingming sitting cross-legged in the corner. Su Jingming looked up, his back to the light, staring at the tall youth. Su Jingming: "Wen Yan, why are you so persistent?" Wen Yan crouched down until they were at eye level. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly. "I want to get to know you." *** Glossary: