After the car accident, my boyfriend got straight

Jiang Shiyu walked out of the dark teaching building, fingertips still damp. At this hour, there were few people in the teaching area, dim lights casting a faint glow. In the front courtyard flowerbeds, osmanthus trees were planted, adorned with twinkling string lights that diffused the fragrant osmanthus scent across the campus, soothing the nausea in his chest.

He walked to the edge of the flowerbed, sat down, and searched in his cloth bag for tissues. After a while, he realized he had given away the only pack earlier to a girl who needed it in the afternoon.

His freshly washed hands still had water droplets on them. He couldn’t casually place them anywhere to avoid wetting his clothes or getting them dirty. When Shen Li found him under the tree, he was sitting with his arms crossed, hands dangling downward like a penguin spreading short wings.

Approaching him, Shen Li walked up to him. Jiang Shiyu glanced up, expressionless, then lowered his head again to continue airing out his “wings”.

“What are you doing with your hands?” Shen Li asked.

Feeling uncomfortable, Jiang Shiyu grumbled softly, “They’re wet. I’m drying them.”

Sometimes Shen Li felt Jiang Shiyu’s mind was different from theirs, charmingly naive. Every time he saw him make some inexplicable gestures, he felt his heart soften. He wanted to touch his face.

He sat down beside him. Jiang Shiyu quickly moved a bit to the side, creating some distance between them, about the width of a fist.

Shen Li took out a pack of tissues from his pocket, opened one, and carefully dried Jiang Shiyu’s small “wings”.

Unable to resist, Jiang Shiyu turned his head to look. Shen Li was much taller than him. Even when he lowered his head, he could clearly see Shen Li’s facial expressions—eyebrows and eyes drooping, taming his originally unruly and lazy demeanor, now earnestly wiping his fingers. The fingertips sent a tingling sensation through his palm, a small surge of electricity racing from his palm along his veins to his heart, making him suddenly feel warm.

After drying his hands, Shen Li wanted to check his shoulders, but Jiang Shiyu twisted his body, avoiding him, not wanting to be touched.

Seeing him pouting stubbornly, Shen Li sighed suddenly and asked, “Are you angry?”

Jiang Shiyu stared at him with round eyes, like a fierce little cat. “What do you mean? Are you blaming me? He started it.”

In the darkness, Shen Li’s voice was as deep as a cello, unhurried. “You threw cold water on him.”

Jiang Shiyu abruptly stood up, staring into his eyes, his face darker than it had been at the barbecue stall, looking incredulous.

“Yes, I threw it. Are you upset? Are you going to throw water on me?”

Jiang Shiyu, like a startled cat, bristled, ready to scratch at any moment.

Seeing the change in his expression, Shen Li realized he was more adorable when obedient. Of course, his current angry cat-like appearance was also cute, but an angry cat was harder to handle.

He also stood up. The significant difference in their size made Jiang Shiyu’s aggressive stance somewhat weaker. He leaned over, lips near Jiang Shiyu’s ear, his voice low and calm.

“Jiang Shiyu, are you just a kitten that hasn’t been tamed?”

Just a moment ago, waving his claws, Jiang Shiyu was suddenly dizzy and red-faced from Shen Li’s sudden proximity. He feigned composure. “Don’t change the subject.”

“First, I didn’t call those people here, and I don’t know them. Second, just now, the person standing by your side seemed to be me.”

“I actually didn’t know. You have such courage. Facing so many people, you dare to splash water on someone’s face. If I hadn’t come in time, what were you planning to do? Stand still and take a beating?”

Jiang Shiyu didn’t know that when Shen Li came out of the house and saw Pink Hair raise his hand to hit him, at that moment, his pupils contracted and his breath stopped. He wanted to grab his ear and ask if he was stupid, if he didn’t know to avoid it, and he wanted to break Pink Hair’s hand, actually daring to hit Jiang Shiyu.

Jiang Shiyu wanted to refute. He wasn’t stupid, how could he let someone hit himself, he calculated well, when his hand came over, he squatted down and then took advantage of the other party’s inattention, pushed hard and turned around and ran.

Before he could speak, his jaw was pinched and all his voices were stuck in his throat.

Compared with those two months in summer vacation, his face was a little fatter. When the tiger’s mouth locked his chin, the soft flesh on his cheek overflowed from the tiger’s mouth like milky cheese flowing out of the palm of his hand.

Shen Li’s eyes were dark and deep, staring at the beautiful and tender face, but he had no place to vent his nameless fire.

He had known long ago that Jiang Shiyu was different from himself. When he woke up from the hospital bed and saw him for the first time, he knew he was different. 

Otherwise, he wouldn’t always inadvertently look at him, paying attention to every bit of his day. But Shen Li had amnesia, and he forgot everything between himself and Jiang Shiyu, so this inexplicable emotion could not be defined for him, and every time he tortured him, he felt helpless and depressed. He could not control his closeness.

“Jiang Shiyu, you are really good.”

He released his constraints and returned to sit on the edge of the flowerbed. Jiang Shiyu stood still and did not know what to think. After a while, he also sat down beside the flowerbed. The evening breeze of summer evening carried the fragrance of osmanthus, blowing away those unpleasant moods.

“It was him who occupied my place and said that I…” His long eyelashes drooped with grievance. His voice was dull. “Said I lived in your house by relying on my appearance and background, and seduced you.”

He had a soft personality since he was a child, and Li Muzi said that even if he kneaded him like dough, he would not be angry and would laugh at others. 

Talking about his background and past, and saying that he relied on gaining sympathy to live in Shen’s house and seduced him, he didn’t want to bear it or bear it.

“Speaking of gossip.”

Shen Li interrupted, with anger.

“Don’t listen to his nonsense.”

Jiang Shiyu’s soft eyelashes fluttered like crow feathers, trembling, and shaking Shen Li’s heart.

“But there is a word he didn’t say wrong. He said you forgot me and have nothing to do with me.”

Shen Li had an impulse to return to the barbecue stall just now and really give that pink hair two slaps to let him reorganize his words.

The barbecue finally ended in dissatisfaction. After that, the relationship between Shen Li and Jiang Shiyu became neither cold nor hot. There was no excessive action in the dormitory. It seemed that Jiang Shiyu had already thrown away the decision to start again with Shen Li.

Li Muzi asked him several times about the situation between the two of them, he just shook his head and said that he was focusing on the piano competition recently, and he put his mind on the competition. He didn’t think about the problem between the two of them.

Although the fact was not completely like what he said, it was almost the same. He signed up for the “Xinghai Cup” national piano competition when he started school. His teacher believed that he had the ability to play on a bigger stage. If he could get good results, it would also help him in his future piano studies.

Focusing on preparing for the competition and practicing the piano was one aspect. On the other hand, Jiang Shiyu wanted to sort out his own mentality. After Shen Li lost his memory, his own emotions had never really relaxed. 

He was always touched by Shen Li’s every move and word, wanting to find back his lost memory, but he felt that if he continued like this, not only would he not find back the memories between the two, but he would also sink into the emotional swamp, which would not be good for both of them. So he wanted to calm down for a few days and settle his emotions.

In the evening, the setting sun wrapped in the sunset, like an overturned palette of paint, the fiery red and gorgeous orange dyed the sky. Birds circled in the sky, and the long melody of the campus radio filled every corner of the school.

In the piano classroom, a slender and tall teenager sat in front of the piano. His white and smooth silk shirt set off his back extraordinarily elegant and out of the dust. The beautiful and long melody slid from his fingertips, and the teenager outside the door, a tall and handsome young man leaned against the window, his gaze fixated on the silhouette of the young boy in the classroom. Shen Li, born into a wealthy family, had been exposed to nothing but top-tier elegance since childhood. Unfortunately, he was not one to conform to refined tastes; he preferred rough and wild activities like horseback riding, archery, and martial arts. 

He was not the type to patiently listen to a piano performance, let alone peer at someone practicing piano as if he were a voyeur.

Yet now, there he stood by the door, seemingly eavesdropping with keen interest. The unfamiliar notes under Jiang Shiyu’s fingers transformed into a melodious and emotionally charged piece, drawing listeners into its narrative of feelings.

Setting aside lost memories, this was Shen Li’s first time watching and hearing Jiang Shiyu play the piano. Unlike the soft and malleable sickly young man he usually saw, him seated at the piano seemed like a completely different person. 

His slender back was erect, bathed in the sunset’s glow that cascaded through the window, casting an orange hue upon his hair. His fingers danced across the keys like a beautiful prince in a crystal ball, both noble and distant.

A surge of warmth seeped from Shen Li’s chest, spreading through his limbs and core, stirring up unfamiliar emotions within him. In his deep, dark eyes, all he could see was the figure of that young boy playing the piano in the classroom.

Initially, Jiang Shiyu had been alone in the classroom playing. Soon after, another young man walked in from the doorway and sat next to him. Together, they played a duet, their hands moving in synchrony over the keys. However, to Shen Li’s ears, the music didn’t sound as enchanting anymore.

He stared at the two figures sitting closely together, finding the sight unsettling. Fortunately, they didn’t play for long. They soon packed up their things, preparing to leave. As they reached the doorway, the young man noticed him leaning against the corridor.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” 

Jiang Shiyu was still locking the door when he heard the voice and turned his head, meeting Shen Li’s gaze. His eyes flickered for a moment, showing a hint of surprise or perhaps some other emotion.

Shen Li stood up straight. He had come straight after training, without even taking a shower, dressed in workout clothes with a sports bag slung over his shoulder. He was tall and imposing, giving off an air that made him seem unapproachable.

He lifted his chin in Jiang Shiyu’s direction and spoke casually, “Oh, I’m looking for him.”

The other student frowned, thinking that Jiang Shiyu might have gotten into some trouble. He was about to say something when Jiang Shiyu stepped forward and interrupted, “He’s my roommate.”

The other student looked skeptical. Could there really be such a tall and muscular student in the music department?

Jiang Shiyu didn’t want to say much more. He bid farewell to the other student and then pulled Shen Li away.

As they descended the stairs, Shen Li walked behind him. Suddenly, he spoke up, “That guy you were playing piano with seemed quite worried about you leaving with me.”

Jiang Shiyu stood on a lower step, turned his head to look at Shen Li, and his eyes narrowed with a playful smile. “Oh, really? Well, you don’t exactly look like a good person, do you?”