NOVEL NEXT Rong Yi thought to himself as he ran downstairs, “Fortunately I’ve broken up with this guy.”
On the one hand, Chen Keyao was a very reliable guy, on the other hand, he could be extremely unreliable too.
But in terms of being reliable, how many times would one run into incidents like this in his life? Last time it was a pickpocket and this time a burglar. Rong Yi had only got involved in such dangerous situations twice in his whole life.
By contrast, Chen Keyao was really lousy when it came to the nitty-gritty of daily life.
Living with people like this would definitely tire you out. As Rong Yi told himself so repeatedly in his heart, he shook his head hard twice, trying to stop the continuous replay of the scene in his head.
Chen Keyao’s distinct voice outside his door when he was in panicking despair. His caring eyes when he turned around to look at him in that dark room. His slightly frowning brow when seeing the blood on his palm after he had wiped his face.
None of these was life-sustaining essentials.
‘Don’t recall this again and again, which would then make your heartbeat get accelerated like a fool.’
‘Besides, he wouldn’t be thinking of you at all.’
When Rong Yi came home with his convenience store bag, Chen Keyao was still sitting on the sofa as he was told to.
But now half of his face had been stained. A few bloody tissue paper were strewn on his coffee table.
“…What are you doing?” Rong Yi looked at him in horror.
“I just wiped it off,” he frowned. “How come it’s got ripped open again…”
Rong Yi was again speechless.
He was a single Omega, but now he had the illusion of becoming a little brat’s hard-pressed parent. Just with his eyes away for one second, and this naughty kid would get himself in trouble.
He quickly walked over towards Chen Keyao, threw the bag down on the coffee table, and, with a frown, he lifted up Chen Keyao’s chin to examine his wound.
The wound was about 7-8 centimeters long, and the shallower parts on both ends would have formed scabs already, if it hadn’t been Chen Keyao’s restless hands. The wound was cracked open and oozing blood again. There were a lot of half-dry blood stains near the wound too, making the face look rather dirty.
“So…”Chen Keyao’s body stiffened and eyes started to drift as Rong Yi held his chin up and scrutinised his face: “What did you buy? Supermarkets shouldn’t have medical gauze?”
He reached into Rong Yi’s shopping bag and checked the things in there. He was absolutely astounded.
“Why have you bought this?” He lifted up a pack of sanitary towels.
“They don’t have any gauze, so I got this instead,” Rong Yi took the cotton buds out of the bag and the iodine bottle out of the first-aid box. “Don’t move, I’ll clean the wound first.”
“Wait a minute,” Chen Keyao began to struggle, “Are you going to put this on my face? No!”
Rong Yi was a bit frustrated: “It’s not going to be plastered on your face just like that. We just have to make do with it when we can’t get any gauze in the middle of the night.”
“Even so, I’m not having it!” Chen Keyao was very determined. “It’s not a big wound. Just wash it clean. There’s no need to dress it.”
A real brat. Not only making trouble, but also wilful.
“It’s going to get infected,” Rong Yi dragged him back with patience and carefully cleaned the wound with a cotton swab. “What if it leaves a scar on your face?”
“I’d rather have a scar than have this stuck on my face.” Chen Keyao said quietly.
“If you got infected, half of your face might get rotten, and children would be so scared that no one would come to your class anymore.” Rong Yi said.
“……”
“It’s not going to be applied directly like that. Why do you mind this so much?” Rong Yi took out another cotton bud and said, “If it hurts, just tell me.”
“…It doesn’t hurt.”
“Are there no sensory nerves on your face?” Rong Yi could not resist but press a little harder.
“Hiss-” Chen Keyao drew in a sharp breath, “I knew it. I knew it. If I said it hurt, you’d poke me twice. I just didn’t realise you’d poke me even when I said it didn’t hurt.”
With a guilty conscience, Rong Yi didn’t say anything.
With the wound cleaned, he went to find a pair of scissors, took out a small sanitary towel, ripped it open and cut the filling out straightaway.
“I searched around, and this was the only thing that has a layer of cotton mesh and is sterilised,” he handed the cut cotton mesh over to Chen Keyao. “See, you can’t recognise its original form, can you? The school doctor at my old school taught me this trick.”
Chen Keyao, with his brow furrowed, apparently still could not convince himself to accept it. However, he was struggling to find a suitable excuse for rejection, and was utterly frustrated.
Seeing that Rong Yi had finished processing the sanitary towel and was ready to put on his face something that was once a sanitary towel even though he could not detect its original form any more, Chen Keyao tried to defend for himself: “I think napkins are good too. Can you use napkins instead?”
“No.” Rong Yi stuck the dressing on his face with no sympathy. “If you really don’t like it, I’ll change it for you tomorrow.”
Chen Keyao looked at him with his mouth shut.
“…Or, you can go to the hospital yourself.”
Rong Yi stood up from the sofa and pointed at the pile of trash on the coffee table: “You can throw them out yourself. I’ll go back to bed to sleep for two more hours.”
Chen Keyao carefully touched his treated wound: “Oh, good night.”
Just before Rong Yi reached his room door, he heard him whisper: “Thank you.”
“…it’s my obligation.” Rong Yi said.
If he hadn’t been in a hurry to save him, Chen Keyao wouldn’t have been hurt.
So for Rong Yi, that was really just an “obligation”. If anything at all, he should be the one to say thank-you to the person who had saved his life.
It was not just for tonight’s incident. The fact that Chen Keyao was willing to take him in also deserved appreciation. His apartment was well furnished, located in a popular area and he was asking for a cheap rent. It would not be hard for him to find a tenant at all. On the contrary, it would be almost impossible for Rong Yi to find another place as good as this one.
No matter what Chen Keyao had in mind, Rong Yi was indeed grateful. He was just refusing to think in that way before tonight. But to ask him to express his gratitude openly to this Alpha was still too much.
What happened tonight was too thrilling. Rong Yi lay in bed, turning and tossing, but could not fall asleep until the sun rose.
He covered his head with the duvet and thought, “Why don’t you find a chance to ask Chen Keyao what kind of dishes he usually likes to eat?”
Rong Yi was wide awake when lying in bed, but felt really sleepy when he had to get up and go to work.
Rong Yi couldn’t stop yawning. He opened his door and found that the living room had been cleaned and tidied up immaculately. He hesitated for a while, and decided to wait until he returned from work to confirm with Chen Keyao where he had hidden all those things.
Chen Keyao’s door was still shut when he left home. Knowing that there was a camera, Rong Yi was too embarrassed to sneak over there to eavesdrop or peek. Even in the living room, he deliberately turned away when he yawned.
Rong Yi muddled through the morning in the company, and took a nap at his desk after lunch. For the first time he received a message from Chen Keyao, saying that he had forgotten to tell him yesterday that he had classes today and would not come back for dinner this evening, so Rong didn’t need to prepare food for him. He said he had been to the police, too, reassuring Rong Yi that he did not need to go there any more. And after seeing from the security camera that the burglar climbed in from the living room window, he had someone add an extra bolt to it, and that should make the apartment much safer now.
Rong Yi wanted to make fun of him by asking if he had changed the gauze on his face; and warning him that he might be treated as a pervert if his students’ parents recognized it as from a sanitary towel.
He had typed up all that, but feeling it might not be appropriate, he deleted it in the end.
After he had put his phone down, he looked up and found Xiao Zhang was looking at him with a smile.
Rong Yi was caught off guard: “Why are you looking at me with such an evil smile?”
“Hey, hey.” Xiao Zhang came around to sit next to him, “Who is our handsome big bro sending messages to? With such a smile and then such a frown, your facial expressions are so dramatic.”
Rong Yi’s face froze: “You’re so nosy. Do you think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t work very hard this morning and have been playing on your phone sneakily? Do you want to work overtime?”
“It’s not too late yet, not too late yet,” Xiao Zhang obviously didn’t pay too much respect to this boss of hers. “Come here and I’ll show you something good.”
She took out her phone, worked on it for a little while and then pushed it in front of Rong Yi with a passionate voiceover: ‘Ta da!’
Rong Yi took a look and instantly became thrilled: “Wow, this is?”
“This is the new magazine photoshoot of our beloved Momo! You say he’s your true love, but you don’t care about him at all.” Xiao Zhang was not impressed, “Don’t steal my husband from me in future, OK?”
Rong Yi took out his phone: “Send me the picture. Send me the picture.”
Rong Yi’s mood was brightened up after changing his mobile phone screensaver to a charming photo of this guy whom he had single-sidedly stamped and appointed as his husband in the show business (god knows how many predecessors before this one!).
He passed the convenience store on his way back from work, and after a little hesitation he went in.
In fact, the food he bought yesterday were far more than enough. They were still sitting in the fridge, enough to last two more days. But when he was alone, he just couldn’t be bothered to cook.
As he was entering the apartment with his takeaway in his hands, he was surprised to see a figure on the sofa.
“Didn’t you say you’re not coming back for dinner?” Rong Yi bent down to change into his slippers, “I’ve bought myself a takeaway. Do you want to fix it for yourself or would you like me to cook something for you now?”
He finished changing his shoes, but the person on the couch didn’t answer.
Last night’s incident had made Rong Yi very alert. He quickly moved forward to check. Then he breathed a sigh of relief, although he started to feel uneasy too.
The guy on the couch, at first glance, looked very much like Chen Keyao, but just a lot older. Rong Yi recognized that this was Chen Keyao’s father.
“Xiao Rong, right?” Chen Keyao’s father stood up and smiled amiably at him, “Will Yao-yao not come back for dinner today?”
Hearing the name ‘Yao-yao’, Rong Yi wanted to laugh, but he refrained. In order to prevent a distorted face from being seen, he bowed his head awkwardly: “He has classes tonight. Uncle, if you want to speak to him, please call him.”
“It’s okay. I’m just coming here to say hello,” Father Chen waved his hands and sat back. Then he suddenly asked, “Do you usually eat together?”
“Uh…” Rong Yi was fumbling for words, “We are kind of…sharing board.”
“Yao-yao told me the other day you two had just met?” Father Chen continued, “Where do you sleep at night, Xiao Rong?”
Rong Yi almost fainted right there.
For a moment he realised why Chen Keyao was so frustrated with his father. This mid-aged man was so handsome and charming, but it was a real pain when he started to beat around the bush like that.
“Uncle,” Rong Yi didn’t want to play this game with him anymore, so he sat down right next to him, “I know what you are suspecting, but I really don’t have that kind of relationship with Chen Keyao.”
“You don’t know each other very well, but you already know that he… that…”
“Yes, I know, that’s why we’re not possible,” Rong Yi fished out his identity card from his pocket, which he had retrieved yesterday from a parcel among that pile of deliveries at the company’s front desk, “I’m an Omega.”
Father Chen looked down at his card, then looked up at his face, and then looked down at his card again, and then looked up at his face again, and then back at his card again.
“It’s true,” Rong Yi put his ID card back. “Will you please believe me now, Chen Keyao and I are innocent.”
Father Chen looked at him: “You really…”
In the face of countless similar scenarios since his gender differentiation, Rong Yi accepted fate and nodded: “Yes, I may not look like one, but honestly I’m an Omega. So, me and your son Chen Keyao…”
“Ah,” Father Chen suddenly smiled, “Don’t say that. Yao-yao is actually a very nice person.”