Lovely Allergen

Chapter 14: Half Sugar Milk Tea

On Saturday morning, Yue Zhishi woke up earlier than he usually did and helped Lin Rong prepare breakfast. His slight cold from yesterday still lingered, and he coughed for a while after drinking some milk. He listened to Lin Rong's urging and took some flu medicine. After a little while, Song Yu came downstairs and departed after eating some pieces of shaomai. Yue Zhishi immediately left the kitchen once he heard the front door close.

"Aunt Rong, I'm leaving now too."

Lin Rong hurriedly came out. "You don't want to eat some more? Or are you guys going to a fancy place for lunch?" She noticed Yue Zhishi's deep black zip up hoodie and facial mask and said, "Darling, are you going to someone's birthday party or to a fight?"

"I'm going to be late, can't talk!" Yue Zhishi gathered all of his stuff and ran out as fast as he could.

This city's breakfast culture was engraved deep into each person's bones — it was always busiest during the early morning. No matter what street or alleyway, there would be breakfast stores of varying different sizes and their endless stream of customers waiting for their favourite meal.

Small shops didn't have much space to begin with, so naturally there weren't many rules on where to sit or stand. People casually stood on the street with their bowls of food, chatting while they ate. Students rushing to go to class would even hold a bowl of dry noodles or beancurd and eat while they walked, finishing their meal right before they got onto their buses or trains. That was their unique ability to survive.

Passing through a street full of smoke and chatter, Yue Zhishi finally saw Song Yu at the streetlights.

Maybe because he needed to make a speech, he wore a formal black shirt tucked into his pants with the cuffs half rolled up. His long legs and narrow waist were even more obvious in this outfit, making him particularly conspicuous in the crowd.

Yue Zhishi didn't want to attend his classmate's birthday party to begin with, so once he knew Song Yu needed to make a speech, there was almost no way he would've attended the celebrations. But since Song Yu had refused to let even his parents come along, there was no way Yue Zhishi would've been allowed either.

So Yue Zhishi had no choice but to stoop to secretly following him. The venue should be full of people anyway, and there was no way Song Yu would be able to find him hidden in the midst of so many people.

The light turned green, and the two people walked forward with ten metres of distance separating them into the subway station. Initially Yue Zhishi had worried Song Yu would call a taxi, but thankfully Song Yu decided to take public transport — or else he would've been like one of the actors in the movies and have to tell his taxi driver to follow the car in front of them.

Yue Zhishi managed to cram into the train carriage right behind Song Yu's at the very last moment. He hid behind an old man's head and peeked at Song Yu, the old man curiously following his gaze before turning back to look at him with a face full of suspicion.

Yue Zhishi pulled up his hood and took half a step back. He then pulled out his phone and changed his cover from just hiding behind the old man to pretending to be another office worker browsing on his phone.

The city's Line 2 carriages were all decorated with girly pink colours. Even the poles were pink, so Song Yu standing in the train with his black clothes had a very strange sense of subversion around him, like his own natural barrier isolating him to the rest of the world. Yue Zhishi kept looking over and didn't realise that he himself was also standing there with his own black clothes.

They were pretty much two obvious little black dots in the midst of pink bubbles.

The bubbles burst when the two little dots needed to exit. The older one was in front, with the younger one hid behind crowds of people as he followed. They got off at a subway station with many exits and just as many people. When going up the stairs, a young mother was in front of Yue Zhishi, and she was carrying a large backpack, one hand pulling an even larger suitcase and the other pulling at a three or four-year-old child. There were several times she needed to pause and rest.