As I ate breakfast with heavy dark circles, Yi Chen was still in his room playing the pipa, oh, I meant guitar, while Mum and Dad were in the kitchen cooking. Our family's eating habits were rather unbelievable; we ate porridge for all three meals, the only difference was how thin or thick it was. The side dishes didn't differ much either. We usually woke up to plain porridge coupled with a chicken drumstick or some crab meat.
Someone was knocking on the door. Who could it be? Even if it's the spring festival, there's no need to visit at seven in the morning.
"Xiao Chen, go and see who's there. If it's the milkman, pass him the money on the table."
Right, Mum ordered fresh milk right after we came back from our trip. Every morning after we had our porridge and crab or chicken, we would drink milk. It was quite unbelievable.
I took the money, opened the door, took the bag in the milkman's hands and paid him, but once the door was shut again, there was a knocking sound again.
Uncle, you're really annoying. If you have any other business here, why not do it in one go?
Angrily, I opened the door. "Uncle......"
"Uncle? You dare to call me uncle when I'm this young?!" The tall handsome youth at the door smiled. "Have you gone dumb? You can't be serious... I woke up at 4 just to catch the first bus at 5 to see you and you're not even letting me in?"
My face flushed red for quite some time as I remained speechless. Only being able to move, I gave him a strong punch, and feeling that it wasn't enough, I added another kick.
After letting him in, I realised he was carrying two pieces of tofu in his hands.
"......" I blankly pointed. "What is this for?"
"The shops along the street were still closed, the only one open was a tofu store. Naturally, I had to buy something if he helped me with the directions."
So the first gift Lu Feng gave Mum and Dad was two pieces of tofu.
The two of them just so happened to be making their traditional tofu dish but realised that there was no tofu in the fridge and was debating over who should walk down five storeys. Seeing the gift, they immediately broke into smiles, praising Lu Feng for being considerate.
Lu Feng and I stuck together like glue for the entire day, hiding in my small bedroom with the door closed as we sat on the bed and chatted away, smiling as we looked at each other when we weren't speaking. I showed off my valued collections one by one to Lu Feng, and although they weren't especially rare or special to him, he still poked his head over excitedly from the back as he hugged my waist, his chin resting on my shoulders as he looked at the photos and figurines seriously, his warm breath tickling my ear.
When night had fallen, we were still reluctant to part, so Mum and Dad generously welcomed Lu Feng to stay for the night. He refused at first before "reluctantly" accepting. No one was better than him when it came to pretending to be a saint.
I had long snuggled under the blankets as I waited for Lu Feng, watching him slowly remove his thick winter clothes. Lu Feng was four years older than me, his body developing well. Although he was skinny, he looked big with his height, whereas I was still struggling to grow taller, hence seeing his healthy broad back made me sigh with admiration.
"What is it?" He snuggled in, wrapping one arm around my shoulders.
"What does your mum feed you? You're so tall."
"Bullwhips." He was smiling evilly again.
"Go away, it wouldn't be your height that's growing if you ate that."
"My height's tall* too."
"Haha..."
Maybe because of the chilly weather, we wrapped ourselves in a tight embrace as we slept.
Lu Feng's body warmth was something I liked.
Lu Feng stayed for two more days before he left. Mum and Dad were rather enthusiastic, but Yi Chen was a little wary. "Brother, don't just keep talking to him and ignore me. We started sleeping in separate rooms when we were six, so why does he get to sleep with you?" Okay, I'll admit Yi Chen seemed to show too much affection for it to be normal among siblings, but at that time, both of us didn't think much about it.
Two days before school started, I could no longer wait and decided to abandon Yi Chen and head straight for school. Opening the door, I found Lu Feng in the dorm with his back to me unpacking his luggage. Upon hearing some movement, he turned around and smiled widely.
"Xiao Chen, I brought you some chocolates."
"Lu Feng, I brought you some meat floss."
We said this in unison, making us crack up in laughter.
My mum's meat floss... every shred was at least 1mm thick, which was probably ten times thicker than those sold in stores. It was obvious she made this purely out of boredom, akin to how she would repeatedly take my old sweaters and tear them apart to be made into gloves and then tear those apart to be made into socks which were then torn apart to be knitted into scarves. Lu Feng tried some the other day when he visited, and because of his casual remark and the fact that hardly anyone ever praises Mum, she forced me to pack some in a ziplock bag for him.
As we sat by his bed listening to a CD while taking and snacking, the finely made Swiss chocolates of course, attracted me more than my mum's homemade meat floss. I carefully placed each exquisite piece of chocolate into my mouth; the slight bitter taste it left as it melted was absolutely addictive, and without me realising, the box was soon empty.
Just when I had shoved the last piece into my mouth, Lu Feng exclaimed, "Hey hey hey, you could have at least left me one."
"There's none left." I playfully opened my mouth. "Unless you want this one?"
"Okay." He actually pushed me down, and cupping my face, he pressed his lips against mine.
I was shell-shocked, dazedly allowing his tongue to enter and lick the half-melted chocolate once over before eating it.
When he released me, he did an act of swallowing before smirking. "That was delicious."
I could still feel the soft and warm sensation lingering on my lips and the tip of my tongue. It was as if I was struck by lightning, my mind had gone blank, my face a steaming red as I remained tongue-tied.
"Your face has gone red." Lu Feng was smiling real evilly. "How innocent."
It was then I realised he was fooling around with me, and with a mix of anger and embarrassment, I picked up a pillow and started hitting him. "Son of a bitch, go to hell!"
He was smiling as he dodged my attacks. "You're really interesting, blushing just like a girl."
I threw the pillow away and ignored him.
Those horrible kind of jokes did not die down after that, and in fact, got worse. When we were together, he would pinch my waist or thighs out of the blue when no one was noticing, pulling tricks that were even more embarrassing. Once I started blushing again, he would always laugh it off saying, "I'm just playing around, it's just a joke, don't take it to heart."
I was different from him. He could make a joke out of anything he wanted, but I treated things seriously.
