Apartment 4F

6: How to become someone's gay bestfriend

Ironically, Yue and Dylan became closer after that.

She would occasionally wander into his room and ask him to zip her up if she couldn't reach, or consult him for fashion advice, which he was more than happy to dispense because he considered himself very fashionable. After he had convinced her to get rid of some of her weird-looking tops and skirts, and she began to dress in more flattering clothing, she was actually pretty hot.

They also started watching movies and dramas together. Yue had somehow coerced him into watching Meteor Garden, which, he had to admit, was pretty alright despite the dated cinematography. And the fact that they could not and would probably never agree on which F4 member was better. (Yue preferred gentle guys like Hua Ze Lei and had a crush on Vic Zhou, who was decades too old for her; Dylan personally identified more with Dao Ming Si.)

On the night of sophomore prom, all their roommates were getting ready except the two of them.

"Are you sure you don't want to go?" Caesar asked for the third time that evening. Dylan and Yue were lounging on separate ends of the couch, engrossed with their phones. "I mean, you could just go even if you don't have a date, or... you could go with each other."

"Not interested." Dylan didn't even look up from the phone game he was playing, his thumbs tapping the screen rapidly.

He usually avoided prom and social nights to escape all the girls pestering him, even though there were significantly less now after he had told most of them he was gay.

Yue looked up momentarily to glance at Dylan, not at all surprised by his lack of enthusiasm. After all, he couldn't exactly go with a guy. She also reiterated her apathy for prom to their roommates, but in reality, it was slightly more than that. The idea of attending prom was borderline traumatising.

When it was just the two of them in the apartment (they had eaten dinner after their roommates finally left, and were once again lazing on the couch), Dylan turned to her. "So... it's just the two of us... what do you want to do?"

"... Watch Youku and chill?" Yue suggested.

He nodded, getting up. "I'll get some wine and ice cream..."

__________

Half a tub of alcohol-infused ice cream later, Yue was already swaying slightly and giggling profusely over random things in the show that weren't even funny.

Dylan checked the alcohol content on the ice-cream packaging and frowned in confusion. It was less than 1%. And she had barely touched her wine.

"You know," she suddenly blurted out, "back in Hangzhou University, I was the freshman prom queen."

His head snapped up in surprise.

Not because she was prom queen, but because she was finally opening up about her past. All of them could guess that something had happened to her in Hangzhou; but she clearly wasn't ready to talk about it, and they never pushed.

"Can you believe it - how can I be the prom queen?? I'm so short and I'm not even pretty..."

Yes, she wasn't. Sometimes, in unexpected moments, she was downright beautiful.

"For our year, they decided they wanted a girl-next-door theme I guess. All the nominees were like that - one of my bestfriends who is tall and attractive didn't even get nominated. There was also a round of competitions like singing, charades, coming up with cheesy pick-up-lines... and somehow, I won."

"What about the prom king?" Dylan was curious. "Was he the boy-next-door type too?

Yue chuckled. "No, if that were the case, my other bestfriend Sun Ning would have won. And then, there would have been no problem... The prom king was the best-looking guy in our year, in our school - you know, the typical kind. Tall, popular, a basketballer... like..."