What if... another Weilan story [bxb] [✔]

Chapter 3

They started to get together both in and out of school, with a new addition. A shy little thing called Guo. He didn’t talk much and always kept his eyes down.

Hong wondered about his presence, so she asked: “Why do you always bring him along?”

Da Qing: "He’s the son of the headmaster. It might be a smart move to be friends with him."

Yunlan was immediately more accepting after hearing this.

They were in Jin’s room and having a break from studying; Yunlan never had so many ‘breaks’ until he met these people, but he enjoyed them more than he would ever admit out loud.

Hong was hovering around Jin faking interest in whatever he was doing on that computer, a side of her Yunlan had never seen before, and quite amusing to him. He could already imagine how much he was going to tease her for this.

Wang suddenly said, “I saw Chu at the mall the other day, he looks so scary all the time.”

Guo: "He’s not scary, he’s a good guy."

Nobody had ever heard so many words together coming out of his mouth, so they all looked at him.

Yunlan: "Do you know him?"

Guo, uncomfortable at being at the centre of attention: "H...he hel...helped me on...once.”

Da Qing: "No need to be scared you know, we’re all friends here."

Hong: "He’s right, tell us how you know him."

Guo: "I was getting off work, I was excited because I had just been paid and..."

Hong: "You work???"

Jin: "I thought you had money, why do you need to work?"

Guo: "My...my father has money, I don’t."

They were all silent for a while.

Sang: "So? What happened after you got paid?"

Glad that someone else had broken the silence, Guo started to explain how he bumped into some random guys because he was not paying attention, focused only on the money in his hands; they got angry and started pushing him and wanted to take his money from him.

Guo: "I need it, so I couldn’t just give it to them!"

They were all puzzled, not to say incredulous imagining Guo standing up to some bullies.

Jin: "What do you need it for?"

Guo remained silent so they encouraged him to tell the rest of the tale. Although he refused to give them the money, he was rather helpless himself, so out of the blue appeared Chu who stopped one of the guys from hitting him. He fought him instead, not surprisingly quite well, but he was outnumbered.

Guo: "He almost got hurt trying to help me, I’m glad Shen Wei was passing by and stopped the guy that was about to hit him on the back."

Yunlan: "Shen Wei?"

Guo: "Ye... yes, he was at the mall too, and said something about hitting someone from behind meant acting dishonourably while stopping him, then they just went away."

Yunlan: "Shen Wei, huh?"

He didn’t realise he had said it out loud. Hong smirked, then decided to give him a break in front of their friends by moving on with the conversation. They started chit-chatting for a while then thought of studying some more before something else came up and they kept on chatting.

~~~

The weather was particularly good today, so they planned to walk to the park together after school, instead of going home directly.

They had talked about getting an ice-cream because Yunlan likes sweet things and the day was really hot and apparently the park had the best ice-cream in the city, so Hong and Yunlan set out to verify that.

They were all together, even Guo, they all had to admit that they had become fond of him; it wasn’t something that guys would say out loud, but they always called him to join them; luckily the girls had no such face-problems so they had no trouble at all in telling him that he was nice and cute and all sorts of compliments that made him smile and feel accepted and cheerful.

They gathered the money for the ice-creams and sent Yunlan to make the order. One by one they took their ice-creams and sat at one of the nearby tables. The last one was for Yunlan, he took it and turned to go paying when he bumped into someone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, then he raised his eyes to see Shen Wei looking at him.
"Oh, it’s you again."

"I’m sorry, at least this time I didn’t cause too much trouble," Shen Wei said, nodding towards the ice-cream still firmly in Yunlan’s hand.

Yunlan: "Oh, yeah, no, no trouble at all."

Shen Wei: "I should be more careful though. I apologise. Please, let me make amends by paying for your ice-cream, I insist."

Shen Wei quickly turned to the owner.

"One ice-cream, please, I’m also paying for... my friend here."

Yunlan wanted to protest that he had to pay for seven people, not just one, but Shen Wei showed no surprise at all when presented with the bill and paid quickly before turning towards him again. "Soo..."

Yunlan just looked at him while licking his ice-cream.

Shen Wei: "Uh, I... I have to go now, have a nice day Yunlan."

Yunlan: "Yeah, thanks, you too."

Wei smiled then walked away.

Yunlan slowly walked towards his friends.

“Was that Shen Wei?” Hong asked curiously. Yunlan explained to them what happened and gave them their money back.

Guo, while cheerfully eating his: "Good thing you didn’t drop your ice-cream."

Hong: "It would need the end of the world to make Yunlan give up his sweets."

Wang: "It seems like we meet him quite often lately, don’t you think?"

Jin: "Yeah, everywhere we go, he seems to be around..."

Da Qing: "Is he stalking us?"

Yunlan: "Don’t be ridiculous, he simply wanted an ice-cream like all of us, which by the way is really good."

Jin: "Told you, it’s the best in the city."

Da Qing: "Not as good as fried fish, though."

Jin: "Well, if you don’t want it..."

Da Qing: "Stay away from my ice-cream!"

And the day went by like that, chatting and laughing until it got dark and was time to head back home.