Apartment 4F

19: How to tell the truth

Yue listened, mouth slightly agape, as Dylan began to explain.

How at first, he had found it vaguely amusing and a convenient way to ward off unwanted female attention. And later on, when it became evident she genuinely enjoyed having him as a gay best friend, he didn't want her to get angry or feel betrayed that their closeness began with a lie.

On top of it all, she seemed to be traumatised by her past and clearly told him she wasn't looking for a relationship. Then, it just dragged on for too damn long, and he no longer knew what to say.

Frankly, Yue didn't know what to say either.

She wondered how she could have missed all of this. Or had she subconsciously ignored the signs, because she was afraid? Perhaps, her previous experience in Hangzhou had left a deeper imprint than even she herself realised, the hateful comments staining her like indelible ink.

This Shen Yue - who does she think she is? She will never be good enough. Not even in her next life...

True - in what world would a guy like that choose a girl like her?? So incompatible...

In this world, guys like Hu Yi Tian and Wang He Di don't end up falling for normal girls like her. Absurdly, it had been easier to believe he was gay, and only kissing her because he was drunk.

"Aren't you gonna say anything?" Her non-gay bestfriend asked, his voice betraying a hint of uncharacteristic nervousness at her prolonged silence.

"... Why are you suddenly telling me this now?"

"Because," he said simply. "I want you."

"You're all I want," he continued, "You're all I can think about." He looked down at his lap, before looking up at her again. "As you and everyone else can tell, I'm a mess when you're not around."

She knew it probably wasn't healthy to need someone that much. But when he said those words, a slow warmth unfurled in her chest, mingling with the remnants of disbelief. His eyes held onto hers, that soul-piercing gaze holding her steady as her reality shifted on its axis, displacing everything she had inadvertently internalised before.

They were wrong.

In this world, he does.

But then Dylan broke the spell by adding, with a smirk, "also, you were rambling about me in your sleep last night, so I felt more confident in confessing." He punctuated this alarming revelation with a pleased nod.

Oh for heavens' sake. What had she said to him in her sleep??

"If this is a story, isn't this the part where we're supposed to hug and, you know..." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, impervious to her answering scowl.

"What did you think - I'm going to be like yay he's straight and go to bed with you and then we will go to school and live happily ever after??"

His eyes darkened with desire at the allusion to sex. "No... since I've wanted you so badly and for so long when I was pretending to be gay... I'm afraid we won't be going to school today," he informed her. "It's gonna take all day before we're done- "

Yue held up a hand to stop him.

"I need to er, think about this and... weigh my other options."

"What other options?!"

Dylan finally abandoned his laidback pretence. Sitting upright from his reclining position on the bed, he buried his head in his hands, rubbing his face. "Shen Yue, I want you so badly it hurts," he lamented. "Like literally. When I'm with you I'm hard almost all the time and sometimes my zipper is cutting into my d-"

"OKAY. ENOUGH. I need to pee."

Saved by her bladder, Yue grabbed her phone off the bedside table and hastily retreated to the toilet to regroup. She was so thoroughly preoccupied with her thoughts, she barely noticed that several long moments had passed since she sat down on the toilet and she still hadn't peed.

Hmm? What was happening?

Finding it strange that she somehow couldn't pee despite the ever present urge, she did a cursory search of her symptoms on her phone, scrolling through the first few hits and reading the diagnosis.

Eventually, Yue stumbled back into his room, collapsing face first onto the foot of the bed while clutching her middle.

"What's wrong?" Dylan asked in concern.

"I think I have UTI," came her muffled reply.

"Hah?"

She lifted her head. "Urinary Tract Infection."

__________

Despite her protests that she could go on her own, Dylan insisted on accompanying her to the doctor.

There was an unexpected queue of students in front of the narrow staircase leading to the campus clinic. When they got closer, they saw that the obstruction was caused by Cheng Xiao. Still in her cheerleading uniform, the cheer captain was hobbling gingerly on crutches down the steps, her left foot suspended in a cast. Wang Yibo stood stoically behind her, looking mildly expressionless as always.

"Cheng Xiao, you're walking too slowly," he intoned.

She turned around exasperatedly, lifting her crutches in indignation. "I'm injured."

Wordlessly, the vice captain picked her up, crutches and all, carrying her down the rest of the stairs and across the quad. Now that the pathway was no longer blocked, the throng dispersed, and Dylan anxiously ushered Yue into the clinic.

__________

Author's Note:

The chapter is too long, so I had to split it into two. Please wait haha.