[141]

Another important thing in college was to find a dining partner. Whether you got along and liked each other personally or not, it’s important to have some company for lunch. So important that it related to whether you could get a seat and have your bag attended when you were in line to buy lunch, whether you could chat with someone during lunch, or whether you could prevent your plate from being taken away when you had to go to the bathroom.

Straight Guy had been eating with his two roommates, so he was spared the trouble of finding a lunch buddy.. After being reminded by the upperclassman, he felt that he had been the biggest third wheel out there. Sometimes, the boss and Little Chen took the same course, but after the class, they had to wait for him to have lunch together. He indeed had troubled them a lot.

Therefore, early this morning, before going to classroom at another teaching building, Straight Guy carried his schoolbag, trying so hard to appear confident, and said, “Boss and Little Chen, I can’t join you guys for lunch because I have an appointment with someone!”

Domineering Guy and Coquettish Guy were surprised and asked, “Hmm, what’s up?”

Straight Guy had already spent his ultimate ability to come up with this excuse, and he could no longer continue to make up who that person was. He trotted out of the dormitory with a blush. In fact, he felt very sad to have lunch alone.

[142]

Straight Guy felt a little melancholy on the first day of eating alone. He even began to regret that maybe he had overreacted. In fact, it was quite good to dine with boss and Little Chen together. On one hand, there were a lot of topics among three of them. On the other hand, when two went to buy lunch, the last one could occupy proper seats for all of them. However, since boss and Little Chen fell in love, there was gradually no more space for anyone else. Thinking this over, Straight Guy still felt quite sad, because they were two friends that he liked most.

When he lied in bed at night, Straight Guy worried what he should do tomorrow noon. It’s very immoral to be a third wheel, so he decided not to eat with Domineering Guy and Coquettish Guy together, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to eat alone. Straight Guy was upset. When he scrolled his phone listlessly, a post from the Glasses-guy suddenly came to his sight. “I am so busy now and have to eat takeout in the small room of the student union every noon.” Attached was a picture of the door with clear room number on it.

Straight Guy “liked” it silently and showed up at the door of student union’s small room the next day, carrying a takeaway. The Glasses-guy seemed to be very surprised, “Little Zhou?”

Straight Guy stammered, “I…I happened to take a class nearby in the morning and thought I might eat with you rather than by myself.”

The Glasses-guy smiled and invited him in. He said, “It’s so nice to have some company for lunch. If only you had classes here every day! I am tired of ordering takeout by myself.”

The Straight Guy felt happy that he was needed. He said, “We can eat together even if there is no class. The campus is not so large and I can be here very quickly by bike from other teaching buildings.”

The Glasses-guy agreed joyfully, “OK. That’s a deal.”

[143]

For Coquettish Guy and Domineering Guy, Straight Guy was also a very important friend. They had dined together for so long, therefore, they were not used to having lunch without Straight Guy. What concerned them most important was that it was quite gay for two boys eating together every day in the canteen.

“Little Zhou, shall we have barbecue after class near the school today? We haven’t had dinner together for a long time.” Coquettish Guy asked before going out in the morning.

The Straight Guy looked embarrassed, “Well, I…I’m afraid I can’t make it today.”

Domineering Guy immediately came over and asked, “What’s up? Buddy. Are you dating a girl secretly?”

“No, no, no,” said Straight Guy, waving his hand anxiously. “I have a dining partner now. We have made an arrangement today. ”

Coquettish Guy: “Is that your classmate? Why don’t you ask that classmate to join us?”

“No,” Straight Guy said very frankly, “It’s the upperclassman Jingnan. He said in his WeChat Moments that he ate alone, and I often had classes nearby, so we became dining partners.”

Then at early class that day, Coquettish Guy and Domineering Guy searched Glasses-guy’s moments madly from today to last year. There was no post whatsoever that showed he had to eat alone. Domineering Guy sent a message to Coquettish Guy, “Honey, it can’t be what I have been thinking what it is, can it?”

[144]

Straight Guy invited Glasses-guy to eat together, and Glasses-guy acted as usual, fully demonstrating the charm of an upperclassman. He offered to cook and took good care of everyone.

When he distributed toasted meat into several plates, he saw that Straight Guy couldn’t wait to eat meat with chopsticks. Glasses-guy said gently, “Be careful. You’ve got mouth ulcer, haven’t you?”

Straight Guy, whose hands were faster than brain, had already taken a piece of meat and was now covering his mouth for comfort and whining. The other two were too surprised to speak.

Straight Guy, with meat stuffed in his mouth, mumbled, “Yeah. Last time we had very spicy food, then my mouth got an ulcer and I keep forgetting about it.” The Glasses-guy fully decoded the unclear utterance. He smiled very gently, and refilled cold water in the cup, “Have some.”

While the other two knew nothing about the ins and outs, they didn’t understand what the Straight Guy had said. What they had got was the sentence Glasses-guy had said and their expressions were about to change.

[145]

When Domineering Guy reached out to the Glasses-guy, he only had limited information that this upperclassman was outstanding. Later, they worked together on a project and then he had a deeper understanding of this upperclassman’s preeminent ability, high IQ and EQ. However, he had no idea about his romance life and sexual orientation.

By contrast, he knew Straight Guy very well. Being gay, Domineering Guy knew how hard it was for a gay boy, therefore, he didn’t want to see his naive friend being seduced before this friend clearly understood the meaning of being gay.

“Well, Little Zhou,” Domineering Guy asked, “Do you still remember the girl in charge of art activities in high school? She is in the same city with us and wants to visit our campus this weekend. Are you available then?”

On mentioning her, Straight Guy was reminded of the previous lovelorn experience. The beautified memory of his (one-sided) first love made him quite emotional. So he lowered his head and sent a message to Glasses-Guy, “Do you feel like a drink now, upperclassman?”

[146]

It caught the Glasses-guy by surprise that Little Straight Guy was once hurt by love in high school. The Glasses-guy was interested in this story and intended to hear what was going on, so he took Straight Guy to a quiet bar rather than some noisy clubs.

Straight Guy confessed that what he could handle was no more than one glass of wine. The Glasses-guy thought over this for a while. After ordering a cup of fresh watermelon juice for Straight Guy, he drank a cup of wine slowly.

After Straight Guy told the love story in detail, Glasses-guy did not know what else to say but an “Oh”. He was deeply shocked by the so-called “love experience”.

Straight Guy was upset, “She’s coming over for the weekend and I’m gonna see her again.” This reminded him of the sad story again.

At this moment, the Glasses-guy, without any envy, was even feeling a little embarrassed to ruin Zhou’s sadness. He said, “Little Zhou, don’t be so sad. It’s really difficult to understand girls. Since you were so young at high school and that was the first time for you to love a person, it’s inevitable to break up in the end.”

Straight Guy drunk the watermelon juice just like drinking wine as if the juice is gonna dispel his melancholy. “It’s so hard to understand girls’ mind. They never speak in a straightforward manner and always ask me guess what they are thinking about. But never had I deciphered it.” he said.

“Well,” agreed the Glasses-guy, “Actually I’m a little envious of zhou Ming and Ji Chen now.”

“You are telling me!” Straight Guy blurted out, looking into Glasses-guy’s smiling eyes.

[147]

Although the girl in charge of art activities in high school was called to “do a part-time job” on weekend, she was looking forward to seeing Straight Guy. He was much kinder and nicer than most of the boys she knew. “What’s more, it’s not a bad thing to spend a weekend together with a high school schoolmate”, she thought to herself.

She dolled up and went to Straight Guy’s university. She sent him a message in advance, “Zhou Yang, I have arrived at the gate of your campus. Where are you?”

“I will be there soon. My phone is gonna die soon. Please stand there and wait for me.”

She felt the familiar Straight Guy way and said, “Okay. Tick tock on the clock.”

She wished she were blind when she saw Straight Guy emerging in distance. In fact, she had some expectation about Straight Guy’s change after he went to university. She imagined several scenarios when they met again, but never did she imagine that Straight Guy would come happily on a man’s bicycle seat.

She said, “…Do you have to take someone’s bike seat as your lift when you have an appointment?”

Straight Guy said, “I am afraid my phone would turn off in the middle of our date, so I didn’t use bike-sharing. But lucky me, the upperclassman has a bike to send me here.”

They were very familiar with each other, so she complained as usual, “Could you please prepare yourself for our appointment as we agreed? Can you charge your phone in advance?”

Then the Glasses-guy who had been silent said, “Oh! Don’t blame Zhou Yang. It was me who had been using his phone to play games.”

She frowned and felt that things were not so simple.

[148]

The girl in charge of art activities politely greeted the Glasses-guy. She thought he would leave after sending the Straight Guy. To her surprise, the Glasses-guy didn’t mean to leave at all.

“Little Zhou’s phone is dead. It’s not convenient for you to take photos and pay for meals on the app. Besides, it’s impolite to ask a girl to pay the bill. Since I am available today, let me show you around please.”

When she realized how powerful the competitor was, she felt the task given by Zhou Ming was really difficult. She lowered her head and groped for a while in her bag. Then she said in a smile, “Don’t bother. I have a portable charger.”