Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 13
His Pulse
“Gu Jiahe, why do you need money again?” Qian Liyun’s sharp voice echoed from the living room.
Gu Jiahe instinctively covered his ears.
“Just like your dad, always asking for money.” Qian Liyun slammed open his bedroom door, tossed two bills at him, then stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
All this fuss was because Gu Jiahe needed to pay for his textbooks this semester. Due to the long delay in payment, he was called by the homeroom teacher yesterday to urge him to settle the fees.
He carefully smoothed out the two banknotes and placed them inside the innermost compartment of his backpack.
He flipped through the calendar on the desk, marking a red circle on one of the dates.
As autumn approached, his birthday drew near.
October 3rd. It was an ordinary day during the statutory holiday.
But no one would celebrate it with him. Occasionally, when Qian Liyun remembered, she would buy him a piece of cake without cream as a token celebration. If she didn’t remember, the year would just pass like any other.
Gu Jiahe dared not ask anything of Gu Jianmin, only hoping to avoid a beating in return.
As far as Gu Jiahe could remember, Gu Jianmin had never had a stable job. Gu Jiahe recalled that he had once been a small-time peddler for a while, but halfway through, he was cheated out of his goods, which made him furious and he gave Gu Jiahe a good thrashing with a cane.
He held no hope for his father’s career, only hoping he would play fewer tricks to prevent the family from suffering.
The next morning, Gu Jiahe carried his backpack to catch the early bus.
After boarding the bus and scanning around, he still didn’t see Li Zhao. Li Zhao always took the bus home with him after school in the evenings, but he was nowhere to be seen in the mornings.
Gu Jiahe had asked him out of curiosity once. Li Zhao had said his aunt would take him to school in the mornings, not wanting him to wake up too early.
But Gu Jiahe thought it was for the best. If he had to walk an extra stop every morning, he was afraid he would really be exhausted on the way.
It was the last day of school in September, and there was no evening self-study session. After each subject teacher came in and assigned homework, the homeroom teacher announced the end of the school day.
Gu Jiahe, carrying a thick stack of homework and study guides, prepared to head back. Li Zhao called out to him, “Wait for me.”
Gu Jiahe nodded, leaning against the door and waiting for him to finish packing his bag.
The 15 bus was somewhat crowded that day, perhaps because of the upcoming holiday. When Li Zhao and Gu Jiahe boarded, they could only stand by the door, squeezed in tightly.
“What are your plans for the holiday?” Li Zhao asked from behind.
“Me?” Gu Jiahe pointed to himself.
“Yeah.” Li Zhao nodded.
Gu Jiahe looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then answered, “Correcting mistakes, doing homework.”
“What else?” Li Zhao asked.
“Nothing else.” Gu Jiahe shook his head.
“Come to my house,” Li Zhao said softly.
Gu Jiahe instantly turned to look at him, but the distance was too close, and his cheek brushed Li Zhao’s lower lip.
For some reason, Gu Jiahe’s heart raced instantly.
“Is that okay?” Li Zhao asked in his ear.
“…Okay.” Gu Jiahe nodded. He even forgot to ask Li Zhao why he wanted him to go to his house.
Gu Jiahe got off the bus one stop early. But as soon as he stepped off, he was stopped by Li Zhao on the bus.
Li Zhao opened the window and shouted at him, “Your phone number!”
Gu Jiahe then remembered that Li Zhao didn’t have his number. They had no way to contact each other during the holiday.
He stood on the platform and loudly shouted a string of numbers to Li Zhao on the bus.
Li Zhao quickly punched the keys on his phone.
As the bus started to move away, he saw Li Zhao gesturing to him through the window as if making a phone call.
The two of them nodded vigorously at each other across the bus window.
Gu Jiahe had an old, worn-out phone that he usually only used for sending texts and making calls. It was given to Qian Liyun as a debt payment by someone she had done business with years ago.
Later, Qian Liyun bought a new phone with a camera function along with her sisters and handed this old phone to Gu Jiahe.
However, this phone was a knockoff and often had trouble charging. Gu Jiahe had a universal charger with a metal jack, but he had to adjust the angle precisely to barely get it charged.
In the evening after he got home, he received a call from Li Zhao.
On October 2nd, Gu Jiahe brought his homework to Li Zhao’s residential area.
The entrance to the Huwan City residential area was beautiful. There were two large marble arches, covered with a large cluster of pink-purple roses.
In the past, Gu Jiahe might have been too intimidated to even lift his head while passing through such a place, walking quickly past.
But on this day, someone stood at the gate waving to him.
“Gu Jiahe!” Li Zhao wasn’t wearing his school uniform today; he had on a light blue T-shirt.
The color suited him well, Gu Jiahe thought to himself.
Gu Jiahe didn’t expect the residential area to be even larger than he imagined. Li Zhao led him, and it took more than ten minutes to reach Li Zhao’s building.
The buildings here were not particularly tall, with at most four or five floors. Each floor housed one family, and Li Zhao lived on the fifth floor, the top floor.
Li Zhao opened the door in front of him. Gu Jiahe, however, hesitated in the doorway.
“Um, should I change my shoes?” He lifted one foot but then withdrew it.
Li Zhao took out a new pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet and handed them to him.
Only then did Gu Jiahe feel at ease to step into the living room.
Li Zhao’s home was a square-shaped four-bedroom apartment with two living rooms.
Gu Jiahe estimated it to be around 150 square meters. Because it looked more than three times the size of his 50-square-meter home.
In addition to his own room, Li Zhao even had a separate study.
“I do my homework here.” Li Zhao pushed open the door to the study and called him in.
Gu Jiahe felt a bit awkward but followed him in.
The entire wall of the study was filled with photos of Li Zhao playing soccer, and there were two trophies on the bookshelf. Gu Jiahe walked closer and saw that he had even won provincial awards.
“Why didn’t you continue playing?” Gu Jiahe touched one of the trophies with his hand and turned to ask him.
“Huh? Soccer?” Li Zhao smiled, “My parents are quite conservative. They think studying is the way to go.”
Gu Jiahe nodded. Indeed, with Li Zhao’s academic performance, it would be a pity not to attend a good university.
He didn’t continue to inquire about Li Zhao’s parents.
Gu Jiahe had just found a chair to sit down, even opened his backpack, ready to take out his homework.
But Li Zhao suddenly pulled him up.
“What’s wrong?” Gu Jiahe was a bit confused. “Weren’t we here to do homework today?”
Li Zhao took a look at the paper in his bag and exaggeratedly said, “Who invites a classmate over to do homework!”
“Then why?” Gu Jiahe didn’t understand his meaning.
“Of course, to play something fun.”
Li Zhao turned on the TV in the living room.
He took out a black box from the TV cabinet drawer and connected it to the TV.
“What’s this?” Gu Jiahe had never seen such a thing before.
“A game console. I’ve had it for a long time, but no one to play with since I came back.” Li Zhao said, looking a bit disappointed, furrowing his eyebrows slightly, like a wet little mouse.
Gu Jiahe found this comparison amusing. He tugged at the corners of his mouth and followed Li Zhao to sit on the bright floor.
That afternoon, Gu Jiahe didn’t write a single word on his paper. He spent the whole afternoon playing games with Li Zhao.
He had never played before and was not very familiar with the controls. But Li Zhao took care of him; when he lagged behind, Li Zhao would stop and wait for him to catch up. If he accidentally fell into a pit, Li Zhao would wait for him to respawn before continuing.
Gu Jiahe always had a move he couldn’t get out of and got stuck in the same place four or five times without passing.
“Let me help you.” Li Zhao put down his own controller, leaned over from behind, and grabbed his hand.
Gu Jiahe realized after three seconds that Li Zhao’s movements almost encircled him entirely.
His body tensed up instantly, and he didn’t know where to place his fingers.
Li Zhao’s heart was pressed against his shoulder blades. He could almost feel every beat of Li Zhao’s pulse through his bones.
“Okay, I got it.” Gu Jiahe quickly took over the controller and nodded at him.
He had never experienced this kind of heart flutters before, nor did he know where they came from.
By the evening, as the sun set behind the mountains, a third person appeared in the house.
The “auntie” Li Zhao mentioned had returned. Gu Jiahe guessed correctly; she had no blood relation to Li Zhao, just a nanny.
The auntie looked kind and didn’t say much. After returning home and seeing Gu Jiahe, she greeted him and went into the kitchen.
About an hour later, Li Zhao disconnected the game console.
He opened the sliding door to the kitchen, leaned against the door frame, and spoke to the auntie, “Auntie, the usual rule, don’t tell my parents.”
His expression was somewhat cunning.
The auntie turned around and smiled, “I understand. If you do well in your studies, everything will be fine.”
Gu Jiahe had never seen so many dishes on a dining table with only three people.
“Steamed crabs and winter melon clam soup.” The auntie smiled as she neatly arranged the dishes, and the last two dishes were also brought to the table. “These are all Xiao Zhao’s favorites; you should eat more too.”
Gu Jiahe had eaten winter melon before; Qian Liyun would occasionally stew it and add some green onions.
But he didn’t know winter melon could be paired with clams.
Seeing him hesitating with the chopsticks, Li Zhao stood up and served him a bowl of soup, “Doesn’t your family eat this?”
Gu Jiahe glanced at his slender fingers, holding the porcelain spoon in his palm.
He was stunned for a few seconds before saying softly, “We don’t really eat this.”
There are two desires that people cannot hide: appetite and love.
That day, Gu Jiahe ate two bowls of rice, and he even finished an entire steamed crab.
When he left Li Zhao’s house, his stomach was round and full.
Walking in the moonlight, his backpack was filled with blank papers, thinking about the last day of the holiday tomorrow, he had to get up early to catch up on his homework.
But as he thought about it, he looked up at the moon and remembered Li Zhao’s pulse pressed against him during the day.
Bang! Someone in the distance was setting off fireworks. Gu Jiahe followed the sound and saw another firework burst in the sky.
He closed his eyes, stopped in his tracks, and felt the pulsating sensation again.
It felt like something was exploding in his heart as well.
Feeling a bit nervous, Gu Jiahe opened the door to his home. He was coming back a bit late today. If he ran into Qian Liyun, he would definitely get an earful.
Fortunately, after twisting the keys a few times, the house was pitch black, and no one was home.
He breathed a sigh of relief and walked back to his small bedroom. His home was really small, without a grand entrance like Li Zhao’s home, nor did it have a study. You could see everything at a glance.
The small red circle on his desk calendar was still there.
Only three hours left until the 3rd.
He opened the drawer and found it empty. In the past, if Qian Liyun remembered his birthday, she would always put a small egg cake in the drawer.
But not today.
Gu Jiahe looked through the green glass and saw the high-hanging moon. After thinking for a few minutes, he took out his old knockoff phone.
He sent a message to Li Zhao, just two words: “Thank you.”
Li Zhao replied soon after, “for what?” followed by two ^^ symbols.
Gu Jiahe tilted his head, guessing that it might be a smiley face.
He didn’t reply to Li Zhao. Instead, he carefully adjusted his phone and plugged it into the universal charger.
He thought about whether to tell Li Zhao that tomorrow was his birthday. But he felt it would make him seem too sentimental if he did.
In the end, he replied with one line: “Dinner was delicious.”
However, the next day, Gu Jiahe didn’t manage to wake up early to catch up on his homework.
Because in the middle of the night, his skin broke out in a large rash, itchy and painful. He turned on the night light and saw that his arms and neck were covered in small red bumps.
In his 17th year, he had his first taste of seafood. It was also the first time he found out that he was allergic to seafood.