Strawberry Pop Pop Pop chapter 19

Gu Nuan couldn’t sleep that night.

He played two games with Su Li, and in both games, he lost. Amused, Su Li sent him a red envelope with a message, “With your skill level, you should play with me more often, so I can experience high scores too.”

Gu Nuan, who usually slept and woke up early, replied, “I don’t stay up late.”

Su Li checked his phone and saw that it was already 2 a.m. Gu Nuan, who didn’t stay up late, still couldn’t fall asleep, while Su Li was feeling tired. He messaged Gu Nuan, “Seriously, why are you up so late? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re so lovesick for Han Yang that you can’t eat or sleep.”

Gu Nuan glanced at his phone, feeling a storm of emotions inside.

He asked, “What if I really do like him? What should I do?”

Su Li was taken aback. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Su Li: “How could you like him? I always thought you guys were just like brothers!”

Gu Nuan didn’t immediately respond to Su Li’s confusion. He put his phone down and tossed and turned in bed. He never expected that at the young age of eighteen, he would be reminiscing like an old man, sighing about the past ten-plus years of his life.

In his memories, every moment was filled with Han Yang.

Almost instinctively, Gu Nuan reached for the water glass on the bedside table, only to find that he had finished the water. Perhaps it was the salty braised pork he had for dinner, but Gu Nuan had to get up and go to the living room to get another glass.

When he opened the door, he noticed a faint light escaping from Han Yang’s room next door.

Gu Nuan quickly tiptoed to the door of Han Yang’s room and cautiously asked, “Brother, are you still awake?”

There was no response from inside.

Curious, Gu Nuan knocked on Han Yang’s door.

Still no response.

Gu Nuan was puzzled. He remembered that Han Yang didn’t like to keep the lights on when he slept. If the light was on, it meant he hadn’t gone to sleep yet. Gu Nuan knocked on the door again, this time more gently, not wanting to wake his parents and the others in the middle of the night. But he realized that the soundproofing in the house was quite good.

“Knock, knock, knock…”

Still no response.

Gu Nuan started to worry. He reached for the doorknob and found that the door was locked.

“Brother?” He pressed his ear against the door and called out softly, “Are you asleep?”

Could he be taking a shower? But it was already past 2 a.m., and Han Yang used to go to bed before midnight.

Gu Nuan was getting increasingly concerned. He knelt down and peered through the gap under the door.

So, when Han Yang suddenly opened the door, he accidentally bumped into Gu Nuan’s forehead.

“Ah!”

Who would have thought that Gu Nuan, the top-ranked student who had entered C University with flying colors, would be sitting on the floor like a fool at 2 a.m., holding his forehead and moaning in pain?

Han Yang immediately knelt down in alarm. “Gu Nuan?!” He held Gu Nuan’s shoulders and carefully touched the hand Gu Nuan was using to cover his forehead. “Don’t move! Let me take a look.”

Gu Nuan’s eyes were slightly red, and tears were clinging to his eyelashes. “It hurts.”

Han Yang didn’t dare to delay and gently lifted Gu Nuan’s chin to inspect his forehead. After a thorough examination, he let out a sigh of relief. Gu Nuan sniffled, not realizing that he was still upset, and voluntarily rubbed his head against Han Yang’s hand. “Brother, do I have a bump on my head?”

“No, it’s just a little scratch,” Han Yang said, but his actions were gentle and thorough. He led Gu Nuan into his room, took out a first-aid kit left by Aunt Xu, and applied some ointment to Gu Nuan’s forehead with great care.

The ointment was cool, causing Gu Nuan’s previously hot forehead to instantly cool down. Han Yang’s fingertips were slightly rough, but he applied the ointment tenderly, pressing it into Gu Nuan’s forehead. Gu Nuan’s heart couldn’t help but race uncontrollably. In a daze, he caught a whiff of a strong peppermint pheromone mixed with the maturity of an alpha, carrying the scent of growth.

The soft lighting cast shadows on the carpet where Han Yang knelt. Droplets of water from Han Yang’s hair fell and disappeared into the shadows, making faint, muffled sounds.

Han Yang put the ointment away for the second time. “I’ll go blow-dry my hair.”

Gu Nuan nodded. “Okay.”

Han Yang closed the bathroom door, and the sound of a hair dryer could be heard from inside.

Gu Nuan sat there, feeling bored. He hadn’t brought his phone with him. He smelled the peppermint pheromones in the room and, unknowingly, walked over to the bookshelf.

A prominent feature in the glass bookshelf was a model airplane, which Gu Nuan was very familiar with.

In recent years, brief video calls couldn’t satisfy Gu Nuan’s desires. He was someone who reminisced when he saw things, and he had to come to Han Yang’s room every day to look at this model airplane.

To put it bluntly, Gu Nuan had almost rubbed off a layer of “skin” from it.

Finally, when he had Han Yang back, Han Yang wanted to move out again. The more Gu Nuan thought about it, the sadder he felt. In a low mood, he turned and dove into Han Yang’s bed, clutching the blanket and taking a few deep breaths of the peppermint scent.

If he could, Gu Nuan really wanted to stay in Han Yang’s room and sleep tonight.

However, that was impossible because since the beginning of his first year of junior high, Han Yang no longer slept in the same bed with him. Whenever Gu Nuan tried to sleep in Han Yang’s room, Han Yang would insist on sleeping on the floor.

At that time, Gu Nuan was particularly unhappy about being an omega.

He thought to himself that if only he were a beta, he could sleep in the same bed with Han Yang. As a result, he jinxed himself, and a disastrous accident turned him into an omega without pheromones when he was in the second year of junior high.

His strawberry pheromones had disappeared without a trace before entering adulthood.

But using this as an excuse, Gu Nuan finally managed to slip into Han Yang’s bed again. But before he could feel triumphant, he remembered how Han Yang had reacted that time, shivering under the soft quilt. Even in his sleep, Han Yang kept apologizing to Gu Nuan incessantly, an endless stream of “I’m sorry,” repeating, repeating…

…

Gu Nuan shook his head vigorously, deciding to throw away all these unpleasant memories, preferably stomping on them to bits.

As he turned around, Han Yang had already come out of the bathroom. Gu Nuan hurriedly released the blanket and sat back on the edge of the bed.

Han Yang, who had just finished blow-drying his hair, looked refreshed. He picked up the glass of water placed by the bedside and drank half of it. The scar on the left side of his ear caught Gu Nuan’s eye.

Gu Nuan watched with eager eyes, almost forgetting he was thirsty himself. “I want some too.”

Han Yang said, “I’ll pour you another glass.”

Gu Nuan pursed his lips and obediently waited for Han Yang to bring him a fresh glass of water. When Han Yang handed it to him, Gu Nuan caught hold of Han Yang’s shirt hem. Han Yang’s movements were gentle as he extended the glass towards Gu Nuan’s parched lips.

The warm sensation of the water was gentle, just like Han Yang’s infinite tolerance for Gu Nuan. Gu Nuan furrowed his brows and drank more than half the glass in one gulp.

Han Yang spoke to him tenderly, as if coaxing a child, “Drink slowly.”

Gu Nuan, his emotions stirred by Han Yang’s soothing voice, had never been one to hold back. He became a bit stubborn, pushing the glass away and reaching out to hug Han Yang. His head rubbed against Han Yang’s lower abdomen, and his hair became tousled. “Brother, I don’t want you to move out.”

“Gu Nuan…”

“If you find it inconvenient…” Gu Nuan took out his driver’s license from his pocket, which he had just obtained last month, and said solemnly, “I can drive you back and forth every day.”

However, Gu Nuan had a driver’s license but no car.