Another two weeks have passed, and Chu Wanning has been expecting his adoptive father to text him again every single day, but nothing has happened. Clearly, he's accepted his decision of not wanting to meet, which is better than it has been for the past few years.
It's not that Chu Wanning doesn't care about him, because he does. But too much has happened.
Some things can't be undone.
He's just been in and out of classes and meetings this entire time with barely any room to breathe, which has at least been distracting him enough from Hauizui's attempt at reconciliation.
…He's also been very distracted by Mo Ran, to be fair. Probably much more than by the actual classes. It's becoming an actual problem because it's been a full month of this now. He feels like he needs genuine help at this point, because there's just no way he has a crush on his twenty-year old student.
Not like it matters. Chu Wanning can't act on it, or else he'd lose his job; and even if he did act on it, there's no way someone like Mo Ran would like him back anyways, so it's not like it matters. Mo Ran obviously has friends already, and Chu Wanning only really has Xue Zhengyong.
At least Chu Wanning has been making sure to always bring his pens so that he can avoid any more physical contact with Mo Ran.
Well. Chu Wanning has at the very least managed not to touch himself about this even though his body keeps doing awful things to Mo Ran every single time he sees him, which should frankly be illegal.
Not like it matters much, because as elaborated on beforehand – even if Chu Wanning were to act on his feelings, which he can't, Mo Ran would obviously still not requite any of them.
So, when Chu Wanning is just out for a walk in the afternoon (Plum left behind this time; he was already outside with her for several hours earlier, since it's the weekend and his coworker from the orphanage has finally recovered from her infection so he didn't have a shift today), and he bumps into someone, he thinks that his life might just be over forever, actually.
"Ah, sorry," comes the immediate apology by the man Chu Wanning walked into because he was admittedly not looking where he was going, so he didn't see the man coming up from around the corner.
It's a kind of meager apology, as if the guy is scared of getting cursed out or something, but Chu Wanning isn't the type of person for that on a Saturday afternoon when he could instead just accept the apology and move on with his life. He just got bumped into. It's not a big issue. He didn't fall, nor stumble, nor hurt himself. And he just hit his head on the person's chin a little, which isn't an issue – and okay, Chu Wanning doesn't like touching other people much, but he's going to shower once he comes home anyways, so it doesn't matter at all. He's going to feel gross until then, but getting mad wouldn't help.
That's until he replays the memory of crashing into him in his head; the smell of the person, the deodorant and perfume he uses, the soft but very deep voice, and of course that face when Chu Wanning actively looks up.
And, of course, who else would Chu Wanning crash into on his free day when he's trying to clear his mind of all his troubles, if not the student he's slowly but surely falling in love with?
"Ah-" Mo Ran makes, waving his hands a little bit and then raising them, as if wanting to touch Chu Wanning but then deciding against it. "I didn't hurt you, right?"
Even if he was hurt, Chu Wanning has other issues, namely, Mo Ran's outfit. Or, well, Mo Ran as a person, but specifically in this outfit. He's wearing one of those sports headbands to keep his hair out of his face, but he snaps it off in a swift motion. Black, fluffy hair falls back into Mo Ran's face, including his slightly sweaty forehead; he was clearly going for a run, but must be sporty enough for it to not affect him that much. And oh, oh by the Gods, he's wearing just a black tank top, the sides open enough to show off tanning skin, glittering a bit with sweat, also, very visible pecs right below that Chu Wanning can make out enough since the sun shines directly onto them. Below the tank top is a pair of teal running shorts, but it's specifically the short ones that don't even cover half of the thighs, so Chu Wanning gets a very good look at Mo Ran's muscly thighs and calves, on top of the outline of-
His head jerks right back up to Mo Ran's eyes because there's no way proper and dignified Chu Wanning is going to be thinking in any way about his students genitals. Thank you very much.
"…Professor Chu? I didn't hurt you, right? Are you okay? You seem a tiny bit out of it."
Of course he's out of it, because he's trying his absolute best not to lust after his twelve years younger student. Anyone would be out of it in that situation, but it's just so hard when Mo Ran is right in front of him, some of the strands of hair that have fallen into his face sticking to it, his biceps right in Chu Wanning's view, and he just-
God, he can't do this.
"I'm fine," he says, hoping that his voice doesn't show the utter panic he's feeling right now. His heart is beating way too fast in his chest for so many reasons right now that he wouldn't even know where to start even if he tried.
"Are you sure? You seem to be spacing out a little bit-"
And when Mo Ran raises his hand again, as if to touch him, Chu Wanning does the only thing he's always been so very good at. He raises his own and slaps Mo Ran's hand away, because driving people away might just be his special talent.
Mo Ran does indeed appear a bit taken aback by him slapping his hand away like that, but still smiles a bit at him. Although the smile looks a little cold.
"Alright, if you say you're fine, then you're fine," he replies, "just wanted to make sure. Going for a walk?"
"…Obviously."
Chu Wanning has never been much for these stupidly obvious questions. Of course he's going for a walk, why else would he be outside?
"Right, right," Mo Ran laughs, "just thought that maybe you were going to the store or something. You live around here, then?"
For a few seconds, Mo Ran twists and turns, as if looking for his house – a few seconds that Chu Wanning takes to step back just a tiny bit because he's starting to smell more than just Mo Ran's various smelling products, but his actual smell. And Chu Wanning would rather not think about the effect that has on him.
"…Yeah," he concedes eventually, because there's no need to lie about where he lives. "Around here. Up that street."
"Ah, I see!" Mo Ran laughs, "it's nice around here."
Part of Chu Wanning wants to ask where Mo Ran lives, but first of all, that'd be unprofessional, and secondly, it's just going to be one of the many student accommodations.
"Hm."
"…So…" Mo Ran starts again, eyes flitting left and right, as if he doesn't quite know what to say or do.
Which makes sense, because Chu Wanning isn't good at conversation, and he's Mo Ran's professor. Mo Ran wouldn't have a lot to say to him. Yet, Mo Ran doesn't leave, so Chu Wanning can only think of one thing to make him.
"Don't you have homework due today?"
"Ah-" Mo Ran laughs, and the laugh does actively kill Chu Wanning, actually, "yeah, yeah, I know, don't worry, I'll get it submitted on time! I'm halfway through, but then my concentration gave in, so I took a break and decided to go for a run instead. I still have until midnight to submit it on time, so it's going to be fine."
"…Right," Chu Wanning says, heart still beating away in his chest when Mo Ran very casually lifts his arm to scratch his back, and oh. Oh. That makes his muscles ripple below his skin, red with effort from the run, and Chu Wanning doesn't know what to do with himself-
"I have to leave," he announces, and does exactly that because he can't take another second of this or else it'll show on his face.
Never in his life has Chu Wanning been scared of losing control about sexual things, but Mo Ran might just make him, and that scares the actual living hell out of him.
"I-" Mo Ran starts, but Chu Wanning just backs away another step, and only when he turns around does Mo Ran mumble a weirdly meek little 'goodbye'.
Chu Wanning decides not to make more of it; he doesn't owe a student any explanations as to why he has to leave for his home, so he just walks away as fast as he possibly can.
Literally fleeing.
Oh, everything about this is so bad, and while he can talk to Xue Zhengyong about some of his worries at least, there's absolutely no way he can tell him about the fact that he's actively lusting after his adoptive son.
*
When Chu Wanning arrives home, there's someone in front of his door who he's only seen literally three times. Namely, when checking out the flat for the first time, then when receiving the keys, and then on the day of his move.
And he feels like the landlord waiting in front of his door with crossed arms is very possibly not a good sign at all.
"Excuse me," he says when he arrives right in front of him, "is there an issue?"
His landlord just narrows his eyes and reaches out his hand towards him.
"Your keys."
"Excuse me?"
Why should Chu Wanning hand over his keys to his landlord? Are they getting exchanged, perhaps?
"Today is the eviction date, didn't you see?"
"The what date?"
Chu Wanning's blood runs absolutely and utterly cold at that. Suddenly, a lot from the past few weeks comes back to him. The letters he told himself he'd open later and then carelessly tossed to the side, the missed calls from a number he hadn't saved which he either didn't pick up because he was in class, or too exhausted to talk to another human being.
"The eviction date. I sent you at least five separate letters about the eviction alone, and several others to talk to you about some of the things that go against the flat's contract. In which case, had you fixed them, I wouldn't have minded if you stayed."
No.
There's absolutely no way he's being evicted right now. There's absolutely no way this is happening right now. He feels his eyes go wide but forces them back to normal immediately, out of pure habit, even when he feels like the world is literally ending right now.
This can't be happening again.
He can't be going homeless again right here and right now.
"Why?" he manages to croak out, and his landlord just gives a small sigh.
"If you had read the letters, you would know. Grab your stuff, and get out."
"I'm sorry," Chu Wanning presses out from between clenched teeth, "I didn't find the time to open them-"
"It's been months. Fine, I'll tell you why. First of all, a neighbour saw your cat multiple times. This flat doesn't allow big pets such as cats and dogs, otherwise the rent would have to be higher."
"I found her as a stray," Chu Wanning tries to defend himself, "she was- she nearly died, there was nowhere else to go-"
"For a few weeks, I would have tolerated it had you told me, and then you could have either handed it to a shelter, or found a new flat."
"But-"
"Second. You haven't paid the correct rent for three months in a row now. It's been raised because of the rising energy costs, and I also sent you multiple letters about that."
There's nothing he can do but grit his teeth at this point. Because Chu Wanning knows that the cat would already be reason enough to kick him out, and of course he'll be taking all the letters with him to see whether his landlord truly sent these to him, but considering the pure amount of letters he's received from his landlord in the past few months, he believes him without even looking.
"Third, there's constant noise in the middle of the night coming from your flat that several neighbours have already complained about. May I ask what that is?"
"…I'm a professor for Mechanical Engineering. I have projects."
"Then you should have been doing these during the day. And fourth, and frankly, this is the main reason, the food moths."
Oh.
"It took us a while to realize that they were coming from your flat, but we exterminated them from all other flats, yet they kept coming back over the past few weeks, as soon as windows were left open around the house. The trash cans outside of the house have been full of maggots, too, and no matter how much we clean them, they keep coming back because you're not taking care of them. Just how many are there in your flat?"
Chu Wanning has been meaning to take care of that issue, but he just never got to it. It's not like he uses the kitchen, and the rice and oatmeal he keeps in it isn't exactly a lot. Well, he supposes it's enough for the food moths to get more and more. It's not like he sees them during the day. It's not like he touches any of the food in there anymore. He mostly eats out of the house. There's no mold, as far as he's aware, but- it's true that there's maggots in all of the food he has in the kitchen, the spices he kept in it included also.
"I have also sent letters about them and tried calling you, but there was no response at all. However, I cannot let my other tenants live like this any longer."
There's nothing left for him to do but lower his head a little bit and look at the floor instead.
"I have even had complaints from neighbouring houses about food moths that they figured came from our apartment complex and trash cans, since some of the tenants apparently saw the maggot-riddled trashcans outside. I'll have one last look at your flat and at the letters if possible, just to check if everything is true, but you'll probably have to pack up, leave, and pay some money for reparation costs since I don't think the fee you paid during your first month will be enough given the cat and the food moths that will need extermination."
Chu Wanning swallows. His voice comes out steady, although he has not a single clue as to how.
"I understand," is all he manages to choke out, giving a very short nod.
"Alright. Give me your keys, please. You can start packing while I have a look."
The next thirty minutes of Chu Wanning's life are ones that he'd rather forget as soon as he's found a new place to stay. They're spent gathering up his clothes and packing them into his suitcase, as well as his bathroom products. For everything else, he uses the bags he has lying around. Cat food (food moth free, since he kept it in his bedroom), his books and other university related things go into the large shopping bag. The trinkets and drawings he's received from the children over the year are put into the bag he usually takes to university with him so that none of them come to harm. And last but not least, he has to force Plum into her carrier, together with her food and water bowl (both empty; he can't have them spilling into the carrier).
Plum hates being put into the carrier though, and she meows very loudly in protest. Nothing Chu Wanning does calms her down in the least; only when he actively picks up the carrier after shouldering the two bags and grabbing the suitcase once his landlord opened all the letters for him and showed them to him.
Chu Wanning had no way of defending himself, so all he can do is just leave the flat and hope for the best at this point. He gives a small, apologetic glance at Plum, since he doesn't want to talk to her yet when his landlord is still there.
"I do feel bad about kicking you like this," his landlord says, and Chu Wanning kindly wants to tell him that he can say those words to anyone but him because he's heard it all before, so he just doesn't respond. "But you know, the other tenants…"
"I'll send you the money needed as soon as you let me know how much. Text me about it instead of calling me. Goodbye."
He can't hide his feelings for too much longer, so he decides to just leave his landlord standing right there when he walks straight out of the door – bless the fact that he lived on the ground floor, otherwise he would've had to carry his very heavy belongings down some stairs.
In the light of the setting sun, Chu Wanning takes a few deep breaths and allows his breath to come out unsteady, even if he blinks often enough to suppress any kind of tears. He's at fault for this himself. He very much is, and he knows he couldn't win a legal battle about this; not that he'd even bother trying.
The sun will be down soon. Until then, Chu Wanning doesn't dare go anywhere; the local mechanical engineering professor getting kicked out and walking through town with all of his belongings on him? Yeah, no way is that happening.
Mo Ran should hopefully not be in the area anymore, at least. Chu Wanning is pretty sure that he won't run into him again,
It's fine; he can just hide behind the house, in the small stairway leading down to the (apparently maggot-riddled) trash cans. After that, he can just go to his office at university and spend the night there. From there, he can check the hotels in town and whether there are any free rooms still, although that's probably highly unlikely, specifically for prolonged times.
And while he isn't exactly poor, Chu Wanning donates a lot of his money, specifically because he doesn't need this amount of money; and some of it is on a bank account for savings that he can't touch for another ten years. It's the last week of the month, too.
He can pay for hotel rooms if truly needed, but if he doesn't have to, that'd be very nice.
…Especially considering that he'll still have to pay whatever fee his landlord is probably calculating right now.
"It'll be fine," he whispers, partly to Plum, partly to himself. "We'll come up with a solution, won't we?"
This isn't Chu Wanning's first time being homeless.
And this time, he at the very least still has some money. He'll make do.
He'll figure out something.
*
It's five minutes to eight at this point, and Chu Wanning has been sitting in his office for a good hour by now. Plum is strolling around, sniffing all the scents that she doesn't know, just glad to be out of the carrier for now. She has her water and food bowls stocked up, and Chu Wanning will take her outside for another small walk so that she can pee again before he tries to sleep in his office chair for an entire night.
He's not looking forward to the back ache tomorrow morning, either.
In the past forty minutes, he's been desperately scrolling through hotel sites online, as well as calling them in the hope that anything is free; but no, there's both some kind of fandom convention in town (Chu Wanning has no idea what 'fandom' really means), and a car exhibition, so all hotels are completely booked for the week.
So, his next bet was looking at flats, but no one responds at this time, and most of them are either horribly far away, or horribly expensive.
Life is against him.
The thing is, Chu Wanning wouldn't care much about being homeless by himself for a week. The issue is just his cat. He can't have Plum live in his office for a week, and he himself can't be doing that, or else it'd get suspicious. He has to get rid of his stuff latest by Monday morning because he'll have other thesis advice appointments, and one appointment with Shi Mei to talk about his scholarship, since he's very scared of falling behind, so Chu Wanning will talk it over with him as to what kind of tutor he needs.
He can't have his things in here anymore. But there's absolutely no way to find a place to sleep right now, either. Even the hostel is stuffed full of other people. It's completely hopeless.
It's then that Plum jumps into his lap and just sits down, probably comforted by the presence of the only person she knows around here. She doesn't purr, but she seems to relax enough, rolling up into a ball and hiding her eyes behind her white paws; the computer's screen is probably too bright for her.
Once more, Chu Wanning googles for housing in the city with slightly different phrasing; this time, one of the first links is the student housing, together with numbers for the people that navigate it. He's pretty sure it's last semester's numbers, actually, but if he tries to call, they could probably hand him the numbers of the people responsible now.
There's four numbers given overall; one of them Chu Wanning knows for a fact stopped working student services because he got involved with him a tiny bit last semester when trying to figure out housing for one of the kids at the orphanage, since they want to study there. He wasn't the nicest, but Chu Wanning gets it. He's also not perceived as the nicest.
The other three he doesn't know at all.
It feels absolutely and utterly humiliating to be calling student housing services for a temporary flat, but he has a cat on him. Not that that's something he can tell them, considering that student housing doesn't exactly allow pets. Either way. Life is against him, but Chu Wanning needs a flat, and he needs it quick, and this is probably his best bet.
He types in the first number and just hopes that someone will pick up.
The phone rings for quite a long time; only after eight rings does someone pick up.
"Yes, hello? Who's there?"
He doesn't even give a name, but it's a very deep and pleasant voice.
"Hello. Do you still work at student housing?"
"Ah- sort of. Enough to be relevant there, still. Mostly teach the new people, but yes. Why?"
"I-"
Oh God. Chu Wanning doesn't even know where to start.
He takes a deep breath and brings his hand to Plums soft, white fur, petting her from head to tail in slow strokes. It's calming enough.
"My name is Chu Wanning, I'm a professor in the Mechanical Engineering department."
"Ah, I've heard of you," he says, "I've been looking into the department recently, since I'm considering studying something else for convenience's sake- well, whatever. What do you need?"
Chu Wanning hates every single second of this, and he doesn't want to be saying this, but- his cat. He can't live on the streets with Plum, no matter how much she likes going outside. He can't do this to someone who isn't himself, even if that someone is a cat.
"I got kicked out of my flat just now, and all hotels are booked up. Is there any way I can get into student housing, if there's something free? I can pay, obviously. It won't be for long, I'm sure to find a new flat very soon."
"Kicked out?" the man on the other end of the line echoes. "What about court?"
"There's nothing I can do," Chu Wanning says, "I don't want to go into it, what's been done is done. I just need to know if there's anything you can do for me."
For a bit, it's quiet, and then the man releases a quiet huff of breath into his phone.
"In theory, no. In practice, yes. Let me boot up my computer and log into the system, I'll see if anything's free. You might be lucky, considering it's the summer semester. It might take a while for the system to load, though."
For the next two minutes, neither of them says anything; only then does the computer boot up and the system load, apparently.
"I suppose you don't have any preferences?"
"If I could live alone, that would be nice."
"Unlikely," the man says, "yeah, no, impossible. There's only five flats that still have free places. One of them is a flat of six with two remaining rooms in the southern part of town. The other two flats both have only one student in them. One is five minutes from the main campus, the other one ten."
Chu Wanning has to consider his options. Main campus means the library; the library means a lot of students, including his students. The further the better. In theory, the flat with four students in it would be ideal, as it's the farthest from university, but Chu Wanning also knows for a fact that he can't deal with living with four other people.
So it has to be one of the other flats.
Five minutes is way too close.
"The one that's ten minutes from there, if the student agrees. If not, the other one with only a single person. If anyone else needs the flats instead of me, feel free to just… kick me out."
"Alright," the man says, "I'll look into it. Give me some minutes to call the guy and see if he answers."
It's a guy. Chu Wanning isn't entirely sure whether he'd prefer living with a woman or a man, personally. Gender doesn't say anything about their habits and the likes to begin with, so it probably doesn't matter. The thought of living together with anyone is bad enough.
A student on top of that.
His dignity feels like it's disappearing by the second. Every single thing about this is awful, and Plum even looks up at him for a bit with worried eyes, until he starts stroking her again. He puts his phone down; it's time to wait for an answer now. Whatever happens, he'll figure something out. If it comes to it-
If it comes to it, he can ask Xue Zhengyong to take him in for a few days. Chu Wanning knows that he would, but admitting to his friend why he got kicked out, and that he got kicked out in first place just seems so scary. What would Xue Zhengyong even think of him? Maybe he would even stop being his friend, and it's not like Chu Wanning has any other friends at all. He can't risk this if he doesn't absolutely have to.
Apart from Plum's very quiet purring, the room is bathed in silence. Only the light of the computer illuminates it, Chu Wanning not wanting anyone to know that he's in here.
He leans back into the chair. No matter the answer, he'll have to go outside with Plum and then try to sleep. He can't work on any projects here anyways. He'll have to try and get as much sleep as possible, considering that his options are either the floor, or his office chair.
At least he brought a blanket.
Warily, he reaches into the bag that he's placed next to him, fishing around for the only stuffed toy he's ever owned and will ever own.
It's just a small husky that he bought when he was eighteen, when-
He'd rather not think about it.
Chu Wanning puts it onto his shoulder, then leans his head against it, taking a deep breath. This will have to serve as his pillow tonight. Even though it's fourteen years old by now. Well, it doesn't look too bad; usually, it just sits on the shelf with the things the other kids gave to him. Although this husky wasn't given to him, but rather-
Gritting his teeth, he closes his eyes, because he might as well.
It takes a good fifteen minutes before his phone rings again and Chu Wanning picks up.
"Yes?"
"It's me. The student agreed. I didn't say anything about you being a professor, just that you're in dire need of a flat. That way, you can still decide whether to tell him or not."
The exhale that leaves Chu Wanning's throat is one of pure and utter relief.
He has a flat. Even if only temporarily, but he has a flat. He doesn't have to be homeless again. If he wasn't as emotionally constipated, he might even cry of joy. But, alas, not a single tear leaves his eyes, and neither does he smile. He just sits there for a few seconds, taking in the words.
"Okay. Thank you."
"No need to thank me, that's what I'm here for. You have somewhere to stay for the night? If not, I do have a sofa."
"No," Chu Wanning says immediately, "I have somewhere to stay for tonight. When can I move in?"
"I said that you'd be there tomorrow morning at one point. Eight or nine. The student said that he'd rather it was tomorrow if somewhat possible, since he still has a friend over. Hence I asked. If not, he would've kicked him out, apparently."
Ah, so it's a person who would kick out their friend. Chu Wanning isn't sure they'll get along very well.
"No, tomorrow morning is just fine," he says.
The other guy tries to make conversation for a bit and only then talks about pricing and the like, but it's doable; Chu Wanning doesn't care. He just has to hope that the guy he's going to live with won't tell anyone about Plum. He could consider sneaking her in, but that wouldn't work, so he'll have to be upfront about it. Obviously he'd pay for any damages.
After a few more minutes, they get off the call, and Chu Wanning lets himself sink back into the chair, sighing in relief once more, then looking up at the ceiling for a long, long while.
He has a flat.
It's fine. He's going to be okay. And first and foremost, Plum will have a flat. He can relax now and actually try to sleep after going for a walk with her one last time.
No matter how awkward it's going to be hiding the fact that he's a professor from his new flatmate. No matter how awful it's going to be to have a flatmate to begin with, given the fact that Chu Wanning has never lived with anyone that wasn't his adoptive father.
It's fine.
It's only going to be for a few days or something, until he finds either a hotel or a new flat.
*
Chu Wanning wakes up in the middle of the night, his computer still running since he never actually turned it off. When he warily looks at the time, it's a few minutes to four. His computer is still open on his e-mails since the last thing he got was the address; funnily enough, not the name of the student. Maybe the guy has limited access to the databank at this point, or he just forgot. Chu Wanning never actually learned his name. Not that it's important; it's safe to assume they will neither make friends, nor get along well to begin with.
The e-mail program shows two new e-mails; one is an essay submission by the student sitting last row, one minute to midnight. The other one is also an essay submission, however three hours too late, slightly past three in the morning, and the small name indicates that it's Mo Ran's.
So he didn't manage on time after all. No wonder, after he's apparently been out running all afternoon. Chu Wanning should've guessed.
He writes the other student first to make sure that she knows he's seen it. Then, he opens Mo Ran's mail. The past few weeks, it was usually just a few sentences to say that the document is attached, and thanking him for grading it in advance, but this time, it's a bit longer of a text.
It starts off with the normal greetings, but then directly apologizes for being late.
'Sorry for turning this in late. I overheard my neighbour saying that her brother's car broke down today when he needs it to drive his boyfriend to an important appointment tomorrow, so I offered to fix it, and then it got really late. This is the earliest I could reasonably finish this homework. I hope you still accept it.'
And then the regular e-mail ending.
For a while, Chu Wanning just looks at the e-mail, furrowing his eyebrows a little. Why would he not accept it? This is too specific of an excuse to be a lie, and even if it was a lie; Chu Wanning specifically makes the deadline Saturday and not Sunday only so that his students don't procrastinate and hopefully get some free time on Sunday. Of course that's not what he tells them, but still; it's three hours late, at night. He couldn't care less.
Well, only because there's an explanation. Chu Wanning doesn't want to end up being too lenient on his students, either, so he will make sure to send a response asking him to send it on time if possible, but that he'll accept late admissions with good reasons. Fixing someone's car is a good reason, he'd argue, so he accepts it.
He shoots a mail back just scolding him for being late but saying that he's going to accept it. He doesn't write anything else, because he's not sure what else he would write.
First of all, Chu Wanning isn't much for talking. And secondly, Mo Ran wouldn't give a single damn about whatever his professor is saying, so why bother? Just because Chu Wanning has gotten weirdly attached to him and has been tormented by the encounter this afternoon, that doesn't mean Mo Ran also thinks the same way in any way.
Because Chu Wanning is not someone who's loved by anyone.
…Let alone his twenty years old student.
All of this is stupid. He needs to get over this, or else the rest of the semester will be awful. He's not entirely sure he's ever had a crush. He doesn't think he did. He wished he didn't have to consider this a 'crush', but clearly it's something that makes him think about how firm Mo Ran's muscles felt when he crashed into him. How good he smelled even though he should have smelled bad, given the fact he'd been running for quite a while.
How stupidly soft all of his smiles look, and how Chu Wanning wants to see more of those smiles and hear more of this voice and-
He stops right there, glancing tiredly at Plum, curled up in one of his shelves, on a book.
It's going to be alright. He can hide whatever those feelings are, because he's no stranger to hiding emotions.
After all, he only really sees him in class, and running into him today was just unfortunate, so there's not a lot of times he has to pretend that he's not slowly falling for his student.
Well, Chu Wanning thinks to himself, it's just in class. I should appreciate that I don't live with him.
This time, he turns his computer back off before he closes his eyes and tries his best to go back to sleep despite the ache in his lower back starting to become noticeable.
Whoever he's going to live with starting tomorrow – it's going to be better than sleeping in his office chair with just a small Husky plushie to keep him company.
"No! That's still raw, you can't eat that, give it back!"
Mo Ran looks at the guy standing in front of him, then back at the wonton in his small hands, and then back at the guy who he suspects must be a teenager. He's not that good at telling ages; maybe he's fourteen or fifteen. He looks a bit like the girl in the orphanage that Mo Ran knows is fifteen, so that's probably a good guess. He's wearing beige pants and a white, woolen sweater. Long hair frames his face, bound in a ponytail; he has high cheekbones and a very angular face, and when Mo Ran looks into his eyes, he drops the wonton altogether.
The sun shines in through the window from behind him, dipping him in a kind of angelic light, orange cast onto his outline like he's a deity of some sorts. But, because of the glass built into the kitchen cupboard opposite of him, there's some of the sunshine reflecting in his eyes.
And Mo Ran's heart moves. He's five years old, and he doesn't know what that feeling is, but his entire body seems to light up.
Only then does he realize that he's dropped his wonton, but before he can pick it back up, the youth has already done so, and placed it a few inches from the others.
Not that Mo Ran can do anything. He follows his every motion, the sway of his hair, the slight pinkish tint on his cheek from what must be exhaustion from folding all these wontons.
For a while, the pair just looks at each other. At one point, the teenager huffs out a breath, and Mo Ran thinks that he's going to smile, but then he doesn't really. It's a little confusing, but the corners of his mouth twitch for the tiniest, tiniest bit, so everything Mo Ran can think is that if he were to smile, it would be the most beautiful smile he'd ever see.
"Ms Ding told me that you might show up in the morning. You're Ran-er, then?"
Mo Ran nods, because right now, his name isn't 'Mo Ran', because that only comes later, when Xue Zhengyong adopts him, who appears to be his uncle. Mo Ran isn't entirely sure how much of that is true; whether Xue Zhengyong just lied to get him out of there, whether he wanted to save him or not, whether they're actually related, he has no idea.
"There's no need to scavenge for food like that," the teenager says, "these are for later, but once they're cooked, you can have one, okay?"
And, somehow, everything Mo Ran can do is give another curt nod and drop the issue.
"Good. You… Do you want to help cook them?"
Stunned, Mo Ran nods again. However neither of them moves, and Mo Ran just quietly stares at him instead. He's beautiful. His voice is so soft, even if it sometimes sounds it's going to break, going strangely high at times.
"…My name is Chu Wanning, by the way," the teenager says eventually. Chu Wanning says eventually. "I've started working here last night. It's nice to meet you."
He even reaches out his hand towards him. Mo Ran takes it. His fingers are all big and warm, but also very skinny. He looks very skinny all over, on second thought.
"Gege."
Chu Wanning freezes at the address, his lips a tight line.
"…You can just call me 'Wanning' if you want."
"…Wanning!" Mo Ran echoes, and even if Chu Wanning doesn't smile, Mo Ran does. "Wanning, why are you making wonton in the morning?"
"They're for lunch. I'm just preparing them while everyone else is still asleep. You want to help or no?"
He sounds a little stroppy, but Mo Ran doesn't care, because he's promised him a wonton as soon as they're done. And that makes him feel all warm inside.
"…Yes!" he says, "I'll get the pot!"
He walks towards the cupboard that has all the pots – luckily at a height that Mo Ran can reach – and grabs the biggest he can find, given the pure amount of wontons placed neatly on the kitchen counter, as far as he can see given how short he is in comparison to said kitchen counter.
"…You want me to get you a chair?"
It's not that the other caretakers aren't as nice as Chu Wanning, no. That's not where Mo Ran's sudden fascination stems from, no. It's the fact that he's so beautiful it hurts, and the fact that he promised to give him food at a time where he's usually not allowed.
"Yes!" he answers, a grin on his face, and Chu Wanning grabs him a chair that Mo Ran immediately climbs onto, then kneels on to look comfortably at the mountain of wonton on the counter.
His eyes go all big at the pure amount of food. Admittedly, Ms Ding's wonton look better, but these look… plumper, somehow? He reaches out for one of them again, and Chu Wanning gives him a glance, as if scared that he's going to try and steal another uncooked wonton and possibly bite into raw minced meat.
"…I wanna make one too," he says, and at that, Chu Wanning's gaze grows instantly a little bit softer.
"I can show you how."
"Uh-huh!"
"Here, wash your hands first."
"Yes!" Mo Ran says, and immediately reaches over the sink, waiting for Chu Wanning to turn on the tap. It takes a while for Chu Wanning to get the notion, apparently, but then, he helps him, and gets a small drop of dish soap onto his hands to get them clean. Once washed off, he hands Mo Ran one of the wonton skins, and places a teaspoon worth of meat in it.
"Alright, just follow what I'm doing."
Chu Wanning goes into so much detail explaining the simple action of folding a wonton that there's nothing Mo Ran could do wrong. Sure, it looks clumsy, and like something made by a five-year-old, but the skin holds tightly together without breaking apart.
"Another!" he says, but Chu Wanning points at the empty skin package.
"We don't have any left. Next time."
"…I wanna fold more wonton," Mo Ran grumbles at the teenager that he's met only a few minutes ago, but that has already captured his heart enough for him to know that he doesn't need anyone else, not ever again.
"Don't be silly," Chu Wanning sighs, doing something with the stove, and then filling the pot up with water. "You wanted to eat one, right? So you should look forward to that instead."
His words sound harsh, but to Mo Ran, his voice doesn't.
He doesn't even answer, just watches as Chu Wanning puts them into the pot one by one, waits for the water to boil.
It goes quiet between them for a while. Mo Ran just stares up at him, watches him as the sun rises more and more, eyes silently going wider when his heartbeat accelerates a little again.
"…You should go back to bed," Chu Wanning says, having grown a tiny bit red below the intent stare of Mo Ran's.
"Don't want to. I'm awake. I wake up this early most mornings. I want to stay with Gege."
"…Just 'Wanning'."
"Want to stay with Wanning."
Chu Wanning doesn't respond to that, but the tips of his ears turn ever so slightly redder. Mo Ran doesn't know what he feels, other than that he's absolutely enamored with him.
"How old are you?"
"…Seventeen."
He's seventeen. A few years older than he thought. He looks younger than that. He looks just like the oldest kids. Mo Ran is still standing on his little chair.
"Why are you working here?"
"I'm… looking for a place at college right now. So I wanted to occupy myself."
Hmm, Mo Ran thinks, that's not quite right.
None of the other workers here stay that longingly at the wonton. It reminds him of his mom. She used to have the same gaze in her eyes sometimes. And, when Mo Ran looked into the mirror, he saw it in his own, too.
It's the reason why he's already up to begin with.
"Alright," he says, because even if he's five, Mo Ran knows some things – one of them is that, sometimes, people don't want to talk about themselves.
Chu Wanning doesn't want to talk about himself.
"I like you," he says instead, and Chu Wanning, who was just about to start placing the wonton into the pot, the water now hot enough – Mo Ran can see some steam – jerks back. One of the wonton nearly falls onto the floor.
Mo Ran very quickly catches it with both his hands, quickly realizing by its shape that it's his own.
"…Do you want me to help you put it in?"
His voice sounds a lot softer, suddenly. Mo Ran wonders whether it's because he did something useful (catching the wonton) or because he said that he likes him. Which is true though. He does. He's engaging with him. It's not like the other caretakers are bad or anything. But Mo Ran doesn't like them.
They always make him talk to the people in white coats who ask him questions that he'd rather not think about. They always scold him for just wanting to get food because he's hungry. If he's hungry, he needs food; and if there's food available for him to get when hungry, then he will damn well get it.
But no one understands that.
Only Chu Wanning does. Only Chu Wanning promises him a wonton as soon as they're done.
So, Mo Ran nods, because the earlier he puts it in, the earlier he gets to eat it.
"Okay. Don't touch the pot, and don't touch the water, that's both very hot," he says, and Mo Ran can't help but think that he sounds like the school teachers in the cartoons that the other kids sometimes watch together, him only peeking into the room from the door because the others don't like him much.
"Okay."
"I'll tilt it a little, and you drop it in carefully so that it doesn't splash up at you, alright?"
"Hm!"
And he does.
Mo Ran grabs the wonton and drops it in, quickly retracting his hand just in case he gets any hot water on himself.
(He's very scared of pain, because he's already had a lot of it in his life. He doesn't want anymore.)
(Years down the road, this will change. And then, it'll take a lot for Mo Ran to stop hurting himself on purpose again.)
"It's in!" he says, leaning over the pot a little bit, but he's yanked back by Chu Wanning, only by his collar.
"Careful. It's hot. Even the steam. I'll put in the rest. Get down."
Even if he grumbles a little bit, Mo Ran obliges, sliding off the chair, but still looking up at Chu Wanning very eagerly, watching as he places the wonton in the pot, one by one, piece by piece. Then, he washes his hands, the bowl he had the filling in, and quickly wipes the surface.
"How long does it take?" Mo Ran asks.
"Just a few minutes. I'll check on them."
He looks at Mo Ran. A bit as if he doesn't really know what to do with himself. It's his first day, Mo Ran remembers, so, even if Chu Wanning is a lot older and taller than him, he still looks up at him and feels older, suddenly.
"I can show you where the sweets are."
Little Mo Ran doesn't miss the way Chu Wanning perks up at the mention of sweets.
"Absolutely not. You're not having any at this time," he says immediately, and despite his strict tone, all Mo Ran can think is that he wants to see him smile. He wonders whether eating something sweet might make him smile.
"…Just sit down at the table. I'll find us a game. Any game you like a lot?"
Mo Ran's mind comes up blank.
"I don't want to play a game," he says, but what he really means is that he hasn't played any of the games at the orphanage, because no one wanted to play with him.
And the nurses were always busy.
"Okay," Chu Wanning simply says, just accepting what he said. He doesn't try to argue with him, doesn't tell him off for not wanting to do something. "What do you want to do while we wait, then?"
"…Talk to you."
"Talk to me?"
"Uh-huh! What's college?"
It's not a smile. But it's something close to it. The corners of his mouth twitch a little. That's enough.
Mo Ran will get him to smile.
Even if it takes him a lifetime.
*
After just five minutes, they're done, and Mo Ran grabs himself a small plate, since Chu Wanning doesn't yet know where they are. Once Chu Wanning has grabbed all the wontons out of the water, he searches for specifically the one Mo Ran folded, and puts it onto the plate, however holding it out of Mo Ran's reach.
"It's too hot," he declares, "wait a bit. I'll cut it in half, so it cools down faster."
He does that without waiting for Mo Ran's answer, and once he's cut the wonton, he holds the plate out to him.
With slightly trembling hands, Mo Ran takes it. It smells good. The filling smells so good, and it looks all juicy- The wrapping too. His mouth waters, but it's still steaming pretty hard.
So, he listens to Chu Wanning. He waits. After a minute, he even joins him with his own small plate of a single wonton. As if he's too hungry to resist.
Mo Ran grabs the chopsticks he brought him, and grabs the wonton clumsily with it, blowing on it.
Then, he puts it into his mouth.
It's all wet and juicy and tastes amazing. Even without any sauce. The flavours blend together, and Mo Ran can barely believe that he had a part in making it. It's so good.
It's so good that tears make it into his eyes as he chews and swallows all hastily, and Chu Wanning lets out a small sigh.
"Slow down. No one's going to steal this from you. It's all yours."
Because he understands.
And Mo Ran understands that he understands.
"Y-yeah," he mumbles, "okay."
He lets his chopsticks sink for a bit before tackling the second half. That one, he eats a bit slower. While stealing a few glances at the teenager opposite of him again. It's not Mo Ran's fault he looks all beautiful.
It's not Mo Ran's fault that he's falling in love with him right here and right now.
"Look," Chu Wanning begins, voice trailing off a little, but then coming back again. "Whenever I'm here in the morning, I'll give you a tiny bit to eat, okay? So, there's no need to steal things anymore. You'll get food here."
"Okay," he mumbles. Another fat tear rolls down his cheek, and he sniffs when he swallows the last part of his wonton. Even if it's just every few days that he gets to eat something at a time when he isn't meant to. Even if it's just once or twice a week, if he can have just a tiny bit of control over when he can eat – then that's enough.
Just the semblance of control is enough to him.
"No need to cry," Chu Wanning eventually says. His voice is bordering on a whisper. Mo Ran watches as he gets up and pulls a pack of tissues out of his pocket to slowly pat his cheeks dry. His motions are a little rough and uncalculated, much unlike his mother's. But it's comfort enough.
"Come on. We'll wash up the plates and act as if we didn't eat at a time we weren't meant to. Okay?"
"Okay," he sobs, and he doesn't stop crying at all until Chu Wanning drags him back to bed again when his eyes threaten to fall shut, tears still clinging to his lashes.
*
When Mo Ran wakes up again, the sun is much higher up, and there's noise all around the house. He's hungry, but he's not as hungry as he could be.
His stomach just feels empty.
It doesn't feel like a hole.
There's a kind of warmth to that emptiness he hadn't known before. Slowly, he peels himself out of bed and finds that he feels a little lighter than usual. Everything that happened feels like a dream – but the taste of minced meat lingers on his tongue, so he's sure that it must've been real.
Chu Wanning must've been real.
Alas, Mo Ran is in the kitchen a few seconds later, and bumps into Ms Ding's waist.
"Ah, Ran-er, you're late for breakfast!" she scolds him, "you've missed our new worker introducing himself!"
"No need," Chu Wanning waves off, "I've already met him earlier."
"Ah, of course," Mrs Ding says, looking down at Mo Ran with that scary gaze again. "Did you sneak into the kitchen again?"
"He did," Chu Wanning says, and he looks all calm and serene about it, as if he doesn't care a single bit for Mo Ran and what this might mean for him – namely, another scolding.
"Ran-er, please, we've talked about this. Did he steal anything?"
"No."
Mo Ran's heart stops. It feels like it's been pierced somehow. Chu Wanning gives him one very small look before redirecting his attention towards the other caretaker.
"He just looked around and we introduced ourselves. I sent him back to bed then. He went. I didn't give him anything to eat, like you said."
"Oh," Ms Ding's gaze softens at that. "That's okay then. Nevermind, Ran-er. If you're up early and just want to hang out with someone, you let us know, okay?"
He can't respond, and he doesn't. He just looks up at Chu Wanning, seated at the table, only one child next to him, the other seat next to him free. He's quietly and very elegantly drinking his tea, lifting the cup only as much as truly needed. His bowls are all empty already. He must've finished eating. That makes sense. Mo Ran remembers just how hungry he was earlier.
Chu Wanning lied for him.
Someone lied for him, just so he could have a bite to eat without getting scolded.
He lied for him.
Chu Wanning lied for him.
"Come on, there's a place free next to Chu Wanning, so go sit down and I'll grab you some food. He made wonton for later, by the way. Don't you like them a lot?"
Mo Ran's heart cries out in – he doesn't know. He's feeling a lot of things. He can't do more than nod and sit down by Chu Wanning's side, who gives him just a tiny glance downwards, as if to assure that Mo Ran won't snitch on the two of them having eaten wonton together.
But he knows better than to do that.
Just once, Mo Ran bumps his foot into Chu Wanning's leg, who flinches the tiniest bit at that, but goes back to normal when Mo Ran tries to give him the biggest smile he can possibly muster – and he realizes that it doesn't feel forced at all.
He hasn't smiled like that ever since his mom died.
*
Over the past three months, Mo Ran has been paying a lot of attention as to who has the morning shift. Whenever it was Chu Wanning, he'd sneak into the kitchen, and they'd eat something together. Sometimes, it'd be wonton. Sometimes, Chu Wanning would buy him milk candy, or small chocolates that they'd then share. Mo Ran quickly realized that Chu Wanning really likes sweet food, and probably bought them not just for him.
Sometimes, the other workers nearly caught them, but most of the time, they were sneaky enough; however, Mo Ran has very slowly started to get more and more involved in the wonton making, having gotten quite good at folding them. He knows what goes into the filling at this point, too.
He told Ms Ding that he really enjoys cooking, and that he might like to be a cook in the future. Ever since then, she's been a bit nicer to him, and even the people in white have stopped asking as many questions.
So, Mo Ran can now make wonton, and cut several vegetables and fruit, as well as cook noodles and make easy soups.
…Overall, he feels like he's the better cook out of the two already, because everything Chu Wanning tries making that isn't wonton goes horribly wrong.
It's on the weekend when Mo Ran wakes up as usual, thinks to himself that he's going to go into the kitchen and help Chu Wanning prepare something for breakfast, and grab one of the gummy bears they've been slowly having over the past week and a half, two at a time, making sure they last long enough.
(Mo Ran would later realize just how much money Chu Wanning was spending on him for the fact that he was homeless at the time.)
Except that his head feels strangely heavy, and so do his limbs. He can feel his heart beat away in his chest consciously, and his pajamas are sticking to himself. For a second, Mo Ran gets stupidly scared he's wet the bed, even if that hasn't happened in over a year now, but no – it hasn't.
Because his upper body feels much wetter than his lower body.
He feels hot.
Everything is hot.
His limbs hurt.
No matter how hard he tries to get up, he won't manage. It's like his body isn't listening to him at all, and soon, tears are shooting into his eyes not just because of the pain, but also the pure frustration of not being able to go see Chu Wanning.
He just wants to be with him as much as he can.
It's all he really knows.
But, alas, Mo Ran is stuck in bed, and even if he was about to wet the bed now, he couldn't do anything about it. For the record, he's not, though. He went before sleeping.
After about ten minutes, however, his door opens, all while angry tears are still dreaming down his face, little sobs escaping his throat every now and again.
When he manages to look up just a little, there he is, in the door. Chu Wanning, in just a white t-shirt today, and loose grey cargo jeans. He looks stunning either way. Below the shirt, something shimmers in a dark grey, not quite black; it's the undershirt he wears most days, that Mo Ran sees a lot when Chu Wanning is carrying him.
"…Hello," Chu Wanning says, "you're awake?"
"Yes," Mo Ran makes, and the noise sounds all pitiful coming through his lips. Softly, Chu Wanning closes the door behind him and walks over to him.
"Ran-er, are you okay?"
Instead of an answer, all he can do is cry.
For a bit, everything Chu Wanning does is stare at him. Then, his hand comes down to his forehead, and he sighs.
"Wait here. I'll get a thermometer. I think you have a fever."
"No-" Mo ran manages to choke out, "please. Don't leave me, please don't leave me, Wanning-"
He's out of reach for his aching limbs, so he can't grab his arm or t-shirt, can't even physically hold on like he held on to his mother's corpse for days-
"Don't be silly," Chu Wanning scolds him, "I'll just get a thermometer, and then I'll be back. Just two minutes, okay?"
"Please don't leave me," he sobs again, because he's already lost his mother and-
Mo Ran can't bear to lose anyone else.
However, Chu Wanning does leave, and that's what gets Mo Ran's body to finally moves. He curls in on himself, as if looking for warmth, as if his entire body isn't running way too hot right now. All he wants is for someone to stay. But everyone always leaves. He's five years old, and everyone always leaves him, and he wonders whether he's just so disgusting that no one wants to stay.
When the door opens again, it feels like all the lights that have never been turned off turn on again.
Chu Wanning is back.
He's actually come back, thermometer and a small bottle in one hand, a steaming bowl in the other.
He sets the bowl and baby bottle (Mo Ran's too old for this, he thinks) down onto the table, and looks back at him.
"You left," Mo Ran says, tone half-accusatory, half-threatening, but Chu Wanning very clearly doesn't feel neither accused nor threatened.
Instead, he gives a very quiet huff of breath that Mo Ran has learned is him laughing. Then, a hand combs through his sweaty hair for a bit.
"It's okay. I'm back. Hold still while I take your temperature, okay?"
Chu Wanning raises the electric thermometer and Mo Ran, too stunned by the fact that someone came back for him, has it planted right into his ear. A quiet 'peep' resounds around the room, and then Chu Wanning pulls it back.
"It's a fever, but a low one. No need for a doctor yet, we'll just keep checking it, okay?"
He's asking whether it's okay even. Another wet sob escapes Mo Ran, still curled up, but facing the teenager in front of him.
"Come here, I've brought you some soup and apple juice. You need to eat and drink something. That'll help a lot."
"Don't want it," Mo Ran croaks out. His stomach also feels queasy, all of a sudden.
"Don't be like that. Come on, I'll help you sit up."
"Did you make it?"
"What?" Mo Ran almost smiles at the coldness in Chu Wanning's tone that sometimes slips out, something sharp and glaring to it that would make him shiver if he didn't know how kind Chu Wanning really is, "Afraid to eat it if I made it? If you don't want it, suit yourself-"
"No. Want it."
For a bit, Chu Wanning looks like he'd rather die now than feed Mo Ran the soup, but then decides that that'd be very petulant of a seventeen-year-old to do because of a five-year-old, and instead helps Mo Ran sit up.
At first, Mo Ran drinks some of the apple juice. It cools down his throat. Ah, his throat hurts, too. His stomach still feels weird, but he thinks that he's not going to throw up. It's more of a tingle whenever Chu Wanning looks at him.
"There you go. Now, stop crying. It's just a fever, and you might feel bad for a day or two, but it's going to stop after that, and then you'll be back to being fine. It's probably just a cold."
Next thing he knows, he has a tissue plastered across his face, wiping away the tears and then letting him blow his nose. His nose is also stuffy.
"Here. Now have some soup, come on."
"…With you."
"Huh?"
"I wanna eat with you," Mo Ran says, and his voice still sounds all weak, but he tries his best not to start crying again. Chu Wanning told him to stop, so he's ought to stop. "We eat together every morning. So I want to eat with you."
For a bit, the room is silent, and Chu Wanning is blinking at him. Something glitters in his eyes that Mo Ran can't quite place. All strictness fades from his face, and he's grabbing a spoon of what Mo Ran thinks is chicken rice soup instead of scolding him for anything else.
"Okay. We'll eat it together. And now stop making a fuss."
Mo Ran stops making a fuss.
They finish the whole bowl together, with one spoon, and Mo Ran doesn't even stop to think that Chu Wanning will definitely catch whatever he has, because he has not a single clue how viruses work yet.
It tastes good.
The taste will stay with him for years to come.
After that, Chu Wanning carries him to the bathroom and helps him wash up and change clothes, and then carries him back to bed.
This time, when Mo Ran asks him to stay in a shaky voice that's barely audible in the stuffy air of his room, with red-rimmed eyes, Chu Wanning stays. Mo Ran grabs his hand, and he lets him. It makes his stomach feel worse again, but he feels safe.
Mo Ran feels incredibly safe right now.
He has the best two hours of sleep that he's ever had, and when he wakes up, Chu Wanning's head is next to his body, resting on one of his own arms, and he's still holding Mo Ran's hand.
His face is all relaxed, eyes closed, breathing deep and even. Some of his hair is tousled from moving in his sleep. From up close, his eyelashes are really long. His lips are opened in the slightest, his eyebrows all even when he's not scrunching them up. His skin looks soft.
It's not news to him, but oh, Chu Wanning is beautiful.
Mo Ran squeezes his hand a little harder and decides that whatever happens, he's not going to let go of the person who's made wonton with him, and eaten soup with him, and held his hand while fast asleep with a fever.
Mo Ran isn't going to let go of Chu Wanning.
Not ever.
*
The day comes that would burn itself into Mo Ran's memory just as strongly as Chu Wanning's phoenix eyes.
It starts out like any other. Mo Ran sneaks into the kitchen and makes wonton with Chu Wanning again. Today, they have a few more sweets than Mo Ran is used to, but he doesn't make much of it. They eat breakfast with everyone else, and Mo Ran goes to kindergarten and comes back, since he's allowed to go there now. The orphanage workers keep saying that they're really proud of him. So do the people in white. Apparently, it's because he's stopped biting and hitting people. A lot of them attribute it to Chu Wanning, and Mo ran finds that that's quite an alright assumption to make.
He'd like to think that he also helped Chu Wanning, even if just a little. It's probably a stupid thought. What could a little boy teach someone like him? However, when he recalls the soft gaze in his eyes sometimes, then maybe-
Chu Wanning fetches him from kindergarten, and nothing feels different. He holds his hand and keeps holding it until they're back, some of the other kids still too scared of him to do so, the others already at school by now.
"Ran-er," Chu Wanning says eventually, after they've gotten home and had the wontons for lunch. "There's something I need to tell you."
His expression remains neutral as always, so Mo Ran doesn't suspect anything. He follows him to his room and watches as Chu Wanning quietly closes the door behind them, then sits down on the bed, patting his left side until Mo Ran sits down next to him.
"Hm?" he makes when Chu Wanning doesn't speak up, his gaze having drifted off a little bit, as if he doesn't know what to say either.
Eventually, however, he does speak up. His voice comes out rasped, a lot lower than it used to be a year ago, back when they met. A lot about him has changed. Not just his voice. His face looks sharper, too. Mo Ran is only noticing now that he's paying attention to it. His eyebrows appear more filled in, and there's the semblance of an unshaved stubble on his lower chin.
"I got accepted into a college."
"Oh, that's great, isn't it?" Mo Ran asks, and he's absolutely ready to celebrate – maybe with more sweets. However, Chu Wanning's gaze remains weirdly solemn.
"Well- yes," he says, but there's a weird sadness to his voice.
"You wanted to go to college, right?" he asks, since now he finally knows what it is; Chu Wanning explained it to him once, and Mo Ran understood. What he's noticed about him is that he explains things very precisely, and down to the point, but easy. Mo Ran didn't have any issues understanding it.
"I do, but… it's really far away."
That's when Mo Ran's heart sinks and he understands the implications of this, understands the sad tone of voice, understands the grave expression on Chu Wanning's face.
"Wanning."
Chu Wanning's head flies around to him, and Mo Ran only notices belatedly that there's hot tears on his own cheeks, rolling down in fat drops, and that his breath is hitching in his throat already.
"You're leaving," he says, and the words feel strange and foreign on his tongue now that he's gotten so used to Chu Wanning staying, to being reassured over and over again that he'd stay, that this would be the one thing he doesn't do to him, because his mom left, and he can't stand the thought of Chu Wanning also leaving- "You're leaving me."
"I'm sorry," Chu Wanning echoes, "it's the only college that's offering me a scholarship- I mean, money. I don't have the money to pay any other. I'm genuinely so sorry. I wished I could stay."
"You can!" Mo Ran tries to say, but it comes out as a stupidly desperate wail, "you can! You don't have to go, you don't…!"
But he knows it's what he wanted, because he knows that Chu Wanning wants to help people in more ways than just this. He knows that he's really interested in machinery of all kind, that he's usually able to perfectly fix anything wrong around the house, even if he's completely hopeless at cooking.
A hand comes down onto his shoulder, but Mo Ran slaps it away, instead grabbing his own pants, breath hitching in his throat.
"I'm sorry, Ran-er," he whispers again. "I can't- I have to go. Not just because I want to go, but-"
"Take me with you!"
"Ran-er, that's not how it works," he starts back up, "you're usually so smart. Don't be like this now."
"You're leaving me!" he says, pushing him away again when he tries to pull him into a hug. Even when that's all he wants, he pushes him away.
Because Mo Ran has always been so horribly good at pushing people away.
It feels like his tiny heart is shattering into a million pieces, like the world is being swallowed up by large, black waves, like he's never going to come back from this, like everything he's worked for is falling apart right in front of him.
"You're leaving me…!"
This time, he doesn't have it in him to push him away when he's pulled into Chu Wanning's lap, bumping his head into his chest instead. Again and again. Feeling the undershirt below, the cloth of Chu Wanning's t-shirt rubbing against it when Mo Ran shakes his head into it.
He can't leave him.
He can't possibly be leaving him right here and right now.
"I'm sorry."
His apologies aren't helping in the slightest.
"If I could- if I could, I really would take you along. I have to leave, Ran-er. And I know that this is probably not something you can understand, but… there's a lot that's not okay where I live right now. There's a lot that I need to get away from, and I need money. I understand if you hate me. I don't blame you."
Mo Ran brings his fists up and punches them into Chu Wanning's stomach again, again, weak little punches that can't possibly hurt.
"I don't want you to leave…!"
"I'm sorry. I really don't blame you for hating me."
But Mo Ran doesn't hate him, because even now when he should hate him, he doesn't have that in him.
"Please don't leave me…!"
A hand comes up to grasp his head, still a little awkwardly, even after a year. Pats him.
"I'm sorry. I really am. This is my fault. I'll- I promise you that I'll visit, okay? I'll be back during all the breaks to come see you. Really, it'll just be a few months at a time."
But really, months, to Mo Ran who's only lived a meager six years, feel like a lifetime.
"You can't leave me-" he cries, nuzzling into that comforting warmth that soon won't be there anymore, will just be gone, the scent of haitang blossoms and the tingling in his entire body that will be gone alongside it.
"You can't leave me," he repeats like a mantra, while Chu Wanning holds him, while he tells him that he'll certainly come back, that he's going to leave tomorrow already, because he only got the scholarship because someone else didn't accept, that he's going to be on an airplane for the first time in his life. He holds the struggling and crying Mo Ran, telling him that he'll make sure to take that picture they took together one day with him, that, as soon as Mo Ran learns to write, they can start exchanging letters.
But it's not enough.
"You can't leave me," is all Mo Ran is able to say, until he's cried himself hoarse, until his body gives in to sleep some seconds before he would otherwise throw up, clearly trying to protect itself.
Mo Ran has no idea when he wakes back up, but he wakes up to still being gently rocked back and forth, even if he's unsure whether Chu Wanning is trying to soothe him, or himself. There's a hand in his hair, and Mo Ran's ear and cheeks are presses into Chu Wanning's chest by that hand, and he doesn't dare to let go.
Because as soon as he lets go, Chu Wanning is going to disappear. He's going to vanish.
He's not going to come back.
No one that has left Mo Ran has ever come back.
*
The next day comes, and it feels as if it's the day the world was meant to be ending. Chu Wanning stands in front of him, with a suitcase, a taxi behind him, the driver waiting to take him to the airport.
He looks older, more mature somehow. His posture his different. He looks sturdier, much less thin. His cheeks are rosier, his hair less frizzy. He's dressed in a white button-up and grey jeans as always.
He presses a last piece of milk candy into Mo Ran's hand, from the bag they've opened earlier this week.
He promises him again that he'll be back, that he'll definitely be back.
When Chu Wanning leaves, he leaves for good. He doesn't come back. Mo Ran is alone from then on out.
Four weeks later, not a single sign of Chu Wanning, the orphanage gets a call, and Mo Ran gets informed that he's being adopted. For a second, he thinks it might be Chu Wanning, but it's not. It's someone who claims that he's a family member, and that he wants Mo Ran to live with them.
He's too scared to ask for it, but someone tells him that they're sending a letter to Chu Wanning to let him know. Mo Ran isn't sure whether they're actually doing it. He's not sure whether Chu Wanning will even read it, let alone reply.
Because he's left him.
Told him he was going to leave, and then left, not even twenty-four hours later, forever and ever, and Mo Ran just feels so hollow inside.
The day of his adoption also comes. The man who's going to be his new father is all smiles and kindness, but Mo Ran has learned the hard way that a kind man isn't necessarily a good man, so he's weary of him. The woman that's with him reminds him of his mother, yet not at all; she's fuller, somehow, smiles more, laughs more, puts a small flower into his hair. They tell him that he's going to have a little brother, and that they'll take him to a toy store to get him any toy he wants, just as a gift for the long travel. The woman made sweets, but they don't taste like the ones Chu Wanning gave him.
Mo Ran had silently hoped not that his new family would be nice, but that Chu Wanning would come to see him off, just one more time, since he got informed of the adoption date, according to the other workers at the orphanage.
He asked them so much, trying to make sure that he can see him again.
But he doesn't come.
He's not here.
Because he's left.
*
When Chu Wanning arrives, he knows he's too late. He hoped he would make it in time despite his flight being delayed by two hours, and then the traffic being bad. He's out of breath, having gotten out of the taxi and run the rest of the way because that was going to be faster than driving at any rate, but there's only cars he knows in the drivway, and the children are playing outside instead of saying goodbye to someone.
He's completely sweated through his clothes, and his calves burn more than they ever have. There's something stinging in his eyes, and he's not sure whether it's the drizzle or tears when his cheeks get wet.
Gasping for breath, Chu Wanning looks into the orphanage, behind the gate, desperately trying to find the boy that was the first to ever make him feel like he had a meaning in life, like it wasn't all in vain, like maybe, he could be someone's person despite being ugly and stupid and unable to accomplish anything.
Trying to make out the shape of someone that left him behind just as much as Chu Wanning also left him behind.
It's his own fault.
He said so to begin with.
The weight of it bears down on him more than his clothes do, slowly getting soaked in the rain.
The husky plushie he's clutching in his hand that he bought with his first scholarship money looks even more pitiful than him.