WAYCAV Chapter 49

Shen Nianjing happily changed to his new profile picture.

Su Zhiyan watched him holding his phone and grinning like an idiot, so he couldn’t help asking, “Do you really like it that much?”

“I love it, I absolutely love it!”

Shen Nianjing’s eyes sparkled brightly. Su Zhiyan’s face turned slightly red. “Oh, as long as you like it.”

It had been a while since Su Zhiyan last tried digital drawing, so he was a bit rusty. But drawing a bear was relatively easy.

He also added a tiny yellow bowtie to the little bear. The light yellow color was especially suitable for this kind of cute thing, and it also matched the image of Shen Nianjing in Su Zhiyan’s heart.

Bright and cheerful. Though sometimes annoyingly so.

The bowtie made the bear look like a particularly well-behaved “good student bear” that teachers would love.

“Why doesn’t yours have a bow tie?” Shen Nianjing kept glancing between their profile pictures.

“Because I thought of it while drawing yours, so of course only you have one.”

“No way!” Shen Nianjing looked at him. “Yours needs to have one too.”

Su Zhiyan thought, “…”

He didn’t understand what Shen Nianjing was being so stubborn about with this kind of thing.

Seeing that he wasn’t moving, Shen Nianjing grabbed his wrist and gently shook it. “Yours needs to have one too.”

He looked at Su Zhiyan with very bright eyes.

The distance between them instantly closed with this movement.

The sudden closeness made Su Zhiyan’s breath hitch. He froze but didn’t pull away. He just looked at Shen Nianjing like that.

There was a gentleness in his gaze that he himself didn’t realize.

Shen Nianjing was stunned, his attention completely captured by that barely noticeable gentleness.

His hands still held Su Zhiyan’s wrists, his palms growing warm.

“He probably hates gays.” Zhang Chang’s words flashed through his mind.

Shen Nianjing’s eyelashes fluttered as he murmured, “Su Zhiyan.”

Su Zhiyan raised a brow slightly, waiting for him to continue.

Shen Nianjing’s intense gaze burned as he tightened his grip and pulled Su Zhiyan closer. “Do you want to push me away when I touch you like this?”

Su Zhiyan thought to himself that he did.

This idiot didn’t know his own strength and was practically crushing his wrist.

“No,” he still said.

Shen Nianjing’s eyes darkened as he leaned in further. “What about now?” His deep voice was magnetic. “Do you want to push me away now?”

Su Zhiyan blinked.

They were barely an arm’s length apart. This distance… he saw it often in his dreams.

The Shen Nianjing in his dreams was very unreasonable, always forcefully pinning him down, then leaning down to kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

But the real Shen Nianjing was just looking at him.

Su Zhiyan felt inexplicably nervous and shook his head. “No.”

Then Shen Nianjing’s face drew nearer until Su Zhiyan could see his own reflection in those eyes.

Their breaths mingled, almost touching.

Shen Nianjing’s expression was serious.

“What about now?”

Su Zhiyan’s fingertips trembled slightly. Right now he could push Shen Nianjing away with just a stretch of his hand. Shen Nianjing had already let go of him, and the warmth from his body still lingered on his wrist.

He didn’t know if it was because he’d been held for so long, but he felt his wrist was incredibly soft and numb. The tingling sensation of blood flowing back seemed to travel through his veins to fill his entire body, finally passing through his heart.

“…No,” he murmured.

Then he saw himself in Shen Nianjing’s eyes getting closer and clearer.

Shen Nianjing had phoenix eyes that usually looked sharp and showed his strong personality, but up close he could only see his deep black pupils filled with tender focus.

Su Zhiyan found himself wrapped in that gentleness.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he fought the urge to look away.

But for some reason, he didn’t avoid it. Instead he just kept looking at Shen Nianjing like that, allowing him to get closer and closer, close enough that he could clearly feel his breath.

Shen Nianjing’s breathing became uneven, no longer steady.

They were so close their breaths intertwined.

Su Zhiyan saw Shen Nianjing’s eyes lower, then slowly lift again.

What was he… looking at?

Su Zhiyan’s cheeks felt a bit hot, and he forced himself not to think about this question.

“You… your breathing is uneven,” he pointed out, trying to distract himself.

Shen Nianjing smiled, and that smile went straight into Su Zhiyan’s eyes. “Mm.”

“It’s been uneven for a while now,” he whispered, his words brushing against Su Zhiyan’s lips.

Su Zhiyan’s eyelashes trembled. He felt like he was about to touch Shen Nianjing, and where their skin might meet sent shivers through him.

What exactly was he trying to do…

Did he want to kiss him?

This thought flashed through his mind and Su Zhiyan’s whole body shuddered as he suddenly stood up.

“You—” He froze mid-sentence.

Shen Nianjing looked over with deep, gentle eyes that held no aggression at all, softly humming “mm” with a rising tone at the end.

He just stared straight at Su Zhiyan like that.

Watching Su Zhiyan with undisguised intensity.

Su Zhiyan’s mind went completely blank under that stare. “I-I’m going to shower.”

He grabbed the bathrobe from the sofa and bolted into the bathroom.

With a “click” he locked the door. Su Zhiyan immediately lost all his strength and leaned back against the glass door, breathing heavily. Then he suddenly remembered that frosted glass could show silhouettes, so he quickly moved away from the door. He mechanically undressed before turning on the shower.

Warm water poured down, and the rushing sound of the water blocked out any other subtle sounds.

Including the pounding of his heartbeat.

Su Zhiyan stood under the showerhead, letting the hot water cascade over him. He tried to calm his rapid breathing.

What exactly did Shen Nianjing try to do just now?

Did he want to kiss him?

Su Zhiyan’s face heated up, and his whole body gradually flushed red in the steamy hot water.

His head was buzzing and he couldn’t find his bearings.

When Shen Nianjing gradually leaned in, his originally nervous and guilty heart became completely blank. He only felt time slow down, as if it stretched infinitely in that moment until only the two of them existed.

Su Zhiyan slowly raised his hand and gently placed it on his chest.

His heart was beating wildly.

This time, he didn’t pull his hand back like he’d been shocked. Instead he just quietly, slowly waited for the moment when his heartbeat would return to normal.

He didn’t pushed Shen Nianjing away.

Was it because he’d been influenced by the dreams?

In his dreams, they were often intimate, so when intimate contact appeared between them in reality, he wouldn’t reject it because of “habit.”

He might even be genuinely affected in reality because of the intimate acts that happened in his dreams.

Like just now, when he suspected Shen Nianjing wanted to kiss him.

But thinking about it now, Shen Nianjing showed no signs of being gay. He probably just wanted to help test his boundaries with same-sex contact?

Otherwise Su Zhiyan couldn’t figure out why he would do that.

He quickly finished his shower, put on the bathrobe and pushed open the bathroom door to see Shen Nianjing standing by the bookshelf in the room, his hand just pulling back from the highest shelf.

Seeing Su Zhiyan come out, Shen Nianjing’s eyes looked panicked for some reason. He quickly pulled his hand back and turned to look at him.

Su Zhiyan thought, “?” What was he doing, planting a bomb?

All the tangled emotions in his heart from just before instantly disappeared, and he even felt like laughing. “I’m done, you can go wash up.”

Shen Nianjing’s gaze was evasive as he responded with an “Mm” and then, “Okay.”

Then he hurriedly left.

Su Zhiyan watched his retreating figure, his eyes gradually filling with confusion.

Why did this guy look so… nervous?

Su Zhiyan instinctively looked toward the bookshelf, scanning each row of books line by line.

They were all the usual decorative “fake books” that hotels had, the kind where you open them and find an empty box inside. Besides those there were some political and legal magazines and youth newspapers and such. It looked like this hot spring resort really cared about current affairs.

Su Zhiyan chuckled. So just now Shen Nianjing had been standing here reading the news?

A bit weird, but also quite reasonable.

He casually pulled out a National Geographic magazine and read a few pages with great interest.

This kind of magazine with educational content had been his favorite reading material during middle school. He had a whole stack of them in his room.

After roughly flipping through a few pages, Su Zhiyan figured Shen Nianjing would be coming out soon, so he raised his hand to put the magazine back.

He looked up and his movement suddenly paused.

In the top corner of the bookshelf, there was a very small book, trembling and squeezed in front of several fake books, looking quite pitiful.

Right where Shen Nianjing’s hand had been.

Su Zhiyan stood on his tiptoes slightly and hooked the book down with his fingertips.

The book cover was colorful and fancy, but the title wasn’t clear, probably because it was quite old.

He casually flipped it open to a random page.

The scene of two men hugging and kissing suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Two men locked in a passionate kiss stared back at him, a more slender man was kneeling on top of another man, their lips parted with what appeared to be strands of saliva connecting them in the next panel.

Su Zhiyan froze and snapped the comic shut with a snap.

“!!!!!!!”

His eyes! They’d been violated!

Su Zhiyan’s brain was in chaos as he stared at the cover of this book in shock, his heart full of complaints.

Where did this uncensored BL comic come from?

Wasn’t this kind of thing banned from publication?

Wait, he forced his thoughts back on track. Had Shen Nianjing just been looking at this thing?

Did he like men…?

Su Zhiyan’s face heated up and his mood felt strange.

Because he’d always been pursued by some men using inappropriate methods, he’d always felt a bit repulsed by homosexuality.

But if Shen Nianjing liked the same sex, he seemed like… he could accept it.

But reading this kind of comic didn’t necessarily mean he really liked men.

Sexual orientation seemed pretty hard to explain. He shouldn’t easily define Shen Nianjing just because of one comic.

But Shen Nianjing had indeed just been looking at this thing.

Su Zhiyan felt confused inside, his palms slightly sweaty.

The sound of water flowing from the bathroom suddenly became incredibly clear, reaching Su Zhiyan’s ears in waves.

He suddenly felt nervous and frantically put the comic back in its original position.

He probably knew why Shen Nianjing had been so panicked just now.

Who wouldn’t panic in this situation?

Being discovered by your buddy reading erotic comics, especially BL ones… too embarrassing.

Su Zhiyan decided in his heart to pretend he didn’t see anything.

Although he made this decision, Su Zhiyan still felt a little strange.

In his dreams, he had even experienced things more extreme than what was in the comic, but because he didn’t have any particularly real experience, and his vision in the dreams was limited, he had never witnessed what it was really like for men to sleep together.

In his dreams, when he and Shen Nianjing kissed… was it like this too?

Because he hadn’t dreamed for almost half a month, Su Zhiyan couldn’t remember very clearly.

He only remembered that Shen Nianjing was often on top of him, his hands firmly restraining him.

Were the things in dreams the same as reality?

Su Zhiyan suddenly felt a bit curious.

Before, because the dreams had disrupted his life so much, he’d been very resistant to same-sex intimacy and had never thought to understand it.

…It was kind of like misplaced anger.

But now that he wasn’t often affected by the dreams, his heart felt itchy instead, wanting to know how gay people actually engaged in intimate behavior.

Su Zhiyan pressed his lips together slightly and slowly opened the comic.

In the bathroom, Shen Nianjing was frantically splashing cold water on himself.

His mood had been somewhat complicated just now. While Su Zhiyan was showering, he’d been anxiously pacing around the room. Thanks to his perfect vision, he’d actually discovered a “bomb” left by some previous guest on the bookshelf among all the “fake books” and random magazines.

As soon as he opened that comic and heard the sounds of Su Zhiyan showering, his body immediately reacted.

Luckily he was quick and managed to put the comic in a higher, more hidden place before Su Zhiyan came out.

He didn’t want Su Zhiyan to see it.

After all, he’d just been disgusted by that bastard this afternoon, and had only just recovered and temporarily forgotten about that incident. Although he’d just tested Su Zhiyan and thought he didn’t seem repulsed by same-sex contact, having sex was completely different from simple contact.

He didn’t want to subject Su Zhiyan to unnecessary shock.

Shen Nianjing raised his head, letting the cold water rush from his head to his feet. Only after a while did he suppress that restless heat in his heart.

He let out a long breath, quickly put on his clothes and pulled open the bathroom door.

The room outside was empty.

Where was Su Zhiyan?

Shen Nianjing’s eyelid twitched. He caught sight of a figure in his peripheral vision, raised his eyebrows slightly, and looked toward the bed in surprise.

Su Zhiyan was hugging his knees and curled up in a ball at the head of the bed, his entire face buried in his knees and the blanket.

His ears and neck were very red.