"Why are the floors so dirty?" he groaned in pain. "Are people running through caves and mountains to get to school?"
With the students waiting for the evening study classes to start, Gu Xiao aggressively swept Class A's floor.
After cleaning the floors and wiping the chalk marking on the blackboard, he slumped down on his seat and buried his head in his arms. Sleeping again.
Before evening study, he still had time, so it wouldn't hurt to take a quick nap. Recalling back to what he said to Lan Yuning about chasing after one's dreams, this was something Gu Xiao had only realised a year ago. That no matter how much he pleased others and made them proud, no matter how much praise they gave him, he despised every moment of it. Though it appeared Lan Yuning was still stuck in this loop.
He remembered the time he first had a proper conversation with Lan Yuning—if it could even be called a conversation—when they were cleaning this classroom.
He used to find silence so discomforting because there was nothing to distract him from his asphyxiating thoughts that were like violence to his head.
Now, it was strangely different.
There was something else distracting him. A certain person. He wondered what Lan Yuning did with his drawing of him. Or even the note he wrote to him during the night he got hit by his father. Did he throw it? Just remembering the face of shock when he handed that drawing to him prompted a laughter to escape his lips.
"Student President... I miss him already," Gu Xiao uttered.
The orange hues of the sky washed the classroom in warm tints, overlapping the floors with the shadows of the furniture and trees.
With his eyes sunken and all energy escaping his body, he ultimately fell into complete relaxation.
Half his face was exposed to the cool air while the other half sunk in his elbows.
Perhaps ten minutes had passed, but he wasn't fully absorbed in sleep. He could still distinguish the footsteps of students and the voices of teachers.
Amongst those chatters and noises, the door to Class A slid open, and light footsteps walked in.
Gu Xiao didn't bother lifting his eyelids to see who it was and continued trying to get a good nap.
The person who entered the classroom paused near the front cupboard, though he was probably just preparing their materials for the next class.
The light footsteps gradually made their way towards him and stayed for a while.
The screech of the chair being shifted back from the desk right in front of him sounded, and the classmate sat down.
The silence returned, but it wasn't unsettling; instead, it was comforting. Suddenly, he felt these fingertips softly stroke past his hair within the quiet classroom, brushing it away from his cheek and behind his ears.
The touch wasn't harsh. It was as though this gentle brush could instantly alleviate all the stress and troubles.
Gu Xiao wasn't sure if he should lift his eyelids or stay still. It was strange. He was confused about who would do this.
The hand withdrew itself, but the warmth still lingered on him. The comfort brought upon the way they played with his hair stirred his desires that with each moment of contact, his shoulders kept tensing and then relaxing.
Finally, the person spoke. "...Your hair looks nice."
When Gu Xiao heard that voice, he immediately flung his head up and grabbed the person's wrist.
"Lan Yuning?"
His heart skipped while his Adam's apple rolled in his throat from swallowing his thirst. It really was Lan Yuning.
For nearly one whole minute, Lan Yuning stood there motionless, with parted lips, and eyes strangely bright.
Gu Xiao was dimly conscious of the fresh impulses that worked within him, and they seemed to have come really from himself.
The few words, perhaps spoken by chance, had touched a hidden string, that now stirred in him like foreign music.
At first, he thought this must've been a dream, but when he held onto that slender wrist where that small mole lay, he realised it wasn't.
Soon, he found his fingers slowly smoothing down to the edge of the other's cold fingertips, holding on with a weak yet firm grasp.
Lan Yuning's face, as though he had been caught doing something secretive, splashed with shades of crimson.
Both of them came to a point where the more they breathed, and the longer this silence lingered, the redder their faces became and the more difficult it was to absorb the surrounding oxygen.
Like the urges of a man who had been restrained for so long had been torn apart and destroyed, all of Gu Xiao's rationality left the room even though he had none to begin with.
The small pink object that Lan Yuning placed beside him caught his eye. It was a piece of strawberry candy.
Gu Xiao didn't know what came over him, but his intrusive thoughts broke his composure.
"Do you want to come over to my house?" he blurted.
...
Gu Xiao didn't know why he asked Lan Yuning to come over. In fact, he had never asked anyone to come over to his house besides Zhang Yongyin since his place wasn't as fancy or special like the others.
The next thing he knew, Lan Yuning was walking behind him, towards his house. He gave Lan Yuning the excuse that he had too much food left over since his neighbours gave him too much, but it was somewhat true.
It was a relief that their father had fixed the house's exterior before Chinese New Year, and he hoped Gu Heiyu cleaned the interior of their house, or else it would definitely look like a pigsty.
There shouldn't be a single item out of place, let alone even a speck of dust on the ground. He unlocked the door, and the moment he slid it open, his heart dropped.
Clothes all scattered everywhere, the couch was crooked, and the girl lying on the couch, with a face mask on, was laughing while watching videos on her phone.
Gu Heiyu turned around. "You're back—"
She instantly shut her mouth as she shifted her glances to the familiar person next to Gu Xiao. Just seeing that figure made her mouth drop as her face mask slowly fell off her face.
"Hello?" Gu Xiao said, and abruptly, Gu Heiyu shrieked in horror, forcing the two at the door to jolt.
She bolted off the couch, almost slipping off, and dashed into her room.
As puzzlement carried over to their faces, Gu Xiao scratched his neck and pondered on what had just happened.
He knew he was probably going to receive an earful from Gu Heiyu after Lan Yuning left, but he couldn't care less.
"Please just ignore that," Gu Xiao said.
"Ok."
"Well, my place isn't that big like yours, but you can make yourself comfortable."
They put their bags on the floor, and Gu Xiao showed Lan Yuning to his room. The usual scent of lavenders filled the air.
It wasn't an especially big room, but there was just the right amount of space. Clothes and papers were scattered on the floor, but Gu Xiao quickly tidied them away.
There were a couple of cups holding pens, pencils, and left-over candy wrappers, but he promptly threw them away in a hurry too. There was only one window in front of his table, and all that was visible from the windows were pine branches and the sky.
The bookshelves were packed with books, folders, and figurines of all sizes. Of course, it was disorganised.
Gu Xiao wiped the sweat from his forehead as a piece of clothing fell out of his wardrobe after shoving everything in.
"That's enough cleaning for the next three years," he mumbled.