After Jian Rong consecutively bumped into the wall a few times, Lu Boyuan helped him wash his hands and rinse his face before walking him out of the bathroom.
The person in his arms was very light, and Lu Boyuan could hold him with just one hand.
Jian Rong was already a little bit unable to see where he was going clearly. His head ached to the point that he couldn't help but groan a few times.
"Feeling bad?" Lu Boyuan asked.
"No." Jian Rong obstinately refused to admit it before he said again, "…my pants zipper is still undone."
He wanted to steady himself once more and pull up his pants zipper, but as a result, his body tilted to the side and he knocked shoulders with someone passing by.
After being inexplicably knocked into, the person could smell the alcohol fumes, and he scowled, instantly wanting to curse, "You fucker…"
Even drunk, Jian Rong wasn't willing to admit defeat, and he preemptively struck first. "You're cursing who?"
He was unwilling, that was true, but his voice was soft, completely lacking the confidence to back it up.
The person froze when he saw Jian Rong's face, and he immediately glanced up at his hair before freezing again.
Lu Boyuan gripped Jian Rong's face and turned his head back towards him.
Ding-ge had already gone to pay the bill, and he had told Lu Boyuan to leave after getting Jian Rong, so right now Lu Boyuan was wearing both his mask and his hat.
He said mildly, "He's drunk, sorry."
After that, he supported Jian Rong and swiftly left.
The person behind him continued to stand in the same place, his expression shocked. A few seconds later, he finally gathered his wits again, and he fished out his phone and took a burst of photos of the figures in front of him!
Late at night, the dad fans of "SoftBar" had their legs propped up, cigarettes lit, as they reminisced on Tieba about the past, when they used to get into rows and trade insults with their son, those good old simple days.
A forum post stealthily appeared on the homepage—
The title: [Holy sh*t I saw the actual person at a hot pot restaurant!!!]
The content: [[photo] [photo] I didn't have time to take a picture of his face! But it was definitely, definitely him. Look at that figure from behind, that hair, that height and build… everyone should be able to recognize him, right?]
[1L: Fuck, is he from the dwarf kingdom? Who's the one supporting him, his real dad?]
[OP: Doesn't look like it, he seemed fairly young.]
[32L: Did he get beaten up? Being carried away like that by someone else?]
[OP: Drunk. He seemed to be even thinner than before, judging from his face. It felt like he didn't really have much energy overall.]
[158L: This dumbass got led astray at such a young age and ran out to get drunk??]
[266L: Damn, why's this dumbass getting by so miserably? Is it impossible for him to make a living without Dad's gifts? So immature… does anyone know his Alipay?]
[268L: How much longer until he can start working again? He won't starve to death before then, right?]
[399L: Shiliu started streaming, he's close with the little dumbass. Let's go and ask him, bros.]
Once they returned to the base, Lu Boyuan supported Jian Rong on his way back to his room.
Jian Rong had fallen asleep in the car. Lu Boyuan had just helped him out of his jacket when the phone in Jian Rong's pocket suddenly rang.
After it rang continuously a few times, Lu Boyuan picked up the call, worried that it was about something serious.
"Why did you only pick up the phone now?" The person on the other side said urgently, "Where are you currently? I heard that—"
"He's asleep," Lu Boyuan said, lowering his voice.
As soon as he said that, someone tugged on his clothing once before gripping the fabric and refusing to let go.
Jian Rong's eyes were shut, and he murmured, "My pants zipper… isn't zipped…"
"It is zipped," Lu Boyuan coaxed him, not wanting to argue with a drunkard. He then told the person on the phone, "If you need anything, call again tomorrow."
The call ended. Shiliu blankly held his phone, which had been on speaker mode, and stared at his livestream, where Soft's water friends were frantically spamming question marks. After a long time, he finally found his voice again—
"No… I don't know who that was either, but his voice sounded really familiar for some reason…
"There's no way that was his dad. He doesn't have any older brothers either.
"No no no! Soft isn't gay, he really isn't! What kind of nonsense?
"You're the one who has a messed up private life, your entire family's private life is messed up!"
…
The next day.
When Jian Rong woke up, he had a splitting headache.
He buried his head in his pillow, emptying his mind for a moment, before he fumbled around on the nightstand and managed to grab his phone with difficulty.
And then, he saw the messages taking up his entire screen.
Most of them were from Shiliu, the words packed densely together. He felt a little too lazy to read them, so he first clicked on the Tieba link that Shiliu had sent over.
Immediately once the page loaded, he saw a picture.
The picture was a little blurry, and he had to narrow his eyes in order to see it clearly.
After discerning the content, Jian Rong laughed.
The picture was of two people from the back. The one on the left was already thoroughly wasted, and he was basically being lifted by the other person to walk away. His head nearly drooped to the ground, and his legs were completely unsteady. From this angle, the only thing Jian Rong could make out was the tall back collar of the other person's jacket.
Such a dumbass.
He scrolled down. The next picture was somewhat similar to the one above it; the only difference was that the person on the left had lifted up his head slightly, exposing his blue hair.
Jian Rong's smile froze.
Ah?
Oh.
So it turns out that the dumbass was me.
He maintained his rigid smile and went to go identify the person on the right.
…he didn't need to fucking identify him at all.
Jian Rong's smile vanished completely, and he didn't even move to pick up his phone after it slid down onto the pillow.
He stubbornly stared off into the distance, his face filled with dread as he started to earnestly recall what happened yesterday.
A 'whoosh—' suddenly flashed through Jian Rong's mind.
Sharp and crisp, fast and speedy, accompanied by a bit of an echo specific to a bathroom.
Closely after, a pair of slender hands appeared in his memories. There was a mole on the web between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand.
That hand slowly reached towards his bottom half, and then, it helped him pull up his pants zipper.
Jian Rong: "...…"
Pull up, his pants zipper?
Jian Rong took a deep breath and thought back over it again in disbelief.
A long while later, Jian Rong got out of bed, his expression grave. Enduring his headache, he pulled out the contract that he had just signed yesterday from his cupboard and glanced at the fee for breaking the contract.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands…
Eight figures.
Jian Rong closed his eyes in despair.
…dammit, he couldn't afford it.