"Jia."
"..."
Daniel holds his neck and says, "Mason, can you carry me?"
"Can carry."
Mason finishes speaking, and then feels that he has fallen asleep.
Upon arriving at the door, Mason frees one hand to open the door, then kicks the door open, enters, and closes it again.
Daniel wakes up quickly.
He lies on Mason's bed about to fall asleep, and Mason says, "Turn on your phone and tell your mom you're not coming back."
Daniel shows no reaction.
Mason reaches into his pocket, Daniel grabs his hand and says, "What are you doing?"
"Making a call to your mom."
"Oh." Mason says, takes out his phone from his pocket, then unlocks it by his face, he scrolls through and sees a number labeled Beautiful Miller, then dials.
"Where have you been? Not back yet."
Mason says, "Auntie, it's me, I'm Mason."
"Mason, is Daniel with you?"
Mason glances at Daniel sleeping on the bed and says, "Yes, Auntie, he's here, he's asleep, he won't be going back today, I'm letting you know."
"Alright, alright, Mason, I'm relieved if he's with you or William, you also rest early."
"Okay, good night Auntie."
"Good night."
Mason hangs up the phone and puts the phone back in Daniel's pocket.
Daniel suddenly sits up and grins at Mason.
Mason says, "Go take a shower, you reek of alcohol."
"No."
Mason drags him to the bathroom, takes his clothes over, and says, "Wear mine first, wash up."
He hasn't even warmed up his seat when he hears a splash, thinking Mason fell in the bathroom, he rushes over and opens the bathroom door.
Seeing Daniel standing there naked, with cold water running, not a bit of steam, and Daniel's hair is wet, looking like a drowned duck, still looking at him with grievance.
Mason speechless adjusts the water temperature for him and says, "Wash like this, don't mess around, got it?"
"Okay."
Daniel is very thin, as white as a girl.
Mason glances at him a few times, then averts his gaze, closes the door and goes out again.
Daniel quickly finishes washing and comes out, he is a bit shorter than Mason, wearing his clothes a bit large.
Mason looks at his face steamed red by the water mist, his mouth is also red, he lifts the quilt and says to Daniel, "Sleep."
Daniel crawls into the quilt, only exposing his head, and says, "I'm asleep."
Mason: "..."
He watches Daniel with his eyes closed and says, "I'm going to take a shower."
"Okay." Daniel says, then suddenly opens his eyes and says, "Mason, why does your quilt smell so good, did you use perfume?"
"Do you not know if I used it or not?"
Daniel stops talking after that sentence.
Mason is too lazy to argue with a drunk person, he finds clothes from the cabinet, then goes to take a shower.
He comes out half an hour later.
He looks at Daniel with his eyes closed, turns off the light, then turns on the phone's flashlight, and lies down next to him.
Just as he lies down, he hears Daniel speak: "Mason, why are you like a girl, what are you doing? You took such a long time to wash?"
Mason: "..."
"I thought you were asleep."
"No." Daniel's alcohol has worn off half, he still feels a bit dizzy.
He moves closer to Mason, puts his leg on him, then hugs his neck.
Mason can't see his face in the dark, only feels him coming towards himself, he says, "What are you doing?"
"Warm."
"..."
"Don't move around." Mason says, closing his eyes.
...
William returns home and takes a shower first.
He sits by the bed, preparing to unwrap Ellie's gift first.
He opens the box and sees a keyboard inside, a keyboard he had seen before but didn't buy, not cheap.
He takes out the keyboard and puts it on his lap, sees a small note inside.
The words on the note are very simple: Happy Birthday, Not Just Today.
He stares at those eight characters for a while, then remembers today in the private room, when he bowed his head, he didn't know if Ellie was scared or what, her eyes closed, even her eyelashes were slightly trembling.
For a moment, he almost bowed his head and kissed.
He dare not desecrate the moonlight.
He is even more afraid of scaring her.
William carefully puts away the note, places it in his wallet.
He puts the keyboard on the table, then unwraps the gifts from Mason and Daniel.
Daniel gives a pair of shoes, Mason gives a hat.
William puts those things away, then leans on the pillow, takes out the note again, a bit lost in thought.
The phone suddenly rings, showing it's a takeout delivery.
William looks at it, then answers.
"Hello, this is Meituan delivery, your cake has arrived, I have several more orders here, so I can't go up, could you please come down and get it?"
William is stunned for a moment, then says, "I didn't order a cake."
"No, let me check, what's your name?"
"William."
"That's right, it should be your friend who bought it for you, the order clearly says William."
"Where?"
The person says the address, William quickly realizes the cake is ordered by Ellie, she thought he lived there.
"You can leave it downstairs in the community, I'll pick it up later."
"Okay, hurry up, I'm afraid it will be taken away."
"Okay."
William puts on his coat, grabs his helmet, and goes downstairs.
He disappears into the night on his motorcycle, his hair slightly lifted by the wind.
He picks up the cake downstairs, then rides back to the Xu's house with the cake.
He returns to his room, opens the cake box, it's a Black Forest cake, he lights a candle for himself.
At noon when school was over and they went out, Daniel and the others had already celebrated his birthday for him, Daniel sang the birthday song the most enthusiastically, the three of them didn't finish playing, and in the evening William was called away.
Daniel heard it was a gathering of those young masters, a bit worried, so he and Mason also went, later seeing William drinking glass after glass of alcohol, plus Ellie asking where William was, he told Ellie William's location.
William blows out the candle, closes his eyes, makes a wish.
Wishing for her happiness, even without me.
He blows out the candle, cuts a piece of cake for himself.
He sits in the chair, eats the piece of cake bit by bit, looking at Coco coming over, he says, "What? You also want to eat cake?"
Coco approaches to look at his cake.
William says, "Kittens can't eat cake, and this is the one she bought for me."