HL 14

“I’m back.”

Ying Yusheng called out as he entered the door, and then saw Xu Nanxiao poke half his body out from the kitchen, still wearing the lace-trimmed apron the housekeeper had left behind. “Oh, did you buy the milk I asked you to get?”

Ying Yusheng looked at Xu Nanxiao, paused for a moment, then smiled and shook the plastic bag in his hand. “Bought it.”

Xu Nanxiao took it and looked at it, and his brows immediately furrowed. Displeased, he said, “There are only two days left before the expiration date. You should have checked before buying it.”

Ying Yusheng paused mid-motion while changing his shoes, his voice weakening as he explained, “I just grabbed the front row without thinking.”

“Of course—those store clerks are sly as hell. They always put the soon-to-expire stuff in front, just to trap rich young masters like you who don’t pay attention.” Xu Nanxiao earnestly educated him. “Forget it, forget it. Wash your hands and come eat.”

On the table were three simple dishes and a soup.

Ying Yusheng was usually busy with work, so he’d hired a housekeeper to cook and clean. But the auntie he’d worked with for many years had just retired and gone back to her hometown, and he hadn’t found a replacement yet, so for now he had to make do with Xu Nanxiao’s cooking.

After all, you couldn’t expect Master Ying, who couldn’t even cut vegetables properly and bought milk about to expire, to cook, could you?

Ying Yusheng picked up a strip of beef, anticipating it, and put it in his mouth. He chewed carefully, swallowed, then stared at the bowl and gave a calm evaluation: “…Mediocre.”

“I know. You don’t have to say it every time.” Xu Nanxiao, embarrassed and annoyed, took a big mouthful of rice, then muttered quietly, “Sure enough, Lu Yingjie was just humoring me when he said it was good.”

Mentioning that name made Xu Nanxiao irritable again.

That brat had been throwing a fit for a whole week because of him living with Ying Yusheng, and he really didn’t know what to do about it.

Ying Yusheng could tell what he was thinking and said casually, “Today, Yingjie came to see me.”

“Came to see you?” Xu Nanxiao hadn’t expected that. “What did he say?”

“Mm… he asked me why I’m living with you. He wanted to move out and live with you. I think he’s lonely from not being able to see you, so I told him he’s welcome to visit anytime if he misses you.”

Xu Nanxiao felt awkward hearing that—it sounded just like a single father remarrying, with the son going out of his way to cause trouble for the new stepmother.

“However.” Ying Yusheng paused. “Given the situation, I’m worried. Yingjie’s behavior toward you doesn’t seem like mere ‘clinginess’—it’s more like his psychological development is stuck at a critical stage.”

Xu Nanxiao looked up in confusion. “Development? He’s 24—where could he be stuck?”

“At the ‘separation-individuation’ hurdle. Simply put, it’s the process of moving from dependence on the family to independence. Yingjie is 24, yet he still can’t accept that you have a life space independent of him, and he’s even trying to control your living choices—that’s quite abnormal.”

Xu Nanxiao didn’t fully understand, but he could tell it wasn’t good.

“Is it really that serious?”

Ying Yusheng nodded.

“You can’t keep giving in to his emotions. Without realizing it, you’re letting him learn: ‘If I make a scene, my brother will listen to me,’ which creates an escalating vicious cycle.”

“You could try deliberately delaying your responses to his non-urgent messages, encourage short-term independent living for him, and help him find alternative social connections. Shift Yingjie’s attention from you to his own life.”

Xu Nanxiao had initially thought Ying Yusheng was making a big deal out of nothing, but as he listened, it seemed to make a lot of sense—the problem appeared quite serious.

He didn’t know what to say, so he just kept his head down and ate.

Finally, Ying Yusheng concluded, “I have a younger brother too, so I actually understand how you feel. But this is for Yingjie’s own good. As his teacher, I hope that as his older brother, you’ll give him a push.”

“You have a younger brother?” Xu Nanxiao interrupted him.

“Yes.”

“Is he a lot like you?” Just as irritating to look at?

“Heh, not at all. I take after our mother; he takes more after our father.”

“Does he like clinging to you too?”

“He doesn’t anymore—and that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. In the future, if Yingjie gets into a relationship, would his partner be able to tolerate him interfering in his brother’s life like this? Or could he tolerate his partner having their own independent space and friends?”

Just as he finished speaking, Xu Nanxiao’s phone suddenly vibrated. The screen lit up, showing Lu Yingjie’s name. When he opened it, there was another long, whiny essay of tantrum-throwing.

Xu Nanxiao looked at his phone, then at Ying Yusheng. But Ying Yusheng said nothing—instead, he deliberately looked down and sipped his soup.

Xu Nanxiao let out a long sigh, then suddenly ruffled his own hair in frustration. He pressed the mute button and placed his phone face-down on the table.

They continued eating their dinner, as if nothing had happened.

After dinner, Xu Nanxiao turned and headed back to his room.

Even though they were sharing the place, they barely spoke. Xu Nanxiao spent most of his time in his own room, while Ying Yusheng, on days he wasn’t preparing lessons, would watch movies in the living room.

Tonight, however, Ying Yusheng called out to him: “Nanxiao.”

“What?” Xu Nanxiao turned around, raising an eyebrow. “It’s your turn to do the dishes today.”

“Not that.” Ying Yusheng smiled. “I was wondering—do you want to go watch a football match?”

“…In this heat.”

“It’s past seven in the evening—it’s not hot anymore. Beijing Guoan vs Shanghai Shenhua. I’d originally made plans to go with a colleague and already bought the tickets, but he had a family emergency come up.”

Actually, Xu Nanxiao was already tempted—few straight men had zero interest in football, especially when it was free.

But he didn’t want to go out in a friendly, affectionate way with Ying Yusheng. He wasn’t good at dealing with this guy. Living together now had already been a reluctant choice made after weighing the options.

Ying Yusheng, however, pressed his advantage and added at the perfect moment, “It’d be too pitiful for me to go alone. If you’re willing to keep me company, I’ll waive one month’s rent.”

“Fine then.” Xu Nanxiao immediately agreed, though he kept up his aloof act. “How terrified are you of being alone, exactly?”

On the day of the match, Ying Yusheng even bought them both green team jerseys symbolizing the home side.

Wearing their jerseys, carrying horns, with cheering towels draped around their necks, they streamed out of the subway station amid the surging crowd.

Passing through the ticket gates, the roar of sound grew louder. The massive bowl-shaped stands rose before them, extending upward and outward infinitely. Craning their necks to look up, all they could see was a cliff made of sixty thousand heads, arms, and fluttering banners.

For Xu Nanxiao, a first-time spectator, it was nothing short of breathtaking.

Xu Nanxiao was the definition of a fake fan—he only watched the World Cup, cursed that the German tank was dead, chatted about Mbappé and Neymar, yet had never once kicked a ball himself.

He’d come mostly to take advantage of Ying Yusheng waiving a month’s rent.

But when sixty thousand people roared with one throat, and the steel framework of the Workers’ Stadium trembled with the sound waves, he too gradually became immersed.

“Chance—past one… past two… three…” When the Guoan forward broke through Shenhua’s defense, Ying Yusheng suddenly grabbed hold of Xu Nanxiao’s hand.

Xu Nanxiao’s attention was entirely on that tiny ball. Not only did he not pull away, he unconsciously gripped Ying Yusheng’s hand back with equal force, their fingers interlacing.

Ying Yusheng froze, and then heard Xu Nanxiao bellow at the top of his lungs: “Shoot from a tight angle! Just shoot it!”

The stands suddenly fell into dead silence.

Silence cut sharper than any shout. The next second, a scream with tangible weight pressed in from all directions, battering eardrums, compressing chests, even making eyeballs tremble slightly.

Everyone stood up—

Guoan scored!!!!

“Hell yeah! Fuck!” Xu Nanxiao threw his arm around Ying Yusheng next to him, pressing him hard against his chest, bouncing slightly as he said, “Did you see that!! What a goal!!”

Not getting an equally excited response, he looked down at Ying Yusheng and saw that the tips of his ears were slightly red, and he was looking up at him with a hint of bewilderment. Because Xu Nanxiao was holding him too tightly, Ying Yusheng’s face was buried in his chest, squished flat, even his glasses knocked askew.

Xu Nanxiao suddenly realized how intimate their position was and flinched as if shocked. Just as he was about to let go, two random older guys behind them, overwhelmed with emotion, suddenly hugged them too.

“Guoan is fucking awesome!!!!!”

“Tch…”

The four of them were pressed tightly together like conjoined twins. Before Xu Nanxiao could complain, he heard Ying Yusheng suddenly laugh—his cheeks flushed, his eyes shimmering.

It made Xu Nanxiao freeze and stare.

“Awesome,” Ying Yusheng echoed softly.

Xu Nanxiao’s lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing. Forget it. Squeezed between several men, he thought impatiently—just let it be.

But happiness was always fleeting.

Guoan lost 1:2 to Shenhua—or rather, that goal had already been the peak; they never scored again after that.

As the crowd dispersed, the fans in the subway no longer had the same vitality as before the match, moving instead like a slow-flowing green vein. Xu Nanxiao’s face was even more ashen, his steps unsteady.

“What a waste,” he muttered gloomily.

“Is that so?” Ying Yusheng, by contrast, was radiant. Looking ahead, he said calmly and elegantly, “I actually had a pretty good time.”

“What’s there to be happy about when we lost?”

“What matters isn’t the result, but who you’re with.” Ying Yusheng turned to look at him, smiling slightly, his tone carrying a hint of a teasing hook. “Right?”

Xu Nanxiao paused, then felt goosebumps all over from the cheesiness. He was about to tell him to cut out all that sappy talk, when he heard Ying Yusheng say calmly:

“This is the first time I’ve watched a match with a friend, so I’m pretty happy.”

Xu Nanxiao’s words got stuck in his throat. After a few seconds, he asked, “Didn’t you say you were originally going to watch it with a colleague?”

“That’s not a friend—just a companion.” Ying Yusheng explained. “With a friend, this is the first time.”

You and I aren’t friends either.

Though Xu Nanxiao thought that, he somehow understood what Ying Yusheng meant.

He had no friends either—only companions.

He could meet companions at every bar, any dinner gathering, smoky pool halls, garish KTVs… even in each other’s beds. But never at a football stadium, by the river, at an aquarium, or in a movie theater.

They lived for the moment, indulging in pleasure, gathering at night and parting by day, knowing nothing of each other’s real names or pasts.

Actually, Xu Nanxiao didn’t regret this—he understood it was his choice. He hated being tied down, trusted no one, resisted having his depths touched, and in doing so, cut off any possibility of developing a truly intimate relationship.

Xu Nanxiao never regretted his choices. But occasionally—just occasionally—he felt that watching a match with someone like this wasn’t so bad.

As if reading his thoughts, Ying Yusheng looked at him quietly and tentatively asked, “Next time we get the chance, want to watch a match together again?”

Xu Nanxiao didn’t answer.

After a long while, he finally nodded. “Okay.”