RALP Chapter 72.2

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Night quickly falls.

It’s rather humid tonight, and it is a bit cold thanks to that.

On the bed, Du You had a dream, of himself back during the apocalypse.

Since he met Qin Ge, he has been recalling forgotten memories. The flashbacks come in waves, like pieces of jigsaw puzzle that slowly fill in the empty gap of his past until it is complete.

Du You opens his eyes.

He can see the familiar ceiling. The soft and comfortable blankets are covering him.

Unlike the irritatingly blind light in his memories, the lights of this world are warm.

He sits up, and his blankets slide down with it.

The mansion is quiet. He can only hear the clock ticking along with the mechanical clicks. It is the wee hours. Then, the sound of an engine rumbling approaches, stopping outside.

Du You is thirsty, and turns around. There’s a glass of water on his bedside cabinet. It’s long since cooled down already.

He takes a sip. The system is still sleeping, so it is really quiet.

Save for the engine sound that seems to still be rumbling downstairs. Du You moves to the window and lifts up the curtain halfway. The car is in the middle of the road, its door just opening. Someone walks off.

Shortly after, it drives away. Without the headlights, it goes quite dark. There’s only the streetlamps and the dim moonlight now.

The young man on the street does not immediately return home. Instead, he seems to notice his gaze, and looks up.

Du You sees him eye-to-eye on the second floor window.

Qin Ge’s face is hard to read in the darkness. He is dressed in a long coat that has a deep colour, with his hands in its pockets.

Du You’s most recent dream was the moment just before they separated——The last moments of him being human.

Though, perhaps, not exactly. He is a sample – his human self would never be acknowledged.

The younger teen in the memories seem to overlap with the silhouette of the young man below.

Since it’s much darker inside his room than outside right now, he should only see a vague shadow at best, but it seems Qin Ge has no trouble figuring out who he is. He points up at the sky, and mouths something.

Du You cannot lipread.

But then his phone starts to ring.

On the bedside cabinet, it is sliding outwards with its vibrations. Du You picks it up. It is Qin Ge.

Du You puts it to his ear.

“Good evening. Not sleeping yet?”

His gentle voice is like the closest whispers in his ear.

Du You walks back to the window where he sees him still standing in place with phone in hand, but looking his way.

The two of them stay this way as they talk through the phone.

“I woke up just now,” then, Du You asks, “did you only just come back?”

A light chuckle on the other side, saying, “is gege worrying about me?”

Du You was just making small talk.

Though Qin Ge doesn’t seem to mind him not responding, and answers, “today the professor kept me to help with his project.”

“I see,” Du You replies, “then good night, sleep well.”

Qin Ge does not hang up though, and asks after a brief silence, “is he still in your house?”

“?”

“Who I saw that night. Gege’s ‘boyfriend.'”

Qin Ge is still looking at the vague shadow by the window from his view. While he is smiling, he doesn’t seem exactly happy.

“He is,” answers Du You.

Qin Ge falls silent. After a while, he asks, “why are you going out with him?”

There is no noticeable difference in tone from the question before.

Du You answers, “because of a promise.”

Though after being scolded by Shen Chen he now knows it was probably not the best course of action.

Qin Ge does not speak.

He has seen the surveillance video and naturally knows what happened. His gege has always been passive like that, and that guy acted forcefully, making his gege acquiesce practically in a daze.

He then asks, “would gege have accepted it no matter who asked?”

“What?”

“If I were the one asking this of gege, would you have accepted?” Still no difference in tone.

Hm?

Du You does not understand what he is trying to say.

Did Qin Ge mean that he want to ask to try going out as well? But isn’t that something you do to someone you ‘love’?

He and Qin Ge though are brothers——At least, to Qin Ge, he is his ‘gege.’ Would a ‘didi’ normally ask such a thing of their ‘gege’?

Du You asks, “why?”

Qin Ge does not give an answer.

From Du You’s angle, he can see Qin Ge has lowered his head. He is staying silent, and if it were not for him still standing in place, Du You would have thought he’d have hung up.

When he wants to ask again, finally, he says something.

“Can you come down here, please?” There is an oddness in his tone now. The gentleness felt slightly forced, or stiff.

“I want to see you, gege.”

Then, the dialing tone.

So, a minute later, Du You is downstairs, still in his pyjamas, only with an extra jacket.

He has been seeing Qin Ge every day at the company, and he wasn’t behaving any different.

Therefore Du You felt sudden when that question came up. He does not understand what Qin Ge is thinking.

He feels like he can never understand what people think.

He opens the front door, and Qin Ge is still standing in the middle of the road, but he has moved closer to the antique Victorian-style lamppost.

Qin Ge’s curly hair is bathed in its light. Whenever a slight breeze passes, it would move his bangs slightly, before allowing them to fall back down again.

When he opened the door, he was looking at the ground. He looks up at the noise.

Qin Ge doesn’t seem to want to go inside, so Du You walks towards him, standing before him.

“Are you cold?” Qin Ge asks.

The temperature right now is certainly much cooler than during the day, but it’s not cold for him. He has a jacket on too.

So Du You shakes his head.

Still, Qin Ge takes his hand in his, and holds it as he puts it into his pocket.

It is rather pointless though, as Qin Ge’s body temperature is lower than the temperature Du You sets his own body at. It is quite a giveaway that he is nonhuman.

Well, that, and the black leather glove on his hand. It just feels cold and hard to the touch.

“I’m not cold,” Du You pulls his hand back out.

Qin Ge does not try to stop him, though he just asks, looking at his hand, “am I no good?”

He slowly raises his head up, examining every inch, every feature of Du You’s body. From his lower legs to his thighs. From his waist to the exposed collarbone.

Finally, he stops at his face.

“Why is it that gege is most tolerant to that person?”

Qin Ge steps forward, making the two of them quite close. His light chestnut eyes look as if glimmering as they stare fixedly at Du You, “do you like him?”

Du You “…”

He asks a question in return, “what is ‘like’?”

Qin Ge replies, “it is the emotion I feel for gege.”

Then it is just his original question about ‘gege’ and ‘didi’ again.

Du You is confused, “so they are the same?”

Qin Ge asnwers, “for me, they are the same.”

Since he was ‘born,’ the two of them have been together, alone, only having each other’s company.

If, for Du You, a brother is the ‘one and only’ person for him, then, he will be gege’s didi.

If, for Du You, a lover is the ‘one and only’ person for him, then, he will be gege’s lover.

It is not contradictory. He wants to be his gege’s ‘one and only,’ no matter what identity he assigns him. Because that is what his gege is to him.

Du You takes a step away from Qin Ge’s passionate gaze, and thinks a bit before saying, “I think you have confused the two emotions.”

Qin Ge was born and raised in the apocalypse as he was. Nobody taught them how to be human.

After arriving in this world, Du You feels like he has finally learned some of it, but not understand it. So, he is still trying to rationalise Qin Ge’s actions.

“This is called, dependent personality disorder,” Du You scours the depths of his mind to finally dig up a term.

Qin Ge looks silently at him, and then slowly lowers his head. His bangs hang lower as a result, obstructing his eyes.

“Gege, you don’t understand anything.”

Du You “…”

A breeze comes along and flutters their clothes. A leaf slowly floats down until it lands on the top of Du You’s head.

Qin Ge was looking back up, and sees it, saying, “on your head.”

He raises his hand, and takes the leaf away.

The dried, yellowed leaf on his hand attracts Du You’s gaze.

After that, Qin Ge takes hold of Du You’s shoulder and moves around him to his back.

“Don’t move. There’s also a worm.”

There’s often such creatures on leaves.

Du You is not afraid of worms, and tries to ruffle his hair when he hears it, but he is stopped.

Qin Ge says, “I’ll do it, so that it doesn’t fall into your clothes.”

Perhaps he is trying to see the worm more clearly, but Qin Ge is really close to him.

Du You feels a light pat on his head that feels as if it smacked away something.

After that, there is a bit of an itch on his ear as hair brushes past it. Then, a piece of cold softness sticks onto the back of his neck.

What is it?

Du You turns his head around, but Qin Ge has already let go and moved back away.

Du You touches his nape, perplexed.

It was a really unfamiliar feeling, so he is not sure what happened.

If the system were awake, it would probably be screaming while reporting to its host that Qin Ge just kissed him in secret.

Though it is happily sleeping right now. It sure is a heavy sleeper.

Qin Ge’s hand is splayed open, saying, “it’s alright, gege. The worm is gone.”

He is still smiling as usual, but there is a sadness to it.

“Oh, thanks.” Du You puts his hand back down.

That is when someone approaches from the entrance.

Du You looks over to see You Haoyu, seemingly already outside, walking towards them, while looking at them in disbelief.

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TL’s notes: Oh, snap!