DTTM – Chapter 23 : I shall be your emergency contact.

Chapter 22 | 🛏️ Contents 🛏️ | Chapter 24

******

Translator: Silvery
PR: Decadence

The self-introduction session that is like a large-scale offline meeting for Internet friends continues till the skies darken.

His roomie who had been keeping his head down and focusing on his studies suddenly began to fiddle with his phone. Every jab seems incredibly vicious too.

Thinking he might be playing some game, Jin Linkun tries to lean over so he can volunteer his assistance, but he’s forcibly shoved back in his seat with a $2 non-quick-drying ball point pen thrusted into his hand.

“No fears of being dropped.”

Yu Sheng is curt. The pen in his hand spins once before coming to a stop between his fingers:

“Speed up your hand. Stop zoning out.”

Jin Linkun is slightly shocked. Freezing with the pen in hand, his brows rise mildly, and his eyes abruptly glimmer with a bit of mirth behind his glasses.

He had originally been draping over his chair, looking a bit lackadaisical. But this time, he actually pushes himself seriously so he can sit up straight and wield the pen again according to the given directions.

Yu Sheng doesn’t know what’s there to teach about pen spinning either. Still, he does his best to summarize what he’d gathered from his own experiences:

“…Got that? It’ll be fine so long as you spin it.”

Jin Linkun nods, grave as a funeral.

Seated with a ramrod straight back for once, he rests his wrist against the edge of the table as he grasps the pen, trying to get a feel for it.

Yu Sheng lifts his head up.

Jin Linkun has his gaze cast downwards, shoulders and back drawing a prominent arc as those long, pale fingers curve ever so slightly. That bland-looking gel pen quivers slightly between his fingertips.

It adds a ridiculous, yet charming aloofness to him.

A scowl creeps onto Yu Sheng’s face despite himself.

Guys who have neat-looking wrists truly get under his skin.

Yu Sheng abruptly puts an end to their short-lived, friendly tutoring session. Tearing his gaze away, he ducks back down to return to his exercises.

He has only just flipped open the workbook when that pretty-looking hand suddenly shoots out to grab at the pen.

It fails; The pen clanks as it falls onto the desk once again.

……

When they make it back to the dormitory, Jin Linkun is still hung up over the pen spinning.

Having ran through the practice questions for a whole afternoon, Yu Sheng is already done with the workbook. He tosses it back to him and he heads over to the washroom to wash his hands.

Jin Linkun catches it but he remains persistently seated at the desk, trying repeatedly to complete a pen spin. As he does so, he gives himself a reassuring pep talk:

“It’s okay. This is probably something that requires more practice…”

Yu Sheng squeezes a large chunk of soap on the back of his hand and scrubs hard at it. Only after a period of time then is he able to get rid of the black dot that was on the back of his hand for the entire afternoon.

He is about to say that with Jin Linkun’s talent and feel for it, he can forget all about practicing. But though the words are already right on his tongue, he still does not say them.

“…It could be due to the pen.”

Hands covered entirely with soap bubbles, Yu Sheng bumps the tap with his wrist and stretches them into the gushing waters:

“Next time, I’ll find a pen made for spinning.”

“There’s such a thing?” Jin Linkun is delightfully surprised, “Can it help me train my skills?”

“No.”

Yu Sheng wipes his hands off and turns off the washroom’s lights, deadpanning:

“A pen custom-made for it wouldn’t leave another dot on my hand.”

“……”

In the Study God’s many years of life, he has never encountered anything that is beyond him. His failure in this gives a crushing blow to Jin Linkun. Even after Yu Sheng has a simple meal, washes up, and lays down on his bed, he can still see the pen spinning tutorial playing on mute out on the other’s laptop screen.

Yu Sheng lays on the bed but is in no hurry to drift off to sleep. Cushioning his head with his arm, he organizes the thoughts he had today.

This was his first-in-a-long-time return to his study mode. With that said, he was hardly as far out of his depth as he thought he would be.

His habits aren’t quite the same as others when it comes to doing practices – He would always look at the questions first, then see the explanatory solutions immediately after. After taking in 3-5 questions of the same type, he would more or less remember it. The next time he encounters a question of similar nature, he can simply write out the steps from the solution set in the question’s context. Only when it comes to occasional complicated questions, then will he need to see 10+ questions of that type.

Although his memory is stronger compared to the typical guy and it comes to him easily, Yu Sheng still needs to spend extra time to sort out these thoughts or he’d be thrown into a disarray by all these scrambled memories.

The room is extremely quiet. Over the course of these past two days, Jin Linkun has already gotten used to his study habits. He leans against his chair without speaking up, withdrawing page after page of rough paper from the workbook’s book pocket – which Yu Sheng had stuffed in before.

Although these sheets of rough paper are already filled to the brim with working, they remain quite clean, looking no different from notes which had been meticulously organized.

Truth to be told, Yu Sheng does have a high level of patience when it comes to these questions. Even if it is a question about the most basic of the basics, he can still bear through it and write out every point-earning step proper without skipping over any. His handwriting is also crisp and clear. Only in the strokes of his pen can one detect some prim curtness.

It’s just that he might have been a little too detailed: Even the (- M1*) part is written down.

(*Marking Point 1)

Jin Linkun looks over them as he shuffles them out:

“There’s a point even in a place like this? Will they deduct marks if it’s skipped?”

“They will.”

Yu Sheng has just finished tidying up his memories. He gets up to pour a glass of water for himself:

“Miss a step, then even if you get the answer correct, they will still minus points.”

Jin Linkun lifts his brows, a bit surprised. He nods and continues to flit through page after page of calculations:

“No wonder I rarely get full marks. I was too careless…”

Yu Sheng gets a cup of warm water and downs it in one go, side-eyeing him.

Jin Linkun is too speedy when it comes to answering questions. Not only can he not pull in the reins, he can’t necessarily write out the working in full when he’s done either. In a formal exam that is not an all-out MCQ, he may in fact not have that much of an advantage.

The handwriting on the rough paper is far more pleasant than that of the solution book. Jin Linkun’s a fast reader too. In a matter of minutes, he’s done looking through half the workbook.

While remarking on whether each step is a pitfall and trivial mark-earning point, he solemnly stacks up the pages of workings, looking plenty ready to file them away in a folder of his own.

Yu Sheng frowns, snatching away that stack of papers:

“What good is there to keeping all these.”

Jin Linkun’s hand is suddenly empty. He looks up:

“Aren’t they meant for me?”

Illuminated by the desk lamp he’s seated beside, his atmosphere seems to be softened by that warm yellow light, and it makes him overlap with that photograph for an absurd, split second.

Yu Sheng stiffens briefly, remaining unmoved:

“You done looking through these?”

Jin Linkun is quite honest:

“I’m done. But—”

“So long as you’re done.”

Yu Sheng extends that stack of rough calculations and with a flick of his hand, chucks it in a corner of Jin Linkun’s desk:

“I wrote it on a whim. Don’t keep everything you come across.”

Jin Linkun couldn’t stop him in the end. His hand lifted marginally in protest for half a beat, his line of sight shifting up.

Having only just taken a bath a while ago, Yu Sheng’s hair is still slightly damp. Dressed in his clean-cut half-sleeved shirt, the youth’s abnormally light sigh cannot be held back from slipping out.

Jin Linkun raises his hand to tousle Yu Sheng’s hair despite himself. He only spins back to his seat after making it half way there, settling for touching the tip of his own nose as he grins:

“Thank you.”

He is truly earnest. Looking up at him from his chair, there’s even a trace of seriousness in his demeanour:

“After looking through it, the working is much clearer to me now.”

Yu Sheng only looks at that hand of his and furrows his brows without meaning to.

The hand which is holding the cup pauses. Without a word, he puts it down and turns back to lay on his bed again.

The ceiling lights have been turned off. The only source of light comes from that desk lamp on Jin Linkun’s desk, which pretty much fades into darkness mid-way across the room. His half is trapped entirely in silent darkness.

Jin Linkun assumes he is tired. The flipping sounds of his book lighten marginally.

“It’s fine.”

Yu Sheng uses a hand to block out his eyes: “Make some noise. Anything will do.”

Jin Linkun is startled: “Aren’t you going to sleep?”

Yu Sheng falls silent.

“I am.”

He turns in bed to face the wall: “So make some noise.”

There’s a light thud coming from Jin Linkun’s table: That book has been put down.

Yu Sheng lays for a while with the buzzing in his mind refusing to die down. He caves and retrieves what he had seen today from the depths of his mind, quietly memorizing them once more.

The sounds behind him have indeed amplified a little. The soft shuffling sounds of feet. The gentle clattering of things. The flutters made by a shifting chair. They quietly yet clearly resound in the not so spacious room.

Yu Sheng closes his eyes, intending to drift off after one last page. Suddenly, the light from the table lamp seems to brighten up.

Jin Linkun plops down by the side of his bed with his chair and a book in hand.

Yu Sheng: “……”

Yu Sheng turns: “You don’t need to make this much of a noise.”

“I tried experimenting just now. This position just so happens to block out the light.”

Jin Linkun obviously thinks this would be an apt arrangement and so, proposed it sincerely. He brings his hand up and tousles Yu Sheng’s hair:

“Let’s chat for a bit. You can go to sleep whenever you’re tired.”

Yu Sheng’s shoulders stiffen under the blankets.

He lays, unbudging, for a while before turning over to face him.

Jin Linkun’s hand was still on the top of his head. Due to Yu Sheng’s movement, he ends up receiving another two light ruffles.

“Last year, there was a time when I thought studying was meaningless. And so, I went to the Youth Training Base* to try out e-sports for a year.”

(*青训基地: It’s where a sports team (or the like) nurtures youths so there’ll be fresh blood coming up in the next generation of players)

Jin Linkun withdraws his hand and flips through his book. He borrows the illumination of the light to continue rifling through remaining sheets of working:

“Then, I discovered studying to be still easier. And thus, I came back.”

……

When he recalls this guy’s incompetency in pen spinning, Yu Sheng highly doubts that statement.

Nevertheless, Jin Linkun said it in a manner that’s far too sombre. Yu Sheng stares at the silhouette shadowed by the light and falls silent for a while. He plays along:

“How good were you?”

Jin Linkun pauses and employs the roundabout technique of shining the spotlight on certain things:

“When I was the one at the computer, there was some who mistook me for a substitute leveller*.”

(*substitute leveller: someone you hire to help grind your account for you
aka. That also happens to be the same ‘Substitute’ that’s referred to in ‘White Silver Substitute’)

Yu Sheng can’t hold it in. A chuckle bubbles out of him.

“I mean it.”

Jin Linkun says, wholly serious:

“I’m using my account from last year, but since I improved far too rapidly, I gained a lot of hate. For a period of time before this, there was still someone who chased me around, wanting to beat me up…”

While flipping through the pages, he suddenly comes upon one that doesn’t feel quite like the rest. He brings it under the light without much thought:

“What’s this?”

“Nh?”

Yu Sheng is truly worn out. His mind’s already all bleary, but he’s tugged back to reality.

He rubs his eyes, and only then does he remember:

“’S the particulars form. You can just leave it on my desk.”

Jin Linkun answers with an affirmative but can’t bear it. He still ends up scanning through that information sheet.

The form has already filled to the end. Mostly, it looks finished. But there’s just the parents and emergency contacts’ column still left blank.

“Don’t let your mind go there. My parents are still alive.”

Yu Sheng picks up on his train of thought and interrupts:

“I’ve forgotten their numbers, so just leave it on my desk. I’ll fill it in after I’ve checked them.”

Whenever something happens to a high schooler, generally, one will always contact the parents. If the parents’ contacts are given, even if the emergency contact is filled in, they will still call the parents as per normal.

Yu Sheng had filled a couple of forms back in Central Third before learning from this mistake. These days, he simply foregoes both parents and emergency contacts to finally save himself much trouble.

After filling in the form, he had shoved it into the workbook and forgot to take it out. He didn’t intend to let Jin Linkun see it.

Jin Linkun doesn’t say a word.

Peeling his eyes open, Yu Sheng pushes himself up on his elbow and is about to get up so he can take it.

But no sooner had he sat up, Jin Linkun shuts that workbook and places it beside Yu Sheng’s pillow.

Yu Sheng frowns:

“What’re you doing?”

Jin Linkun pushes him back on the bed and tucks him in.

Subsequently, he swiftly extracts a pen and bends down, pinning the form on the workbook as his pen flies over it gracefully yet boldly. He fills in a string of numbers, then he adds his own name.

“These things aren’t that much of a trouble. It’s fine just to put my name down.”

The last stroke of Jin Linkun’s pen comes to a halt. With the aid of the light, he leans over to show him the form:

“Memorize my number. My number’s an easy one to recall.”

The light is a bit harsh on the eyes. Yu Sheng squeezes his eyes shut without even knowing.

Jin Linkun’s eyes curve slightly behind his glasses. Resting his palm against the back of Yu Sheng’s neck, he rubs it lightly:

“Okay. From now on, I shall be your emergency contact.”

******

The Author has something to say:
God Kun. A benevolent, caring man who has become a Daddy.

Silvery: AAAAAAAHHHH I’m so lonely! ‘Cadence, want me to sign your form as your emergency contact? I’ll let you sign mine too!!!

Decadence: Silly Sil, aren’t we already way beyond that? But sure~~ There are emergencies only some can help with

Next Time on DTTM! – Chapter 24: <I’m fighting for the sake of a toilet?>

******

Chapter 22 | 🛏️ Contents 🛏️ | Chapter 24

Donating to C19 / BLM

For every USD$3 donated to one of the charities above, I will be releasing a chapter on the same day, subject to chapter availability.

Alternatively, you may also choose a local charity of your liking. I know how cross border tax may end up sapping a portion of the donations, so that’s totally fine by me.

When you’re done, do remember to take a screen-shot of the receipt / check your inbox for the email confirmation & forward them to aubade074@gmail.com so we will be notified. 🙂 It’ll be extra helpful if you could drop a comment here too, in case your email somehow ends up in our spam box.

Thank you loads for your interest in donating! (ღ′◡‵)

Current Donation Counter: $0/3
Current Chapter Availability: 4