Yunlan was really satisfied, the day had been a success for him, he had managed to study everything he set out to do; Wei’s presence had not distracted him, on the contrary his quiet aura was really soothing and he had been able to concentrate better. He noticed now that he had closed his book already.

"Have you finished as well?"

Wei nodded and smiled, which made Yunlan smile back. They looked at each other for a moment before Yunlan sat up straight, scratched the back of his head and awkwardly turned around saying, “Hong, have you fin... where’s Hong? Hong!”

She appeared in a matter of seconds, saying that she had gone to the bathroom and that she had also finished studying. That explanation seemed to satisfy him and she felt sure that neither of them had realised that they had been alone for the last couple of hours.

She turned to Wei and stared at him while asking, “Will you stay for dinner?”

This time though, there was no convincing him, so they gave up; suddenly, to Yunlan’s surprise, Hong said that she was going home too, and she left with Shen Wei.

They had barely done a few steps when she asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Wei was surprised, but he shook his head in denial.

She said, “Want to go out with me?”

“What?!? No!” was Wei’s shocked answer before he could get a hold of himself.

"You don’t like me?"

Wei cleared his throat, tried to find back his voice but the only thing he managed to say was, “But... you  and Yunlan...”

“I thought you knew. We broke up.”

“Yes but... you still love each other...” he said lowering his voice, because saying it was somewhat painful.

"Yeah," she agreed. "That I love him and he loves me is something that will never change," she said while they kept walking, her gaze fixed on the road ahead, but looking at him out of the corner of her eye, studying his reactions.

Wei’s face became darker than the dark outside. "Then why did you..."

"But I’m not in love with him, and he’s not in love with me," she interrupted him.

Wei looked at her, not knowing what to say.

"We are friends, no, more than friends, we are family," she said. "But we are not in love."

She looked at him directly, smirked and asked again, her gaze back on the road, “So, want to go out with me?”

Wei thought that this was as good a time as ever, it will have to come up eventually so he cleared his throat and said, “I’m not really interested in girls.”

She smiled and said, "Then who are you interested in?"

There was something in her tone that made Wei stop and stare at her intently.
"What do you mean?"

She stood up straight and raised her eyes to stare back, challenging-mode on, before she bluntly asked, "What I mean is, are you interested in Yunlan?"

She was trying to figure him out, what kind of guy he was, so she kept her eyes on him waiting for him to make a decision.

When he sighed, she thought he had finally reached one.

"Yes," he said. "II... I like him."

He bit his bottom lip and waited for her sentence.

After looking him in the eyes for a while longer, she smiled and said, "Actually I like someone else, I was only joking before."

He was puzzled now. "So you’re ok with it?"

"Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?"

'Because he’s your ex? Because I’m a guy?' he thought, but no words came out.

She then chatted about school until they had to part ways.

~~~

Wei couldn’t really tell if Hong had told the others about their little conversation; he had been very nervous to meet everyone after that, but there was no embarrassing silence, no weird questions, nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.

He started joining their group every day, they ate together, studied together, went out all together. They went for a walk or met in the park when the weather was good, they hang out at the mall or at Jin’s house when the weather was bad.

They started waiting for Guo every time he got paid, to escort him home safely. Curiously, every time they did that, they would always meet Chu. And every time he would ignore them all, only looking at Guo (quickly making sure that he was ok), then he would nod respectfully at Shen Wei and walk away.

Wei’s life had never felt so rich, his days had never been so loud, and he enjoyed it, but mostly he liked spending time with Yunlan. No matter how many people there were around, you would always find Wei next to Yunlan.

So when a girl approached him, Wei heard every word.

"Is it true that you and Hong broke up?"

Yunlan scratched the back of his head and had no choice but to admit that indeed they were not together anymore. The girl smiled shyly and asked with a feeble voice, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Wei stared at them; she was very pretty, with her long black hair and big eyes and her sweet shy smile, and his heart ached. How many times had something like this happened? How many flings in Yunlan's past? Wei couldn't keep his eyes off him, Yunlan was so handsome and charming, no wonder this girl liked him.

Wei wasn't a fling-type of guy, but there were times when he thought he would have accepted anything to be with him... he sighed, lost in his longing, dreaming of snatching him away and have him all to himself, day and night, but was immediately brought back to reality when Yunlan uncounciously looked at him.

Wei quickly averted his gaze and pretended that he wasn't dying a little inside.

Yunlan said, "Actually this is not a good time..."

"It will only take a moment..."

Yunlan looked around in desperate hope to get out of that situation, but this time he couldn’t hope for Hong to save him, so he followed the girl with a heavy feeling.

Not surprisingly, she confessed to him, then looked at him blushing. Yunlan realised that she was waiting for his answer, but what surprised him was that he also realised that he was thinking of Shen Wei.

Not his studies, not anyone else. His only thought was ‘what might Wei think’ and Wei’s expression when he had seen him staring at him, and most of all at the fact that he didn’t want to spend his free time with this girl, but with Shen Wei...

She was still there, still waiting, so he said, "I’m sorry but... there’s already someone else that I like."