Chapter 6: Countdown to Loneliness
My eyes are raining for her, but my heart is holding an umbrella for her. This is love.
——Rabindranath Tagore
1
Some people always compare the nature of love to coffee - bitter at first but sweet later.
Qing Nuan held the caramel macchiato that Cheng Ge had just handed to her, savoring the coffee intently. Cheng Ge was sitting opposite her, looking at her intently.
Qing Nuan kept wearing the earphones on her ears. The earphone wire was specially prepared by Song Yang. It was invisible and extremely thin, making it difficult to be noticed. The earphones themselves were also the color close to the skin, small and exquisite, and easy to hide.
Song Yang gave her some advice: "You two are so quiet. Just keep it like this. Don't say anything. Let him speak first and see if he will take the initiative to explain. If he still likes you, he will definitely take the initiative to explain to you. Otherwise, if you ask, what if his answer disappoints you, it will make you look very embarrassed."
After hearing what Song Yang said, Qing Nuan felt that although Song Yang was usually not very reasonable, what he said now still made sense.
So she did as Song Yang suggested, drinking her coffee in silence and waiting quietly.
Cheng Ge held the cup with one hand and tapped the fingers of the other hand on the table again and again, with a gentle smile on his face all the time.
Finally, Cheng Ge spoke: "Nuan Nuan, I haven't seen you for two years. Why don't you tell me about J City High School? Tell me the truth, have you done anything stupid again?"
Qing Nuan also smiled casually, tilted her head and thought for a moment, then asked, "Does it count if I met a scammer at the train station?"
"Swindler?" Cheng Ge didn't expect her to answer like that. He looked very interested. "You were scammed at the train station?"
"I guess so, but I got it back later."
Cheng Ge was a little surprised when he heard this: "You chased her by yourself? I didn't expect you to be so capable, Nuannuan?"
Qing Nuan shook her head: "Of course I didn't chase her by myself, my classmates helped me."
Cheng Ge was always smart, and he immediately guessed that the classmate who could help Qing Nuan get her wallet back from the scammer must be a boy. Thinking of this, he held his chin, curiously and nervously made a joke: "Which boy is so attentive?"
Qing Nuan answered with two words openly: "Song Yang."
"It was him?" Cheng Ge had an unbelievable look on his face. When he mentioned Song Yang, he was still holding back anger in his heart. "I thought he only bullied you. He caused you to fall into the water in Baihe Park that time. I wanted to beat him up."
Qing Nuan subconsciously wanted to cover the microphone under the invisible headphone wire - she was secretly connected to Song Yang's phone, and Song Yang could hear any sound here.
But it was too late, Song Yang had already heard it.
Sure enough, Song Yang said dissatisfiedly: "This kid only knows how to reminisce about the past. Why doesn't he explain what happened between him and Luo Weiwei? What a bastard."
Qing Nuan was unhappy with Song Yang calling Cheng Ge a bastard, so while Cheng Ge wasn't paying attention, she whispered two words into the microphone: "Shut up!"
Cheng Ge suddenly raised his head to look at her, and she quickly pretended to concentrate on drinking her coffee.
"Are you on the phone?" Cheng Ge was very careful and meticulous. In fact, he had already discovered Qing Nuan's trick but just didn't expose it.
Qing Nuan got nervous and her hand shook subconsciously, knocking over the coffee cup.
"Ah! Your hand!" Qing Nuan exclaimed softly, and the boiling hot coffee flowed out and splashed onto Cheng Ge's hand.
Cheng Ge felt the heat and quickly took a tissue to clean up.
The two of them struggled for a long time before they stopped.
In the headset, Song Yang could only hear the crackling sound and Qing Nuan's cry of "Ah! Your hand", but couldn't see what happened. Song Yang shouted on the phone: "What's wrong, Qing Nuan?"
Qing Nuan naturally couldn't answer him, because Cheng Ge was sitting in front of her!
Song Yang was a little anxious: "What happened to his hand? His hand...he won't hold your hand anymore, right?"
Qing Nuan frowned and lowered her head, still not daring to answer.
Cheng Ge was staring at her headphones, his expression neither smiling nor annoyed.
Song Yang became more and more worried and kept asking, "Qing Nuan, why is there no sound from your side? He didn't do anything to you, did he? He..."
"Shut up, it's none of your business!" Qing Nuan was so angry that she shouted into the microphone, "It was all your bad advice, I shouldn't have listened to you!"
After saying that, Qing Nuan took off her headphones and ended the call.
Cheng Ge held his chin in his hand, looking at Qing Nuan's embarrassed, shy, helpless and a little angry expression, and couldn't help laughing: "Someone seems to care about you? Is it Xu Jiarong?"
Qing Nuan would not lie in front of Cheng Ge. She shook her head and corrected him, "It's Song Yang."
Cheng Ge's smile became stiff, and a sour feeling rose in his heart, but he still pretended to be natural on his face: "Song Yang? You had a good time with him?"
Qing Nuan nodded: "Well, after you left, Xu Jiarong and Song Yang took good care of me, and we had a lot of fun."
Cheng Ge panicked when he heard this.
He naturally understood what Qing Nuan meant by "having a great time".
Qing Nuan was not good at making friends, so he was the only one who could get along well with Qing Nuan. He had worked hard for so long - after they met again on Halloween night, he queued up in the cafeteria to get food for her every day; when her classmates bullied her, he stood up to defend her and even helped her in many fights; he rode his bicycle to take her to and from school every day to facilitate their relationship; he tutored her in math until 11 o'clock every night without telling her grandmother.
There are many daily things that he cannot describe one by one.
In short, he put a lot of effort into becoming Qing Nuan's only friend and the brother Ge that she was proud of.
And now, Cheng Ge discovered that after two years, his Nuannuan already had a new friend, Song Yang, whom he hated.
Cheng Ge should have been happy that Qing Nuan had a good friend, but for some reason, he couldn't be happy, because the "friend" she was talking about was Song Yang.
He and Qing Nuan haven't seen each other for two years, and a lot of things may have happened in two years.
Song Yang was such a guy who was so eager to surround Qing Nuan and provoked her all day long. Cheng Ge thought he had bad intentions at the time, and sure enough...
Even when Qing Nuan came out to drink coffee with him, a reunion after a long separation, Song Yang had to interfere.
Cheng Ge was jealous.
He had a cold face, stopped talking, and remained silent for a while.
Qing Nuan couldn't understand Cheng Ge's expression. She just felt that Brother Ge didn't seem happy to see her.
Two people are dating, one has a high IQ but low EQ, and the other has a low EQ and low IQ. The result is that they misunderstand each other and don't dare to ask for clarification.
The date ended peacefully, although the emotions were surging inside, they smiled at each other on the surface.
Qing Nuan didn't ask anything in the end.
Cheng Ge walked Qing Nuan out of the coffee shop and hailed a taxi on the roadside.
Cheng Ge had a high fever, but he pretended to be nothing and wandered around outside for a long time. Finally, he couldn't hold on any longer. He rubbed his eyebrows and temples, coughed a few times, and felt very uncomfortable.
" Brother Ge, what's wrong with you? It's so cold, why are you sweating so much?" Qing Nuan looked at Cheng Ge worriedly. There was a layer of fine beads of sweat on his forehead.
Cheng Ge shook his head and forced a smile: "It's okay, I just have a cold, I'll be fine after a good sleep."
Qing Nuan's face was still full of worry.
At this time, a taxi arrived.
Cheng Ge opened the car door for Qing Nuan and sent her to the car. Before leaving, Cheng Ge asked Qing Nuan: "Nuan Nuan, I looked for you for a long time on New Year's Eve. Why did you run away?"
Cheng Ge, who is always gentle and sunny, looked very hurt at this moment.
Qing Nuan was confused for a moment, and she blurted out: "I... Song Yang and I got separated, I'm looking for Song Yang."
Cheng Ge's eyes were fixed on Qing Nuan's face for a long time before he slowly closed the car door for her and watched her leave.
Cheng Ge sighed, and some belief in his heart slowly collapsed.
It turned out that when he was looking for her that night, she was actually looking for Song Yang... Is that so?
