Song Shihan spoke so close to Zuo Tao that his ears went numb, completely unable to react. All he could do was repeat: “Change my ID?”
“If not, you want to use mine?” There was a hint of helplessness on Song Shihan’s face, leaning against his hand on the table to look at Zuo Tao. He took a box of cigarettes and took one out, catching Zuo Tao still staring at him. “You want one?”
To be honest, Zuo Tao did. But he couldn’t.
“No,” he said, touching his pocket to make sure that it was buttoned, “I don’t smoke.”
Song Shihan smirked, eyeing Zuo Tao. “Good choice. Smoking is a bad habit.” He lowered his head as he lit the stick. “Change your IGN, and then give your ID to Jiang-ge. We’ll register once the system is finished with maintenance.”
Zuo Tao thought over what to use as his IGN, surrounded by the smell of smoke. “Huh?” he asked, turning to look at Song Shihan again. “System maintenance?”
Maybe because he was smoking, Song Shihan’s voice was quieter than usual as he answered: “En. They said the site broke so we weren’t able to register earlier.”
The situation that Jiang Ming was referring to, was this? It had nothing to do with Song Shihan?
That’s fucked up…
His tense heart finally settled, and Zuo Tao leaned against the chair, feeling like he’d been acting like an idiot all afternoon. He grit his teeth, his heart unbearably full of grievance, unconsciously blurting out, “Unbelievable, isn’t the internet just—”
He felt a heavy gaze landing on him, and at that instant his brain finally came online, managing to just keep the following “fucking trash” from flowing out of his mouth.
“Just?” Song Shihan asked.
Only god knew how he did it, because Zuo Tao honestly felt like never in his 18 years of life had he kept himself from cursing as much as he has recently.
He covered it up by coughing, even going as far as covering his mouth. “Just… aren’t the people on the internet so… fragile…” He glanced at the cigarette pinched between Song Shihan’s fingers, still coughing uncontrollably. “Sorry, captain.”
He thought for a moment before adding: “Captain-gege, I was just… the smoke made me cough.”
To make his act more convincing, he even reached for his water glass.
“Are you okay?” Song Shihan asked, frowning before moving his hand away.
Zuo Tao continued to cough and pretend he couldn’t speak, but he was proud of himself for his quick thinking. Following the principle of following through with what he’d started, he first took a sip of water, finally arriving at the winding down of the act. He slowed his coughing as he swallowed the water, but something unexpected happened.
He was overcome with a bad premonition.
Cough, cough, cough —
This time, Zuo Tao truly was choking from the water, and the training room was filled with the heart wrenching sound of his struggle. He couldn’t even hold the cup firmly anymore, the cup that was mostly filled with water. Every time he coughed, his hand shook.
The result was that he ended up throwing water all over Song Shihan’s leg.
Song Shihan: …
If a soul could have a physical manifestation, then Zuo Tao felt that his would be screaming its lungs out right about now.
Zuo Tao spat out one last cough and followed it up with an apology. The saying ‘extreme happiness begets sorrow’ was a succinct description of this situation, but there was nothing Zuo Tao could do. He couldn’t stop the coughing fit at all until his eyes turned visibly red and tears began to drip down his cheeks.
Song Shihan clicked his tongue and said, “delicate.” Still, he put out his newly-lit cigarette on the ashtray.
He also took the cup from Zuo Tao’s hand and set it aside. Using one leg, he pulled the chair closer to himself to gently pat Zuo Tao on the back.
The comment about him being ‘delicate’ made Zuo Tao cough even harder. His ears also started to blush.
Ultimately, Zuo Tao chose PINK to be his official ID.
Pink was a great color anyway. It was cute and youthful, and anything pink was usually soft — all things that were very much in line with his image.
Wasn’t there a phrase people liked to use?
The pinker the hair, the harder the killing1This (basically, all mentions of ‘pink’) is a reference to 粉切黑 (pink-cut black) which is an internet nickname for those pink-haired anime characters (usually girls) with black hearts. Basically, the pinker their hair, the worse their personalities/cruelty are..
He believed that with such an ID, he could definitely become a carry duo with Song Shihan in the bottom lane, bringing back the championship trophy for the summer split preliminaries.
“Captain-gege.” After the initial discomfort, Zuo Tao was finally able to call Song Shihan without any scruples. “Can I use this ID?”
Song Shihan glanced at Zuo Tao’s screen for a moment before nodding. “Sure.”
Zuo Tao grinned. When he smiled, his eyes and eyebrows rose slightly, exuding a hint of youthfulness unique to kids his age. His face was as bright as the morning sunshine, looking like he had nothing in life to worry about.
He clicked on the ‘confirm’ button and stared at the account with the ID “Wildfire-PINK”. All negative emotions that were brewing in his heart all afternoon finally dissipated into the ether.
“I’ll pay you back for the name change card,” Zuo Tao said. This gave him the idea of another excuse: “Is it okay to use WeChat transfer?”
Song Shihan finally straightened up, answering, “No need.” He looked at Zuo Tao once more, staring at his red eyes and crossing his arms against his chest. “Spend less time scrolling and more time training next time. Don’t pay too much attention to what you see online.”
This was advice that was also in consideration of Zuo Tao. The other members of Wildfire have been professionals for years and had existing fanbases, but Zuo Tao was a blank slate. After the preliminaries, he would surely be under the scrutiny of the public for some time. It could be good, but it could also be bad.
Either way, it wasn’t a good habit to pay too much attention to things that people say online.
Song Shihan himself rarely checked Weibo. The things about the trending topics today were all told to him by friends over the phone.
He never responded to topics that pertained to him before. He thought that netizens just had nothing better to do than make and spread rumors online; it wasn’t worth the energy so he never took things seriously. But with the situation today, he realized that there were actually little idiots who believed those things.
Sure enough, there were still some lingering doubts. As if seeking confirmation, Zuo Tao stared at Song Shihan’s face and asked tentatively: “So… those things online, they’re all fake?”
“Which one, specifically?” Song Shihan looked at his pants, seeing a few water stains near his knees, but it didn’t really bother him. Calmly, he continued: “That I’m leaving Wildfire to join REBORN?”
Thinking of the displeasure on Song Shihan’s face when he brought this up earlier, Zuo Tao shook his head and asked: “No, I saw someone saying that you and Xiao Cheng are exes.” He spoke it so naturally that it sounded like he truly believed the veracity of the rumor.
However, he was quick to regret his impulsiveness. It was a little too offensive to ask about that. After all, strictly speaking, he and Song Shihan were still strangers.
In addition, though Song Shihan was smiling, the anger in his eyes couldn’t be hidden. Zuo Tao became nervous once more.
“Are you stupid?” Song Shihan rolled his shirt sleeves up, revealing the sharp, smooth lines of his forearms. When he raised his eyes to look at Zuo Tao, there was not a single trace of amusement in his gaze.
Zuo Tao silently moved back. Normally, if anyone dared to call him stupid, he would have already jumped and beaten them. But right now, under Song Shihan’s cold gaze, Zuo Tao suddenly felt an inexplicable guilt rise in his heart. “Maybe… a little.”
Song Shihan was speechless.
There were only the two of them in the wide training room, making the space quiet. It started drizzling outside at some point, and the only thing that could be heard was the pitter-patter of rain against leaves and glass.
“Captain, are you mad at me?” Zuo Tao asked, already thinking a thousand miles a minute for a way to fix the situation. He lowered his head and made his voice as quiet as he could: “I swear it didn’t come from me. I just read it online!”
Song Shihan was dumbfounded, staring blankly at Zuo Tao who was confessing his mistakes. The boy bowed his head, his face the epitome of sincerely apologetic, looking timid and well-behaved. His eyes were still red from the earlier coughing fit, making him look completely aggrieved.
It was like he was saying — If you dare hurt me, I’ll cry to you immediately.
No one could really do anything to this pink-haired kid, anyway, so all Song Shihan could do was pinch the bridge of his nose as he answered: “Fake.” After answering, he lowered his hand and used a finger to knock against Zuo Tao’s head, as if punishing him.
“So this was what you were thinking about all afternoon?” Song Shihan asked, remembering what Jiang Ming had mentioned.
“Huh?” Zuo Tao asked, this time genuinely puzzled.
“I heard you weren’t in a good mood the whole afternoon,” Song Shihan said. “GGF’s coach called Jiang-ge saying that you were going after STAR in the game like crazy.”
“Lies!” Zuo Tao said, grabbing the hair that Song Shihan had flicked. “He threatened me first.”
Song Shihan hummed, gesturing for him to continue the story.
“He said he wanted to kill me when the game started, so wouldn’t it be embarrassing if he didn’t? And…” Zuo Tao paused, glancing at Song Shihan and quickly lowering his head. “He also said…”
“What else did he say?” Song Shihan asked.
Zuo Tao’s voice was quiet, tinged with an accusing tone: “He said, ‘your AD doesn’t even want you anymore’.”
Song Shihan was taken aback, but he was even more amused. “Just that?”
“En.” This was the first time Zuo Tao had ever complained this way in his eighteen years of life, and every single cell in his body was screaming in embarrassment. His face was suffused with a faint blush.
“Zuo Tao, are you a kid?” Song Shihan asked.
“Yes I am.” At this point, Zuo Tao felt like he was what the internet called a milk tea dog2A combination of the ‘little milk dog’ and ‘green tea bitch’ archetypes; a little brother who had both milk and tea.
But a little brother is just a little brother.
“I’ll be 18 soon,” Zuo Tao said softly.
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