Chapter 10 – I Don’t Want you
Novel Title: 长夏醒迟 (Long Summer, Late Awakening)
Author：麦香鸡呢 (McChicken)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 余炀 (Yu Yang -MC/Gong), 靳吾栖 (Jin Wuqi -ML/Shou)
*Please read at Novels Space.space, the original site of translation. TQ*
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“Just can’t have a decent conversation with me?” Jin Wuqi sat up, leaning forward to grab Yu Yang’s hand. He gently squeezed his fingers and called him in his usual flirty tone, “Yu Yang.”
Yu Yang shook off Jin Wuqi’s hand.
Furrowing his eyebrows, he appeared extremely puzzled, mixed with an indescribable disgust. His voice was calm, which was almost unnatural. “Do you think I’m extremely easy in your eyes?”
“If I had known about your relationship with Song Zhimu, I wouldn’t have driven back to the hotel to pick you up that night. Did you both think I was being incredibly unreasonable and overly meddlesome?”
“In your eyes, do you think I’m just a shameless alpha without boundaries? Someone you can ask if I mind that you are ‘marked’? Someone who, after going on a date with another alpha the night before, you can shamelessly come to and ask me to talk nicely to you?”
Every word Yu Yang spoke sounded indifferent. His tone carried a chill, as if he was tired of shouting and didn’t want to evoke too much emotion. He was just finding it difficult to understand why Jin Wuqi was so certain that he would be as easily manipulated as before. Why Jin Wuqi would see him as someone who couldn’t resist temptation and was easily indulged.
Even if he was like that before, he wasn’t anymore.
He vividly remembered that night. There was that look of intoxication on Jin Wuqi’s face and he remembered the question.
Yu Yang questioned how heartless and indifferent one must be to ask an alpha if they minded being with a ‘marked’ omega. Each word trampling over his pride, tearing at his heart with emotions that spread pain through every inch of his being.
“Do you think I’ve gone mad? Isn’t four years enough to sober me up?” Yu Yang looked at him, asking mockingly.
“I never thought that way,” Jin Wuqi stood up and walked to Yu Yang. His gaze traced Yu Yang’s handsome alpha features. He spoke softly, “Yu Yang, if you mind, we can…”
“Be fuck buddies? Is that what you want? For me to become just another one of your many alphas?” Yu Yang asked coldly.
He scoffed, “Don’t even think about it.”
“What if it’s just you?” Jin Wuqi looked at him steadily, “No one else, just you. Still not willing?”
There was no hint of pleading on his face. No trace of humility. There was just a serious expression.
He was so serious that Yu Yang found it ridiculous.
After so long, Yu Yang no longer cared why Jin Wuqi had left in the first place. What he couldn’t forgive and still harboured resentment about was Jin Wuqi’s feelings and attitude towards him. Why had he abandoned him without hesitation? Why, after years apart, did he not mention the past at all and instead naturally suggest being fuck buddies?
Deep down, Yu Yang understood that Jin Wuqi had never seen him as a romantic partner. But when reality was truly in front of him, accepting it was still too difficult.
Yu Yang had stumbled through a foggy dream for so long, bumping and bruising himself, scratching his hands, and tearing his legs. His heart had been twisted into a dry and broken shape, making it difficult for it to even beat. He had been polished beyond recognition.
He had crawled out of the abyss, covered in scars, and he wasn’t about to fall back in.
“I refuse. I don’t want it,” Yu Yang gritted his teeth. His eyes reddened with suppressed anger. Every word of his was clear and sharp, “I don’t want you.”
Instead of receiving solace for enduring the unbearable past, he was once again torn apart by reality, with no way out. After enduring for more than four years, all he had gained was the title of a fuck buddy. It was like floating and sinking countless times in the sea, with lungs filled with salty water, only a trace of air left to sustain life. Then, one day, someone reached out to him. Yu Yang held onto a faint hope, yearning for that person to save him or at least give him a piece of driftwood to cling to, allowing him to breathe again.
But instead, the other party cruelly pushed him deeper into the abyss, taking away the last bit of light he could see. And he was completely engulfed by the surging waves, sinking into the endless darkness of the ocean floor.
“Yu Yang…”
Jin Wuxi’s hand climbed up Yu Yang’s shoulder. His tone trailed off like a sigh, as if a butterfly with its wings fluttered, quietly taking flight, leaving behind a broken arc for the child who greedily longed for it.
“Don’t think of yourself that way,” Jin Wuxi’s hands slowly enveloped Yu Yang’s neck. His forehead lightly rested against the side of his neck. His tone was that of a gentle sigh, “I’m the one who’s messed up.”
Every word of his turned into a petal of a rose, softly and silently falling to the ground, yet it felt like a thousand pounds crashing down in Yu Yang’s heart. They were resounding and overwhelming, leaving Yu Yang momentarily lost and bewildered.
He remembered his words from just moments ago, ‘I don’t want you’. Those four words were so resolute, so brutally final. But was that truly what he thought of? Over these years, wasn’t he watering that deformed flower with hatred every day? Longing, desire, pleading, regret—these emotions grew and flourished alongside resentment, intertwining into petals, piecing together into a complete flower, swaying dazzlingly in the wild overgrown with moss and vines. How could Yu Yang not see it?
The self-deception of his pride had long since vanished. It was shattered in the moment of being abandoned without a word. It was torn to pieces from high cliffs, from surging seas, from erupting volcanoes, all broken and thrown away, leaving nothing behind.
Then what had he been holding onto so tightly for so long?
His hand clenched in pain. His fingers were numb. His veins were stagnant. His fingertips were pale. Now, when he opened his hand, all he saw was a vivid red mark, nothing else.
The bit of dignity that had sustained him, it turned out, had never existed. It was as if someone had opened the medicine box that Yu Yang relied on for survival, pointing to the lightly floating packaging inside and telling him, “You see, there’s actually nothing in it. You’re still very sick.”
Yu Yang dragged an empty shell for over four years. And now it was finally shattered head-on. Inside the shell, there was not a trace of flesh or blood. But outside the shell, there was the stark reality of a bloody field.
What right did he have to say “I don’t want you”? From beginning to end, the initiative and choice were all in the hands of Jin Wuqi.
Jin Wuqi wasn’t seeking consent. He was just giving Yu Yang a way out. If Yu Yang agreed, Jin Wuqi could even offer him some compensation for his lost dignity, such as fulfilment of his lust and sexual needs.
Before this, Yu Yang would still use those lies that touched on his dignity to deceive himself in order to create a protective shell that covered his ears but left his eyes exposed. But now, he was like the meat of a clam that had been peeled out of its shell, exposed to the scorching sun, soaked in heavy rain, and eroded by ice and snow. When the sun came out again, he would once more thaw out, using his most fragile self to face the harshest realities.
“I’m the bad one.”
Such a compassionate and considerate consolation, anyone would be comforted by it.
But to use it to comfort Yu Yang, it was simply too weak of a try.
***
After Jin Wuxi left, Yu Yang stood still in place for a long time. He turned to look out the window, where everything was clear. But it felt glaringly bright to him. The sun could even evaporate the tears from his eyes.
What he should do was never to avoid talking about the past and sealing it away completely. He should have faced his pure and genuine self from four years ago, apologise to him, and then move forward without looking back.
Jin Wuxi didn’t say goodbye to that young man four years ago. And neither did Yu Yang. He dragged his wounded self forward regardless. So he could never completely let go of the past. Instead, everything became shrouded in murky dust.
A broken mirror could never be restored. Even if pieced together forcibly, it would only reflect brokenness and deformity.
He should apologise to his former self. To that bright-eyed eighteen-year-old alpha.
He should say sorry to him.
And, so long.
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*Translator’s Note: Ah. Help me. I’m heartbroken reading this as well. Why does it feel more emotional when I translate it in this way? When I read this back then, I didn’t realise how very painful it was. *Sigh* -K
Next update: 2024.04.19
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Link to chapter 11: https://freenovels.net/long-summer-late-awakening-chapter-11/
