Xu Xingye nearly bolted upright off the cot at the word “family.”
He forced himself to stay still, pulling the blanket up a little and keeping his eyes shut, playing dead.
The school doctor stood where he was, his gaze bouncing between Lu Siting and the cot twice, clearly skeptical of that designation.
“Family?”
Lu Siting nodded, his expression not changing in the slightest. “We're close.”
Lying behind the curtain, Xu Xingye's fingers had quietly clenched around the bedsheet.
The school doctor glanced at Lu Siting again and didn't press further.
Mainly, Lu Siting's expression was too frightening—brows drawn, the whole of him looking like one more question would get the infirmary's bed frame torn apart.
Sensibly, the school doctor set a thermometer on the desk. “When he wakes up, have him take his temperature. If the stomachache gets bad, take him to the hospital—no random medicine.”
Lu Siting gave a short acknowledgment. “Understood.”
The school doctor looked toward the curtain and added, “You're really his family?”
Lu Siting was silent for two seconds, then said, dead serious, “Future one.”
Xu Xingye nearly swallowed his own tongue.
The school doctor froze too.
But he was a man of the world, in the end; he just pushed up his glasses, picked up the logbook from the desk, and walked out.
The door clicked shut, and quiet settled over the room.
Xu Xingye still didn't open his eyes.
He decided the smartest move available was to keep pretending to sleep—ideally straight through until the end of the school day, at which point a teacher could carry him back to the classroom on the cot.
As long as Lu Siting didn't speak, everything was still salvageable.
But footsteps were already drawing closer.
Lu Siting stopped at the bedside, stood a moment beyond the curtain, then reached out and drew it aside.
Xu Xingye could feel that gaze settling on his face.
Close.
So close he didn't dare breathe too hard.
Lu Siting didn't speak right away. He just looked down at him, eyes traveling from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, then stopping on his tightly shut eyes.
[He looks so good when he's asleep too.]
Xu Xingye's eyelids twitched.
He wore glasses all the time; Lu Siting probably rarely got to look at him this close.
And now this stare was lingering far too long.
Xu Xingye didn't dare open his eyes and could only rapidly calculate, in his head, how plausible a sudden waking would be.
First he'd faked a stomachache; now he was faking sleep.
If he opened his eyes now, should he claim he'd passed out from the pain, or that he'd simply fallen asleep?
Neither option sounded like something a normal person would say.
Apparently unaware that his patient was having an existential crisis, Lu Siting leaned down to check his complexion again.
[Is he running a fever?]
[I'll try touching his forehead.]
Xu Xingye's spine snapped taut.
He could accept Lu Siting calling him wife inside his own head. He could even accept the man planning a four-meter bed in advance. But physical contact was absolutely out of the question.
Especially while he was pretending to sleep.
How was that any different from getting ambushed in his sleep?
Xu Xingye clamped down on his breathing as Lu Siting's hand slowly rose.
The hand hovered in midair, then inched toward his forehead.
Closer. Closer.
Xu Xingye could feel the faint current of air from the guy's palm; even his fingertips had gone stiff.
One more inch and Lu Siting would touch his forehead.
What was he supposed to do?
If he sat up now, wouldn't it look like he'd heard everything?
And if he kept pretending to sleep, would he get his forehead touched and then his head patted for good measure?
Several contingency plans flashed through Xu Xingye's mind, and every single one of them seemed more trouble than simply checking into a hospital.
Just as his eyelids were about to give out, Lu Siting's hand abruptly stopped.
Xu Xingye waited two seconds. The next move never came.
Then Lu Siting's inner voice drifted over.
[No. Bad idea.]
[If he's not actually asleep, he'll think I'm a creep.]
Xu Xingye nearly opened his eyes on the spot.
You're realizing this NOW?
You've looked like a creep since you chased me into the infirmary.
Lu Siting held his hand in midair, apparently locked in a difficult moral struggle.
[But he really does look unwell.]
[If I don't check his forehead, how do I know if he has a fever?]
[Maybe I should wake him up first?]
[Waking him up and then touching his forehead seems even weirder.]
Eyes still shut, Xu Xingye listened to the entire soundless debate and nearly raised his hand to vote on the man's behalf.
In the end, Lu Siting slowly withdrew his hand.
His movements were careful, as if afraid of waking the person on the cot, and then he pulled over the chair beside the bed and sat down.
A chair leg gave a small scrape against the floor.
Xu Xingye went on pretending to sleep while privately beginning to question his life choices.
All he'd wanted was to avoid Lu Siting. Instead he was now confined to a cot, forced to listen to the man conduct his full self-trial.
If he'd known, he would've stayed in the classroom memorizing vocabulary.
Before long, Lu Siting reached for the thermometer on the desk and rolled it between his palms.
[Why isn't he waking up?]
[Did the pain knock him out?]
[Should I take him to the hospital?]
[But when he wakes up, he'll definitely just say he's fine.]
Hearing that, Xu Xingye almost rolled over on the spot.
The guy was a few screws loose, but his observational skills weren't bad.
The next second, Lu Siting suddenly spoke, voice pitched low. “Xu Xingye.”
Xu Xingye did not move a muscle.
Lu Siting waited. No response. He tried again, softer. “Bookworm?”
Xu Xingye kept his eyes closed.
[Sleeping that deeply?]
[Was my voice too quiet?]
[Should I go louder?]
Lu Siting drew a breath, as if steeling himself for something, then leaned close to the bed and spoke so softly only the two of them could hear.
“How do you manage to be this much trouble…”