Ferocious Dog of Old

Tao Huainan wanted to leave as soon as he finished speaking, and yet he almost knocked into the tea table once he turned around. Tian Yi immediately pulled him back by his waist, squeezing his arms and rubbing his stomach, and treated him like a precious doll.

No matter if it were his brother’s friends or the elders around him, there was no one who didn’t like Tao Huainan. He was too obedient: he would never make a fuss or be too noisy whenever he was at someone’s house. He was able to intermittently fiddle with anything placed into his hand, and he never once caused any trouble for the adults.

He was pale and soft and milkily warm—he was the kind of beautiful child that adults were secretly most fond of. 

Fate was truly unfair. Such a good child, born with a large pair of black and bright round eyes, constantly revolving around and around—and yet he was unexpectedly blind.

–

Chi Ku, standing outside, didn’t hear anything they said inside, and he also didn’t know crybaby Tao Huainan had told his two older brothers they got along. The two boys hadn’t said a single word to each other the entire weekend, respectively ignoring each other.

They were initially meant to go back Sunday night, but Tao Huainan whined and refused. Tao Xiaodong’s heart weakened, and he called the school, telling them he’d send them over tomorrow morning.

Their class teacher wasn’t too worried about the two of them. These two boys weren’t too troublesome, so he very quickly consented. 

Tao Huainan tightly held onto one of his brother’s arms that night as they slept, his face resting on the arm, and refused to let go. The golden retriever lay next to Tao Huainan’s side of the bed, occasionally lifting his head to sniff. With his arm held onto, Tao Xiaodong had nothing to do, so he lightly used his other hand to lightly pat his little brother’s body.

Taking care of a child truly involved a lot of energy, but there were many times his heart would soften and yet become firm and steady as he watched that little tiny thing grumble and whine as he continued to slowly grow up. It felt like all of his struggles and fights outside now had meaning to them. 

Chi Ku left his room and went to the bathroom once again; this would be the third time over a short amount of time. Tao Xiaodong heard him come out and glanced outside.

As he left the bathroom, Chi Ku just so happened to bump into Tao Xiaodong at the entrance to his room.

“What’s wrong?” Tao Xiaodong asked.

Chi Ku initially didn’t say anything, so Tao Xiaodong asked again, “Is your stomach hurting?”

“No.” Chi Ku only then opened his mouth, pausing for a long moment before he awkwardly added, “The pillow’s dirty.”

“Then let it be dirty.” Tao Xiaodong couldn’t help but laugh. “Why are you so worried about it being dirty?”

Tao Xiaodong entered Chi Ku’s room as he spoke, turning on the lights as he went. Chi Ku followed behind him and once again stopped talking. Tao Xiaodong saw one of the pillows without its cover, and immediately didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t tell me you washed it yourself.”

Chi Ku didn’t make a single noise, causing Tao Xiaodong to momentarily not know what to say.

After a while, he asked, “How’d it get dirty?”

Chi Ku turned his head away, not meeting Tao Xiaodong’s eyes. He replied, “My nose bled.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?” Tao Xiaodong put his hand on his head, moving it back a bit. There was no more blood under his nose. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Chi Ku’s nose had been damaged from his dad’s constant abuse—his nose bridge had been injured. Tao Xiaodong asked a few more questions. It wasn’t a big deal for children’s noses to bleed; he himself had constantly had nose bleeds when he was younger due to his relatively fragile nose capillaries. Chi Ku’s kind of damage could only be slowly healed. Since he was still young, as long as he normally avoided bumping or injuring it, his nose would slowly get better. He’d constantly had a runny nose when he first arrived, but now he no longer had that problem.

“There’s no need for a small child like you to wash it.” Tao Xiaodong lightly flicked his forehead. He’d long gotten used to how unfamiliar Chi Ku treated everyone, but looking at him now, he still felt the boy was too tense.

The two of them suddenly had nothing to say to each other. Tao Xiaodong was someone quite cheerful, and he was usually able to chat to just about anyone—but that was only to adults. To an awkward child like Chi Ku, Tao Xiaodong actually didn’t know how to act.

Tao Xiaodong ended up rubbing Chi Ku’s head and said, “Go sleep.” And then he left the room, turning off the lights.

–

After the night was over, things that needed to be faced still needed to be faced. No matter how much someone didn’t want to go to school, he still needed to go.

The good thing was that things were much more familiar the second time around. Tao Huainan wasn’t as reluctant to leave his brother this time, and he also didn’t cry, only endlessly repeating before his brother left, “You have to pick me up on Friday.”

Tao Xiaodong held his chin, saying, “I won’t forget.”

Tao Huainan said again, “And Shi Yeye.”

“I remember. I bring him to work every day.” Tao Xiaodong moved his hand to his face, squishing Tao Huainan’s face. “I haven’t sent him away, you don’t have to worry.”

–

Tao Xiaodong went with him all the way to his seat in the classroom. He could go with him so far only for the start of schooling; after a few more weeks, he’d only be allowed to drop him off at the school entrance. Tao Huainan stopped speaking after his brother left. He turned around after a little while, groping for the tab on the upper right hand corner of the desk behind him. It was Chi Ku’s class number.

He reached further back once he finished touching it, reaching until he could feel the pencil case on Chi Ku’s desk.

Chi Ku watched as he pouted and touched here and there all over his desk.

Tao Huainan wanted to stretch out his hand even further, but the teacher called out his name, telling him to sit back in place.

Having his name suddenly called, Tao Huainan jumped in shock and blinked his eyes in bewilderment before turning back around. He continued sitting upright, shoulders stiff and back straight as a board, even after a long time passed. He looked very nervous, and he still didn’t dare to turn back around even after they finished their braille class.

–

It was very hard to start talking again after not speaking to each other for two days. Plus he’d even been called out by the teacher—Tao Huainan didn’t move the entire morning. He’d look back and grope around once a class finished, and it wasn’t until he once managed to touch Chi Ku’s arm that he finally pulled back his hand. He sat back into his seat, now free of any fear, and stopped turning around.

The morning classes were now all over, and they needed to line up for lunch. By this point, no matter how hard it was to be the first one to speak, Tao Huainan couldn’t hold back anymore. He turned his head around and quietly called out, “Chi Ku.”

Chi Ku was actually already standing next to him, waiting.

Since he didn’t hear any reply, Tao Huainan called out again, his eyes wide open and a bit scared.

One time, two times—if Tao Huainan didn’t hear a response after calling out three times, then he’d definitely start to cry. He was too scared of being left by himself. How would he walk?

“Chi…” Tao Huainan’s trembling voice had only just sounded when Chi Ku reached out a hand and grabbed his wrist, tugging it to one side.

Tao Huainan used his other hand to touch him, groping until he reached the number tag on Chi Ku’s cuff. He only then relaxed, releasing a long, long breath.

Chi Ku pulled him over to line up by the door. Tao Huainan laughed, “I thought you didn’t wait for me and left by yourself.”

Chi Ku brought him into the line, and Tao Huainan stood behind him, clutching Chi Ku’s clothes. He fidgeted up and down and then leaned forward, whispering, “How come you didn’t leave~?1”

Pretending to be cute and obedient after taking advantage—Chi Ku was too lazy to even bother with him.

Now that he had him by the hand, who cared if he spoke or not. Tao Huainan acted like nothing was wrong and steadily followed behind the little train of people to eat.

–

Little blind children all needed to learn how to walk independently. It had merely been a week, and yet they had all improved compared to last week. The cafeteria wasn’t only for the first years; there were many people, and the little radishes in first year were all brought to sit by one side. All of them sat at the tables, holding their own bowls and groping at their food. Only a few of them still needed to be fed.

Tao Huainan ate very slowly. Chi Ku finished his food very early on and sat by the side, dazing off. Tao Huainan had actually had breakfast at home before they’d come, and he wasn’t all that hungry after drinking a large cup of milk in the morning. He just needed to pee, very badly—he hadn’t dared to move about by himself earlier and hadn’t dared to go to the bathroom.

He just managed to finish half his bowl of food, and then Tao Huainan leaned in next to Chi Ku’s ear. He said, “Chi Ku, let’s leave? I need to go…”

They usually needed to wait for their other roommates to finish eating, and the granny would then take them all back together. The other two boys had yet to even finish half their meals.

Chi Ku immediately got up from his chair, and Tao Huainan came down as well, hand latched onto Chi Ku. The granny asked if they had finished eating; Tao Huainan was still a bit too scared to speak, and he hid behind Chi Ku, clutching onto his clothes. One refused to speak, and one was too afraid to speak—these two boys truly made things difficult for the granny.

If they refused to talk, then they needed to wait until everyone was finished; that would take a long time.

So Chi Ku decided to speak first. “Need to go to the bathroom.”

Sometimes the granny forgot he could see and treated him like a blind child. She asked, “Then shall I take you there?”

Chi Ku shook his head. The granny remembered he could see and let the two of them go.

–

Tao Huainan was pulled along by Chi Ku. He was pondering over something in his little head, and he swung Chi Ku’s hand, a beautiful smile hanging on his lips. He said, “How come you’re so good~.”

Chi Ku acted as if he didn’t hear him at all; these kinds of friendly approaches were useless to him. 

Tao Huainan pretty much forgot all about how both of them had ignored each other over the weekend at home. When his brother wasn’t around, Chi Ku was the best—he was number one.

–

These two boys were truly very interesting: their perpetual hand-holding remained only at school. Once the weekend arrived and they left the school, they no longer acted that way.

As long as they were home, Chi Ku wouldn’t do anything like waiting for Tao Huainan to hold his hand; Tao Huainan also wouldn’t call out “Chi Ku” for just about anything. They respectively ignored each other, and this would continue on until Monday, when they would once again go back to normal after the morning passed.

Tao Xiaodong kept hearing from their teacher on the phone that the two boys were so close they were almost like one person—and yet he had not once seen them act like that. The boys he saw and the boys he heard about were completely different.

–

It was now spring, and Tao Huainan and Chi Ku had been to school for over two months. 

They’d learned quite a bit of braille by now, and they’d memorised a fair amount of poems. Tao Huainan was now a proper student, and there was no need to even mention Chi Ku. Their teacher had told Tao Xiaodong multiple times: he was too smart.

Tao Xiaodong was no longer as worried as he’d been in the beginning. He now only thought it was funny—children, these living beings, were honestly too amusing. 

–

One Friday afternoon, Tao Xiaodong had nothing to do and arrived at the school early, observing the classroom from the control room. The classroom was too hot for Tao Huainan, and he called out, Chi Ku, it’s hot. Chi Ku folded up a large exam paper and gave it to him, telling him to fan himself. In the control room, Tao Xiaodong could only see their actions and wasn’t able to hear what they were saying.

At that time, Tao Huainan had slowly fanned himself, saying, Chi Ku, let’s eat some ice cream2 together tonight.

That night, both of them held their own bowls of ice cream and refused to sit together. Tao Huainan sat at the dinner table, his feet cushioned by Shi Yeye’s back, and Chi Ku was at the balcony, eating by the window.

These two children’s attitude towards each other truly changed too much too quickly, and Tao Xiaodong was ridiculously amused by this pair of fake friends.

Tao Huainan bit his spoon and asked what he was laughing about; Tao Xiaodong said, chuckling, you’re too funny.

–

1 Tao Huainan actually speaks really, really cutely, almost baby-like. A lot of his dialogues end in 哇 (wa). It’s not really a word (unless used in the beginning, where it would then mean ‘wow’). A more accurate feeling of this particular dialogue would be more like: “How come you didn’t leeavee~? Hehehe.” Just imagine a lot of his dialogue with ~ at the end.
2 Raws say they ate ice. Like, literal pieces and blocks of ice. I didn’t think it made sense, so I decided to change it to ice cream.