Withdrawal

The train reached Qiao Luo’s stop. Qiao Luo alighted and said to Fu Zhi Zhou, “Bye bye~”. Just as the school bell rang, he stepped into the classroom.

The majority of students were the same as Qiao Luo; they hadn’t adjusted their body clocks back to the school routine after the summer vacation. They were all confused and muddle-headed from the sleepiness. The entire morning self-study session in the classroom passed in absolute silence. All of them were fighting with their sleep bugs.

Qiao Luo spent a lot of effort to go through the self-study class without falling asleep. After breakfast, he was sprawled all over his table for a while, and only then did his brain start to wake up and function normally again. His heart suddenly raced with anxiousness: What had his Zhou Zhou gege said?! Give him a morning wake up call?!

The school prohibited the usage of phones during lesson time, but Qiao Luo was just unable to hold it in any longer. He groped around for his phone under the table and sent Fu Zhi Zhou a text: Zhou Zhou gege, are you really going to wake me up with a call every morning?

After pondering for a moment, he added another sentence: Or am I still dreaming……

As Qiao Luo’s self-study session ended, Fu Zhi Zhou’s roommate had gotten up too. 

He sleepily ridiculed Fu Zhi Zhou, mumbling, “What are you on to again? Why are you awake so early to disrupt my spring dream? What time is it? 6am?”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “Exactly 6am.”

Roommate, “……What on earth are you doing then?”

Fu Zhi Zhou glanced at his phone that had just received Qiao Luo’s message. He replied: Not dreaming. I promised you.

He lifted his head and told his roommate, “The little kid in my house is just starting his senior high and can’t wake up. I’m going to wake him up.”

The roommate had a face that was as if looking at a crazy fellow, “It’s…… the one who gave you the big ugly dinosaur, the kid that came over to stay at our dorm?” 

Fu Zhi Zhou replied with an “en” and lowered his head to look at his and Qiao Luo’s text history.

He didn’t know what the little rascal was hesitating about. The chat status was always “the other party is currently typing……”, but he hadn’t sent over any messages.

The roommate had already started wailing, “F*ck, f*ck,f*ck! Just look at your performance everyday! Caring about someone else’s grades, especially going home to accompany him when he’s sick, calling to coax him when he’s upset and now when he’s in senior high, you’re even willing to make an exception and wake him up every morning? Does it make any sense? Fu Zhi Zhou, you’re a hopeless case!”

Fu Zhi Zhou faintly said, “A friendly reminder, that year during the small group project, when all you did was slack off, the words you said were: Thank you to the administration system for assigning me such a great roommate.”

His roommate glared at him, “If it wasn’t for that year’s project, you would already have been under my pillow this morning.”

Fu Zhi Zhou said as he wasn’t afraid of getting beaten by the pillow, “Another friendly reminder, I’ll be waking him up for the next 3 years, but if you suffocate me now, you won’t have anything to copy for the internship report. Thus, you can only rejoice in the fact that we won’t be rooming together next week once the internship starts. You better pray well that the postgraduate student won’t be assigned to the same dorm as me.”

After getting dumped on by the reminder of the internship report and the beginning of the lack of sleep next week, the roommate wailed and went to the bathroom after.

Qiao Luo’s message finally came in.

Little rascal: I guess there’s no need for that…… I can get up on my own.

Fu Zhi Zhou casted a glance at the message and his face immediately darkened.

Good, very good, extremely good! After calling him so early in the morning, he had learnt to fake his obedience. Fu Zhi Zhou felt heartache that the little rascal couldn’t get as much sleep as possible, so he wanted to give him his company. And in the end, the other actually said “no need”!

Fu Zhi Zhou replied curtly: Don’t call me even when you get up.

Qiao Luo felt injustice at getting blamed and pouted. He remembered that his Zhou Zhou gege couldn’t see him, so he honestly replied: Oh.

Fu Zhi Zhou’s mood for the entire day was terrible. After throwing his phone into his back pocket, he had not taken it out again.

Up until it was about time to sleep, the phone directly fell from the bed and onto the floor with a loud “dang”. Only then did Fu Zhi Zhou pick it up to glance at it.

It wasn’t broken. All the countless notifications of messages and missed calls came from Qiao Luo.

Fu Zhi Zhou gave a call to Qiao Luo with a cold expression. The phone was picked up at a supersonic speed. Qiao Luo’s teary voice sounded as if he was covering his face with his arm, “You told me that you won’t ignore me, but you don’t answer your phone or reply to my messages! You don’t want me anymore!”

Something in Fu Zhi Zhou’s brain snapped. He forcefully tried to suppress the anger back into his belly as he awkwardly tried to find an excuse, “My phone just wasn’t by my side. What are you crying for?”

Qiao Luo tried to act sensible during the day but regretted it once he came home at night. So he planned to sell meng to Fu Zhi Zhou, trying to show his repentance and beg his Zhou Zhou gege to wake him up.

As a result, all the text messages he sent weren’t replied to by Fu Zhi Zhou. All the calls that were made had been left unanswered.

Qiao Luo recalled the nightmare of being coldly ignored for a month.

He was crazily frightened and his heart was in uncontrollable panic. He didn’t know where and how he had made Fu Zhi Zhou unhappy again, but he grumbled uncaringly, “You’re ignoring me, you’re ignoring me, you’re ignoring me!”

Fu Zhi Zhou’s heart felt tired, “I didn’t.”

Qiao Luo laid on the bed. He stopped fussing and showed his unhappiness, “I miss you.”

Fu Zhi Zhou took this opportunity to look at the unread messages and knew that the little rascal must have been frightened by him again. Otherwise, Qiao Luo wouldn’t have this kind of voice now. He then replied to Qiao Luo with something he seldom says, “I’ll go visit you this weekend.”

Qiao Luo took this time to repent, “No, you must also wake me up everyday.”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “……”

Was this kid stupid? He had obviously agreed to him already but Qiao Luo just had to reject his proposal once, then make a fuss with him again, bringing the topic up once more.

Fu Zhi Zhou had only rubbed his temples twice before hearing Qiao Luo’s softened voice acting cute again, “I promise you that I’ll pick up your first call, so agree to it, yeah?”

He mumbled very childishly, “I have to wake up so early to go school and if Zhou Zhou gege ignores me too, that’s too unfair.”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “……okay.”

Qiao Luo drilled into his blanket and closed his eyes as he laid down properly, “I’m already obediently lying down, getting ready to sleep. Zhou Zhou gege, you must remember to call me.”

Fu Zhi Zhou made a sound of agreement and said, “Sleep in another 2 minutes. Accept this file first.”

He hung up the call and used WeChat to send a voice note to Qiao Luo.

Closely following this message, was another: Set this as my caller tone.

Qiao Luo placed his phone next to his ear and played the recording.

It was Fu Zhi Zhou’s voice. A very short message consisting of only one line: Luo Luo, time to wake up.

Qiao Luo suddenly found that his heart was racing crazily for unknown reasons. The ear that the phone was on burned, just a little red, just a little hot.

The train reached Qiao Luo’s stop. Qiao Luo alighted and said to Fu Zhi Zhou, “Bye bye~”. Just as the school bell rang, he stepped into the classroom.

The majority of students were the same as Qiao Luo; they hadn’t adjusted their body clocks back to the school routine after the summer vacation. They were all confused and muddle-headed from the sleepiness. The entire morning self-study session in the classroom passed in absolute silence. All of them were fighting with their sleep bugs.

Qiao Luo spent a lot of effort to go through the self-study class without falling asleep. After breakfast, he was sprawled all over his table for a while, and only then did his brain start to wake up and function normally again. His heart suddenly raced with anxiousness: What had his Zhou Zhou gege said?! Give him a morning wake up call?!

The school prohibited the usage of phones during lesson time, but Qiao Luo was just unable to hold it in any longer. He groped around for his phone under the table and sent Fu Zhi Zhou a text: Zhou Zhou gege, are you really going to wake me up with a call every morning?

After pondering for a moment, he added another sentence: Or am I still dreaming……

As Qiao Luo’s self-study session ended, Fu Zhi Zhou’s roommate had gotten up too. 

He sleepily ridiculed Fu Zhi Zhou, mumbling, “What are you on to again? Why are you awake so early to disrupt my spring dream? What time is it? 6am?”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “Exactly 6am.”

Roommate, “……What on earth are you doing then?”

Fu Zhi Zhou glanced at his phone that had just received Qiao Luo’s message. He replied: Not dreaming. I promised you.

He lifted his head and told his roommate, “The little kid in my house is just starting his senior high and can’t wake up. I’m going to wake him up.”

The roommate had a face that was as if looking at a crazy fellow, “It’s…… the one who gave you the big ugly dinosaur, the kid that came over to stay at our dorm?” 

Fu Zhi Zhou replied with an “en” and lowered his head to look at his and Qiao Luo’s text history.

He didn’t know what the little rascal was hesitating about. The chat status was always “the other party is currently typing……”, but he hadn’t sent over any messages.

The roommate had already started wailing, “F*ck, f*ck,f*ck! Just look at your performance everyday! Caring about someone else’s grades, especially going home to accompany him when he’s sick, calling to coax him when he’s upset and now when he’s in senior high, you’re even willing to make an exception and wake him up every morning? Does it make any sense? Fu Zhi Zhou, you’re a hopeless case!”

Fu Zhi Zhou faintly said, “A friendly reminder, that year during the small group project, when all you did was slack off, the words you said were: Thank you to the administration system for assigning me such a great roommate.”

His roommate glared at him, “If it wasn’t for that year’s project, you would already have been under my pillow this morning.”

Fu Zhi Zhou said as he wasn’t afraid of getting beaten by the pillow, “Another friendly reminder, I’ll be waking him up for the next 3 years, but if you suffocate me now, you won’t have anything to copy for the internship report. Thus, you can only rejoice in the fact that we won’t be rooming together next week once the internship starts. You better pray well that the postgraduate student won’t be assigned to the same dorm as me.”

After getting dumped on by the reminder of the internship report and the beginning of the lack of sleep next week, the roommate wailed and went to the bathroom after.

Qiao Luo’s message finally came in.

Little rascal: I guess there’s no need for that…… I can get up on my own.

Fu Zhi Zhou casted a glance at the message and his face immediately darkened.

Good, very good, extremely good! After calling him so early in the morning, he had learnt to fake his obedience. Fu Zhi Zhou felt heartache that the little rascal couldn’t get as much sleep as possible, so he wanted to give him his company. And in the end, the other actually said “no need”!

Fu Zhi Zhou replied curtly: Don’t call me even when you get up.

Qiao Luo felt injustice at getting blamed and pouted. He remembered that his Zhou Zhou gege couldn’t see him, so he honestly replied: Oh.

Fu Zhi Zhou’s mood for the entire day was terrible. After throwing his phone into his back pocket, he had not taken it out again.

Up until it was about time to sleep, the phone directly fell from the bed and onto the floor with a loud “dang”. Only then did Fu Zhi Zhou pick it up to glance at it.

It wasn’t broken. All the countless notifications of messages and missed calls came from Qiao Luo.

Fu Zhi Zhou gave a call to Qiao Luo with a cold expression. The phone was picked up at a supersonic speed. Qiao Luo’s teary voice sounded as if he was covering his face with his arm, “You told me that you won’t ignore me, but you don’t answer your phone or reply to my messages! You don’t want me anymore!”

Something in Fu Zhi Zhou’s brain snapped. He forcefully tried to suppress the anger back into his belly as he awkwardly tried to find an excuse, “My phone just wasn’t by my side. What are you crying for?”

Qiao Luo tried to act sensible during the day but regretted it once he came home at night. So he planned to sell meng to Fu Zhi Zhou, trying to show his repentance and beg his Zhou Zhou gege to wake him up.

As a result, all the text messages he sent weren’t replied to by Fu Zhi Zhou. All the calls that were made had been left unanswered.

Qiao Luo recalled the nightmare of being coldly ignored for a month.

He was crazily frightened and his heart was in uncontrollable panic. He didn’t know where and how he had made Fu Zhi Zhou unhappy again, but he grumbled uncaringly, “You’re ignoring me, you’re ignoring me, you’re ignoring me!”

Fu Zhi Zhou’s heart felt tired, “I didn’t.”

Qiao Luo laid on the bed. He stopped fussing and showed his unhappiness, “I miss you.”

Fu Zhi Zhou took this opportunity to look at the unread messages and knew that the little rascal must have been frightened by him again. Otherwise, Qiao Luo wouldn’t have this kind of voice now. He then replied to Qiao Luo with something he seldom says, “I’ll go visit you this weekend.”

Qiao Luo took this time to repent, “No, you must also wake me up everyday.”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “……”

Was this kid stupid? He had obviously agreed to him already but Qiao Luo just had to reject his proposal once, then make a fuss with him again, bringing the topic up once more.

Fu Zhi Zhou had only rubbed his temples twice before hearing Qiao Luo’s softened voice acting cute again, “I promise you that I’ll pick up your first call, so agree to it, yeah?”

He mumbled very childishly, “I have to wake up so early to go school and if Zhou Zhou gege ignores me too, that’s too unfair.”

Fu Zhi Zhou, “……okay.”

Qiao Luo drilled into his blanket and closed his eyes as he laid down properly, “I’m already obediently lying down, getting ready to sleep. Zhou Zhou gege, you must remember to call me.”

Fu Zhi Zhou made a sound of agreement and said, “Sleep in another 2 minutes. Accept this file first.”

He hung up the call and used WeChat to send a voice note to Qiao Luo.

Closely following this message, was another: Set this as my caller tone.

Qiao Luo placed his phone next to his ear and played the recording.

It was Fu Zhi Zhou’s voice. A very short message consisting of only one line: Luo Luo, time to wake up.

Qiao Luo suddenly found that his heart was racing crazily for unknown reasons. The ear that the phone was on burned, just a little red, just a little hot.