Heartbeat of Innocence

TW: mentions of suicide

The tide and the sea of cars started disappearing. There seemed to be some warmth and laughter lingering in the atmosphere. He secretly left and appeared back in this world in taciturn silence.

Advertisement

After the nurse inserted the thin needle into his blood vessel through his skin, Shen Dongyu woke up from a coma. Before he could be fully awake, the warm flood got carried away.

Shen Dongyu blankly looked at the nurse’s departing back, and his body and brain both froze at the same time, unable to respond at all.

He stayed in the hospital for almost a month before Shen Shuran dared to let Shen Dongyu be discharged and return to school.

Shen Dongyu’s unhealed wound was covered up with a watch, so that everything that had happened could be covered up anytime, and that even he himself could pretend as if nothing happened.

Shen Dongyu thought he missed Chen Jingchuan’s match and wanted to call to apologize, but Jiang Yuan told him that it was postponed, and would start in four days.

Shen Shuran originally didn’t plan on letting him run about again, but Jiang Yuan suggested taking him to another hospital for treatment, and visiting Chen Jingchuan on the way, which could perhaps help him relax.

The north’s dry weather didn’t suit Jiang Yuan, so she hid in the room, unwilling to come out. Chen Jingchuan, who came running out of school, had no choice but to bring Shen Dongyu around Beijing first.

Colorful college life brought out a Chen Jingchuan that still ended up being somewhat different from the one Shen Dongyu knew.

The person who always used to be polite now has become offhanded, saying some cold jokes that were very similar to Li Muxu’s style. It wasn’t funny at all.

The air in the streets was filled with the sweet scent of osmanthus flowers. When they passed by the market, Chen Jingchuan bought some piping hot roasted chestnuts for Shen Dongyu, and the hands hidden behind the windbreaker gained some warmth.

In the half year that they haven’t seen each other, they didn’t have trouble finding topics to talk about like they did on the phone. Shen Dongyu cherished this trip, hoping that he could forever remember the moment when Chen Jingchuan saw him at the airport, and he could smell the other’s shampoo as he was hugged.

Chen Jingchuan sent Shen Dongyu on the way back to the hotel. The two sat in the back of the dark car, chatting about piano music and English love songs together. Their topic moved from the secretive elopement that happened in older West Europe to the underground band in the land of Beijing.

Shen Dongyu opened his phone’s search page, pointing at the introduction at the top, “Is it this one? Sunset Rollercoaster.”

Chen Jingchuan moved his face near the screen. Shen Dongyu, staring at his side profile being so close to himself, quietly hid his throbbing emotions while trying to spend some energy to bring them to calmness.

“I liked their ‘I Know You Know I Love You’ previously.” Shen Dongyu’s eyes shone with a light that Chen Jingchuan hadn’t yet noticed.

Chen Jingchuan was surprised that Shen Dongyu liked the same thing as him. Seeing that his gaze also looked a little different, he slightly smiled, and said his own thoughts: “If they perform in Beijing again, let’s go together.”

“Okay, remember to tell me beforehand.” Shen Dongyu said.

The leaves in autumn were falling. They fell and flipped on the rocky and sandy ground, making some noises. Shen Dongyu forgot about the pain from the unhealed wound. He only remembered the heartbeat and the happiness, like the bubbles in coke, that were about to spill over the summer and flow into the four seasons.

Beijing was still raining a few hours before the match. The school arranged for the participants’ parents to wait in the meeting room.

Shen Dongyu laid on the table and slept for a couple rounds, and he woke up just as Chen Dongyu called him over.

The windows in the conference rooms were all open. The warm gray blind could not block the sunshine after the rain. Shen Dongyu woke up to the strong, refracting sunlight, as he rubbed against his eyes. He still wasn’t fully awake when, trying to walk toward Chen Jingchuan, he tripped over one leg of a chair, onto Chen Jingchuan’s shoulder.

Because of the basketball uniform, the skinny but pronounced collarbone showing outside made it painful for both of them when they collided into each other.

They both voiced their apologies in unison. Such a comical scene got covered up by Shen Dongyu in embarrassment. They, one after another, left the conference room that looked like the classroom on the fifth floor of 7th High School.

The rain had already stopped, and the sun that came out was particularly bright. It seemed impossible, but the weather forecast also said there was no more chance of rain.

After the tournament in the afternoon, the sunset far away at the boundaries of the sky suddenly disappeared. A clear view of Beijing appeared in Shen Dongyu’s view for not even three hours. The originally bright skies turned gray, and the temperatures also dropped a lot.

Yet the enthusiasm in the field remained undiminished.

It’s just that Chen Jingchuan, who was playing with his teammates, was scratched on the side of his neck by a kicked basketball. The wound wasn’t big, but it bled a lot. That careless teammate kept apologizing to Chen Jingchuan, but he just smiled and waved his hands to say it’s okay, and even took the initiative to comfort him.

Jiang Yuan was worried and kept using towels to wipe off the fresh blood. The dry towels would even scratch Chen Jingchuan’s skin, and the continuous up-and-down friction caused pain.

Shen Dongyu sat by the side without saying anything or reacting, blankly looking at Chen Jingchuan’s pained expression. He only got up after a while and said to Jiang Yuan, “I’m going to the washroom first, auntie.”

Jiang Yuan focused her whole attention on Chen Jingchuan, and said okay okay multiple times without lifting her eyes.

He slowly walked down the bleachers, going back through the route in his memory. He arrived back at the entrance after about two minutes. After asking a few of his own questions to the security guard, he ran out of the campus without turning back.

In a place where Chen Jingchuan couldn’t see, he sped outside, navigating through an unfamiliar city for him.

Maybe because he ran too fast, Shen Dongyu’s heart and throat both felt extremely painful. He had put his hands on his knees, resting for a few minutes before he could even walk slowly to the field.

Chen Jingchuan’s neck became redder and more swollen, and blood occasionally flowed out with tissue fluid. When Shen Dongyu came back carrying a plastic bag with the name of the pharmacy printed on it, Jiang Yuan was stunned for a moment, before hearing him say, “Auntie, let me clean Jingchuan’s wound.”

After Jiang Yuan gave her seat to Shen Dongyu, she sat down next to him.

In the plastic bag were hydrogen peroxide and bandages, as well as some anti-inflammatory drugs here and there.

Around his neck, there was the sweat and the warm body temperature from when Chen Jingchuan was in the game. The hydrogen peroxide was a bit irritating, so when it was wiped onto the wound, Chen Jingchuan bent his neck a little. This small movement was caught by Shen Dongyu, who was sensitive and observant. He said carefully, “If it hurts, let me know. Should I be more gentle?”

“I’ll leave it to you, it doesn’t hurt.” Chen Jingchuan said casually.

Although Chen Jingchuan said it like that, Shen Dongyu still carefully observed his facial expression every time he wiped the wound.

The blood on the fingers slowly dried up, and when he placed the bandage and stood up, he felt his brain suddenly push against his skull. Enduring the discomfort, he bent down to clean up the pieces of paper and cotton swabs on the floor and was about to leave, but Chen Jingchuan caught his cuffs, then looked up and asked, “Where are you going?”

“Washroom.” Shen Dongyu quickly answered, then squeezed into the crowds and disappeared.

Shen Dongyu hid in the washroom and vomited until he was in delirium. When he came out, he drank some tap water to try to relieve the pain and tightness in the esophagus that it caused.

The nightfall around the skyline seemed to be boundless. Shen Dongyu stood quietly on the veranda. His worn-out muscles did not have any more energy left for him to recover back to normal in a short period of time.

He was trying to quietly heal himself, hiding in a dark corner.

Alprazolam was a medicine he always carried with him, just to deal with situations like this.

When Shen Dongyu lowered his head to take the pill, Chen Jingchuan had already found him, then silently stood a meter away, watching him slowly chew a white pill.

After he chewed and swallowed with bitterness, Shen Dongyu, in the corner of his eyes, glanced at the tall and thin shadow behind him. When he turned around, it was Chen Jingchuan. He then calmly put his medicine back into his pockets.

“Still not coming?” Chen Jingchuan asked.

“In a bit, let me take a breather.” Shen Dongyu was exhausted, but he still gave Chen Jingchuan a stiff smile.

Chen Jingchuan ignored Shen Dongyu’s perfunctory words, approached him, pointed at his neck, and said, “The bandage doesn’t seem like it was put on properly. It keeps scratching me, so it kind of hurts.”

“Then I’ll redo it for you.” Shen Dongyu didn’t doubt him.

Shen Dongyu wasn’t as tall as Chen Jingchuan, so he stretched out both hands to help him redo the bandage. But what Shen Dongyu didn’t imagine was that Chen Jingchuan would suddenly use one hand to hold on to his waist, and with the other hand, he quickly took out the pills in the pocket.

They suddenly distanced themselves from each other.

Shen Dongyu frowned, and said in a low voice, “You’re being impolite.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll apologize first. But do we need so much etiquette between us?” Chen Jingchuan asked Shen Dongyu in turn.

Shen Dongyu shook his head, expressing his inner displeasure, “I don’t know, but I don’t like you acting like this.”

“You don’t need to like it.”

Chen Jingchuan threw out those arrogant words, then looked at the name printed in front of the pill.

Unsurprisingly, Chen Jingchuan didn’t understand the name of the medicine, and he asked again in doubt, “What medicine is this?”

Yet Shen Dongyu looked at him very calmly, and, without hiding anything, told his secret to Chen Jingchuan: “It’s medicine for treating depression.”

The skies were a leaden gray, and the world through Shen Dongyu’s eyes also seemed to be this color. This sentence sounded monotonous and meaningless when he said it himself.

“How long?” Chen Jingchuan asked.

Shen Dongyu didn’t answer in a hurry, as if he was seriously thinking about Chen Jingchuan’s question, then finally replied with an accurate time period, “Two years, not too long.”

“Why?” Chen Jingchuan wanted to know the reason.

“There isn’t a reason.” Shen Dongyu shook his head, but his tone also became heavier.

Chen Jingchuan heard the impatience in his voice, but still wanted to ask about the story behind his pain: “There’s always a reason.”

“But you won’t understand, like how many people won’t. It’s useless even if I say it.” Shen Dongyu was trying to suppress the about-to-explode, bottled up anger deep down in his heart. Determinedly cut off any potential for Chen Jingchuan to keep asking.

The campus, the small park a bit further away, and all the apartments lit up their lights. The light at the convenience store seems even warmer now, which became the paint that shed a hue of warm color on everything around.

Shen Dongyu raised his head to look at this world, and the tears in his eyes were also dyed a different color. Yet within the next second, in order to not let the tears flow out, he lowered his head and blinked his eyes. The warmth also disappeared along with those movements, bit by bit.

Chen Jingchuan watched Shen Dongyu’s every move, then heard his apology.

After the basketball match ended, Shen Dongyu thought yesterday would be their last meeting for the next six months, but it was Chen Jingchuan who accompanied him for the registration this morning.

Even if it was Jiang Yuan who suggested changing hospitals, the process for inquiries and tests was still the same as usual. For Shen Dongyu, it was already something he was used to doing. He carefully and seriously answered every question from the doctor, though Chen Jingchuan felt suffocated as he watched from the side.

Shen Dongyu told the doctor that his frequency of zoning out and waking up unusually early had increased, and he occasionally felt helpless about it. The doctor, like all others, told him to find an alternative suitable for him, then entered the name of the medicine, reminding him to take the prescription on time.

After they finished talking, Shen Dongyu calmly paid for the medicine downstairs. Every movement flowed naturally.

Jiang Yuan said he was very familiar with the workings of hospitals. Shen Dongyu wordlessly smiled.

Chen Jingchuan had been with him through all of this, and knew the meaning behind it. Because he was a patient, he was familiar with it.

When Jiang Yuan accompanied Shen Dongyu to draw blood, Chen Jingchuan went upstairs again to ask the doctor about the situation. The doctor’s words were ambiguous, but Chen Jingchuan still pieced together information from the few words, that Shen Dongyu had suicidal tendencies.

The doctor’s words echoed in his mind. Chen Jingchuan couldn’t guess why Shen Dongyu would want to commit suicide. He went to ask other people, but Jiang Yuan didn’t want him to know at all.

He walked down the stairs and, in the hall, gazed at the back of Shen Dongyu sitting on a chair in the lounge. The parched sunlight stretched out his shadow.

The process of waiting for the test results took four hours, so they prepared to return to the hotel first. On the way back, they went to the shopping mall, and ran into Jiang Yuan’s former partner. They chatted happily, but Chen Jingchuan was the one who felt the most uncomfortable about it.

Jiang Yuan noticed his displeasure, and took the initiative to let them leave.

After they left the mall, even Chen Jingchuan didn’t know which direction to go for something that Shen Dongyu liked. He just looked so indifferent.

“Do you want ice cream?” Chen Jingchuan pointed at the roll-up banner in front of the KFC downstairs, showing the discount for two ice creams, etcetera.

Chen Jingchuan remembered his appearance as he ate Haagen-Dazs.

There are matcha and chocolate flavors. Shen Dongyu wanted to try chocolate, but he changed his mind right when he was about to say it. Faced with things he liked, he was bad at changing them.

“Do you want both?” Chen Jingchuan easily realized what he meant, and spoke without hiding that.

Shen Dongyu nodded, then smiled in embarrassment.

His dry lips became pale from a long period of dehydration. Shen Dongyu’s smile not only did not show his good appearance, but also made him look even more sick.

“Are you okay with eating the ice cream after a meal?” Chen Jingchuan asked for Shen Dongyu’s opinion.

Shen Dongyu didn’t eat anything in the morning because of the blood test. Now that it was almost afternoon, he was still standing outside in the sun. Only when he saw the ice cream did he feel like he’d been hungry for a long time.

“Okay.”

Shen Dongyu would always be calm and considerate towards Chen Jingchuan. Even if Chen Jingchuan said something like he hated Shen Dongyu, he would still think back and wonder if it was his own fault.

It was just like last night, when Shen Dongyu did not allow his bad mood from Chen Jingchuan to linger by any chance.

They spent an ordinary afternoon together. Shen Dongyu remembered that he was going back to Shanghai at nine tomorrow, and Chen Jingchuan needed to go back to school at six tonight. He wanted time to slow down, he thought as he ate ice cream, as he received the blood test results, all the way until he passed through the security check, did the useless and abstract thoughts finally stop.

 

TL: Dongyu trusts Jingchuan so much :’) It’s kinda bittersweet