I’ve Liked Your Boyfriend for a Long Time

As the class was about to end, Pei Ran closed his textbook and took the mask from his pocket to put on.
"Are you leaving early again?" the roommate asked him.
Pei Ran nodded.
Roommate: "You've already left earlier for the past few days, others would think that someone is stalking you after school or something..."
Pei Ran smiled and stayed silent. When the teacher turned his head back and faced away from Pei Ran, he held his books and left from the back door.
It wasn't until he was of some distance away from the teaching building that Pei Ran relaxed.
He breathed out lightly and took out his cell phone. He took a look, and sure enough, there were several messages sent by Luo Qingshan.
Pei Ran quickly scrolled through their chat records over the past few days. He felt dazed, as though he was under the illusion of returning to high school.
[Luo Qingshan: Pei Ran, shall we have lunch together? 】
[Pei Ran: No, I ordered a takeaway. 】
[Luo Qingshan: OK, which one did you book? I'll have the same order as you. 】 [Luo Qingshan: [Video call, not connected] 】
[Luo Qingshan: My dear, I miss you. 】
[Luo Qingshan: I haven't been able to listen in class all day. 】
[Luo Qingshan: I deleted Su Nian, you can check it anytime you want. 】
[Luo Qingshan: Wanna have dinner together? I will go to your classroom to find you. 】
In high school, Luo Qingshan followed Pei Ran in the same manner. Back then, he had taken the initiative to ask the teacher to change his seat to one that was right next to Pei Ran. His dormitory was changed to Pei Ran's upper berth. Even for lunch and dinner, he would stick to Pei Ran and so on. Pei Ran could never drive him away.
Pei Ran closed the dialogue box and smoothly cancelled the message bar that was set at the top of his phone screen by Luo Qingshan.
In the evening, when Luo Qingshan opened the door to his own dormitory, Yan Zhun was watching a replay of the PUBG International Game.
He appeared a little absent-minded, wearing only one side of his earphones with his legs loosely sprawled. The sound of the door opening door did not affect him in the slightest.
With a slam, Luo Qingshan placed a dozen beers on the table and asked him: "Do you want to drink together?"
The beer can was wet and it looked like it had just been taken out of the refrigerator. Yan Zhun looked at the wet tabletop, frowned lightly, and then shook his head: "I don't drink."
Left with no choice, Luo Qingshan could only get drunk alone.
Halfway through the drink, he picked up his mobile phone and subconsciously wanted to call someone to accompany him. After dialing someone's phone number, he found out that something felt to be not right and hung up quickly.
At two o'clock in the dead of the night, Yan Zhun was awakened by his roommate.
He slowly opened his eyes, his dark eyes filled with sleepiness and irritability.
Luo Qingshan: "Pei Ran, you are so cruel..."
After hearing this, Yan Zhun was suddenly alert.
The lights in the dormitory had long been turned off, and Luo Qingshan's mobile phone screen became the only light source.
Luo Qingshan's tone was very depressed: "Three years...three years together, you have to tolerate and accept my mistakes, Pei Ran."
Luo Qingshan mumbled to himself for a few more minutes. Annoyed, Yan Zhun was about to take his earplugs from under the pillow when he suddenly heard rustling sounds.
——"Luo Qingshan, it's already late."
Luo Qingshan turned out to be hands-free, and had placed the call on speaker mode.
Pei Ran's voice was hoarse, betraying his deep exhaustion: "What's the matter, can you talk about it tomorrow?" "Tomorrow you will ignore me." Luo Qingshan said.
Pei Ran ruffled through his hair, and it took a while for him to truly wake up.
Luo Qingshan talked intermittently and squatted a bit. He should have been drinking again, Pei Ran thought.
Feeling that his throat was dry, Pei Ran drank a mouth of water before he continued: "Luo Qingshan, the reason for breaking up with you... It cannot be fully blamed on this problem."
There was no reply from the phone.
Pei Ran: "We said before, let's give it a try."
At that time, Luo Qingshan was lying on the hospital bed with bandages on his hands and arms. Both of them were only seventeen or eighteen years old, and their eyes were not peaceful.
Luo Qingshan grinned in pain, coaxing him with a smile, teasing him, and asked him if he was moved and if he wanted to agree with him.
Pei Ran was silent for a long time and then said, let's try, Luo Qingshan.
It took Pei Ran three years to understand that a love that develops over time will not happen to everyone.
At least, his current feelings for Luo Qingshan are not great enough to tolerate everything.
Luo Qingshan still did not speak. Pei Ran lowered his eyebrows: "Sorry..."
"He's asleep." There was a low voice from the other end.
Pei Ran was startled: "Ah."
Yan Zhun threw the empty beer can on the table into the trash can: "He drank some beer and is now asleep. I am Yan Zhun."
Pei Ran: "..."
It means that what he said just now and what Luo Qingshan said to him were all heard by Yan Zhun?
An inexplicable sense of embarrassment spread upward from the soles of the feet. Pei Ran swallowed. After a long while, he finally said: "Did it disrupt your sleep?"
"No." Yan Zhun didn't change his face, "I  was staying up late."
Pei Ran gave a very light "Oh".
The air fell into a brief silence.
"Go to sleep." Yan Zhun said, "Next time you go to bed, remember to mute your phone."
Pei Ran: "...Yes."
A second before Pei Ran ended the phone, Yan Zhun hurriedly dropped a sentence: "Good night."

After hanging up the WeChat call, Yan Zhun lowered his eyes and inadvertently saw Luo Qingshan's chat list.
The first is Pei Ran, and the second is Su Nian.
[Su Nian: Did you call me? Is it convenient for you, I'll call back...]
Anything further on was not able to be seen.
Yan Zhun remembered that in Luo Qingshan's broken thoughts just now, there was a sentence of "I have already blacklisted him, what else do you want me to do?"
At this time, Luo Qingshan's face on the table suddenly turned, and his mouth was faintly saying: "Baby..."
Yan Zhun grabbed Luo Qingshan's coat and put it on him: "Don't anyhow say."
Luo Qingshan closed his eyes and muttered subconsciously: "Huh?"
"You broke up." Yan Zhun rarely had such patience and reminded him, "He is not your baby anymore."
Pei Ran sat on the bed and fixedly looked at his phone's screen.
Had he hung up the phone too quickly? Yan Zhun didn't seem to have finished speaking yet.
After such a disturbance, Pei Ran had long since lost his sleepiness. Fortunately, his roommates had been living outside these days, and he was the only one in the dormitory, otherwise, he would have had to run to the balcony to answer the phone.
He sat in front of the computer, looked at the half-finished manuscript in front of him, and hesitated on whether to finish it.
In the end, due to him succumbing to his laziness, Pei Ran climbed back to the bed with his mobile phone.
Pei Ran leaned on his side to play with his mobile phone, and swiped it casually, showing a circle of friends from a minute ago.
[Yan Zhun: Just choose whatever game you want, I'll be online to play the game with you anytime you like.】
Pei Ran easily clicked into Yan Zhun's circle of friends but found that this content was deleted in seconds.
To be precise, Yanzhun reposted another one--
[Yan Zhun: Just choose whatever game you want, I'll be online to play the game with you anytime you like. l will even coax you and am willing to do everything, please private message me if you want. "Almost running out of money to eat [web link]"]
(E/N: "Almost running out of money to eat" is the name of the game, where game customers pay actual money to have the person spend time with them and follow their instructions, for example: $20 for an hour)
Pei Ran spent ten minutes browsing today's circle of friends, and finally, he couldn't help but click on the web
link.
It was a very formal play site. Yan Zhun's account seemed to be a new one, with his number of orders being 0. He was only "paid" twenty yuan an hour, which was the lowest price of the site.
Pei Ran read it several times, and finally placed a ten-hour order, and after paying the money, he closed the web page directly.
He was about to turn on his phone's silent mode and go to sleep when a WeChat message was suddenly sent over. [Yan Zhun: Boss. 】
[Yan Zhun: When do you play? 】
Pei Ran opened his eyes wide, reflecting that it took several seconds to type. [Pei Ran: What are you talking about]
[Yan Zhun: You placed my accompaniment order for ten hours. 】 [Pei Ran:...how do you know it's me? 】
[Yan Zhun: The above is your WeChat profile picture. 】
Pei Ran covered his eyes. He had forgotten about it.
The big question was, if he was to confess that that he had just wanted to support Yan Zhun so that he won't starve, would it come across as disrespectful?
[Yan Zhun: ? 】
[Pei Ran: Ah, it's late today, so I won't play anymore. 】
[Yan Zhun: What about tomorrow? 】
[Pei Ran: These days... I have a part-time job to be busy with. 】
[Yan Zhun: Next week, the school will have seven days off. Let's play at that time. 】 [Yan Zhun: I'll feel uncomfortable if I were to owe you for this matter. 】
The issue had already escalated to the point of no return.
[Pei Ran: Okay. 】
[Pei Ran: Just now, I hung up a bit too fast, I didn't hear what you last said, sorry. 】

[Yan Zhun: I didn't say much, it's nothing. 】
[Pei Ran: Ok. By the way, can I trouble you to pour a glass of water next to Luo Qingshan? 】 [Yan Zhun: You are my boss now. 】
[Pei Ran:? 】
[Yan Zhun: If you were to ask me to open his mouth and pour water into it, I'm also ok with that.】
[Pei Ran:...]