Are We Friends?

[If We Meet Again, Will We Have Tears in Our Eyes? is now underway, continuing Ye Sicun's story. Please add it to your collection!]

Unrequited love / love that can never be returned / more than friends, not quite lovers

Gentle pursuer VS stubborn pursued

Ye Sicun and Zhuo Shi were high school classmates and close friends who could talk about anything.

Zhuo Shi had liked Ye Sicun for years, always waiting for a chance, for a moment when Ye Sicun needed him and could not possibly refuse him. But Ye Sicun was stubborn as a mule. Even when he was alone in Beijing, unable to afford food, he still refused to ask Zhuo Shi for help.

When Zhuo Shi heard that Ye Sicun was penniless and homeless in City P, he drove for more than ten hours and showed up in front of him that very night.

But Ye Sicun said, "I don't need your help. If you're my brother, just buy me a meal. After that, hurry home. You came all this way... What are you doing in City P?"

"What am I doing?" Zhuo Shi was furious. He cursed Ye Sicun for being so ungrateful. He was worried about him, had driven over a thousand kilometers through the night, and had not even gotten a word of thanks. Instead, Ye Sicun was asking what he was doing there.

"You," Zhuo Shi snapped.

Ye Sicun rolled his eyes. "If you had the guts to do that, would you have waited until now?"

Zhuo Shi's temper flared. He roared, "Today I'll show you what guts look like!"

This story is based on real events. The following is Ye Sicun's own account, while the main story is told in the third person.

Zhuo Shi and I have known each other for seven years. During those seven years, sometimes we were classmates, sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, and sometimes brothers. Sometimes I even wondered what our relationship really was.

We could be very close, then strangely distant. Even after a long time without contact, when we met again, it felt as if we had only seen each other yesterday.

We met in our first year of high school. He sat behind me, a little to my left. At 190 centimeters tall and 90 kilograms, he could crush me with one hand if we ever fought.

But he had delicate features, a small nose and mouth, and he smiled all the time. I got to know him because he was Li Yuesong's childhood friend.

Back then, I secretly liked Li Yuesong and talked to him about everything under the pretense of friendship.

The three of us were always together. Later, for one reason or another, I stopped keeping in touch with Li Yuesong, and our trio became a pair.

But Li Yuesong never really disappeared from our lives. His presence kept me clearheaded and made Zhuo Shi understand that as long as I still had Li Yuesong in my heart, our little team would always have three people.

I do like Zhuo Shi, but not in the sense that no one else will do. I am not sure how to define what he means to me, but I treasure him deeply. So I have always kept him firmly in the brother category, drawing a clear line between us.

That way, whoever crosses it is the one at fault.

Theme: Love yourself before loving someone else