youth and time

Another weekend, Zhong Chaozhou invited Jiang Yufan to a small restaurant. This restaurant was located in an alley. It should have been remodeled from his own house. The tables and chairs look quite stylish, but upon closer inspection, you will find that there are unwiped oil stains left by countless customers on the table, and even the chairs are worn white.

Although Jiang Yufan does not have such serious cleanliness and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but seeing such a storefront, Jiang Yufan, who has lived in a family that is not rich but clean and tidy and pursues a high standard of life for many years, still moves faster than his brain and subconsciously puts down the curtain Turn around and want to leave.

"Hey, don't go!" Seeing Jiang Yufan's intentions, Zhong Chaozhou quickly pulled him back, his movements so smooth and familiar that it made people feel distressed, "Although the decoration of this store is not good, but the taste is very good, I It was recommended by my roommate, he is a native of Beijing, he has a picky appetite, he said it must taste good if it’s good here, go in and try it, huh?”

Jiang Yufan showed a tangled face: "..."

At this time, the curtain of the store was lifted, and a woman of medium build in an apron came out with a bag of garbage in her hand. She looked at the two handsome boys standing at the door, showed a warm and hearty smile, and fucked With an authentic Beijing accent, he asked, "Are the two young men here for dinner?"

Jiang Yufan: "..."

Zhong Chaozhou responded with a smile: "Yes."

"Sit over there!" The woman lifted the curtain, stepped sideways to let them in, and shouted loudly into the store, "There are customers!"

"Hey, come—" A burly man came out from inside, waving his hands enthusiastically, "Come on, come in quickly, it's cold outside, but the heating inside is sufficient, come in to be warm."

Jiang Yufan: "......"

Things have come to this point, it seems that I have to go in.

After the two entered the store, they found a place near the air conditioner and sat down. As soon as they were seated, the man—the owner of the restaurant—came over with a menu, two plastic cups, and a jug of water: "Come here. Come here, just boil water, drink some hot water, hey, hey, the child is so cold, this blush." ​​Saying that, he gave Jiang Yufan a regretful look.

Zhong Chaozhou poured a glass of water and stuffed it into Jiang Yufan's hands to keep him warm, then turned his head and said, "Uncle, is there a menu?"

"Yes, yes, take a look." The boss said, put the menu on the table, turned and entered the back kitchen.

Zhong Chaozhou put the menu horizontally between himself and Jiang Yufan, and asked, "What do you want to eat? My roommate said that his shredded pork with Beijing sauce and stir-fried vegetables are particularly delicious. Do you want to try it?"

Jiang Yufan hugged the plastic cup, sniffed, and said, "Anything is fine, just watch it."

Zhong Chaozhou didn't force himself, he brought the menu in front of him and started to read it.

While Zhong Chaozhou was looking at the menu, Jiang Yufan raised his head and looked at the restaurant.

The restaurant is not big, very small, there are only four or five dining tables in the room, and there are not many shop assistants. It is estimated that a man and a woman have just run this restaurant. The restaurant is small and there are not many customers. Now it is ten It was after one o'clock, and the only guests were Jiang Yufan and Zhong Chaozhou.

"My roommate said that not many people know about this restaurant, and he discovered it by accident. Most of the people who come to this restaurant are repeat customers, and there are not many new customers." Although Zhong Chaozhou was looking at the menu, his attention was on the menu. Jiang Yufan never left his body, and he noticed that Jiang Yufan was looking at the restaurant, so he explained aloud.

"Hey, the young man is quite understanding." At this time, the boss came out from the back kitchen, smiling, and walked over with an order board, "Our shop is remodeled from our own house, and everyone is from our own house. , my wife and I are at the front desk, and my brother is in the back kitchen. The place is small and there are not many customers, but I don’t worry about the rent, and the money I earn is enough for our family to eat, clothing, housing and transportation. Our pursuit is not very high. These days It's been quite comfortable... Hey, I'm getting far away, how about it, do you want to eat anything?"

"Look, I want a shredded pork with Beijing sauce, a stir-fried mixed vegetable, and then..." Zhong Chaozhou was talking, when there was a sudden noise outside the door, it sounded like a woman who had just gone out to throw out trash—that is, this house. The proprietress of the store, the curtain was lifted immediately, and the proprietress led a few male college students in, chatting while walking, looking very familiar.

Jiang Yufan and Zhong Chaozhou looked towards the door, and after just one glance, Jiang Yufan froze - the person who was walking and chatting with the proprietress was none other than his five stupid roommates!

Roommate A is a native of Beijing and a frequent customer of this store. When he usually comes to this store, there is usually no one in the store, and there are people who are familiar faces who often see in the store. He subconsciously looked at the person he was not very familiar with, and then stopped in his footsteps.

The ones who came were indeed not regular customers, in a sense, they were his familiar faces, in short - familiar strangers.

The other four roommates saw that roommate A stopped, and they also stopped. Following the gaze of roommate A, their pupils suddenly widened: "Jiang Yufan?!"

Jiang Yufan: "……………………"

There was a large table full of home-cooked dishes, the boss and the proprietress greeted warmly, and then ran to the back kitchen to chat with his younger brother about home-cooking, leaving a group of college students in the front hall looking at each other, filled with an embarrassing and weird atmosphere. restaurant.

Zhong Chaozhou looked at roommate A, raised his eyebrows and said, "Hey, I see that you look familiar. I remember that a while ago there was a man who was squeezed and almost fell at the entrance of the mall. I helped him up. Was it you?"

"..." Roommate A nodded under Jiang Yufan's death stare, "Well, it's me, thank you last time."

"What are you being polite about? But it's a predestined relationship. I didn't expect you to be...Jiang Yufan's roommate."

"...I didn't expect you to be Jiang Yufan's... good buddy."

Jiang Yufan: "..."

For some reason, he always felt that his roommate's "good buddy" had a deep meaning, and it was definitely not a literal meaning.

Zhong Chaozhou was still smiling, looking handsome and gentle, he said with a smile: "Eat, eat, everyone."

The long-standing stalemate eased a little bit at this moment with Zhong Chaozhou's words. Everyone recovered from the complex emotions mixed with shock, helplessness and bewilderment. vegetable.

Zhong Chaozhou glanced thoughtfully at the roommate opposite him, smiled lightly, and picked vegetables into Jiang Yufan's bowl as if no one was watching, with a gentle demeanor and natural movements.

A few roommates lowered their heads to eat, and looked up at each other from time to time, and they could see the bewildered emotions in each other's eyes.

They imagined many ways to meet Jiang Yufan's partner. Of course, they imagined that they would meet each other accidentally, but they never expected that it would be in such an ordinary small restaurant.

In their imagination, even if they were in a restaurant, they would meet them coming out of a couple restaurant.

The meal was simply boring, and the few roommates couldn't help but feel like the whole world was fucking unreal.

After dinner, the roommates were going back to school, and Zhong Chaozhou was going to take Jiang Yufan to play in other places. The group parted at the alley, and when they waved goodbye, several roommates clearly felt the pain in Jiang Yufan's eyes. With complicated emotions, for an instant, they felt that they were not saying goodbye to their classmates, but saying goodbye to the world.

Seeing his roommates staggering away in a hurry, Zhong Chaozhou rubbed his chin thoughtfully and asked the people around him, "When do you think they found out?"

"The last time I was in the shopping mall." Jiang Yufan glanced at him, "That was the time, eight or nine were close to ten."

"If it was really in a shopping mall, how did they find out? I didn't do anything excessive that time?"

Jiang Yufan: "..."

If it’s not too much to say that you’re hugging and talking all the way, even leaving a mark on your neck before entering school, then you may have a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word “excessive”.

"It doesn't matter." Jiang Yufan shrugged, "Let's go, if you really want to know, I'll go back and ask them about it."

Zhong Chaozhou also felt that it didn't matter, he turned around, hugged Jiang Yufan with a smile and left.

At this moment, nothing is as important as playing with his family.

When we got back to the dormitory, the roommates were still in a dazed state. The five of them moved the chairs and formed a circle. They all sat on the chairs with their arms around the back of the chair, and their chins rested on the back of the chair at the top. On the side, his eyes were blank, staring blankly at the circular ground surrounded by them.

"Damn it, we acted so fucking new to the world today." Suddenly, roommate B rubbed his face and said dejectedly, "Thinking about our performance today, it's not clear why tell Jiang Yufan that we know Are they related?"

"The main reason is that it all came so suddenly that we were not prepared."

"Jiang Yufan should..."

Before the words were finished, the door of the dormitory opened with a click. The roommates turned their heads and watched Jiang Yufan walk in with a calm expression.

Roommates: "........."

Didn't you go out to play? Why are you back now? We haven't figured out how to explain why you don't want to go out for a while?

Seeing the unpredictable expressions of the roommates, Jiang Yufan explained very intimately: "Just now their counselor asked him for something and told him to go back quickly."

Roommates: "........."

The roommates exchanged a few glances with each other, got up slowly, picked up the chair and wanted to return to their seats, the movement was silent, but Jiang Yufan seemed to have eyes behind his back, and he kept packing things with his back to them , Without looking back, he said: "Wait a minute, sit down, I have something to ask you."

Roommate: "........."

Sure enough, it is a blessing not a curse, it is a curse that cannot be avoided.

There was no movement behind him for a long time, Jiang Yufan glanced back, and found that a few of his naive roommates were maintaining the antics of moving chairs and raising one foot to return to their seats, and raised their eyebrows: "Sit, don't stand."

Roommates: "........."

The roommates turned green, put down the chairs as if they were dead, and even put them together—everyone can hug together to keep warm when necessary.

Jiang Yufan packed up his things, turned around, and saw his roommates sitting in a row like kindergarten children. Judging by their expressions, they were still children who made mistakes and were afraid of being criticized by the teacher.

Jiang Yufan thought it was a little funny, but he still held back. He half sat on his desk, folded his arms, and asked, "A while ago, when I went to the mall, what did you all see?"

The roommates laughed.

"Hahahahaha, what shopping mall? When?"

"It's just that we have been together several times, which shopping mall did you say?"

"What did you see when you said you saw it? Is it that clumsy puppet bear?"

"Ahahahahaha, yes, that's really fun..."

Jiang Yufan stared blankly at the group of fools in front of him pretending to be stupid and acting in a hurry to perform this clumsy scene. The roommates who were entertaining themselves gradually realized that the atmosphere was not right, and laughed and played around. Their voices became quieter, and they carefully raised their eyes to look at Jiang Yufan, and shivered when they met those eyes that had no emotion except water mist.

The dormmates knew that things had come to this point and they couldn’t hide from pretending to be stupid. They coughed a few times, stammered and scrambled to tell Jiang Yufan what they saw and their mental activities verbatim, and then closed their eyes tightly. Closed his own eyes, waiting for "death" to come.

For a long time, Jiang Yufan didn't respond. The roommates opened their eyes and found that Jiang Yufan was staring at the floor in front of him in a daze. He asked, "Don't you... feel sick?"

The voice was very soft, even with a sense of cautiousness, which was completely inconsistent with Jiang Yufan in their impression.

Several roommates froze for a few seconds, and then smiled shyly.

"Oh, what's the matter? What era is this? As young people in the new era, we don't feel that way."

"That is, since you like each other, why can't you be together?"

"That's right, love in the world doesn't necessarily mean a man and a woman. You can see it everywhere in foreign countries, and it's legal in some countries."

"That's right, you don't need to have any psychological burden, at least not in front of us." Roommate A said with a smile, "We are classmates for the next four years. Roommates are good buddies. You are in our group Why do you carry such a big psychological burden in front of you, good buddy?"

The other roommates nodded in agreement.

Jiang Yufan looked at the bright star-like eyes of his roommates and the comforting smiles on their faces, and couldn't help but think of his high school classmates and what Yang Zhinuo said at the teacher appreciation banquet.

In fact, you have many friends and many people who support you.

Jiang Yufan said to himself in his heart.

He showed a relaxed smile, and a gentle look appeared on his usually cold and expressionless face, and he said softly, "Thank you."

The few roommates didn't know how to respond, they could only smirk and pat the back of their heads.

Jiang Yufan: "Thank you very much, I plan to give you a thank you gift."

The roommates pretended to evade, that what the brothers should do was unnecessary, and then stared at Jiang Yufan's hand touching the bag with bright eyes, wanting to see what good things he took out.

I saw Jiang Yufan showing his teeth in a rare smile. He took out a book from his backpack, like a collection of poems, shook it in his hand, and raised his tone, like a brat who got into trouble and felt very proud That kind of naughty: "Remember, the teacher asked me to appreciate a poem before the history of literature class. After returning to school, I went to the library first. After the poem was selected, the teacher said, I can choose to find it." My roommates or other classmates come to appreciate it together, so... everyone, let’s get ready."

Roommates: “………………………………”

"Fuck! Jiang Yufan, you have no heart!"

"What kind of brother is this, I'm sorry, I take back what I just said, and I unilaterally declare that we have broken off friendship!"

"Too much, you are too much!"

"It's in vain for us to comfort you like this, but you are actually thinking of dragging us into trouble!"

"Sue and sue! Hand over your partner's contact information! We will sue him!"

The creaking and wah-wah sound broke out in an instant, frightening the students who passed by the door.

Leaning on the table, Jiang Yufan watched the collective volcano eruption of his roommates, smiling very heartily.

Outside the window, there is bright sunshine.