He and Fu Songcheng had argued many times, but this one seemed different from before.
Yet Yu Huaiting was also furious right now. It had always been him losing his temper at others—this was the first time anyone had dared lose their temper at him.
“Who told you to leave this morning without telling me!” Yu Huaiting retorted loudly through the door panel. “So what if I smashed a window? Worst case, I’ll pay you ten thousand points!”
The door was yanked open from the inside by Fu Songcheng.
Fu Songcheng stood at the doorway, his face ashen, his eyes fixed dead on Yu Huaiting.
“I have no obligation to report to you everywhere I go.” Fu Songcheng’s voice still wasn’t very loud, but the anger in it was unmistakable. “You wrote to me, and I replied immediately, telling you where I was.”
“If you had even a shred of respect for me—if you treated me as an independent teammate rather than your appendage—then you should know that trespassing into someone else’s private space is absolutely unacceptable!”
Fu Songcheng’s speech grew faster and faster. “You’re like this—coming and going as you please. Leaving a mess behind, not caring about anyone else’s feelings.”
Fu Songcheng turned sideways, opening the way and letting Yu Huaiting see the mess all over the floor. “You say I don’t care enough about you?”
“Then you tell me first how you care about me!”
“Treating me like a toy for your amusement—when you’re happy, you flirt and approach me recklessly; when you’re unhappy or impatient, you answer with fists and feet. You step into my space whenever you like, destroy it whenever you like, and in instances you do whatever you want without considering the consequences.”
“Have you ever respected me?”
Still not appeased after saying this, Fu Songcheng stepped forward—then suppressed the urge to grab Yu Huaiting by the collar and demand a clear answer.
That would be too ugly, as if he cared that much about Yu Huaiting’s reply.
Under the harsh light, the fine glass shards, together with Fu Songcheng’s accusations, poured a basin of ice water over Yu Huaiting’s head.
Yu Huaiting’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
At the moment he smashed the window, he hadn’t thought about any of this.
He’d just wanted to go in and see if Fu Songcheng was there. He was used to solving problems in the most direct, most violent way.
Who cared about a window? What Fu Songcheng cared about wasn’t a window either.
It was Yu Huaiting’s reckless boundary-crossing.
The air seemed to freeze at this moment.
Yu Huaiting opened his mouth, but his mind was a complete blank.
He heard his own voice ring out in the empty corridor, dry and hollow: “Sorry.”
The moment the word fell, even he hadn’t reacted.
The apology had come out with no warning at all—he hadn’t even had time to hide it.
Fu Songcheng was stunned too. That “sorry” made him feel like he’d punched into cotton—all the spikes he’d raised instantly lost their target.
It was the first time Fu Songcheng had ever heard Yu Huaiting apologize.
Yet after the brief astonishment, the coldness in Fu Songcheng’s eyes didn’t fade.
“Apologies don’t change anything.”
Fu Songcheng twitched the corner of his mouth. His heart ached—uncontrollably ached. After becoming lovers with Yu Huaiting, he couldn’t even tell whether it was the shared senses or his own feelings.
Yu Huaiting’s chest tightened at his words. He wanted to retort, but didn’t know where to begin.
He lowered his eyes and, without a word, walked past Fu Songcheng standing at the door and went straight into the room.
“What are you doing?”
Fu Songcheng turned warily.
Yu Huaiting didn’t answer. He walked to the pile of broken glass and slowly crouched down.
Then, in Fu Songcheng’s shocked gaze, he extended those hands that had gripped a greatsword year-round and picked up the glass shards from the floor, piece by piece.
Actually, all this mess on the floor could be solved by spending a few points on the system’s one-click cleaning service.
Both of them knew that perfectly well.
Especially Yu Huaiting—a high-level player who’d been in Death Party so long his points were more than he could care about. If he wanted, this place could be restored to its original state in an instant.
But he didn’t.
He crouched there, head down, his broad back slightly arched, like a large fierce beast that had done something wrong and was clumsily trying to please its owner.
Fu Songcheng stood behind him, looking at Yu Huaiting’s back, a nameless irritation surging in his chest.
He squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself inwardly: Fu Songcheng, what are you thinking? You already agreed not to care about him, to wait for the day you part ways—and yet you lose your temper at him like this.
This wasn’t Fu Songcheng’s style.
Fu Songcheng took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the sourness and annoyance churning in his heart.
He turned, strode to the corner of the balcony, grabbed the broom and dustpan leaning against the wall, and walked back to the pile of glass shards.
He said nothing, using the broom to sweep the fine glass fragments around Yu Huaiting into the dustpan.
Yu Huaiting was picking up glass pieces bare-handed when he caught a broom out of the corner of his eye, deftly sweeping a piece in.
He froze, looked up, and met Fu Songcheng’s face.
Looking at the broom in Fu Songcheng’s hand, Yu Huaiting was confused for a moment, then his face lit up with a look of sudden realization.
He slapped his own head. “Fuck, right!”
Why hadn’t he thought of using a tool?
The next second, Fu Songcheng heard a soft ding by his ear.
A brand-new broom with plastic packaging materialized in Yu Huaiting’s hand.
Fu Songcheng looked at this display and laughed in anger.
He’d assumed Yu Huaiting was picking things up bare-handed to play pitiful—but he was genuinely just stupid.
Talking to Yu Huaiting about these things, Yu Huaiting probably wouldn’t understand anyway. A dry apology and clumsily cleaning up the mess were probably the most sensible, gentlest responses Yu Huaiting could give.
Neither spoke again. Only the swish-swish of brooms against the floor remained.
Just as Fu Songcheng thought this farce was about to end, Yu Huaiting suddenly stopped what he was doing.
“I really do care about you.”
Yu Huaiting’s voice was low, yet especially clear in Fu Songcheng’s room.
“I have no friends,” he didn’t look at Fu Songcheng, just stared down at the new broom in his hand, as if talking to the air—or as if conducting a difficult self-dissection. “And no family. From childhood to now, I’ve never expressed fondness for anyone.”
“Fighting, killing, surviving by any means necessary—that seems to be most of what I’ve learned. No one taught me how to treat someone I care about, and no one told me what a ‘private space’ is.”
Yu Huaiting turned his head. “I don’t treat you like an object. I just… I just can’t consider that much.”
As he spoke, he urgently scooped up a small pile of larger glass shards he’d gathered beside him and held them out to Fu Songcheng as if asking for help.
Yu Huaiting stared fixedly at Fu Songcheng, yet his eyes were full of confusion. “I’m used to taking whatever I want, seeing whoever I want to see. I didn’t know doing that was wrong.”
Fu Songcheng looked at Yu Huaiting like this—so stupid.
A complete contrast to the bastard who’d despised everything and defied heaven and earth when they first met.
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