Chapter 55: The Roommate Who Came Back
In the evening, Chen Junjie also returned.
“Kids! Come see what your dad brought you!”
He swaggered as he kicked the door open and stepped into the room, but the arrogant expression on his face froze immediately.
Why does the room feel… wrong?
The dorm was so quiet that only the sound of keyboards could be heard. An Han and Long Xing were sitting at their own desks on opposite sides of the room, both facing their computers, not raising their heads, not talking.
The atmosphere was heavy.
Their dorm was never really noisy, but it was never this silent.
“Brother Long! Let’s eat hot pot tonight! I specially bought soup base and sliced meat on the way back!”
Chen Junjie’s stiff face quickly regained a smile as he playfully moved close to Long Xing, shoving his suitcase into the corner.
“If you want anything else, I can go buy it.”
“Mm, thanks.”
Long Xing was clearly acting strange.
Chen Junjie then turned to provoke An Han. “An Han! I’ll say it now, you’re not getting any of it!”
“Oh.”
He looked shocked. “You’re not getting any! I’m using your induction cooker, too.”
“Got it.”
“You’re not even arguing with me?”
Only then did An Han turn his head. His eyes were dull as he glanced at Chen Junjie and said flatly.
“Do you feel uncomfortable if you don’t argue with me?”
“What? You got a problem with me?”
“Too tired to argue.”
An Han lowered his head back onto the desk, chin pressed on the table, staring blankly at the computer screen.
His heart felt exhausted…
The screen was playing a July anime episode, but he wasn’t watching it at all. He didn’t even turn on the sound. He just zoned out with empty eyes.
He had already spent the whole afternoon trying every method he could think of to make Long Xing dislike him.
But nothing worked!
Long Xing had the patience of a saint. No matter what he did, he didn’t get angry at all.
He might even think An Han’s jumping around was cute, and the system even added a bit more affection!
“So this is what they mean by ‘beauty is in the eyes of the lover’?”
An Han finally understood that saying deeply.
“What’s wrong with you two? Are you both crazy or what?”
Muttering, Chen Junjie opened An Han’s wardrobe, took out the induction cooker and the non-stick pot, then grabbed the foldable dorm table and plastic chairs from the corner.
“Wang Sheng still isn’t back?” Chen Junjie asked casually while boiling the hot pot soup base. “It’s already six-thirty.”
“……”
“Can one of you answer me?!”
Chen Junjie finally lost his temper. “Brother Long! Why are you sitting there with a dark face too? What did I do to you?!”
“No.”
Long Xing quickly returned to his usual smile and happily sat down next to the foldable table.
An Han let out an even heavier sigh.
Because Long Xing had noticed that all of An Han’s jumping around this afternoon was just to make him angry, the guy… deliberately acted mad on purpose.
But the system had already shown that Long Xing’s affection toward him had gone up a little, so obviously, that “angry look” was more like rewarding him for his “hard work” all afternoon.
This made An Han furious. He felt like a little kitten who kept pawing at someone’s leg, but the other person didn’t mind at all, at most pretending to be annoyed just to match his act.
“Xiao Han, come eat hot pot,” Long Xing called out.
“No appetite…”
“Hurry up, we have beef and lamb.”
“I don’t like meat rolls…”
Chen Junjie rolled his eyes. “They’re sliced meat, not rolls.”
“Okay, okay! I’m coming!”
An Han thought meat rolls were too thin and didn’t feel satisfying, so whenever he ate hot pot he preferred thin beef slices, not meat rolls.
He sat down at the foldable table and instantly picked up his chopsticks, reaching toward the meat slices. As he cooked the meat, he muttered, “Why suddenly eating hot pot today?”
“Because I feel like it? Is that a problem?”
Yep.
This Chen Junjie and I are really mortal enemies.
An Han couldn’t be bothered to talk to him. He turned his head away and dragged his chair further from him.
“Haven't you gotten even girlier these past few days?”
Chen Junjie finally had time to observe his roommate.
“None of your business.”
He suddenly reached out to pinch An Han’s cheek, but An Han slapped his hand away and glared at him angrily.
“Wow~ even when you’re angry you look like a girl.”
“You seriously looking for a beating?!” An Han jumped up.
Long Xing quickly tried to calm them down. He placed a hand on An Han’s shoulder.
“Alright, alright. We’re finally eating hot pot, why fight?”
“He’s just cheap! He can’t survive a day without getting yelled at!”
All the frustration from the afternoon was still inside An Han, and now that Chen Junjie poked at him, he couldn’t hold back.
But this time, Chen Junjie actually listened to Long Xing. He didn’t continue arguing and just added another piece of meat into the pot.
“Keep talking and I’ll eat all the meat.”
An Han’s attention immediately snapped back to the hot pot. He grabbed his small bowl and quickly fished out all the meat slices he had put in earlier.
Chen Junjie refused to lose and started fighting with him using his chopsticks. Their chopsticks clashed again and again as they fought over the meat.
The two pairs of chopsticks battled fiercely in the boiling soup. Each time An Han snatched a piece of meat from Chen Junjie, he let out a triumphant little hum.
“Tsk~ mine!”
“Then your beef ball is mine!”
“Wow, haven’t seen you for a few days and you got worse? You can’t even win against me for meat?”
Long Xing rubbed his forehead helplessly as soup splashed everywhere, making the table a mess.
“You two… seriously, are you three-year-olds?”
Just as he finished speaking, both An Han and Chen Junjie suddenly stood up at the same time, eyes locked on the last piece of beef fat floating in the pot.
They shoved their chopsticks in at the same time, stirring the hot pot wildly. Their chopsticks got stuck against each other in a deadlock—
And at that moment, Long Xing, like a sneaky bird taking advantage, calmly picked up the last piece of beef fat.
“So crispy.”
“I’m not eating the rest of the vegetables!”
An Han threw down his chopsticks, then turned to look at Wang Sheng’s bed.
“Why isn’t Wang Sheng back yet?”
“How would I know? I tried to reach him a couple days ago, but couldn’t contact him.” Chen Junjie took a toothpick from the drawer and started picking his teeth.
An Han asked worriedly, “He didn’t run into trouble, right? I remember he said he wanted to try going pro during the National Day break… What if he got tricked into a scam?”
“Don’t jinx it.” Long Xing checked the time. “It’s only seven. Coming back around eight or nine is normal.”
“An Han just can’t stand seeing others doing well. What if he actually passed the tryout and really started playing professionally?”
[Chen Junjie’s affection +7]
Chen Junjie was still arguing with him, but then he suddenly noticed An Han staring blankly into space.
“What’s wrong with you now?”
“N-nothing…”
This increase in Chen Junjie’s affection was clearly because of his appearance changing.
This was still acceptable. After all, men often judge based on looks. If a girl is pretty enough, even a first meeting can start with full affection points.
If Chen Junjie met An Han for the first time now, with the affection boost trait, his affection might go up to sixty or seventy right away.
But An Han was now worried—
Would their dorm room turn into a battlefield of jealousy?
That would be terrifying.