An issue to do with feelings
The next day, before the morning’s self-study period, Qiu Ziqing was in the teacher’s office telling Huo Cheng and Shen Wanying’s homeroom teacher that they were dating.
It wasn’t the first time Mr. Song was hearing rumours about the two of them dating, so it didn’t surprise him any more.
Qiu Ziqing had solemnly sworn that she had, most definitely seen Huo Cheng kiss Shen Wanying at school. But, hearing this, Mr. Ji sitting beside Mr. Song said lightly: “You said the same when you told us about seeing Fang Yichang colluding with Ms. Tong to cheat.”
This unexpected response shook her a little. The school hadn’t further investigated her wrongful accusation, but clearly the incident had left a bad taste in Mr. Ji’s mouth. However, she had got this far, she couldn’t simply give up. “Mr. Ji,” she said, “The last time, it truly was a mistake on my part. I’ve already apologised to Fang Yichang. This time. I didn’t get it wrong. Huo Cheng himself admitted it to me yesterday.”
Seeing her distress, Mr. Song said evenly, “I understand. I’ll have a talk with the two of them later. Why don’t you go back to class first?”
Qiu Ziqing felt like his words were rather non-committal, but she didn’t want to press the matter any further. She simply nodded, and left the office.
After she left, Mr. Ji resumed his lesson preparation. “So,” he said to Mr. Song. “Why do you think Huo Cheng would admit to such a thing to her?”
“Uh….”
Mr. Song didn’t have an answer for him. Beside them, one of the female teachers who had been sitting and eating melons silently spoke up.
“I think,” she said, “That she confessed her feelings to Huo Cheng, and he used his being in a relationship as an excuse to reject her.”
The two male teachers were stunned into silence. This had not even occurred to them.
The female teacher was convinced of the validity of her point. She continued, “Objectively speaking, Huo Cheng is a good-looking boy. There are quite a few girls in our class who like him. We can’t control things like that, after all, even children know they tend to be drawn to people they like the look of.”
The two men said nothing. The female teacher turned to Mr. Ji. “You probably know what I mean, don’t you, Mr. Ji? Your son Ji Yao is pretty popular himself.”
With a straight face, Mr. Ji adjusted his glasses and said, “He doesn’t talk to me about such things.”
“Ah, now that won’t do!” She said. “It’s at this age that these youths most need to learn to communicate.”
Outside the office, the class representative who had been waiting outside to let them know when class was starting, had heard everything. He handed the maths worksheets to Mr. Song, who told him, “Tell Huo Cheng and Shen Wanying to come to the office.”
The class representative nodded vigorously. “Yes, Mr. Song.”
For some reason, he felt oddly emotional.
He ran back to the classroom, and relayed Mr. Song’s message to the two students, adding helpfully, “Earlier when I was at the office, I heard Qiu Ziqing telling the teachers you guys were dating.”
“……” Shen Wanying had not expected Qiu Ziqing to be so… efficient. She looked at Huo Cheng, who rose to his feet and said, “Don’t worry. Let’s go.”
“Okay.” She followed Huo Cheng out of the classroom.
Once they had left, the classroom came to life, the students clamouring to find out what had happened.
“Ugh. So, it’s that Qiu Ziqing from Class 2, she went to tell the teachers that Huo Cheng and Shen Wanying were dating.”
At this, Zhao Yimeng grew worried. “Her again? What does this have to do with her? She’s not even from our class!”
Her classmates vehemently agreed, some even speculating that Qiu Ziqing must have been rejected by Huo Cheng, and made up rumours to get back at him.
“The last time, with Fang Yichang, that was also her, wasn’t it? Why is it always her?!” Zhao Yimeng was really mad. She didn’t care if she herself was single, but no one was going to challenge her favourite couple, not on her watch.
*
In the teacher’s office, Mr. Song was looking at the two students before him, wondering how to start this particular conversation. Somehow these two… they actually seemed like a good match for each other. He cleared his throat. “I’ve called the both of you here today… to talk about an issue to do with… feelings.”
The two students were silent. Mr. Song paused for a moment, before continuing. “Someone came in to report that they saw you two being intimate in school.”
“Intimate, how?” Huo Cheng asked.
This made Mr. Song feel rather awkward. “That is, they said they saw you kiss Shen Wanying.”
“I did not,” Huo Cheng denied.
He said it so sincerely, Shen Wanying herself nearly believed him. Truly the King of Actors, this one.
Mr. Song turned to Shen Wanying. “Did this happen?”
She shook her head. “No.”
And she, she would be the Queen.
Mr. Song nodded. “And are you two dating?”
Huo Cheng said, “We are just students who have a crush on each other.”
The room fell silent. The female teacher who had been eating melons at the next table choked on her water.
Mr. Song was silent for a moment. “You know,” He said, “I was young once, too. I understand that at your age, you feel a lot, and more intensely. And because the both of you are in a league of your own, it’s natural that you would have feelings for each other. It’s not that I don’t care how you feel, but school rules are school rules. I’m not saying you can’t crush on each other, but I need you to do two things for me. One, don’t let it affect your studies. And two, please keep displays of affection to outside the school grounds. Don’t set a bad example for the other students. Can you do that for me?”
Huo Cheng and Shen Wanying nodded.
“Alright. Since both of you agree, I’ll trust you on it. You’ll be entering your third year soon. Although you are both doing very well, I hope you will not get complacent.”
“We won’t.”
“Good. Now we have an agreement. The next time this happens, I’ll be giving your parents a phone call.” He believed that this conversation would be the end of it, but as a teacher, he knew it was his responsibility to inform parents of such things. It would be bad if their guardians found out on their own, disapproved, and blamed the school for one reason or another.
T/N: Help LOL Huo Cheng is an entire troll, I laughed my way through his responses ^^; guess even the teacher can’t really fault them. Which, good for them, even if I definitely had to suspend my disbelief for that bc my high school teachers were more often than not more than happy to assert their authority on us x.x hope you found this as funny as I did, or maybe I’m just easily amused? Either way, thank you for reading, I’ll see you in the next one~