Mr Earnest is My Boyfriend 8

Illustration by Sara Herranz

People always say that climbing up a mountain is difficult, climbing down is easy. Today Xia Zhen truly grasps the truth of this saying.

Halfway up the mountain, Xia Zhen has been enjoying the view as she holds onto Pei Cheng An. When it comes to particularly steep paths, she borrows a fair amount of strength from him. So other than some exhaustion, she feels fine. But as she look down on the narrow and steep stairs downwards, her knees feel weak.

She takes a step behind and squats down. She needs to calm herself. But just as she moves, she accidentally hits a stone with her shoe. The stone falls over to the steps and disappears within seconds.

Pei Cheng An can tell she’s in fear and he himself panics. “Are you afraid of heights?”

Normally people would be afraid if they stand at too tall places, but Xia Zhen doesn’t consider herself as a person with acrophobia. It’s just that her exhaustion, coupled with the steep way down, frightens her.

She shakes her head. No longer trying to force herself to act tough, she looks at Pei Cheng An with a teary face. “I’m worried if I take a wrong step, I’ll fall right down.”

There are handrails available, but what if those are not steady? And further, some places lack handrails.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m here. I won’t let you fall.” Pei Cheng An comforts her.

Xia Zhen stares at him for a moment, debating whether he’s worthy of her trust.

“If not, I can carry you,” he adds.

This sentence is incredibly effective. Xia Zhen immediately gets up, throwing all her fears away. She says, “I’m just teasing you. I can even climb up, how can I not be able to climb down? Let’s go!”

What a joke. How can she let Pei Cheng An carry her! She has already let him hold her hand and hug her. If she lets him carry her, won’t he be completely taking advantage of her?

Right. Someone has already forgotten that she was the one who held onto him. She only remembers Pei Cheng An holding her hand without even asking her and keeps holding it until the very end.

Fine. So Pei Cheng An ends up holding her hand and guiding her on the way down as well. When they make it to the bottom, it’s she who is unwilling to let go of his hand. That’s because she is really beyond exhausted.

“Looks like you don’t exercise regularly,” Pei Cheng An concludes.

She doesn’t deny it. “Winter is suitable for relaxation and hibernation.”

“Life is meant for movement.”

“Life needs food for sustenance. I’m hungry.”

Pei Cheng An laughs, making her complain in her heart. What was there to smile, heng.

He took her to a beef bone soup place, surprising her. She asks, “Are you helping me to get nourishment?”

Pei Cheng An nods. “Also for you to get the energy for life sustenance.”

Xia Zhen lowers her head, drinking her soup.

Perhaps it is because they have already held hands, the atmosphere between the two is less awkward than before. Xia Zhen is also treating him a lot more casually. Truthfully, Xia Zhen is not someone who is good at pretending. As time passes, she would definitely reveal her true nature.

After lunch, Pei Cheng An asks if Xia Zhen wants to watch a movie. Xia Zhen woke up early today and even expended all her energy. She originally doesn’t want to go but considering that watching a movie is also within her plans, she agrees.

She wants him to fully understand the difference between them, that they have different tastes, so they will go their separate ways early on and find their true loves.

This matter can no longer be delayed.

After looking online, she sees that there is a movie airing in half an hour at a nearby cinema. When she sees that it is Marrying The Wrong Husband, she immediately books the tickets.

They take only a few minutes to reach the cinema. After getting the tickets, Pei Cheng An buys a bucket of popcorn and a bottle water for Xia Zhen. He also gets himself another bottle of water.

Popcorn and water, what kind of combination is this? A very boring combination!

“I want Coke.”

“Coke is mainly made of sugar and carbon dioxide. There are also some additives that is bad for the body. If you drink coke often, you would gain weight, get cavities, possibly osteoporosis and heart disease…”

Xia Zhen presses her lips into a thin line, staring a hole into him. She raises her head slightly, her unhappiness expressed clearly.

“I don’t drink it often.”

“It’s better to just drink water.” He doesn’t believe that Xia Zhen doesn’t drink Coke often during the lunar new year. After interacting with her today, he realises that her muscles are soft even though she looks neither fat nor thin. More specifically, she barely has any muscles and has signficantly more fat tissues [...like the chest?]. From this, he can tell she doesn’t exercise regularly and eats a lot of junk food.

Xia Zhen protests in silence.

“Popcorn is actually not good for the body.” Pei Cheng An knows everyone will eat junk food some time in their lives, whether little or a lot. But as long as it doesn’t happen often, he would not have any opinion about it. But Coke is really bad. He glances at the other drinks available. They are all sugary beverages. “Fine, then just have Coke. But there will be no next time.”

Xia Zhen raises an eyebrow and nods. Truthfully she’s not that fixated on Coke. In the winter she would always eat steamboat with Coke. When eating spicy food, drinking the refreshing Coke gives her a lot of pleasure. Especially in the lunar new year, she drank a lot of it. Lately she can feel her teeth aching now and then.

But she doesn’t want Pei Cheng An to have his way. She also wants to see if he will insist on his principles or will compromise for her sake.

Now he is compromising. Xia Zhen couldn’t help the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction bubbling in her.

Since she has just had lunch, she didn’t plan on having popcorn. But having popcorn is a must when watching a movie with a boyfriend. Thus when Pei Cheng An asked if she wanted any, she easily agreed.

And Pei Cheng An buying popcorn for Xia Zhen despite knowing it is unhealthy is due to his senior’s advice. He said that a man who doesn’t even buy their girlfriend popcorn is destined to be single forever. So he chooses to go watch the movie after lunch, so that she wouldn’t be able to eat much of the popcorn.

Inhaling the tasty aroma of the popcorn, Xia Zhen sighs, “So fragrant!”

Pei Cheng An quips, “This fragrance doesn’t originate from the corn but from the smell of the chemical diacetyl.”

“Dia―what?”

“Diacetyl. It’s a type of artificial flavouring.”

“Oh.” It’s just flavouring. Every day she will eat a lot of it. That’s not unusual.

It is at this moment that Pei Cheng An takes the bucket of popcorn from her, opening the seal, and toss the popcorn inside.

Xia Zhen is confused by this series of actions and immediately tries to steal her delicious food back from him. “What are you doing? You’ll make the popcorn cold and it won’t be too tasty anymore.”

Pei Cheng An easily evades her hands, saying, “The smell of diacetyl is not good for the respiratory system. We have to scatter the smell before you can eat them. I didn’t do it earlier because I forgot about it.”

Xia Zhen becomes a little depressed that she can’t eat whatever she likes. Car exhaust emission is dangerous for the respiratory system. There is a lot of things in the air that is dangerous for the human body. Does this mean she can’t go out and cannot breathe anymore? “I’m not afraid! Give it to me!”

She extends her arm to snatch it back but, in one swift move, Pei Cheng An puts it out of her way. Xia Zhen is someone who refuses to give up, also someone who will accept persuasion but not coercion. The more he refuses to give it to her, the more she wants to get it back. Eventually Pei Cheng An holds it high up out of her grasp. Xia Zhen jumps to reach it, to the extent that she acts like she’s climbing a tree, but to no avail.

She becomes incredibly annoyed.

She then feels like there is a little girl watching her from some distance away. Then she hears the girl tell her mother, “Mommy, just now the sister over there looks just like the monkey in the movie earlier, jumping up and down.”

Monkey…

Naturally Pei Cheng An also overhears this and the corners of his lips rises just slightly before he suppresses it. He cannot provoke his girlfriend anymore.

He hands her the popcorn. She harrumphs, not wanting it anymore. “I don’t want it.”

“Then I’ll throw it away…”

Hearing this, Xia Zhen immediately snatches it back. How can he throw it away? She hasn’t even eaten to her satisfaction. And doesn’t he know how to coax her? What does she need this boyfriend for!

Boyfriend…

Xia Zhen is shocked by her own thoughts. Since when has she consider him as her real boyfriend? Remembering her reaction earlier, it really does look like a girlfriend being coy with her boyfriend.

She can’t be like this! Her ambition is to be single for the next few years. Her goal is to force Pei Cheng An to be completely fed up with her and then initiate the breakup.

She needs to focus on her goal!

Thus, she needs to do something he doesn’t like, make him unhappy, and make him run away with tails behind him.

Thinking this way, Xia Zhen gets a sudden flash of inspiration. She smiles slyly, takes a handful of popcorn, and puts it next to his mouth. “You eat some too.”

“I don’t eat this.” Pei Cheng An shakes his head, frowning. His face looks like he is putting up a greal of resistance. With regards to things like this, he has once researched about them and knows of their danger to the human health. So he refuses to have any.

The more he resists, the happier Xia Zhen becomes. Her hand gets a little closer to him and, using a soft voice, tells him, “Eat some, it’s really good. You won’t get sick with eating just a little.”

Pei Cheng An faces his head to the other side, still refusing. “I don’t like eating things like this. You can eat it yourself. But don’t eat too much.”

“Eat it, eat it,” Xia Zhen insists. “The movie is starting soon. If you don’t eat some, I won’t go in.”

She rarely says this kind of selfish things. Even though her family pampers her a lot, she has never been an overly rebellious and selfish person. If not, she would not have went along her mom’s wish to go on a blind date. To say such words now is to annoy Pei Cheng An.

Don’t guys usually dislike selfish and mean women? Then he can just not like her.

But she also hates herself acting like this. She has done something she doesn’t like. Ah… so unhappy.

Just as she is about to take back her words, Pei Cheng An takes the popcorn in her hand and expressionlessly put them into his mouth. He is unable to uphold his principles. When he sees Xia Zhen upset, he thinks it is wrong for him to make her unhappy because of something so insignificant.

Xia Zhen’s upset little heart immediately gets better. She asks smugly, “Is it good?”

Pei Cheng An slowly nods.

“That’s right! The reason why people would risk their health to eat junk food, that’s because of one word―delicious!” Xia Zhen enthusiastically says.

Alright, Pei Cheng An has nothing to refute. He simply nods and says, “Then can we enter the theater now?”

Of course! Of course they have to go in. They are going to watch a notoriously bad movie. How can they can not watch it?

Despite it being a bad movie, and there are countless bad reviews about it, and finding a good response is harder than finding a needle in the ocean, the theater is still packed. And most of them are couples. Xia Zhen thinks everyone is also here, like her, to see how terrible the movie is.

The seats Xia Zhen chose is closer to the screen. She’s very happy with her selection since most movie-goers are couples. She’s very aware of what couples do in the cover of the dark and she doesn’t want to see anything that will embarrass her.

Okay, fine. The truth is that the movie is almost sold out. Even if she wants to sit in seats further back, there aren’t any left.

Before the movie begins, Xia Zhen and Pei Cheng An get to their seats. Their neighbours are mostly singles. She eats her popcorn indifferently. Honestly she doesn’t feel like eating anymore but she wants to make Pei Cheng An unhappy with her, so she keeps eating and even tries to feed him some. Her heart feels inexplicably excited when she sees Pei Cheng An, whose face screams unwillingness to eat yet is also unwilling to disappoint her.

But she is really not forcing him to eat. After trying to coax him for a bit, she puts the popcorn in her mouth. But there are a few times where she didn’t control her strength and overstretch her hand to touch his lips, and he ends up eating. Finding this little loophole, Xia Zhen “feeds” him a few times.

The movie begins after a few minutes. Xia Zhen also stops fooling around and focuses on the movie. She really wants to know how crap this movie can be.

After ten minutes, Xia Zhen gets a conclusion. It’s really, really bad. It’s illogical, nonsensical, and completely lacks any comedic points.

As to how bad it really is? It’s so bad that Xia Zhen can no longer continue watching and has instead fallen asleep.