Innocence

Bang!

The door of the private karaoke box slammed open.

The ghostly wail of a young man's voice ceased abruptly, leaving only the instrumentals to continue to play in the background.

Eight or nine pairs of eyes all turned to look at her.

There was a familiar face among them—Liu Kai, the dark-skinned boy from the basketball court, recognized her. “Ah! You’re that girl… uhh—” He couldn’t think of her name.

Gu Tuantuan stood bent over with one hand clutching the door. Her lungs burned as she wheezed out the words, “Help! Haa… Help! Jiang Ye… He-He’s been surrounded… by a group of people!”

“WHAT?!”

“FUCK!”

“WHERE?!”

Several people shouted at once, jumping to their feet. They were all part of the basketball club; every single one of them was over 1.8 meters tall (5’10”). The room felt too small all of a sudden.

Gu Tuantuan still couldn’t catch her breath. She pointed outside, towards the approximate location where she had left Jiang Ye and the others.

“They are courting death!”

“Bastards! Let’s go!”

Liu Kai was the first to rush out, and the others quickly followed. In the blink of an eye, the entire box became empty except for Gu Tuantuan.

She took several seconds to breathe and steady herself. Her throat felt so dry, but she didn’t have time to care. She picked herself up and ran back out.

In the lobby, the receptionist was dumbfounded. What’s going on? First, a girl ran in, and now, a whole horde of tall, teenage boys were stampeding into the lobby.

Their expressions looked murderous. The receptionist didn’t dare to stand in their way. He watched in stunned silence as one by one, they rushed out of the building.

Jiang Ye was sitting on a small stone bench by the side of the road. He had his head down with his forearms resting on his knees. He held two sticks in his hands, which he had snatched from his opponents amid the fight. A thin stream of blood trickled down his face from a small cut above his eyebrow.

After giving his jacket to Gu Tuantuan, all Jiang Ye wore was a white, button-up shirt. The shirt was now dyed an alarming shade of red with the top two buttons torn off. Through the gaping collar, a dark-red bruise could be seen extending from the side of his neck to his chest and disappeared under his shirt. The injury was clearly caused by one of the extendable batons. While it didn’t break skin, the force of the blow was enough to cause blood to pool beneath the surface and ooze out in small beads from his pores. It was still a frightening sight to behold.

Three people lay in the dirt in front of Jiang Ye, twisting and groaning in agony. One of them had run away, but it wasn’t the young man with the tattooed arm. In fact, he was beaten the worst—his face was barely recognizable under all of the blood.

Next to him was a broken baton, completely bent out of shape. It showed the intensity at which they fought. 

“If any of you motherfuckers dare to lay one finger on my Brother Jiang, I swear I’ll—!”

You could hear him before you saw him. Liu Kai was the first to make it to the scene. He choked back the rest of his words.

Quickly, the others also arrived. Their eyes all widened as they took in the wreckage in front of them.

After the initial shock wore off, Liu Kai uttered with disappointment, “Damn Brother Jiang, you’re no fun. You should have left at least one of them for us.”

The corner of Jiang Ye’s mouth twitched. His fingers tightened around the handles of the batons. He thought about giving Liu Kai the beating he was asking for. Last time, when he took Gu Tuantuan to the bus stop… he was only gone for a few minutes, but this fool managed to lose six points! He might as well use this opportunity to teach him a lesson right now.

“Jiang Ye!”

Gu Tuantuan finally made it. She could only see the blood covering Jiang Ye’s face and clothes. Her eyes stung as hot tears pushed out from the corners of her eyes. “Didn’t you say that there wouldn’t be a fight?”

Jiang Ye was surprised. Not only did she go to find his teammates, but she actually came back. He cupped her face and used his thumbs to gently brush away her tears.

“Don’t cry.”

But his words had the opposite effect. Big, fat tears spilled down her face as she cried even harder.

Gu Tuantuan sniffled loudly and anxiously tugged at his bloodstained shirt. “Let’s call an ambulance. There’s so much blood. Why is there so much blood? We have to get you to a hospital.”

Jiang Ye looked down at his shirt. “This isn’t my blood,” he remarked; tipping his chin towards the three on the ground, he continued, “It’s theirs.”

Gu Tuantuan looked at him dubiously.

“For real. Would I lie to you?”

Jiang Ye reassure her again and again until Gu Tuantuan finally gave in.

The rest of the affairs were dumped onto Liu Kai. Despite his mischievous nature, he was actually the only child of the deputy police chief. In fact, Jiang Ye had considered this from the very beginning.

A little while later, two police cars arrived at the scene to arrest the people involved in the fight. One of the cars included the deputy chief.

But because of Jiang Ye’s relationship with Liu Kai, he didn’t have to go with the officers to the police station. In fact, his involvement never even made it onto the report.

After everyone left, Jiang Ye called up a taxi and took Gu Tuantuan home.

Gu Tuantuan fussed over him for the whole ride. She kept asking him whether it hurt or not. Several times, she even tried to divert the taxi to the hospital instead…

Jiang Ye expended a lot of energy trying to convince her that he was fine.

In the blink of an eye, the taxi had already arrived in front of Gu Tuantuan’s apartment complex.

Because it was late, Jiang Ye walked Gu Tuantuan upstairs to her door. As she dug out the keys and opened the door, she turned to look at Jiang Ye. The cut above his brow was still oozing with blood.

There was an uncomfortable sensation in her chest as if her heart was being squeezed. “Do you want to come in? I have some disinfectant and bandages at home. Let me clean your wound for you,” she offered.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. If I go in like this, Auntie will…”

“My parents aren’t home, it’s just me tonight.” Gu Tuantuan realized how it sounded as soon as the sentence left her lips. She blushed at the suggestion.

Get your head out of the gutter… It was just an innocent remark. You didn’t mean anything, so play it cool…

“Okay,” he said without any hesitation.

Jiang Ye’s easy response made her heart skip a beat.

Hmm… I wonder where this is going… ?

Mini-update: I got a new job! I start in April! ??? Also, my roommate and I moved this past week. I’m not fully unpacked yet (I still have two boxes from our move two years ago… haha…ha…).

XX Umi Yuki

P.S. Check out the new Recommendations page! You guys keep recommending cool stuff to me; it would be unfair for me to keep it to myself.