You Have Everything I Dislike

I hate summer. 

I’m someone who doesn’t really like to move, especially since I’m prone to sweat a lot when I do. 

Unfortunately for me, summer vacation was the only time I could go see the third master as much as I wanted. So, for the sake of true love, I often have to ask him to go to the movies and shop together under the sweltering summer sun.

I usually don’t exercise that much. Often, whenever the two of us walked two blocks down a street, the third master would still look calm and relaxed. In contrast, I would be frantically wiping my sweaty face and neck with tissues.

Once, after I had finished wiping my face, I noticed how tattered the tissue in my hand had gotten. 

“Is there any tissue stuck on my neck?” I asked the third master.

The third master looked down. “Oh, yeah – there’s a lot of them.”

I looked up at him and smiled sweetly. “Could you please help get rid of them for me?”

“Sure, no problem.” The third master nodded. 

He bent over and picked up the paper remnants with his two fingers. Then, thinking it was going too slow for his liking, I could feel him rub against the leftover tissue on my neck before lifting his hand up with a smile of his own.

With my cute smile still on, I asked him doubtfully, “What are you laughing at?”

“I was laughing?” the third master replied, straight-faced.

I reached out, gesturing to his mouth. “You’re grinning from ear to ear.”

He looked even happier as he took out my small mirror from my bag. “Take a look for yourself.”

I took a look in the mirror, right at my neck, which appeared to have been completely rubbed red.

That wasn’t the point, though, because… he also rubbed out several bits of gray-colored tissue paper!

I let out an awkward laugh, along with an excuse, “Ahem, I just, just tend to sweat — like, a lot. Plus, you know that I take a shower every day.”

The third master also smiled. “I see.”

His knowing smile made people want to look away. It was an expression one had after learning a grave secret of yours, like still bedwetting at the age of seventeen several times in a row.

Feeling wronged, I turned down all his date invites for the following week. It felt as if I just couldn’t be a good friend anymore.

  

When I was still a freshman in school, I took a lot of classes and extracurricular activities. I felt very proud of myself whenever I told people about it. 

Unfortunately for me, the price I had to pay for this was my inability to finish all my homework at the end of the year. 

So, at the end of the semester, my quarrels with the third master were at their peak. When all the assignments became too much for me to handle, I would become very stressed and grumpy, and the third master was the main (only) person I could turn to (ask for help) each time.

In one instance, there was an extra credit assignment for a school elective I had. I completely forgot about it until its deadline came fast approaching. 

Given that I still had another separate pile of assignments on hand, I had no choice but to shamelessly call the third master.

Me: “Dear, I have this school elective course essay, and it’s for my extra credit. If you aren’t too busy, can you help me with it?”

Third Master: “What am I supposed to do?”

Me: “It’s just a few English documents. You know, since you’re so good at English, I’m sure it’ll only take you a minute to finish reading it.”

Third Master: “Well, what about after reading it?”

Me: “After reading it, you’ll need to translate everything and then look up relevant information.”

Third Master: “Is that all?”

Me: “No. You still have to sort out the materials before writing a thesis on them.”

Third Master: “Then, what are you going to do?”

Me: “Me? I’m calling you for help.”

The other line was silent for more than ten seconds.

Me: “Do you not love me anymore…”

“Baby, you shouldn’t do this — you won’t learn anything if you’re like this,” said the third master, activating his lecturing mode.

I turned on my vexatious mode in response. 

“Other people’s boyfriends would accompany them to go shopping, go to class, and go to the library. If you’re here by my side to check the materials with me, I’ll definitely finish writing everything in no time. But since we only meet once every couple of months, we obviously can’t do that. I usually don’t say anything if you can’t stay with me, I know it’s not easy for you, but all I did was make a small request. It’s only to help write me an assignment, and you don’t even want to help me with that — how could you do this to me…”

Third Master: “… …”

I did not stop there.

“Everyone in the dormitory’s already done with their assignments. Now, they’re playing games, watching movies, and reading comics. I’m the only one who hasn’t finished writing anything. You know how stressful this is for me – not to mention that I’m also going to take a double degree this weekend. While others are doing homework on the weekends, I have to go take extra classes. While others are having fun, I have to finish writing homework, but once they’re all done and submitted, all I can do is continue to worry. Two days from now, there’s also the final exam, and I still haven’t reviewed a single thing. I just feel like I’m about to collapse…”

“Are you sure you were doing your homework while they were playing?” asked the Third Master.

“That – classes can get very tiring, so I usually like to sleep a little longer. If I feel sleepy, I can’t even open my eyes; do you expect my body to lie on the bed by itself?” I replied cheekily.

“You’re obviously lying in bed playing games…” Third Master muttered.

I felt a bit frustrated, so I said, “Well, you probably just don’t want to help me since you have so many excuses, is that it?”

Third Master: “I have my own business to take care of, too.”

“Own business? You mean playing games? Oh, well, you must be very busy,” I sneered.

“Don’t do this, okay? How about you let me the homework on my side first before I help you with yours.” 

The third master sounded a little upset.

I said to the opposite line, “No, I dare not bother you anymore. I’ll just do it myself.”

The more I thought about it, the sadder I became. I crouched in the corner of the corridor and began to cry, unable to hold back my tears.

As soon as the third master heard my cry, he compromised. 

“Why are you crying? I didn’t say I wouldn’t write it for you. You can read it yourself for a while, and I’ll show you once I’m done doing my homework.”

I sobbed, “You just don’t love me anymore; otherwise, why would you push it around?”

“You can’t solve the problem by crying. This time, you can take a better look at yourself.” 

The third master began to lecture again. 

I continued to choke out, “Then why didn’t you finish your homework sooner? You probably just played Three Kingdoms with your friends and slacked off the entire time. Otherwise, how can you still be doing your homework at this point?”

Third Master grew silent.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I asked. 

Third Master: “I am also about to collapse ……”

Me: “I have to send my thesis to the teacher’s inbox by midnight today. [Choke] I’m not talking to you anymore – you go do your own homework.”

He began to freak out. 

“You should have said so. How dare I still do my homework?!” He probably looked at the time and said, “It’s already 10:30. Can you at least let me write it half a day earlier next time?”

“Hmph, I won’t argue with you. Just write it for me first, and I’ll argue with you when you’re done,” I replied in defeat.

“Then you can wait until you can’t hand in your homework,” Third Master threatened.

Before I could say anything, he angrily hung up the phone.

At eleven-thirty, he texted me. 

【Third Master: I just turned in your assignment. I also wrote in the postscript that the thesis was written by Xiaobu’s boyfriend. I hope the teacher gives you a high score. GOOD LUCK~ Good night.】

I was still fighting my way through the sea of questions. Seeing this message, I broke out in a cold sweat and hurriedly opened my inbox to look for the assignment that had just been submitted, only to find out there was nothing in the postscript.

【Me: Liar, you scared me!】

【Third Master: I’m giving you more chances to quarrel, quarrel, quarrel.】

I ignored his childish provocation. 

【Me: So you CAN write it in an hour. Next time there is such a thing, I can wait until eleven o’clock to find you again.】

【Third Master: ….】

  

The original intention for writing this story was to show how low Third Master’s EQ was, but after reading everything, I suddenly realized that I was so naive at the time. Perhaps, it’s because relationships that start from such an early age as 18 are just not mature enough. When you’re eighteen, you still don’t know how to go about life. 

It was all thanks to the many years we’ve known and spent with each other, the Third Master’s big heart despite his EQ deficiency, and the patience and hard work we’ve put into this whole relationship that we were able to come to this point.

  

When it comes to quarrels, most of them would stem from me asking the third master to do something, with him not seeing through the situation. He always waits until I get angry before taking action. 

At the beginning of our relationship, whenever I was angry, he would get very nervous and would do all kinds of things to coax me. Later on, he even began to develop a special pattern.

If I dare get angry, he’ll just become even angrier than I am.

The result often ended up with me being the first to cave and take back my anger. Immediately, he’d come up to me and try to reconcile, his tail wagging behind him.

For instance, the day my “aunt” came for her monthy visit, I was blessed with a painfully aching abdomen. I was very irritable and would get mad the second something even remotely inconvenient happened. 

I would get angry and try to ignore him, but he’d only be angrier than I was with me instead. 

Once my anger subsided, I found him and asked, ” What are you so mad about?”

He himself did not know what he was angry about. Well, he was probably just frustrated at my attitude, but there was no way he’d say this to me, so he ended up throwing the blame on something irrelevant.

“I’m mad at your aunt!”

ı  used to let my temper get the best of me, blowing up at everything. Third Master would not help cool my head off; instead, he’d blow it up completely.

There was only one instance ‌I was deeply impressed with him. It was probably the time when his emotional intelligence burst out unexpectedly.

We were on vacation at my sister’s house. At that time, my little nephew got scolded by his mother for not cleaning after himself once he finished playing with his toys the whole day. 

The little one wept bitterly and threw himself at my sister’s arms, howling, “Mom, don’t you love me anymore?”

My sister’s heart softened as she told him, “Mom loves you, but you have to clean up your toys after playing, or mom will get very angry.”

The little one went to clean up while crying. From time to time, he looked back at my sister and murmured, “Mom loves me — mom loves me even when she’s angry.”

All of this was seen by the third master, who was sitting on the sofa, following my little nephew’s example of playing with toys but not cleaning up.

Later, I overslept with Third Master, and as a result, our plan to go to the beach was postponed. 

“Why didn’t you get up?” I asked him, annoyed.

For some peculiar reason, Third Master didn’t add fuel to the fire by saying, “You didn’t get up either.” 

On the contrary, he hugged me before pitifully asking, “Don’t you love me anymore?”

I pushed him away. “No, I don’t.”

He hugged me again.

“No, you’re lying. You love me — you love me even when you’re angry.”

That was the first time I felt that having a boyfriend younger than myself was as easy as having a son and that sometimes, it seemed to be quite fun. 

Later that day, we changed our plans and went to Fengqing Street instead. We had a lot more fun eating, which was a lot more refreshing than going to the beach to bask under the sun.