Epilogue - Booze x Booze
Today was Valentine’s Day—a certain someone’s birthday.
K&K eSports Club was holding a small, internal cocktail and wine party. Leader had not known about it ahead of time. Why didn’t he know? Because everyone wanted to give him a nice surprise. Therefore, when Gun, after braving the cold to rush back from the airport, was riding the elevator up with a black bag slung crossbody on his back and wearing a black down jacket, his entire mind was occupied with thoughts of the training plans that would be taking place shortly.
And while he was at it, he schemed about taking attendance. That way, anyone who wanted to go out to celebrate Valentine’s Day would end up feeling sheepish about the idea.
The elevator doors slid open before Gun’s eyes. Chewing gum, he step by step walked out of the elevator. His down jacket had already been shed, and with his right hand, he tossed it onto the chair at the reception desk.
Nobody there?
Turning a corner, he followed the corridor and walked in. Inside the training room, the sounds of assault rifles and explosions seemed to rock the sky. The instant he poked his head in through the door, he was greeted by demo waving a deep green liquor bottle and crying, “Leader! Sister-In-Law is waiting for you!”
As if something had exploded, he paused in shock.
An entire room of wine and liquor bottles. Not a single sober person.
The next second, the doorway was once again empty. grunt was still sprawled on the windowsill, talking in low tones with Ai Jing, and clicking his tongue reproachfully, he sighed, “Dt, that punk, is just too low and underhanded. Just so he could go have a date with his girlfriend, he went and got Han Shangyan’s wife drunk.”
At the end of the corridor, on the left side—Han Shangyan’s room.
When his hand contacted the cold, metal door handle, he even thought with furrowed brows, what would happen in just a moment? After rehearsing through some rough scenarios in his mind, he pushed down on the handle and stepped inside.
Utter darkness. He wanted to feel for the light switch.
Instead, his hand came in contact with the back of a soft, little hand. Very soon, a feeling he knew all too well came at him…
“Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday.” The octopus clasped his waist and began rubbing back and forth against him, from his face to his body. “Hurry up and say that you’re really happy…”
“… I’m happy.”
He still had questions he wanted to ask, but she had bit down lightly on his lower lip, and a little tongue had slipped into his mouth.
Well, he could taste them: beer, baijiu, plum wine, red wine…
He shut his eyes.
Don’t blow up.
Sheet! Who the foock boozed her up?
A hot, little palm mimicked what he normally did, feeling its way to the nape of his neck. Pulling him in close to her, she kissed him, and quite merrily as well. Gun had no other option but to lift up her legs and hold them around his waist. In the blackness, he used his feet to grope around, trying unsuccessfully to find a chair.
No choice then. There was only the windowsill.
Once he was seated, Tong Nian delightedly pounced herself onto him.
Before he had a chance to react, the back of his head slammed into the glass.
Sheet…
Ziiiiiip. His zipper had nimbly been pulled open…
“Tong Nian.” Gun forced his voice to remain steady. “There’s only 1 month until the wedding. 1 month. 30 days. 720 hours. 43200 minutes. Just hang in there a bit more…”
The right shoulder of his track jacket was being pulled down as if her life depended on it.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it…” There was still a match tomorrow. He couldn’t let things end up looking too ugly or else that bunch of little bastards would be able to tell that something had been amiss.
Fumblingly, Gun tugged the zipper all the way down, leaned forward slightly, and, with both his arms behind his back, removed his track jacket. Before he had even tossed it onto the floor, Tong Nian was already pulling at his belt…
Warm lips pressed against the bridge of his nose, his eyelids.
He tried as much as possible to make himself think about relatively innocent things. For instance, for the match against SP tomorrow, he could change out that entire group of little bastards who were outside right now and replace them with the secondary team that was becoming increasingly formidable…
In the darkness, the kid paused for several beats. Her gaze glimmered with expectation as she moved in closer and bashfully asked, “How come you’re not moving?”
……
His large, broad palm caught the back of her neck, and with a slight huskiness in his voice, he replied, “My first time… Don’t know what to do. What now?”
……
Eh? Didn’t he say men could figure it out without any teaching?
“Then… I’ll give it a try.” She did not hesitate, and in a muddled state, she very neatly and effectively unbuckled his belt, yanked it out, and threw it aside. Then with much difficulty, she scrambled down. Her head feeling as if it was swirling, she began to tear at his jeans.
Gun was leaning back against the glass, at the breaking point from her teasing. Reaching his hands out to take her under the arms, he pulled the kid back up and set her on his thighs.
In that stillness, his hands grabbed the bottom of his short-sleeved shirt and pulled it up and off.
The kid’s eyes seemed to gleam even more.
Gun had a feeling of being viewed, and the sight was being enjoyed…
And so, he set her down on the floor. Feet bare, he hopped down as well, and with upper body unclothed, he bent down to look her in the eyes. “You really want to do it?”
She made a sound in answer. The more she thought about this, the happier she became, and in a quiet voice, she told him, “Your birthday gift. And it’s also Valentine’s Day.”
……
He still had a feeling as if he was being bestowed the favour of sharing the emperor’s bed.
Suppressing a smile that wanted to form, he eyed her over. “Don’t cry in a little bit.”
She paused in surprise. “Huh? …” A little nervous, she asked, “… Do you have any cold medicine here? Nighttime tablets? I just need to take one and then I’ll fall right asleep.” She reckoned, that way, it wouldn’t be too painful?
“……”
“It’s alright. If I really start crying because it hurts, you just need to coax and comfort me and then I’ll be good. I’m really easy to comfort.” She first convinced herself.
And then, she decisively walked over and wrapped her arms around his bare waist.
He truly had not expected that he would celebrate his birthday in this way, where the instant he stepped in the door, he would be stripped of his clothes by his little girlfriend. Now there was no way to back out. Continue? It would not be easy to explain himself to her parents… The wedding was so soon.
Not continue? Obviously, the sweat on his palms was reminding him that there was no running this time.
Bending at the waist, he scooped Tong Nian up into his arms, focusing his efforts on, from this moment onwards, making everything become dreamy and wonderful. The kid did not lose her memories after getting drunk. He could not let her suffer any sort of unhappiness.
……
However, the following morning, when Tong Nian, feeling as if her mind was stuffed with glue and her heart was bursting with happiness, hugged the quilt against herself and tried with all her might to recall the memory, only a few fragments were particularly clear. For example, he had kneaded her chest like he was kneading dough…
Meanwhile…
Gun sat on the steps downstairs of the building in the cold, blowing wind. Biting down and crushing the fruit candy in his mouth, he looked down at his stopwatch.
Off in the distance, all the K&K members were dashing back madly with all their might.
One after another, they collapsed in a spot by him. Tears had sprung from demo’s eyes from the running, and clutching at Gun’s leg, he bawled over and over, “Leader, I really can’t run anymore. We honestly weren’t the ones who did it…”
[1]屌丝 “diao si.” This slang term actually literally means “penis hair.” At the outset, this term, with its vulgar insinuation, was only meant to be derogatory and hence, is most commonly translated as “loser.” However, the use of the term has gradually evolved. More and more, it is used in a joking fashion, or even to refer to oneself, as a way to describe a person who is a “nobody” based on social conditions and not necessarily because of faults of his own (for example, a person born into a humble social class, unable to aquire any assets to his name because his normal, respectable job is barely enough to cover the high cost of living). Here, in this context, it’s not describing monetary assets but rather, that the average-looking “nobody” cannot compare with Tong Nian’s exceptional physical assets, i.e. her good looks.