Extra 7: IF Childhood Friends (Part 1)

Zhu Zhixi had been very troubled lately.

In his family of four, his father was an Alpha, his mother was an Omega, and his older brother had also differentiated into a top-tier Alpha in middle school. Therefore, he had always thought he would be an A as well, but the result was a far cry from his expectations. He differentiated into a Beta.

Fine. At least Betas had peace and quiet. Otherwise, smelling all sorts of pheromones in class every day would give him a splitting headache. Zhu Zhixi thought to himself.

But he didn’t expect that being a Beta would bring him even more trouble. Ever since he differentiated, his pursuers suddenly emerged in droves, and they were of all genders. People from other classes and even other grades would watch him through the window during class. Sometimes during gym class, someone would inexplicably shout his name from outside the sports field to jeer.

This caused considerable trouble in his life. After mulling it over for several days, Zhu Zhixi finally came up with an excellent solution.

On the weekend, he woke up bright and early and went to the villa next door. He familiarly scanned his face to open the main gate, greeted the gardener who was watering the flowers, and slipped directly from the garden to the floor-to-ceiling glass door of a room on the first floor. The curtains in the room were drawn tightly, without a single gap.

Without another word, he started banging on the glass. Three minutes later, the curtains were swished open, and the person inside, wearing pajamas, had a resentful look on his face.

Zhu Zhixi returned it with a very brilliant smile.

“I refuse.” After hearing what he said, Fu Rangyi fell right back onto the bed and pulled the covers over his head, planning to catch up on sleep.

“Why?” Zhu Zhixi took off his shoes, climbed directly onto the bed, and started tugging at his blanket, trying to act cute and even resorting to using his childhood nickname. “Please, Nian Nian~”

“Don’t call me that,” Fu Rangyi’s voice was muffled by the blanket.

“Then what should I call you?” Zhu Zhixi shook him vigorously, his whole body lying on the mound of the blanket. “Bro, can I call you bro? Please.”

Fu Rangyi was unmoved. “Your brother lives next door. Wrong place.”

“Can’t you just help me?” Zhu Zhixi was full of grievances. “I really don’t want to be harassed anymore. Both my homeroom teacher and the dean of students have talked to me, but what does this have to do with me?”

The person under the blanket was quiet for a moment, then finally sighed helplessly, pushed him aside, and sat up. “So why me?”

“Because we grew up together! Who else would I ask?” Zhu Zhixi knew Fu Rangyi best; this person was easy to persuade with flattery. So he rushed to pile on the nice words first. “And you’re different from others. You’re well-behaved, and no one knows what your pheromones smell like, so you don’t even need to show your face.”

Hearing this, Fu Rangyi raised an eyebrow, staring at Zhu Zhixi with a scrutinizing gaze and repeating, “Don’t need to show my face.”

Zhu Zhixi nodded repeatedly. “It’s very simple. You just need to put some of your pheromones on me every day to let them know I’m taken. That way, everyone will back off, and that’ll be it.”

Fu Rangyi gave a cold laugh and got out of bed to wash up in the bathroom. “Are you using me as pepper spray?”

“You have such a way with words,” Zhu Zhixi also chased after him, leaning on the bathroom door with a grin. “Most importantly, I don’t trust anyone else.”

Fu Rangyi silently brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth, and washed his face.

“It’s not easy for us Betas to get pheromones on us. It requires at least some hugging. I don’t trust other people. What if they start to actually like me while we’re pretending?” Zhu Zhixi said with a cheeky smile, tilting his head and moving closer to Fu Rangyi. “You definitely won’t.”

Fu Rangyi paused his movements. After a few seconds, he straightened up, wiped his face, and coldly refused, “I’m a high school senior. I’m very busy. I don’t have time to act with you.”

“Oh, it won’t take much time.” Seeing his refusal to cooperate, Zhu Zhixi started to throw a tantrum. He quickly stepped forward, grabbed Fu Rangyi’s wrist, took off his bracelet, and hugged his waist tightly from behind.

“Zhu Zhixi…” Fu Rangyi had a terrible headache. “Are you a robber?”

“So what?” Zhu Zhixi didn’t let go and even said shamelessly, “Didn’t I hug you like this when you gave me a ride on your bike as a kid?”

Just hugging wasn’t enough. Zhu Zhixi also rubbed his face against him for a long time, making his hair all fluffy, and then quickly slipped away before Fu Rangyi could get angry.

Two hours later, he sent Fu Rangyi a message.

[Bad Rabbit: You have to agree even if you don’t want to. I’ve already gone to karaoke with them wearing your pheromones. When I go back to school tomorrow, everyone in my class will know I have a boyfriend.]

[Bad Rabbit: But don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. No one will know who this fragrant SA is. This is called ‘getting rid of the Alpha but keeping the pheromones!’]

Fu Rangyi was helpless against him. From childhood to now, he had never been able to do anything about Zhu Zhixi.

In the evening, under the pretext of “wanting to eat the late-night snack your family’s housekeeper makes,” Zhu Zhixi swaggered into his house, slipped into his room, and carried out a new round of robbery.

Fu Rangyi was like a cloth doll with no free will, letting him hug him with a cold face. Seeing his triumphant look made him feel very annoyed, so he said, “A reminder, Betas can’t retain pheromones. What you’re doing now is useless. It’ll be gone by the next morning.”

He soon paid a painful price for saying that. Because Zhu Zhixi decided to crash in his room for the night.

The next morning, before dawn, Fu Rangyi had to get up for early morning self-study. He pushed Zhu Zhixi away, only for the clingy rabbit to say groggily, “You’re… not as comfortable to hug as when you were a kid… so hard.”

You’re giving reviews now? Fu Rangyi laughed out of anger.

During the break, he received another message from Zhu Zhixi.

[Bad Rabbit: When I went to class today, everyone surrounded me like I was a monkey. The news has spread. My deskmate said my pheromones smell so good and asked whose they were. I just told them straight: My boyfriend’s.]

Fu Rangyi was speechless.

[Pheromone Rental Center: TD]

[Bad Rabbit: Taken and dating, right? I get it! Congrats to you too, you’re TD as well~]

Utterly helpless.

In the first grade, Fu Rangyi’s family moved to their current neighborhood for school, and he became neighbors with Zhu Zhixi. The parents on both sides got along surprisingly well, becoming closer than real relatives. The first time he met Zhu Zhixi, he was 6, and Zhu Zhixi was only 2, barely able to speak properly.

“Nian Nian, come and give little brother Xixi a hug. He’s so cute.”

“Oh.” He obeyed his mother, slowly went over, and tried to hug him.

He had a red mole on his eyelid. He looked like a glutinous rice ball and was soft to hold. However, the next second, this glutinous rice ball launched an attack on him, giggling as he pulled his cheeks with his hands. It hurt.

“Nian Nian!”

Fu Rangyi was speechless. “It’s Nian Nian.”

“Nian Nian!” The bully of a rice ball pulled again.

This mode of interaction ran through Fu Rangyi’s entire adolescence.

The words “personal boundaries” never existed in Zhu Zhixi’s dictionary.

He could come to his house whenever he wanted, plant his favorite flowers in his yard, shelter puppies and kittens in his yard, roll around on his bed, wear his clothes, ride on the back of his bicycle…

When he was differentiating, everyone else had already differentiated, but there was no sign from him. Zhu Zhixi was still a clueless little kid back then, but he would run to his house every day, asking clingily, “Did you differentiate today? What are you?”

“No.”

But for some reason, Fu Rangyi subconsciously hoped he wouldn’t be an Alpha. Unexpectedly, this also followed Murphy’s Law; he ended up just like his father, differentiating into a top-tier Alpha. Because his pheromones were unstable, he wore a bite guard and a neck ring for a long time.

Whenever he wore the bite guard, Zhu Zhixi would deliberately tempt him with all kinds of snacks and even gave this malicious behavior an ugly name—visiting a prisoner.

At times like these, seeing Zhu Zhixi’s smiling face, Fu Rangyi really wanted to bite him.

However, this person’s existence wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

Due to his unstable pheromones, he lived in a single dorm at school. One time, he developed a high fever in his sleep and passed out. No one knew until the next day.

But Zhu Zhixi appeared. Because he had arbitrarily wanted Fu Rangyi to go to the movies with him, he had also arbitrarily broken into his dorm, banging on the door outside until he woke him up, got out of bed, and opened the door. This series of actions exhausted all of Fu Rangyi’s strength.

He ended up collapsing onto Zhu Zhixi, who was standing outside the door.

When he woke up in the hospital, the first person he saw was also Zhu Zhixi. There were actually tears on his face. Seeing him open his eyes, he embarrassedly wiped them away, scratched his cheek, and said quietly, “I thought you were going to die.”

He didn’t leave that day. He pestered Fu Rangyi, and while he was weak, he chattered on about all sorts of things, finally leading to his ultimate goal—to find out what his pheromones smelled like.

People are more easily taken advantage of when they are sick, especially when the other person is very noisy. Fu Rangyi lay in bed, interrupted him, and sullenly described the scent of his pheromones.

Who knew that after hearing it, Zhu Zhixi would actually say, “That smells so good.”

He actually said: You must smell like a cold garden. Such a very Zhu Zhixi description.

He also said: I’m going to smell it for myself one day, to see if it’s really that scent.

Would I lie to you? Fu Rangyi found it amusing.

After Zhu Zhixi’s differentiation results came out, when he was asked to borrow his pheromones, Fu Rangyi’s memory suddenly returned to that day. He could even smell the disinfectant in the room back then and see Zhu Zhixi’s translucent eyes as he looked up.

He couldn’t smell them.

Zhu Zhixi was a person who wouldn’t give up until he achieved his goal. Smelling the pheromones was something that could no longer be done. He must feel terrible.

Then I’ll lend them.

“I thought you silently agreed.”

“Whether I agree or not is secondary. Don’t you think it’s very late now?” Fu Rangyi finished his test paper and turned to look at the guy who was lazing on his bed and not leaving.

“I told my mom I’m sleeping here tonight,” Zhu Zhixi said, lying on the bed reading a novel without even looking up.

“You said it, but I…”

“I told your mom too,” Zhu Zhixi put down the book and smiled. “I’m very thorough.”

Yes. He had even changed into his pajamas.

Fu Rangyi was speechless. He turned off the desk lamp, walked to the bed, and lay down under his own blanket, turning off all the lights in the room. His movements were clearly filled with resentment, and he accidentally knocked over the photo on the bedside table.

Zhu Zhixi glanced over, leaned in, stretched out his arm, and with great difficulty, set the photo frame upright, whispering to the people in the photo, “Goodnight Ruby, goodnight Snowball, goodnight Nian Nian.”

Fu Rangyi had his back to him and said nothing.

“Why are you so unhappy?” Zhu Zhixi didn’t understand. He snuggled closer, his forehead resting against Fu Rangyi’s back.

“Do you like being used?” Fu Rangyi retorted.

“How is this being used? It’s called assistance,” Zhu Zhixi tried to explain. “And no one knows it’s you, so your reputation won’t suffer in the slightest. In front of everyone, you’re still the pure and innocent high school heartthrob of A High. I know many people are chasing you, so don’t worry, I will absolutely not interfere with your freedom to date! I will not disturb you at all.”

Fu Rangyi fell silent again.

Zhu Zhixi could clearly feel that he was unhappy, even more unhappy than before. He started to play the victim. “I get it, you just hate me.”

Fu Rangyi still didn’t speak.

“You weren’t like this when we were little. People really do change as they grow up.” Zhu Zhixi pretended to be aggrieved for a while, then tried to awaken a certain Alpha’s conscience with their childhood bond. “I’ve loved sleeping with you since we were little. You’re cool to the touch and smell so good. There’s this trendy thing now called ‘A bei bei.’ Brother Rangyi, I think you’re my A bei bei.”

Zhu Zhixi was running out of tricks.

But Fu Rangyi finally spoke. “I have a basketball game tomorrow. If you’re going to sleep, then shut up and sleep.”

That was a yes! Zhu Zhixi immediately cheered up and hugged Fu Rangyi from behind with his arms and legs. “Okay! I’ll come cheer for you! Goodnight. Ah, let me say one last thing.”

“I wish I were a little octopus. Goodnight.”

Fu Rangyi thought he was more like a jellyfish. They looked beautiful and easily attracted people to touch them, but if you really made a move, you’d get zapped half to death.

He didn’t fall asleep right away. When the person behind him was sleeping soundly and snoring, he quietly took out his phone and searched for the definition of “A bei bei.”

Then he slept very soundly. He dreamed of many jellyfish, floating all around him, so beautiful it was dazzling. But Fu Rangyi was cautious. He just looked, without reaching out.

The next day’s basketball game was an inter-school league match. The school took it very seriously, so even as a senior, he had to play. But he didn’t want to play at all and had a very negative attitude. In the first half, the scores between the two teams were close. In the second half, the opposing players’ stamina started to decline, and the score gap widened.

Fu Rangyi was also a bit distracted, but not because he was underestimating the enemy. It was because in the second half, a certain someone who often broke his promises had finally arrived late. He had nowhere to sit and ran to the last row, standing and shouting.

However, he was shouting “Go A High,” not “Go Fu Rangyi.” Perhaps his voice was too loud, a small group of Alphas in the audience turned to look, grinning, and even ran to the last row together to chat him up, all wearing the school uniforms of the neighboring school.

Fu Rangyi played with a bit of a temper. When the game ended, he hastily went through the motions and went straight to the locker room to shower and change. As he was finishing his shower, he heard other people’s discussions.

“Is that shooting guard from A High crazy? He was spacing out in the first half and then played so fiercely in the second half!”

“The one whose name the whole crowd was shouting? Seems like an SA, so his stamina is naturally strong. Maybe he was saving his strength in the first half.”

“This isn’t the NBA. To play like that, was it necessary… You’d think our school team had some beef with him.”

Fu Rangyi came out with a gloomy face, found his locker, and took off his contact lenses. Just as he took them off, he heard Li Qiao’s voice.

“Damn, Xiao Fu, you were so cool, the scoreboard was refreshing so fast it was about to spark.” Li Qiao bumped his shoulder with a grin, then suddenly changed the subject. “By the way, I ran into Zhu Zhixi just now. Why does he smell like you…”

Fu Rangyi turned to look at him and cut him off in a low voice, “Shut up.”

As they were talking, the power forward and small forward from P High’s team also entered the locker room. They met head-on. The two of them sized up Fu Rangyi, their eyes not very friendly, but neither dared to say anything directly and continued their previous conversation.

The power forward: “He’s a Beta but so pretty. I thought he was an Omega. His smile is so cute, with two little rabbit teeth.”

The small forward: “No way, I saw he was wearing the middle school uniform of A High. Maybe he just differentiated. Why are you smiling so creepily?”

The power forward: “So what? Liu Zhen and the others were watching the game and went straight to ask for his WeChat. So what if he’s in eighth grade? You have to start dating early.”

The small forward: “Hilarious. The key is that he has an Alpha’s pheromones on him. I even bumped into him on purpose just now and smelled it. He looks so cute, he might have already been…”

With a loud bang.

The locker in front of Fu Rangyi was slammed shut. The two players from P High’s team fell silent.

He put on his glasses, turned his face, and said to Li Qiao, “We’re dating.”

Li Qiao, who had already been startled, now heard these three words, and his eyeballs almost fell out. “Wha… Dating? You and Zhu Zhixi? You…”

Fu Rangyi said no more, picked up his bag, and walked forward. As he passed the two defeated opponents, he coldly kicked the locker that was blocking the way shut.

“Hey, what’s with you…” The small forward suddenly stood up.

Fu Rangyi turned back, looked at the two of them expressionlessly, adjusted his bracelet down, and released his suppressive pheromones. His tone was light: “Got a problem?”

Zhu Zhixi, waiting outside, had no idea what had happened in the locker room. He was happily chatting with his classmates. When he saw Li Qiao and Fu Rangyi come out, he jumped up happily, waved, and ran over.

“What took you so long?” Zhu Zhixi didn’t notice the awkward expression on Li Qiao’s face at all, his eyes glued to Fu Rangyi. “Showering for so long, I thought you saw me coming and got scared and jumped out the window to escape.”

As he spoke, he looked at Fu Rangyi’s hair, which was still dripping because he hadn’t dried it, and subconsciously reached out to catch a drop of water.

Fu Rangyi still had that cold expression. “Yeah, I escaped. Took the waterway.”

Zhu Zhixi was amused by him.

Li Qiao stood aside, wanting to say something but stopping himself. In the end, he convinced himself. This… it really seemed like they were dating.

He looked at Fu Rangyi, shook his head regretfully, and inwardly condemned him: Bro, you really went for it. Aren’t you afraid of getting beaten up by that cannon, Zhu Zeran?

The two guys from inside also came out. When they saw Zhu Zhixi, it was as if they had seen the plague god. They didn’t even dare to make eye contact and hurried away.

Zhu Zhixi still found it a bit strange, his eyes following the two.

“What are you looking at?” Fu Rangyi asked.

Zhu Zhixi turned back. “Huh? That guy just bumped into me, and he’s from the enemy team. I hold a grudge, and I was just saying I’d bump him back hard next time I saw him. How come he ran off with his tail between his legs?”

Fu Rangyi gave him a flat look. “Maybe he was scared by your aura.”

“Makes sense,” Li Qiao nodded.

The corners of Zhu Zhixi’s mouth couldn’t be suppressed. “A very reasonable guess. Let’s go, let’s go eat at my house! Li Qiao, you come too!”

Li Qiao glanced at Fu Rangyi and asked with a grin, “Can I?”

“Why are you asking him?” Zhu Zhixi blinked.

Fu Rangyi glanced at Li Qiao’s cheeky smile. “Why are you asking me.”

During the meal, Zhu Zhixi secretly sent him a message and kicked him under the table as a reminder.

[Bad Rabbit: You can’t tell Li Qiao about our deal. This is a top secret between us. Even though he’s your good friend, he’s a big mouth and very gossipy >_<]

[Pheromone Rental Center: I was forced into it in the first place. Is there a need to tell him?]

A minute later, he secretly sent a message to Li Qiao, who was busy eating.

[Godfather (Taken Version): Don’t tell Zhu Zhixi about what happened in the locker room today.]

[Li Qiao: ? Does this need to be kept secret?]

[Godfather (Taken Version): Yes. Even though you’re my good friend, you’re a big mouth and very gossipy. So I’m taking precautions.]

[Li Qiao: …Should I be thanking you for the first half of that sentence?]

[Godfather (Taken Version): No need.]

I wasn’t the one who said it anyway.

He had just finished typing the last sentence with his head down when a hand reached over from the side of his phone screen—more accurately, a fair, clean pinky finger.

Fu Rangyi turned his face. The owner of the pinky finger winked his left eye at him, a playful wink, the red mole on his eyelid very distinct. He whispered, “Top secret,” and placed his hand with the extended pinky on his knee.

Utterly helpless.

On the surface, Fu Rangyi propped up his chin with a bored expression, but under the table, his right hand clumsily moved to his knee and hooked the bad rabbit’s pinky.

After they linked pinkies, Zhu Zhixi leaned close to his ear, his warm breath falling gently on the gland behind his ear.

“Thank you, fake boyfriend.”