ADOMANIA || zhong chenle

chapter 61

daiyu never had many male friends in her life, nor did she ever have a boyfriend.

she had liked a lot of guys in her life. silly crushes, as she thought now that she looked back on it.

when first moving to south-korea, seon-ok was the first one of her friends to invite her over to her house. there, daiyu got introduced to her older brother; kim jungwoo.

that was probably the crush she had the hardest time getting over.

jungwoo was charming in every way possible, and extremely kind to her, despite the language barrier.

then there had been hyunjae, a boy she met in her last year of middle school.

he was from a different school, and had been the one to take her first kiss. however, they drifted apart quite fast after starting high school, so they never started properly dating.

and then there was also mark (but y'all know that story already).

now daiyu was uncertain about what she could be feeling for chenle.

"anyone up for ice cream?"

her afternoon with the two fellow chinese boys had been really fun.

they had spent most of the time in stores, trying on the goofiest stuff they could find, and forcing renjun into a dinosaur costume because chenle suddenly remembered a bet the older boy had lost to him a few years ago.

their attempts to have him walk around in it in public too had sadly failed, so they'd have to settle for the pictures they were able to take.

"sure." renjun agreed, and so did daiyu.

the town was quite a bit bigger than the one closer to campus, so there were a lot more fun things to do.

surely, you wouldn't just find a random ice cream truck on the street in their small town.

"have you ever tried cotton candy ice cream?"

after studying the flavors the truck offered, she turned to chenle, who shook his head at her question.

"that's a thing?"

her breath hitched as she felt him lean over her shoulder to get a better look at the flavours.

"is it good?"

she shrugged. "i like it."

"sir." chenle called the owner (or maybe he was just working there, who knows?). "we'd like five scoops of cotton candy for the lady here."

with wide eyes, daiyu turned to her friend. "are you insane?"

then she turned to the worker. "only one scoop of cotton candy, please. but i'd like a scoop of vanilla too."

after receiving her order, she walked over to renjun, who was waiting next to the truck with his own ice cream.

"is chenle paying for your ice cream?"

renjun nodded.

"he's definitely paying for yours too."

"he wouldn't."

in her eyes, he didn't have a good reason for that.

"why not? do you not want him to? don't girls like those kind of things?"

"what is wrong with you?" she whispered, laughing at his weird question.

but he didn't seem to have been joking.

"what? don't you like him?"

daiyu jumped up to cover his mouth with her hand, looking around for chenle in panic.

and he was standing right in front of them, sceptical look on his face.

"what did i miss?"

his finger was pointing at renjun, or — more specifically — daiyu's hand.

she quickly retracted it, wiping it on her jeans.

"nothing. look, there's a playground!"

grabbing his hand, daiyu started running, dragging chenle with her.

renjun was left behind, looking after them while shaking his head.

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though daiyu had partially done that to change the topic, she loved playgrounds.

something about them just made her feel like a little kid all over again. but that probably happened to most teens, or even adults.

"race you to the swing!"

she let go of his hand and started sprinting.

chenle was a bit slow to realise that only one of the two swings was in a good condition, as the other one's rope had ripped.

and so it happened that daiyu arrived there first, happily sitting down on the good one, licking her ice cream, that had somehow survived the race.

out of breath, he eventually got there too.

stepping closer to the swing, he took a hold of the rope, pulling the swing a little closer to him.

"i let you win."

but daiyu was still grinning.

"no, you didn't. you're just slow."

"y'all do realise that you could've just left me at school if you were going to ignore me anyway, right?"

the two turned to the right — where the voice had come from —, to see renjun standing there.

he didn't look very upset though, considering his words.

chenle let go of the swing, not very comfortable with the fact that renjun had just witnessed their little moment.

"you're just jealous."

"that's right. i should just get a girlfriend of my own."

daiyu hated the way the third year was eyeing her while saying that, but she didn't dare correct him yet.

she wanted to see if chenle would do it first.

"you really think anyone would want to date you?"

now maybe she was being delusional, but her stomach did a little flip at the realisation.

'he didn't deny it.'

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anyone remember amusement park boy?