Prelude — 13

Prelude: Chapter 13

Ai Qing straightened her back and mouthed to Slide, “Should we let him go back to sleep?”

Slide shook his head with a smile and mouthed back, “Just let him sleep like this.”

In the end, he slept until Ai Qing had finished the final round. She was swarmed by the media on the floor with the other finalist, assaulted by the flash of cameras. She saw Dt and Slide waiting in the back for her and impulsively kissed her gold medal hanging on her neck.

Slide immediately understood her actions and replied with a thumbs up.

Dt also quickly replied with a smile.

Because of this first gold medal, the Chinese team decided to have a grand feast in celebration.

Naturally the one paying was Ai Qing, because all of today’s glory belonged to her. She followed the team down to city hall by subway, even though her account was in the red and had no idea when she could collect her prize money.

After these eleven people got off the subway, they became very excited. Each of them took out a camera from their backpacks and pockets. They even took multiple pictures with the fountain in front of the subway entrance. They were acting like a bunch of teenaged tourists.

Ai Qing forgot her camera, but since her friends were having such a good time taking pictures, she kind-heartedly became the photographer for the group. She was taking pictures nonstop for each one of them. Slide stood beside her and gave a sigh, “Take it, take it, after this tournament everyone will probably go ashore[1] and start studying seriously. Even if you have the best technique, you still can’t beat reality~”

Ai Qing clicked the shutter and glanced back at him, “Maybe we have a rising pro here.”

“Do you mean Dt?”

“It seems that you have a special spot for him?” Ai Qing looked at the picture she just took, a little blurry …… she could only grin at the four boys who had finally formed four letters, “Let’s take it again …… my hand shook a bit ……”

The four guys whined while beating their chests and tried to form the letters again.

“I like him a lot, I’d take him in a heartbeat, but I can’t beat Solo.”

“Oh,” Ai Qing acknowledged and knelt down to take a photo from below to make four big boys look even taller than they already were.

Because her skirt was long and even though the hem was curled upwards, one side still fell onto the ground. Compared to those four boys making funny postures, her pose was like a beautiful figure from a painting.

Slide squinted his eyes and said no more.

When he first saw Ai Qing, back when he was still a commentator, her hair was a short medium length.[2] After every match, she’d rest her head in the crook of her elbow on the desk next to her keyboard and quietly talk to Solo who sat next to her.

Back then she was only 15. When the game became especially tense, her cheeks would turn red. A lot of fans nicknamed her the “Apple Dog.” Perhaps she didn’t know it, but she rarely smiled in any of the pictures that was taken of her, except in the photos that had Solo in it.

“What’s that?” She returned the cameras to their respective owners and noticed two girls walking by with some sort of food that looked like bread that had something inside, in short it was strange.

“Cold drink,” Dt said abruptly who had so far been a bystander observing the fun.

Ai Qing took a careful look at the food and said, “The outside is toast isn’t it?”

Dt replied, “Un, the inside is a brick of ice cream.”[3]

“Have you eaten it before?” she turned to look at him. While doing so, she took her long skirt and tied it into a knot above her knee, turning it into a super mini skirt.

Dt was silent for a bit before nodding in response.

“Does it taste good?”

He remained silent again as Ai Qing stared at him. In truth she wasn’t very interested in the ice cream sandwich itself, but felt that if she could get him to speak more, then it’d give her a great sense of accomplishment.

Under her intense glare, Dt finally broke his silence and earnestly asked her, “Do you want to eat one?”

Huh?

……

“Then …… we can try some.”