Chapter 37: Can I Take a Photo with You?

During the first hour after the anime convention began, Ji Xu still found it quite novel.

People streamed endlessly through the entrance, quickly filling the main hall halfway.

Coser of various colors and styles moved through the venue.

Some wore heavy armor, some dragged long skirts, some had complex totem patterns painted on their faces, and others wore fluffy animal ears atop their heads.

Bright lights shone on these meticulously crafted costumes and makeup, turning the entire space into a flowing, living art exhibition.

Ji Xu stood in front of his club’s booth.

The blue skirt shimmered with a soft luster under the lights, while rhinestones sparkled occasionally between his waistline and shoulder straps.

People continuously approached and stopped in front of him, holding up phones or cameras and asking politely, “Can I take a photo?”

Ji Xu nodded and smiled as Shi Yu had taught him earlier, adjusting his angle for the camera and striking a few simple, appealing poses.

For the first dozen or so people, he found it quite interesting.

Before each photo, he would slightly adjust the skirt and wig to make himself look more natural.

However, as the crowd grew larger, he realized the smile on his face had frozen into a fixed arch, and his cheek muscles began to feel a bit sore.

Among the passing crowd, there were indeed many attractive cosers.

Some wore dark robes with silver-white hair falling to their waists; others wore golden feathers with a pair of spread wings; some had symmetrical crimson patterns painted on their faces, with sharp eyeliner extending past the corners of their eyes.

Ji Xu’s gaze occasionally drifted over these striking individuals, silently admiring them with a thought of “they look way too good,” before turning back to face the next tourist holding up a phone, waiting for him to look at the lens.

After standing for about forty minutes, his feet began to ache.

Although the material of the blue dress was light, its form-fitting cut restricted his movement around his waist and back when standing.

He couldn’t shift his center of gravity freely like usual and had to maintain an upright posture most of the time.

The tight waist became especially noticeable after eating.

Having had two steam buns in the morning, the pressure from the cinched fabric now made him feel like his digestion had slowed down.

Taking advantage of a brief gap between two visitors, he bent slightly to relax his knees before straightening up again, forcing the smile back onto his face.

Shi Yu walked up beside him, handed him an opened bottle of mineral water, and whispered in his ear, “Hang in there a bit longer. Once the organizer’s main event starts, the crowd will thin out and you can take a quick break.”

His voice was kept very low, audible only to Ji Xu, carrying the comforting tone of an experienced veteran who understood how exhausted he was.

Ji Xu took a sip of water, nodded, screwed the cap back on, handed it back to Shi Yu, and stood tall once more.

Just as he was adjusting the length of his shoulder straps, his eyes casually scanned the crowd, and he froze entirely.

In that direction, diagonal from the main entrance, someone walking through the crowd toward him was wearing a loose dark gray thin jacket and black trousers.

Tall with broad shoulders, his gait was relaxed and natural, and the contour of his jawline was the exact shape Ji Xu saw every day in their dorm room.

Ji Xu’s eyes widened dramatically, and he looked carefully to confirm—it really was Yuan Hanfei.

Yuan Hanfei was walking straight toward him, his eyes scanning the crowd with a clear destination in mind, which was obviously right where Ji Xu was standing.

Ji Xu’s first instinct was to hide.

He quickly shifted two steps to the side, ducking behind Shi Yu, bending down slightly in an attempt to use Shi Yu as a shield.

However, the skirt had volume.

The blue fabric spread out behind him into a small fan-shaped area, and together with the silhouette of the gradient long wig and headpiece, a large portion of his profile and upper body remained completely exposed.

Besides, Shi Yu was slightly shorter than Ji Xu and couldn’t block him at all.

Sensing the movement behind him, Shi Yu turned around in confusion and looked at him: “What’s wrong?”

Ji Xu watched Yuan Hanfei step closer over Shi Yu’s shoulder.

With only seven or eight meters left, his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

He felt that being seen like this by an acquaintance was utterly embarrassing—the dress, the wig, the makeup, the eyeliner—it was completely different from his usual bare-faced look in a T-shirt and shorts.

He subconsciously wanted to find a hole in the ground to crawl into, but surrounded by people and display boards, there was nowhere to hide.

His lips moved, forcing out a squeezed voice: “Nothing…”

Yuan Hanfei had already walked up to him.

Stopping a step away, he looked down at the fully dressed-up Ji Xu, scanning him from head to toe—the blue dress, the streaming rhinestones at the waist, the small blue flowers on the skirt, the trailing long wig, the slightly upturned eyeliner, and the faint layer of shimmer on his aegyo sal.

His expression shifted from a trace of uncertainty upon approaching to a knowing realization.

The corners of his mouth slowly curled up: “Can I take a photo with you?”

Ji Xu opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Shi Yu reached out from the side and gave him a push toward Yuan Hanfei.

The force wasn’t heavy but the direction was clear.

Ji Xu stumbled half a step and landed right beside Yuan Hanfei, the distance between them instantly shrinking to well within social proximity.

Shi Yu took half a step back and mouthed to Ji Xu: “Do a good job.”

A knowing smile rested on his face, clearly mistaking Yuan Hanfei for another ordinary visitor coming to collect photos.

Under Yuan Hanfei’s gaze, Ji Xu had no choice but to bite the bullet and put his fixed professional smile back on.

Yuan Hanfei had already pulled out his phone, holding it up in front of them to adjust the angle.

His arm naturally rested on the small of Ji Xu’s back, his palm pressed against the curve of his waist through the thin blue fabric.

In the camera frame, their faces sat side by side on the screen.

Ji Xu’s smile was standard yet hollow, while Yuan Hanfei’s lips curved into a relaxed arc of satisfaction, looking as if he had just acquired something precious.

After taking one photo, Yuan Hanfei switched angles and snapped several more continuous shots.

With each shot, his hand rested somewhere—the shoulder, the lower back, the wrist—shifting positions but never truly leaving Ji Xu’s body.

Beside him, Ji Xu mechanically performed the practiced smiles and subtle head tilts, silently counting down the seconds in his heart every time the shutter clicked.

“Ah Xu, I’m leaving first.”

After finishing the photos, Yuan Hanfei leaned down to his ear and lowered his voice to a whisper—so low that even Shi Yu nearby couldn’t hear.

His breath brushed against the rim of Ji Xu’s ear.

The warm air felt like a delicate feather lightly passing over, causing the tips of Ji Xu’s ears to instantly flush red.

He subconsciously raised a hand and pushed hard against Yuan Hanfei’s shoulder.

Yuan Hanfei swayed back a bit from the push, but the smile on his face only deepened.

“Just go already.”

Ji Xu’s voice carried a hint of flustered urgency, the red at the tips of his ears spreading down to his cheekbones.

Yuan Hanfei turned and left, quickly blending into the crowd and getting swallowed up by various colorful figures.

Standing where he was, Ji Xu took two deep breaths to cool down his face before turning back around to display a fresh smile for the next visitor who had already been holding up a phone and waiting for a while.

Shi Yu looked at his reddened ear tips from the side.

Asking nothing, he simply handed the bottle of water over again.

By the time the convention ended, the sky was completely dark.

The lights in the venue gradually went out as visitors trickled out, and cosers began taking down stalls, changing clothes, and packing up props.

Ji Xu slipped into the changing room of the event area, took off the blue dress and wig, and changed back into his own white T-shirt and light-colored trousers.

The moment he did, he felt two pounds lighter.

The relief in his back and shoulders made him let out a long sigh.

He stood in front of the mirror and rubbed his face.

Traces of unremoved makeup remained, the outlines of eyeliner and blush still faintly visible under the light.

The organizer’s payment arrived quickly.

Qian Chenhe’s phone chimed several times in succession.

He looked down at the amount, raised his head, and posted the transfer details directly into the group chat.

Ji Xu’s phone vibrated.

He opened it to check the transfer notification—three hundred yuan.

He froze.

Looking down to reconfirm the number, it was indeed three hundred—not three thousand, nor eight hundred, just three hundred.

Although three hundred yuan wasn’t a small sum to him, he clearly remembered what Qian Chenhe had said at the recruitment booth when he first joined the anime club: “Every event pays a few thousand.”

He looked up at Qian Chenhe, his eyes filled with unfulfilled confusion and a hint of grievance: “Just three hundred?”

Beside him, Xu Xingyue also looked down at his transfer notification, raising his head toward Qian Chenhe with the exact same look of bewilderment on his face.

The two newly joined freshmen held their respective phones, their eyes filled with the identical question—what happened to the promised “few thousand”?

Qian Chenhe rubbed his nose, shifting his gaze guiltily, and picked up a roll of leftover tape from the nearby table to pretend he was tidying up.

“There are so many people in the anime club. Once it’s split among everyone, that’s all that’s left.”

He set down the tape and adopted a slightly more serious tone to explain, “Besides, we have to save a portion of the funds for the next event. Costumes, materials, props, venue rentals—all those things cost quite a bit of money.”

Ji Xu looked down at the three hundred yuan figure on his phone.

Though his disappointment wasn’t overwhelming, it was undeniably present, like a tiny pebble lodged in the bottom of his shoe.

Just as he thought, “Forget it, three hundred is three hundred, at least it’s not a loss,” his phone vibrated again.

A new transfer notification popped up—from Shi Yu, with a note reading “Labor fee for making the dress.”

One hundred yuan.

He looked up at Shi Yu.

Shi Yu was standing not far away, looking down as he packed his tools into his bag, as if sending the transfer was just a casual gesture without expecting any reaction.

Ji Xu trotted over to Shi Yu.

That one hundred yuan transfer sent a warm, soft ache through his heart: “Shi Yu, you’re way too good.”

His voice sounded a bit muffled through his nose as he opened his arms and wrapped Shi Yu in a tight hug, resting his chin on Shi Yu’s shoulder and tightening his arms around his back.

Shi Yu was caught off guard by the hug for a moment before relaxing and gently patting his back.

However, as Ji Xu pulled away, he looked down and noticed a light smudge on the dark fabric of Shi Yu’s shoulder—left behind by the lingering foundation and blush from his face, leaving a small, irregular pinkish mark on the cloth.

Feeling guilty, Ji Xu reached out to pat Shi Yu’s shoulder, attempting to brush the mark away, though it was completely useless: “I’m so sorry…”

“It’s fine,” Shi Yu looked down at the smudge on his shoulder and waved his hand nonchalantly.

“It’ll wash off when I get back.”

Qian Chenhe packed the last few props into a storage box, stood up, and clapped the dust off his hands: “Alright, alright, everyone pack up quickly. Dinner’s on me today!”

His voice was a bit louder than before, carrying an intentional warmth and generosity meant to make up for the psychological drop from “three thousand to three hundred.”

The people in the event room responded enthusiastically, speeding up their packing.

Laughter and conversation filled the room once more, washing away most of the subtle tension that had arisen over the money.

Ji Xu put his phone in his pocket, touched the unremoved makeup on his face, and thought to himself that he would definitely need to give his face a thorough wash once he got back.

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