That was exactly what he was thinking.

Gan Lan let out a sleepy little hum.

That quiet little sound gave Ye Yubai a serious start.

He jerked his hand back as if he’d been shocked, then sat back down with a dry cough and picked up his book to cover it up.

But...

Gan Lan had only turned around and gone right back to sleep.

She hadn’t woken up at all.

After a long while with no sound from across the table, Ye Yubai secretly lowered his book and kept watching her.

Now all he could see was the back of her head.

She was curled up like a cat, hands tucked in, face buried against her arms.

“She’s so unbelievably cute.”

Ye Yubai sighed to himself.

“Why does someone this cute have to be a boy!”

Then again...

If Gan Lan weren’t a boy, she couldn’t live with him, let alone become the kind of friend he could talk to about anything.

At that thought...

Ye Yubai raised his head

and gazed at the ceiling forlornly.

That strange, inexplicable urge inside him slowly faded.

“Ye Yubai, Ye Yubai. Keep it together. He’s your best bro.”

As a man, how could he be drooling over his own best bro?

What kind of person would that make him?!

Thinking that, Ye Yubai somehow felt a little guilty.

“Sigh. Better do more problems and have fewer fantasies.”

……

By the time Ye Yubai finished the last practice test in front of him, Gan Lan had finally woken up.

She sat up, yawning.

Then she checked the time and jolted fully awake.

“How is it already two thirty?!”

She looked over at Ye Yubai, still sitting properly across from her, and couldn’t help blushing.

“You jerk! Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Ye Yubai looked up at her with a sly little smile. “You fell asleep, and now you’re blaming me?”

“I...”

Knowing she was in the wrong, Gan Lan turned her face away and stopped looking at him.

It was two thirty.

They had class tomorrow.

After a quick wash, she ought to get into bed and sleep.

But she still had two problems left to do. What was she supposed to do about those?

If the remaining questions had been Chinese, that would’ve been one thing.

But no, the ones left were those hateful geometry problems.

The kind Gan Lan was worst at.

She sighed and sat back down.

Picking up her pen again, she pulled over a sheet of scratch paper and got back to scribbling.

Ye Yubai propped his chin on his hand and watched her work.

One look at her scratching her head in frustration told him she wasn’t going to solve it.

Going by their usual routine, she’d be asking him for help any moment now.

And then...

Heh heh heh.

“Ye Yubai.” Gan Lan pointed to the geometry problem at the end of the test. “Did you do this one?”

Ye Yubai nodded.

“Then can I borrow it and take a look?”

Gan Lan borrowing his homework to use as a reference was nothing new.

Usually, Ye Yubai would hand over his test paper right away.

But today, he deliberately took his time.

One look at his expression told Gan Lan he was definitely planning to make her agree to something first.

“Fine! What do you want?”

Her tone was more than a little resigned.

At first, it even sounded a bit indulgent,

like a parent spoiling a kid.

Ye Yubai grinned. “I only have one condition: later, you have to feed me a midnight snack.”

Gan Lan: “Huh?”

Ye Yubai gave a light cough and went on. “I mean... feed it to me like we’re a couple. You get it?”

Gan Lan facepalmed. “If you want a girlfriend, then go date someone.”

Ye Yubai raised an eyebrow. “But I’m so absorbed in studying right now that I don’t have time to date, remember?”

Gan Lan: “...”

Absorbed in studying?

Not dating?

In that instant, the names of several girls who’d been close with Ye Yubai in high school flashed through her mind.

One of them had even been his actual girlfriend.

He’d been building a harem since high school, and now he was telling her he was absorbed in studying. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or feel guilty.

She was relieved that the guy had finally decided to do something worthwhile.

But she also felt guilty. Had she made him too respectable?

What if she turned her underage childhood friend into a straight-laced guy who only cared about studying? Then...

That’d be such a waste of his insanely good looks and powerful romance-luck buff.

While Gan Lan was lost in thought, Ye Yubai asked again.

“So, is that a yes or no? Give me a straight answer.”

……

Should she?

Hell no.

Gan Lan had always felt that feeding someone her own age was kind of an intimate, couple-like thing.

Couldn’t he save that sort of thing for his girlfriend?!

That was what she thought, and that was what she said.

“Ye Yubai, I don’t want to play pretend-couple with you. It’s way too childish.”

Ye Yubai’s smile grew even wider.

“Aren’t you overthinking this? I just want you to feed me a midnight snack.”

Gan Lan was silent for a few seconds, then gave a little huff.

“I don’t care. Pick something else.” As she spoke, she started twirling her pen again.

Whenever she felt guilty, she always had a habit of twirling her pen.

Ye Yubai hadn’t noticed that yet.

But he matter-of-factly snatched the pen from her hand and, in the same motion, took hold of her hand.

“I’m not changing it. That’s what I want,” he said shamelessly.

Seeing him act all serious while shamelessly flirting with her, Gan Lan’s mouth twitched. She wanted to stomp on his foot.

This was way too childish!

It was hard to imagine how the Ye Yubai from her previous life had turned into that domineering CEO type.

What on earth had he gone through?

“So, are you agreeing or not?” He watched Gan Lan’s expression carefully, his tone switching freely between gentle and shameless. “Just let me experience the joy of having a girlfriend, okay? Pleeease?”

Gan Lan took a deep breath and yanked hard.

She pulled her hand free.

Ye Yubai had a pretty firm grip. He’d squeezed her wrist red.

Rubbing her wrist, she gave in halfheartedly. “Fine, fine, have it your way. Hurry up.”

Ye Yubai: “You got it~”

His face instantly lit up with a smile.

He respectfully handed over his test paper.

“Lady Gan Lan, please use my paper!”

……

What was Gan Lan supposed to do with a guy who kept coming up with new tricks?

It wasn’t just the young girls who couldn’t handle him. Even she, with the heart of a real guy, was having a hard time.

He was just too cute.

Gan Lan did her best to calm down and reminded herself over and over not to get any ideas about her childhood friend.

Her writing gradually sped up.

Ye Yubai lay facedown on the table, watching her do her homework through half-lidded eyes.

The longer he lay there, the sleepier he got.

It was late.

He’d usually be asleep by now.

“Substitute x into the equation...”

Gan Lan paused as she wrote.

She secretly looked up at Ye Yubai across the table.

Ye Yubai had his eyes completely shut. He was asleep.

It was rare to see him so quiet.

Gan Lan couldn’t help looking at him for a few more seconds.

Just then, Ye Yubai suddenly mumbled something.

“Gan Lan, I’m not doing the dishes tomorrow... Mm...”

Gan Lan narrowed her eyes.

She gave a little huff.

Would you look at that—he was talking in his sleep.