When it came time to shower in the evening, Lin Zhexia faced a dilemma.
Although she had brought several sets of clothes, she hadn’t brought any pajamas.
…
Whether at home or in the dormitory, she always kept two sets of pajamas, so when she packed her suitcase to return to school, she hadn’t thought to bring any.
She thought about the clothes she had just hung in Chi Yao’s wardrobe.
Besides outerwear, there were only thick sweaters, which didn’t seem very suitable for sleeping in.
Chi Yao was in the living room, sitting on the sofa with his legs bent, waiting for her to finish showering so he could take his turn. His fingers were pressing on the remote control, and he had barely flipped through a few channels when the girl who had just entered the bathroom reluctantly emerged again.
Lin Zhexia stood at the bathroom door: “Could you… Lend me something to wear?”
She added, “I didn’t bring pajamas.”
“…”
Chi Yao’s hand on the remote paused.
Then he got up and took her to the wardrobe to get clothes: “Come here.”
Chi Yao didn’t actually have many clothes in his wardrobe; guys generally don’t buy as many clothes. Winter and summer clothes were arranged separately, and there were a few thin shirts and T-shirts that he wore often.
Lin Zhexia glanced at them, finding them familiar, and could even imagine how these clothes looked on him.
“Take your pick,” Chi Yao said casually, “any one is fine, whatever you want to wear.”
Lin Zhexia asked slowly: “Don’t you have any that you haven’t worn?”
Chi Yao raised the end of his eyebrow.
Lin Zhexia: “Before, didn’t you give me one you hadn’t worn?”
“Before,” Chi Yao tugged at the corner of his mouth, wanting to knock on her head, “what was our relationship before?”
“Good friends…”
“And now?”
“Boyfriend.”
He didn’t wait for Lin Zhexia to choose, directly reaching out and taking a white shirt: “So now you can wear clothes I’ve worn, understand, girlfriend?”
“…”
She should have been more cautious before acting.
Like calling ahead before returning to school.
Lin Zhexia thought this as she hugged Chi Yao’s worn clothes and re-entered the bathroom.
…
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.
But there are no “what ifs” in life.
Lin Zhexia lingered in the bathroom for a long time, so long that Chi Yao knocked on the door: “Are you planning to sleep in the bathroom?”
Only then did Lin Zhexia turn the doorknob, poking her head out: “No, it’s just that this shirt seems a bit too big…”
Chi Yao’s eyes darkened slightly: “Come out, let me see.”
Chi Yao’s clothes were basically like dresses on her.
When she said too big, it wasn’t about the length, but rather…
Chi Yao pulled the door open and saw how his shirt looked on Lin Zhexia.
The girl’s hair was slightly damp, the hem of the shirt falling to the base of her thin, straight legs. The shirt collar was excessively wide for her, leaving her frail collarbones completely exposed. Even further down, one could vaguely glimpse the camisole she wore underneath, the shirt slightly raised, forming a subtle arc.
He glanced once, unable to control his gaze, wanting to look further but also wanting to turn away.
Under Chi Yao’s subtle gaze, Lin Zhexia uncomfortably crossed her arms, trying to minimize her presence, attempting to negotiate with him: “Should I change into something else?”
The shirt seemed a bit too suggestive.
Besides, Chi Yao had worn this shirt many times.
Although it had been washed, she still felt as if his scent lingered on it, creating a strange sense of being enveloped.
Chi Yao looked at her for a long time, finally letting out a light breath: “Just keep this one, no need to change.”
Lin Zhexia responded with an “Oh,” vacating the bathroom for him.
As she was trying to adjust to the shirt she was wearing, Lin He called her.
“Have you arrived at school?”
Lin Zhexia felt a bit guilty: “Yes.”
Lin He: “I meant to ask you when you left, it’s not time to return to school yet. Does the school allow you to stay there?”
“…”
Lin He was truly Lin He; it was as if she had installed surveillance around her.
She certainly couldn’t say that the dormitory wasn’t even open; if she did, she would be scolded by Lin He: “Yes, I’m already in the dormitory. Many studious students like me returned early to study in the library.”
Lin Zhexia spoke with complete seriousness.
Plus, university was different from high school, with more freedom, so the school could be open to students during the holidays. Lin He didn’t suspect anything: “Alright, study hard then. Call me and your Uncle Wei if you need anything.”
“Has Chi Yao returned to school too?” Lin He asked again.
Lin Zhexia: “Ah… mm.”
Lin He: “I thought so.”
After hanging up, Lin Zhexia adjusted the shirt collar, then comforted herself that “she was just wearing her boyfriend’s clothes,” and “it’s Chi Yao after all, what is there to be embarrassed about with him?”
Perhaps the psychological therapy worked.
She watched TV for a while and got a bit more used to it.
But this comfort was quickly broken by Chi Yao.
After coming out of the bathroom, he went to the kitchen for a drink. He held the cold soda and sat down beside her. The sofa immediately sank in one spot.
The same shower gel scent from both their bodies mingled in the air, making it hard to distinguish whose scent was whose. Their scents grew increasingly similar.
Chi Yao glanced at the TV screen: “Cartoons?”
Lin Zhexia said, “Just flipped to it randomly.”
On the TV, the Transformers were battling, transforming in a flashy sequence before fighting each other.
She put down the remote control, trying to find a topic: “You used to watch cartoons with me for an entire holiday, remember?”
That was during a summer vacation in elementary school.
Chi Yao was often ill and rarely went out.
Lin Zhexia wanted to find him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it, nor could she find a reason.
After all, their relationship wasn’t exactly harmonious at that time.
In the end, she took a set of “Dream Little Sprites” cartoons from home, knocked on Chi Yao’s door, pursed her lips, and said stiffly: “My TV is broken.”
Her then-nemesis Chi Yao was quite cold toward her: “If it’s broken, get it fixed.”
Lin Zhexia was a bit annoyed: “It can’t be fixed.”
“Is your family poor?” Chi Yao asked coolly, “Can’t afford a new one?”
Lin Zhexia wanted to take her cartoon set and leave, just let this annoying, sickly boy be shut up alone at home and suffocate for all she cared.
But in the end, she took two deep breaths and said: “Yes, my family is very poor. So what? If you don’t let me in to watch, I’ll beat you up.”
Chi Yao gave her a “you’re crazy” expression.
The two stood at the door in a standoff for a while, but eventually he let her in.
Chi Yao also remembered this: “It was called Dream Little Sprites, right?”
Lin Zhexia: “You still remember? Wasn’t it great? At the time, you only pretended to dislike it verbally, but were deeply captivated by it, right?”
Chi Yao opened the soda bottle cap: “Only you would be deeply captivated by such cartoons. I remember it not because it was good.”
It was only because he watched it with her.
He remembered that summer.
He was staying at home doing problems as usual, never thinking that this boring, dull holiday would have any other possibilities. Then someone knocked on his door.
Lin Zhexia pressed: “Then why did you remember it?”
Chi Yao, as always, deliberately said to her: “Because it was too childish.”
“…”
Chi Yao added, “How can anyone watch something so childish?”
Lin Zhexia mentally rolled her eyes and changed the channel.
The next channel was showing a romance film, and the timing happened to catch the intimate scene between the male and female leads. The female lead was wrapped in a towel, while the male lead had one hand propped against the glass door behind her, lowering his head to slowly approach her.
“……”
Lin Zhexia instinctively pressed the power button, turning off the TV.
The TV screen lost power, turning completely black.
With the TV sound gone, the entire living room fell silent.
So silent that she could hear the very faint “fizz” from the soda Chi Yao was holding, the carbonated bubbles invisibly bursting in the air.
After a while, Chi Yao asked: “Why did you stop watching?”
Lin Zhexia casually deflected: “Because I’m still a child, I can’t watch this kind of thing.”
After saying this, she vaguely sensed that something was about to happen, and this premonition grew stronger.
Her heart rate accelerated, and she unconsciously gripped the blanket spread on the sofa.
Chi Yao looked at her, his gaze falling on a particular spot.
“Although it is a bit small,” he said, “…but the kind of things children can’t watch, you should still be able to do.”
Lin Zhexia, both embarrassed and annoyed, blurted out: “You’re the one who’s small.”
Though she said this, after dating Chi Yao, she had secretly worried about it.
She didn’t gain weight easily.
Lin He also always said she was too thin.
These three words were like some kind of switch. After they left her mouth, everything spun around her. When she came to her senses, she was already pinned beneath Chi Yao, his fingers tightly constraining her wrists, his nose almost colliding with hers.
His voice whispered in her ear, no longer restrained: “Whether I’m small or not, you’d have to see to know.”
He paused as he said this.
Then he released one of the hands restraining her wrist, subtly guiding her hand downward: “Or, you could feel it too.”
…
Lin Zhexia’s mind suddenly went blank.
Chi Yao’s hand had just touched the cold drink, and it felt cool against her wrist. But led by his cold, pale fingers, she touched something burning hot.
And that burning heat seemed to be continuously rising in temperature.
Time began to move extremely slowly from this moment.
She felt Chi Yao’s kiss fall on her shoulder—two buttons of the ill-fitting shirt she wore had somehow come undone, the collar wide open, messily exposing half of her shoulder. Then that kiss kept moving downward.
At some point, she couldn’t help but free herself from Chi Yao’s hand, the girl’s slender, soft fingers uncontrollably threading into his hair.
Her finger joints turned white from tension and from feeling his movements.
Yet he still wouldn’t let her go, whispering in her ear: “Small, hmm?”
“…”
Not small.
But she couldn’t say it out loud.
Before she could bear it no longer, Chi Yao suddenly released her.
His hand propped beside her neck, the two of them barely fitting on the same sofa.
The shirt he wore had also been unconsciously pulled out of shape by her. Then he got up, released her, and tried to roll off the sofa.
Lin Zhexia thought he was going to let her go as he had in the hotel last time, then go shower alone. She hadn’t even sorted out her thoughts, but her hand had already reached out, grabbing the hem of his shirt.
Not a single word was spoken.
Yet it was as if everything had been said.
“I’m going to get something,” Chi Yao’s voice was a bit hoarse, “…I don’t intend to let you off.”
Soon, she knew what “something” he had gone to get.
A very thin piece was handed to her.
“Open it.”
At some point, they had moved from the sofa to the bedroom. She fell into the soft bedding, feeling her whole body burning up. Before losing her reason and speech, she said one last thing: “Turn off the light.”
With a “click,” the light went out.
The entire bedroom darkened, making it impossible to see each other.
But another kind of sensation kept amplifying. Her fingers climbed up Chi Yao’s back, like duckweed in the sea, almost drowning in this ocean. Sometimes Chi Yao would whisper in her ear, his movements undiminished in force, yet his words seemed from a different person: “Do you want me to be gentler?”
Lin Zhexia thought he was giving her a chance to catch her breath, and like a kitten, she softly purred an “mm.”
But he wasn’t.
His question seemed just for show; regardless of her answer, he had no intention of stopping.
Lin Zhexia’s voice finally carried a faint crying tone: “…Get out.”
“What?”
“…Out.”
“What can I do?” Chi Yao’s casual voice deepened, his breath unsteady as he bit her ear and said, “I haven’t had enough.”
…
Lin Zhexia no longer had the strength to speak. Her fingers on his back were out of control, her nails digging in slightly, along with other sounds all swallowed up in the lingering, endless night.