◎ A Bit Short ◎

The wind of March blew endlessly across the calendar, rolling up dust and sand from the ground. Yet the sun burned brightly and unabashedly overhead. It was a clear day.

At the hospital entrance, Gu Qiao found waiting for a taxi too tedious. She pulled her hands from her pockets and rubbed them together: “It’s not that far! Let’s run there!” She looked at Luo Peiyin with a grin: “Let’s race — see who gets there first!”

From the look in Luo Peiyin’s eye, Gu Qiao caught a flicker of contempt. He even took a deliberate look at her legs, hidden beneath the army coat — his expression saying *don’t be ridiculous*, as though her suggestion were both childish and overreaching.

Gu Qiao was indignant: “Don’t underestimate me — if we actually run, you might not be faster than me. Why don’t we bet? First one to reach that cinema up ahead wins.” As a child growing up in the countryside, she had always been the fastest runner among her peers the same age; and after moving to the city and starting to rush between street stalls carrying clothes and gloves, she had only trained herself further.

“What are you proposing to bet?”

“If I win, I stay at the hospital tonight instead of you. If you win, you can say whatever you want.”

Gu Qiao turned her face toward him with a smile: “Starting now!” Even as the words were landing, she had already shot out from beside him like a gust of wind. The cold air rushed into her army coat, making it look even more hollow and shapeless around her. The short fringe at her forehead was lifted by the wind; in the sunlight, it seemed almost golden. Even the dust her thick-soled boots kicked up shimmered like gold in the light.

There was nothing in Gu Qiao’s ears but the sound of wind. She felt as if the wind had picked her up and was carrying her straight toward the sun. Just as she was nearing the cinema, she couldn’t resist glancing back over her shoulder — her eyes full of undisguised triumph. But before that gaze could land anywhere, something brushed past her shoulder, stepped in front of her, and caught both her arms.

With her arms pinned at her sides, Gu Qiao had no choice but to catch her breath and look up at Luo Peiyin. He wasn’t the least bit winded, as though catching up with her had cost him no effort at all. He held her arms and looked down at her flushed, panting face like a victor surveying a defeated opponent. Under his gaze, Gu Qiao pressed her lips together — as if breathing two fewer breaths counted as a victory. She looked up at him with a challenging glare, almost on the verge of proposing another race. Before she could say anything, Luo Peiyin had already taken the hat from her hand, put it on her head, and slung his arm around her shoulder, walking her forward.

“There are so many people on the street…” Gu Qiao had no memory of Luo Peiyin being the type to openly display affection in public, and she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it herself.

Luo Peiyin bent toward her ear with a quiet laugh: “Didn’t you say someone mistook you for a young man? The people around us probably think we’re a pair of brothers.” The streets here were nothing like those in America. Here, two men walking arm in arm was perfectly ordinary. A man and woman holding each other attracted curious looks.

In the sunlight, Gu Qiao felt very much like an impostor, her conscience giving her little nudges — but the person beside her seemed entirely at ease. He draped his long arm loosely over her shoulder, as naturally as if the person he was walking with really were his little male cousin. As he walked with his arm around her, he would give her shoulder an occasional squeeze. Even through the army coat, she could feel the strength in his hand. In the sunshine, those occasional lapses of control were something she had absolutely no idea what to do with. The walk toward the hotel felt to Gu Qiao like it stretched on forever.

As they neared the hotel, Gu Qiao finally couldn’t hold back: “Let’s split up here — otherwise I’ll be found out.”

Entering the hotel, Gu Qiao did look very much like a confident, easy-going young man — chin tilted slightly up, hands tucked in her coat pockets, walking briskly forward. Her outward manner appeared calm, but her heart was hammering. When she tried to unlock the door to the room, she fumbled with the key several times before managing to open it.

Luo Peiyin wrapped his hand around hers and slowly turned the key in the lock. The door opened.

Once inside, Gu Qiao leaned back against the door, tossed the hat off her head, and let out a long, heavy breath. She hadn’t been found out. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing — though the oversized army coat hid that motion entirely.

Luo Peiyin came close to her face and pressed her shoulders against the door. Gu Qiao’s lips trembled slightly. At such close range, she thought he was going to kiss her. She suddenly blurted out: “The curtains aren’t drawn yet.”

Luo Peiyin leaned toward her mouth: “What do you want to do? Does something need to wait for the curtains to be drawn?”

Gu Qiao said nothing.

“Today is your birthday. Whatever you say, I’ll do.” He walked to the window and drew the curtains shut — not a single crack of light remained from outside.

The ceiling light, floor lamp, and wall sconces all blazed at full brightness, enough for each of them to see the other’s face with perfect clarity. Time seemed to slow to a standstill. Luo Peiyin’s fingers slid into her short hair and he studied her face from close up, as though she were a new person he was encountering for the first time.

Luo Peiyin never once asked her why she had cut her hair short. In the end it was Gu Qiao who, under his gaze, voluntarily confessed: “Short hair is more convenient when I’m out.”

They both knew what “convenient when out” meant in this context. Luo Peiyin didn’t ask why she had withheld the truth when relaying things through her cousin. He could figure it out — and besides, it was already in the past. He simply repeated what he had said before: “Since we’re together, we should face things together.”

What he left unsaid was: right now he was the one whose life was comparatively easier of the two, and so he should be the one to carry more of the weight.

“Trust me — I’ll have more income in the future. When that time comes, you won’t need to worry about money. You’ll be free to do the things you actually want to do.” Telling someone whose life had been upended by lack of money that money doesn’t matter would be nothing short of absurd. But he also didn’t believe that making money was something Gu Qiao truly enjoyed — it was merely something she had no choice but to do. He had more concrete plans, but since the financial conditions weren’t yet in place, he said nothing of them.

What he had said required no response, and so he didn’t wait for one.

Without long hair to obscure it, reading the expression on Gu Qiao’s face was considerably easier. Luo Peiyin’s fingers traced the curve of her ear, then lightly tugged her earlobe: “Where are your earrings? Let me put them on for you.”

Luo Peiyin was remarkably clumsy with his fingers this time — he had rubbed her ear quite red before he finally found the piercing and managed to get the earrings in. Gu Qiao’s jaw had also gone a little flushed from how often he had accidentally grazed it.

He gave the earring a small tug, then studied each fine dry crease that the arid air had drawn onto her lips: “I’ve never kissed you with short hair.”

The two large red droplets swayed gently, sending a flush of color spreading across Gu Qiao’s face.

Luo Peiyin bent down and cradled her face, pressing his lips to hers — as though it were their first kiss. That time had been before the new year, in a hospital, furtive and half-hidden. Their lips had pressed together, nothing more than pressing and bumping against each other. Gu Qiao hadn’t imagined back then that kissing might involve tongues.

This time Gu Qiao’s pulse was no steadier than it had been the first time. She let his lips press and push and collide against hers, building warmth on her lips. He held her tighter and tighter; even her oversized army coat was pressed into the shape of her body. He kissed her heedlessly at first, all collision and forward rush — but before long he became deliberate and precise, precise in a way that matched exactly what Gu Qiao had always imagined tenderness to be.

While kissing her, he began undoing the buttons of her army coat. Once the coat had been lifted away from her, he picked her up in his arms — so that when she kissed him back, she no longer had to crane her neck upward.

Gu Qiao thought he would put her down after a moment, but he didn’t. She grew accustomed to it quickly. She held onto him the way she would hold onto a tree — and she had known since she was small how to settle safely in the branches of a tree. She kissed him back just as gently, the way one might kiss a small wet kitten, or someone slight and fragile. Which was to say — nothing like the person before her, the person who had lifted her so easily.

That gentleness, paradoxically, stirred the most untamed part of him — but he held himself in check, continuing to kiss her with careful tenderness. He held her with one arm while the other reached out to turn off the lights. Only the small entryway light remained; the room dimmed into soft shadow.

In that low light, Luo Peiyin helped Gu Qiao out of her woolen sweater. Her blouse underneath was not the loose sort. While kissing her, he pulled the hem of her blouse free and slipped his hand underneath. Beneath the blouse, Gu Qiao wore a white brassiere with no padding, pressed close against her body. Her chest began to rise and fall, softly at first, then with greater intensity.

The two of them held each other close, touching in a way that was quiet, that seemed to set aside desire — as though the only purpose were to know each other. Gu Qiao traced the line of his spine the way she might stroke an injured kitten — and yet the person she was touching was as hard and sharp-edged as a blade.

At a certain moment, she sensed a resistance in his body — but she only thought her own touch was not gentle enough, and lightened it further.

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