The players had already taken their positions on the court. A hush fell over the gymnasium as everyone held their breath, waiting for the referee’s whistle.

The person drawing everyone’s attention stood at the forward position with a relaxed, unhurried air.

Ning Sui still sat with her knees loosely hugged to her chest, her silky pink skirt swaying and pooling to the floor. She glanced toward the court, pretending her heartbeat wasn’t racing quite as fast as it was. She cleared her throat lightly — a transparent attempt to appear composed — and licked her lips. “So, uh… emotionally unavailable. Why do people say that?”

“I don’t really know. I heard it from a friend. Apparently a lot of girls have tried to get close to him and all of them ended up retreating in defeat.”

Before coming here, Liang Xinyue had climbed over the wall to browse the neighboring forum, and she’d spotted a post that was blowing up.

The title was unmissable: 【What on earth does Xie Yichen actually like?????】

Original post: 【It seems like no matter what you give him, he won’t accept it. Every topic you bring up hits a dead end. I’m genuinely curious what he likes besides math, computer science, and basketball. I’m losing my mind lol.】

Reply 1: 【Damn, I want to know too…】

Reply 2: 【Lurking +1】

Reply 3: 【Here for the drama】

Reply 4: 【He’s probably good at video games? But you literally can’t get him to hang out…】

……

Reply 13: 【Haha I only know what he DOESN’T like — he doesn’t like really sweet mango 🙂】

Reply 14: 【He doesn’t like giant stuffed animals or those squishy stress-bear toys 🙂】

Reply 15: 【He doesn’t like people trying to strike up conversations with him in the library】

Reply 16: 【Sob, same exact experience as the person above me】

Reply 17: 【Ladies, here’s a tip! You can message him on WeChat asking about homework questions. As long as you don’t let any extra feelings show, he’s actually pretty decent toward people who come with genuine academic questions.】

Reply 18: 【Haven’t even gotten his WeChat yet lol 【weathered face】】

……

“So the rumor spread that maybe he’s just genuinely not interested in girls. Someone asked his roommate and confirmed he’s not gay — so they concluded he must just be emotionally unavailable.” Liang Xinyue shrugged, still gazing at Xie Yichen with keen interest. “Though personally, I don’t think that’s it.”

Ning Sui said: “How so?”

Liang Xinyue leaned closer, gesturing with purpose: “Look at those biceps — the guy’s practically overflowing with testosterone. And that nose, so sharp and prominent — you know what they say that means… and look at those pants, they’re pretty loose but you can still see the shape. Impressive dimensions. I’d bet the opposite is true — he’s probably the type who’s absolutely devastating in bed.”

Ning Sui had just unscrewed her water bottle to take a sip and nearly choked, spending a good while covering her mouth and coughing.

They hadn’t seen each other for over a month, and she’d almost forgotten that this person could casually say the most outrageous things without batting an eye.

Liang Xinyue patted her back, puzzled: “Babe, why is your face so red?”

Ning Sui recovered somewhat, replying vaguely: “…It’s a little warm.”

“Ah, the heating in here is pretty strong.” Liang Xinyue didn’t think much of it. The match had already begun, and the Math Department side was bracing for the opponent’s lineup change, so she kept on chatting idly: “He’s so ridiculously handsome. If I’d known, I would have enrolled in Computer Science.”

“…”

Ning Sui quietly absorbed every word, held back repeatedly, and ultimately managed not to let slip her relationship with Xie Yichen.

Given the current situation — having just discussed certain things — it would have felt strange no matter how she’d brought it up.

Her gaze drifted involuntarily back to the spectacle on the court. Since Xie Yichen had stepped on, the score remained tight, but the momentum had almost completely flipped — Computer Science was now dominating Math.

The contest grew fierce. The boy’s dark cropped hair was dampened with a light sweat, his brows and eyes sharp and proud, his whole body radiating energy. At the three-point line he leaped, and the arc of his shot was free-spirited and effortlessly graceful.

A clean thud. A precise three-pointer straight through the net.

In an instant, cheers and screams erupted inside and outside the gymnasium. Even Liang Xinyue was swept up in the excitement, letting out a series of low, thrilled cries.

Since Ning Sui was seated on the Math Department’s shooting side, she could only see that tall, straight silhouette from a distance. A warmth crept into the tips of her ears, and she quietly raised her phone to record a video.

On the next possession, Liang Xinyue’s friend dribbled in their direction. After several passes, Math’s three-point layup attempt was blocked by the Computer Science side and the ball came back. Ning Sui had been staring intently at her phone screen, but when she looked up, she found herself locking eyes directly with Xie Yichen.

He’d had no particular expression — his habitual ease and confidence, lips barely curved in that careless, indifferent arc. But he suddenly froze, staring fixedly in her direction.

In a flash of a moment, their gazes crossed across the court. Xie Yichen caught the ball, cast one more glance her way, then turned and moved back into play.

Though it lasted only the briefest instant, Liang Xinyue was sharp enough to catch it. She nudged closer: “Whoa, babe, I swear Xie Yichen was just looking at you!”

Ning Sui swallowed. “Oh.”

“He definitely just gave this side a very deliberate look,” Liang Xinyue declared with conviction.

“…”

Liang Xinyue privately thought that the campus idol perhaps just happened to have a thing for her dear roommate’s type — after all, she was so pretty, so maybe it really was just a case of eyes meeting and sparks flying?

“We can’t see clearly from here. Let’s go closer,” she said, visibly excited, grabbing Ning Sui’s hand and dragging her to her feet. With absolutely no shame, she defected to the enemy side, weaving halfway across the gymnasium until they reached the area beneath the Computer Science team’s basket.

The view was indeed much clearer from here, and the angle for photographing Xie Yichen’s scoring was far better.

Ning Sui scanned the area around them. Quite a few girls had their eyes lit up with phones raised, and some even had DSLRs hanging around their necks.

“…”

Liang Xinyue pulled a Hao Li You snack cake from her bag and handed one to Ning Sui, who unwrapped it and nibbled small bites while watching the game.

But for some reason — perhaps because what Liang Xinyue had said just moments ago had been so staggeringly outrageous — Ning Sui felt her eyes beginning to drift involuntarily toward a certain place.

— Was it really that… impressive?

It wasn’t as if she’d never noticed before. There had been hugging, cuddling, the usual closeness — but she’d never sat in his lap, and contact of that sort hadn’t really happened. Ning Sui hadn’t developed any particularly concrete sense of things, leaving her mind a complete blank on the subject…

AAAAH, help!

Ning Sui forced her eyes to follow the basketball — the basketball, nothing else — and sat perfectly still, feigning total composure for a long while before her breathing gradually settled back to normal.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before the referee blew the halftime whistle.

The Computer Science side was leading by a comfortable margin, and the court erupted in celebration. The players’ bench was on the other side; Ning Sui watched as Xie Yichen was clapped on the shoulder by several teammates and walked off the court, with someone running up to hand him water. He sat down with his knees wide apart, lazily wiping sweat with a white cotton towel.

She hadn’t had a chance to buy water yet, and Liang Xinyue only had one bottle. After saying a quick word to Ning Sui, Liang Xinyue dashed off to bring water to her friend.

Ning Sui pressed her lips together. She took out her phone and opened the chat with Oreo.

She hadn’t even decided what to send yet when a direct message appeared from him first: 【Come to the equipment room to meet up.】

“…”

It gave her the inexplicable feeling of sneaking around in an affair.

Ning Sui first cast a guilty look around her, and once she was satisfied no one was paying her any attention, she picked up her small crossbody bag and asked a Qinghua student nearby for directions to the equipment room.

It was right next door — a white door with magnetic closure.

Inside were baskets of basketballs and volleyballs, and assorted equipment for students in the Western Gymnasium classes: traffic cones, hula hoops, sandbags, and the like. The door was unlocked. Ning Sui felt her way through the darkness and found the light switch on the wall.

But before she could click it on, the sound of footsteps came from behind, and she was swept up and pressed just inside the door.

The door closed heavily behind them. The room remained dim, with only a skylight near the ceiling letting in a generous beam of light.

She was enveloped in warmth, the heat of it making Ning Sui’s heart lurch sharply. Taking the initiative first, she said: “Didn’t you say the coach had you training in the computer lab?”

“I was working on the computers,” Xie Yichen said with a quiet laugh, “but the department called me in at the last minute. Emergency backup, you could say.”

Thinking of all those people who’d been watching him — the majority of them girls — Ning Sui gave a soft, pointed hum.

Xie Yichen tightened his arms, still holding her from behind, though his body wasn’t pressed entirely against hers since he was still a little sweaty. His voice dropped low against her ear: “And you? Shouldn’t you be in your elective right now? If you didn’t know I was here, who exactly did you come to watch play? Hm?”

The warm breath grazing the back of her neck was so familiar — his scent clean and pleasant as always. Ning Sui instinctively hunched her shoulders: “No, I’m just here with my roommate.”

“Right. And you couldn’t even send me a heads-up that you were coming.” He pressed the point, closer still.

His breath stirring warmly around her made Ning Sui feel the urge to laugh. She bit her lip, feeling him out: “What if you rejected me again to make time for Qu Handong?”

“What do you mean, again?” He’d been spending a lot of time in the dorm preparing for the competition lately, but even so — Xie Yichen raised an eyebrow. “When have I ever rejected you for him?”

“Never,” Ning Sui said slowly. “…I was just attempting to turn the tables on you.”

“…”

Xie Yichen’s jaw tightened for a brief moment, then he laughed and turned her around by the shoulders to face him.

He lowered his gaze and studied her face with quiet attentiveness: “What did you just eat?”

“Hmm?”

Ning Sui thought of the Hao Li You cake she’d just had — soft bread filled generously with pure white cream — and reached up to dab at the corner of her lips.

But not only did she fail to wipe it off, the cream smeared even further.

She tilted her face up: “Is there still some?”

Beside them were a few wooden chairs stacked together, and two discarded classroom desks to the side. Xie Yichen’s throat moved in a brief swallow; then suddenly, in one smooth motion, he lifted her entirely off her feet and set her up on the desk.

Caught completely off guard as her feet left the ground, Ning Sui instinctively grabbed onto his neck, looping her arms around him before she managed to collect herself.

She whispered: “What are you doing?”

Xie Yichen let out a low sound. “Cleaning you up.”

The surrounding silence was such that even breathing was audible. Ning Sui drew in a quiet, restrained breath: “How are you going to—”

Before she’d finished, he planted a hand on the desk, tilted his head, and kissed her.

The two of them were inches apart, breath intertwining in a warm tangle, and her heart began to pound again, hammering against her ribs.

Ning Sui’s hands rested on the desk. She went to lift them, but he firmly caught her fingertips. Xie Yichen stood in the narrow space at her side, leaning forward until he had her pressed nearly against the white-tiled wall.

— Halftime.

How long was that again?

Oh. Fifteen minutes.

A cool sensation seeped through her clothes. Ning Sui felt like she’d done up her clothes too tightly today — the fastening was pressing against her shoulders, neck, and spine.

Just as the firm plane of his abdomen was pressed against her leg.

The tile made her ears feel warm, the temperature contrast sharp and stark. Xie Yichen held patient, steady pressure against her lips, kissing and gently nipping as he went, and after a while, the tip of his tongue slipped past her teeth and pressed inside.

She instinctively tried to retreat. He stopped her, utterly unhurried, and then began teasing her in slow, intermittent strokes — almost playful, like flirtation.

They hadn’t kissed like this in some time, and somehow it felt the same as the first time — she couldn’t feel herself from head to toe, her heartbeat too fast to bear, nearly launching itself right out of her chest.

And compared to her own inexperience, she couldn’t understand why he was somehow maintaining such an effortlessly high standard.

— He was a fast learner. Did that extend to this kind of thing too?

In that case, wouldn’t that mean…

Ning Sui’s thoughts drifted somewhere more vivid without meaning to. Something beside the hem of her skirt seemed to make itself felt. Her lashes fluttered, and her eyes drifted closed on their own.

The surface of the desk was worn and pitted — etched with the marks of years of use, scratched in varying depths. Ning Sui’s fingertips curled against her will, her nails pressing almost involuntarily into the shallow grooves of the wooden surface.

Help.

The two of them held each other, lost in each other in equal measure, both still a little inexperienced in their own way — yet undeniably, helplessly curious about the other’s body.

They were eighteen, nineteen. In the eyes of adults, supposedly too young to know anything. Yet in truth, they had come to know quite a lot.

Xie Yichen’s breath came hot and unsteady. He kissed her and kissed her, and then slowly stopped, his hands braced on the desk as a low, hoarse laugh escaped him.

“Dummy. After all this practice, how are you still not breathing properly?”

His lips were faintly wet. His dark eyes were unusually bright, amusement written openly across his face. Ning Sui’s arms fell limply against his shoulders, her heart thumping with warm, flustered heat — yet she still couldn’t help shooting him a quiet, sideways glare.

“I’m not a dummy.” The unfamiliar, charged atmosphere felt like its own kind of push. With the tips of her ears red — and in the confidence that he probably couldn’t see clearly — she replied with perfectly maintained composure: “I just need a little time to adjust.”

“Ohhh—”

The look on his face told Ning Sui that something terrible was about to come out of his mouth. She headed him off: “Honestly, I think you’re the problem.”

Xie Yichen paused for a fraction of a second, eyes narrowing slightly: “Hmm?”

Ning Sui kept her expression perfectly innocent: “You being this skilled is a little suspicious.”

“…”

How did he know — without any prior discussion — to pull her like this, tease her like that, then nip just so, with precisely the right pressure, to make her feel that way?

There hadn’t been any negotiation.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Qu Handong and the others these past two weeks,” Ning Sui said, very seriously.

“?”

Xie Yichen’s voice dropped low and rough: “Hmm?”

Ning Sui earnestly increased the distance between them: “Don’t tell me… you’ve been secretly practicing with them on the side?”

This time, he was genuinely amused into a laugh. Xie Yichen cupped her jaw between his fingers and thumb, then leaned in abruptly and bit her earlobe: “What are you even saying.”

His grip was light, but Ning Sui still shivered reflexively.

Xie Yichen’s eyes narrowed halfway. His low laugh dissolved against her ear: “Only practicing with you.”

“…”

“Come here. Let me kiss you one more time.”

……

Fifteen minutes later.

They made it out with barely a second to spare.

Ning Sui climbed down from the desk, feet touching the floor — and found her legs distinctly unsteady. Xie Yichen caught and steadied her with his arms, holding her up until she could stand properly.

He headed back onto the court. Liang Xinyue had sent several messages asking where she was and made a missed phone call. Ning Sui hastily replied that she’d been in the bathroom, then rushed immediately to the nearby public restroom to look in the mirror.

“…”

Silence.

She took quite a while to compose herself. She redid her hair and retied it, splashed cold water on her face, and finally got herself put back together.

But that very evening, the moment she walked back into the dormitory, she saw Hu Ke’er wordlessly forwarding her a link to a trending thread on the Qinghua campus forum.

【Has Chen-god gotten himself a girlfriend?】

【Original post: At today’s basketball match between the Yao Program and Math Department, the split in his lip was super obvious 【tsk tsk】】