Easier said than done, but when they were both lying in the same bed, easy mode instantly switched to hell mode.
Both lay there, bodies stiff. If not for the warmth of the blankets, Chi Shuo would have suspected she was already dead cold.
Chi Shuo liked bigger beds. One of the main conditions when she first chose her current rental was that the bed was large enough. For her, two meters wide was plenty.
She hadn’t expected it to be this useful now. He Lindi lay far off to her right. If she didn’t know for sure someone was beside her, it would seem like no one was there at all.
The lights were off, the bedroom enveloped in darkness. Chi Shuo’s curtains were drawn tightly, letting in no light. It was also very quiet, so quiet that even with about a meter between them, she could hear the other’s breathing.
After an unknown amount of time, unsure if He Lindi was asleep, Chi Shuo gently turned over, her back facing He Lindi.
Just as she finished the movement, He Lindi’s voice broke the silence. She said, “Turning over isn’t good for sleep.”
Chi Shuo’s left arm was still bent under her head. Hearing He Lindi, she didn’t know why but found it amusing, the corners of her lips curling. “It’s fine.”
“Lie flat.”
“Lying flat improves blood circulation, and you might even grow taller.”
“You’re already shorter than me.”
“…” Chi Shuo obediently returned to lying flat, then retorted somewhat indignantly, “Big deal, being a few centimeters taller.”
He Lindi hummed, and Chi Shuo could hear the smile in her voice. “It is a big deal.”
Silence fell again.
Chi Shuo had no intention of sleeping. She lay with her eyes open. After a while, she moved gently, turning her head to look at He Lindi, who was invisible in the darkness. “Where’s the danger?”
“…” He Lindi’s ears burned. Her lips moved. “Exactly, there’s no danger from me. You can rest assured.”
Chi Shuo wasn’t using the same pillow. After He Lindi spoke, she felt a slight movement on her pillow, it indented a little, because Chi Shuo had moved closer to her.
They were very close, with no gap between them anymore, arms touching arms, shoulders against shoulders.
He Lindi immediately straightened her head. Since the lights went off, she had been lying with her head turned towards Chi Shuo, her neck starting to feel a bit sore.
“Then I might be in a bit of danger.” Chi Shuo lifted the corners of her lips.
He Lindi was about to ask where the danger was, but didn’t even get the chance, because under the blankets, Chi Shuo’s right pinky finger had accurately hooked onto her left pinky finger.
The contact area wasn’t even a square centimeter, but it made He Lindi’s face flush hot. And starting from the point of contact, a tingling numbness began to spread through her body in all directions, making He Lindi unconsciously swallow.
Her lips felt a bit dry. She licked them, pushing her luck: “It’s okay, right?”
Chi Shuo remained unmoved, still just hooking pinkies, her breathing steady, as if asleep.
He Lindi unconsciously lightened her own breathing, then slowly unhooked her pinky from Chi Shuo’s, turning her hand over to hold Chi Shuo’s hand instead.
Chi Shuo’s palm was quite warm, and hers wasn’t much cooler. The two felt like they were roasting by a fire under a forty-degree sun, the heat making their hearts flutter nervously, but this nervousness was mixed with too much joy and excitement.
The smile hadn’t left He Lindi’s lips. She stared upwards and said, “Chi Shuo, I have so much I want to tell you.”
“Go ahead.”
“But I don’t know where to start.”
“Then…” Chi Shuo offered a suggestion, “How about we don’t talk about it?”
He Lindi shook her head: “No way.” She sighed. “Let me gather my thoughts, I’m a little nervous right now.”
“You get nervous too?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Chi Shuo didn’t answer, just felt it was quite rare to see the composed He Lindi, whom she always saw looking steady no matter when or where, actually have a nervous side.
“I’m going to start talking now.” He Lindi gave herself a heads-up.
“Okay.”
“In high school, I wanted to be friends with you. You were in the same class as Miaoran back then. I’ve mentioned this before, right? I don’t know if you believed me.”
Chi Shuo answered honestly: “I didn’t believe you then.”
“Thought so.” He Lindi turned her body to face Chi Shuo and continued, “But I never took the initiative to tell you these things. Sometimes I feel I’m not very capable, I’m always passive. All the friends I made back then were the ones who came to me first.”
Chi Shuo also turned her body. Both were now lying on their sides, facing each other, still holding hands.
She didn’t make a sound, hearing He Lindi say again, “Sometimes when I look back, I don’t know why I wanted to get to know you then. Maybe because your smile was pretty, or maybe because you were good at math.”
“But… you never made eye contact with me, never said a single word to me. Back then, I thought, never mind knowing you. I had so many friends, losing one wouldn’t hurt me.”
“But later we met again. You went to university in the same city as me, we were in the same Yuncheng hometown group chat, we took the same flight back, and you even sat next to me.”
“I always knew your name, I just pretended I didn’t.”
Chi Shuo remembered now, He Lindi had called her “classmate” back then. “And then?”
“And then…”
“Later I realized you didn’t seem to like me very much.”
“Everyone else smiled at me, but you always had a straight face towards me. Your smile was brilliant, but it had nothing to do with me.”
He Lindi moved her body slightly forward, hugging Chi Shuo at the same time. “Sophomore year, my roommate said your school was holding a Top Ten Campus Singers competition. I wasn’t interested at first, until she showed me the list and I saw your name. We still had evening self-study then, so I skipped class to go.”
Chi Shuo hugged her tightly, her nose filled with the woody perfume scent she liked.
He Lindi didn’t wait for Chi Shuo to reply. “And then… I couldn’t forget you.”
As He Lindi spoke, tears began to well up slightly in her eyes. In that instant, she didn’t know if what she was doing was right or wrong. Guilt and happiness coexisted, sadness and joy intertwined.
That New Year’s Eve dinner with Shen Qu, she hadn’t known who Shen Qu’s favorite ex was, until Shen Qu mentioned the person was the champion of the “Campus Top Ten.” Her heart suddenly stopped, and then Chi Shuo’s name jumped into her mind.
Because she knew which university Shen Qu attended, and combined with Chi Shuo’s strange attitude towards Shen Qu, He Lindi didn’t need to think much to know that Chi Shuo and Shen Qu had once been together.
He Lindi started to feel lost. She walked several streets in the cold Beijing night, directly catching a cold from the wind.
Shen Qu was a good friend she had made, and Chi Shuo was the girl she had quietly liked for four years. And these two actually knew each other, and had even been together.
This information was extremely headache-inducing. He Lindi walked and thought, finally squatting down by the roadside feeling wronged, torn about whether to continue pursuing things with Chi Shuo. Besides, she wasn’t even sure if Chi Shuo liked her then, and adding Chi Shuo’s past blind dates, she didn’t even know if Chi Shuo still liked girls now.
But not continuing wasn’t that easy either. She called Ding Miaoran and told her about it, just without mentioning Shen Qu’s name. Ding Miaoran’s reply was the classic line: “Love is selfish. Besides, didn’t this ex-girlfriend say she was going abroad to recover? She only ‘thought about’ looking for Chi Shuo, ‘thought about’ doesn’t mean she’s still thinking about it now.”
Yes, love is selfish.
That whole night, He Lindi didn’t sleep well. She fell asleep as soon as she got home the next day. Luckily, she had set an alarm beforehand, because she wanted to pick Chi Shuo up from work.
Maybe Shen Qu was right, switching careers to become an actress wasn’t impossible for her, because when she saw Chi Shuo, she could hide her sadness very well.
She began to test if Chi Shuo really liked her. She wanted Chi Shuo to hug her, to take care of her when she was sick, just to confirm that Chi Shuo held no lingering feelings for Shen Qu now, but liked her instead.
Once she confirmed it, she wouldn’t let go.
And she quickly became 100% certain that Chi Shuo liked her too.
Chi Shuo wanted her to hold her hand. Chi Shuo’s attention during the movie was basically entirely on her. And on that cold winter night, Chi Shuo had hugged her.
He Lindi thought at the time, if Shen Qu came back to pursue Chi Shuo again, she would definitely rise to the challenge, see if it would be a rekindled old flame or a new beginning.
But then Shen Qu called and said those things to her. He Lindi knew those words weren’t meant for her, but for the two of them, excluding Chi Shuo.
They hadn’t known each other long, but their tacit understanding was comparable to friends who had known each other for ten years.
He Lindi stopped after saying “couldn’t forget you.” She tried hard to hold back her tears, but Chi Shuo still noticed her changed emotions.
Chi Shuo panicked a little. “What’s wrong?” She was nervous, raising her hands to cup He Lindi’s smooth face. “Do you need me to turn on the light?”
“No need.” He Lindi shook her head. She placed her right hand over the back of Chi Shuo’s hand, then took a deep breath, calming her emotions.
Chi Shuo pursed her lips, wanting to say something, but He Lindi spoke again.
“I told you before, because my family found out about me dating Ding Miaoran, even later when I met a girl who made my heart flutter, I didn’t dare tell her I liked her.”
“But that ‘other person,’ after that, was only you.”
He Lindi’s voice had become increasingly nasal. Chi Shuo heard her whisper again, “I like you, like you enough that I’m willing to be brave, willing to tell you how I feel.”
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