Talent shows were a life-or-death struggle, relying on popularity and strength, so basically no one took a lunch break. The entire dormitory building was empty. A long, leisurely draft blew through, carrying the midday sun and lifting the hem of Song Yushi’s clothes.
“Hello? Hello?” Sister Ming’s anxious voice came from the other end of the phone. “Qi Ke? What happened?”
Qi Ke hung up the phone.
The hallway fell completely silent.
Qi Ke could hear her own heartbeat. Song Yushi must have just woken up; there was a red mark on her face from where it had been pressed against something. Her gaze, fixed on Qi Ke, held confusion, shock, and an imperceptible vulnerability.
A Song Yushi like this was breathtakingly beautiful.
“You…” Song Yushi spoke first. She tried desperately to suppress her emotions, but a slight tremble still escaped her usually languid voice. “This is what you were hiding from me?”
Qi Ke nodded with difficulty. “Actually…”
“Thank you.” Song Yushi leaned her head against the doorframe. She lowered her eyes wearily, her long eyelashes fluttering like a butterfly’s wings. “I’ve been so tired lately, I really don’t have the energy to deal with these things. Thank you.”
Qi Ke was shocked.
Was the Captain… so angry she’d gone silly?
Qi Ke said weakly, “Yushi, you…”
“I shouldn’t have come out to eavesdrop on your call,” Song Yushi interrupted Qi Ke again. She straightened up, pushed the door open, and walked back inside. “I just thought you were being sneaky and acting a little strange.”
“Oh.” Song Yushi suddenly stopped and turned around, coming face-to-face with Qi Ke, who was right behind her. They were closer than a safe distance, close enough to be ambiguous. Both of them froze.
Song Yushi’s mind went blank, and she forgot what she was going to say.
“Captain.” Qi Ke licked her lips. Her warm breath brushed against Song Yushi’s face, a ticklish sensation that felt like it was pressing against the very tip of her heart. She asked, “You… what did you want to say?”
Song Yushi snapped back to her senses and took two steps back.
As her awareness returned, she let out an “oh” and finished what she hadn’t said earlier. “Next time you’re making a secret call you don’t want me to hear, go a little farther away.”
Qi Ke: “…”
Was this really the time to be saying that!
Qi Ke was still standing there, thunderstruck, while Song Yushi had already lain back down on the bed. With her back to Qi Ke, facing the wall, her slender figure somehow managed to look pitiful and moving.
Qi Ke hesitated for a moment, then took off her shoes and got onto Song Yushi’s bed. She lay on her side and wrapped her arms around Song Yushi’s shoulders.
Song Yushi’s back stiffened, but she didn’t push her away.
“Yushi.” Qi Ke rested her chin on Song Yushi’s shoulder. “Don’t force yourself to hold on. Please, please don’t pretend to be strong, at least not in front of me.”
Song Yushi was silent for a moment, then changed the subject. “No wonder the staff member was looking at me strangely. He believed it, didn’t he?”
“Aren’t people like that nowadays? They don’t need to understand the whole story. A few words online can stir things up, and then they can tap away on their keyboards to defend what they believe is justice.” A sarcastic smile touched Qi Ke’s lips. “These people, they love to create gods, and they also love to pull those gods down from their pedestals. They love to prove that the gods are just as filthy and vulgar as they are. That’s the only way for them, hiding in their stinking gutters, to find some sense of existence in this world.”
“…I’m not a god.”
“It’s just a metaphor,” Qi Ke said with a smile, then added with a hum, “But you are my little fairy.”
“…”
“So don’t worry about what they think. Uh, that sounds familiar.”
“I used to say that to you often.”
“…And I never listened,” Qi Ke said, ashamed.
Song Yushi gloomily continued to expose her dark past. “Not only did you not listen, you also opened eight hundred sock puppet accounts to argue with haters. Arguing with your own haters wasn’t enough; you also went after my anti-fans. In the end, you were put on the anti-fan watch list by both fanbases.”
Qi Ke: “…” Please, don’t say any more!
Song Yushi smiled silently.
If she had known about this from the beginning, she probably would have been angry. To be accused of something she hadn’t done, to be labeled—the malice from someone she had once spent every day with would have been even harder to accept, not to mention having to endure the online discussions and speculation. But now… It’s okay now, Song Yushi thought.
Qi Ke had shouldered so much for her.
Qi Ke was the one who had been pampered, born with a silver spoon, and had never really been hurt. She was the one who should have had a more fragile heart, yet she had resolutely shouldered this burden for her.
She had to accept this kindness and not let it go to waste.
But she had already said she was fine, yet Qi Ke insisted on whispering motivational platitudes in her ear. Was she going to let her get a proper nap or not?
Song Yushi said helplessly, “…I know. Let’s get some sleep.”
Qi Ke was very sensitive. “Where are we sleeping? Isn’t this inappropriate? This is someone else’s bed!”
Song Yushi: “Qi Ke!”
Qi Ke sulked, rubbing her chin lightly against Song Yushi’s shoulder. “You’re just saying that because you want me to rest, right? You’ll wait until I’m asleep and then cry secretly so I won’t see.”
Song Yushi: “…” Can you please not imagine some melodramatic plot?
“I won’t,” Song Yushi denied.
“You will!” Qi Ke refused to listen.
“I. Will. Not!”
“Swear it.”
“I swear.”
“You’re lying.”
“…”
“Qi Ke—”
Song Yushi couldn’t bear it anymore. She was about to turn and glare Qi Ke to death, but she turned so suddenly, and Qi Ke was so close, that there was no time to pull away.
Her unfinished words were swallowed by a sudden kiss.
Song Yushi’s eyes widened slightly.
A deathly silence fell.
The laughter of the trainees outside, on their way to the commissary, the distant screams of fans shouting for their idols from behind the fence, the sound of someone calling out the beat in the practice room, the occasional honk of a car speeding down the road—in that instant, everything vanished.
It was as if they were wrapped in a giant bubble, cut off from everything, leaving only the two of them.
And this sudden kiss.
And the sound of their heartbeats, impossible to conceal or control, growing faster and faster.
One second, two seconds.
Thump, thump, thump.
“Knock, knock, knock—” Someone knocked on the door. Xiao Nan’s voice came through the thin door panel. “Boss, Teacher Qi, are you in there?”
The bubble was suddenly popped. Her hearing returned, and Song Yushi snapped back to her senses. She subconsciously tried to pull away from the kiss.
She couldn’t.
Qi Ke cupped the back of her head, pressing her down as she rolled them over, changing their positions and deepening the kiss in one fluid motion.
The tip of her tongue swept over soft lips. The scorching, passionate kiss was overwhelming, easily prying open Song Yushi’s teeth and driving straight in, sliding over the sensitive roof of her mouth and sending a shiver through her.
The dormitory bed was narrow, already crowded with two people. With the slight movement, it let out an unbearable creak.
“Boss?” Xiao Nan, outside the door, seemed to have heard the noise. She pushed the door slightly, then knocked again. “The director asked me to get you. It’s time to prepare for the recording.”
Adrenaline soared in the forbidden atmosphere.
Qi Ke’s hand on the back of Song Yushi’s head gradually slid down to her earlobe, which she pinched lightly. Her muffled words mixed with the kiss. “So hot.”
Then it slid further down.
Song Yushi lay on the bed, her usually placid features rendered exceptionally beautiful by desire. The shame of potentially being discovered at any moment intertwined with lust. A sweet moan escaped her swollen, kiss-bruised lips, only to be smothered by Qi Ke once more.
“Don’t…”
Just as Qi Ke was about to make her next move, Song Yushi grabbed her hand. Through tear-filled eyes, she shook her head firmly. “We still have to work this afternoon.”
Qi Ke hesitated.
But her collar was grabbed, and within a few seconds, their positions had switched again. Song Yushi now had her pinned underneath. Qi Ke blinked, looking at her suddenly proactive captain.
In the past, in bed, Qi Ke had always been the one to take the lead.
Her captain didn’t show her emotions outwardly and was reserved in intimate matters. She was afraid of being discovered and ruining her image as the cool captain, and she was afraid of losing her composure if Qi Ke was too rough, of not being herself.
For her to be this proactive, there was no other explanation besides being drunk.
But now… she hadn’t been drinking.
Qi Ke was puzzled, and Song Yushi was dazed as well.
Xiao Nan seemed to have left; the knocking had stopped. The once-comfortable temperature had become sticky from their body heat. Having just showered, they were now sweating again, and the faint scent of shower gel hung in the air.
Song Yushi sat astride Qi Ke, stunned, momentarily unsure of what to do.
Qi Ke said helplessly, “Captain…”
“No talking!” The captain wanted to regain control of the situation; extraneous personnel were not allowed to speak.
Qi Ke obediently shut her mouth.
Song Yushi stared at Qi Ke’s lips. Force is reciprocal; her own lips were swollen, and Qi Ke’s weren’t much better. The skin was broken, and it looked quite pitiful.
Song Yushi reached out, placing the pad of her finger on Qi Ke’s lips, and murmured, “Does it hurt?”
Qi Ke opened her mouth. “I—”
“It hurts. It must hurt.” Song Yushi spoke from experience. “Because I’m often like this.”
Qi Ke: “…”
An accusation. Was that an accusation?
Qi Ke: “Captain—”
“Shh.” Song Yushi pressed an index finger to her lips, slowly leaned down, and placed a light kiss beside Qi Ke’s lips. Her voice was low and aggrieved. “Qi Ke.”
“…Hmm?”
“Let me kiss you, so your heart won’t hurt anymore, okay?”
Qi Ke’s eyes reddened. She turned her face to the side as a hot tear slid from the corner of her eye and fell into the pillow. She grabbed Song Yushi’s hand and murmured, “After hearing my phone call, is that the only sentence you remember?”
Song Yushi stared at her blankly, her eyes sincere and bright—the very kind of girlish eyes she loved most.
Qi Ke reached out, cupped the back of Song Yushi’s head, and guided her down. The kiss that followed was natural, losing its initial intensity and becoming gentle.
Qi Ke kissed Song Yushi’s lips again and again, as if she were the most unique and precious treasure in the world.
What was she to do? She really, truly liked Song Yushi too much.
That evening, when the trainees returned to their dorm, they discovered that all the bunk beds had vanished, replaced by two double beds.
The trainee manager was waiting for them by the double beds. She announced that because they had performed so well, Teacher Qi had funded the replacement of all the beds in the dormitory building with double beds as an encouragement.
The reason they didn’t get four separate beds was mainly the production team’s fault—the rooms were too small to fit them.
As for the bunk bed from room 205 that Song Yushi and Qi Ke had slept in, it mysteriously appeared on the third floor of the Qi family home. But that’s a story for another time, and no one knew about it except the parties involved.
Of course, even if others found out, they would just shout, “Qi Yu is real! I’m dead!”
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