Teacher (Lily Futa) - Chapter 17

Before “next time” could even arrive, Wu Qiu disappeared again. Though it wasn’t exactly disappearing — she had just taken another leave of absence.

Although the school leaders were quite unhappy with her frequent absences, they had no idea what her background actually was, so those old bastards could only keep their complaints to themselves.

Like a bunch of old turtles.

When Qin Lang passed by the meeting room, she saw the school leaders still in a meeting. The vice principal — the one she privately called “Turtle Head” — was speaking passionately about something.

She lowered her eyes, her expression unreadable. Her desk mate, walking beside her, tugged at her sleeve. Qin Lang didn’t say anything and just followed her.

In truth, whether the graduating class had a homeroom teacher or not didn’t matter much anymore. Her class was the second-best in the entire school, and the students’ self-study ability was already strong enough for them to handle the upcoming exams and college entrance process. Besides, the previous math teacher had been with them for two years and handled substitute teaching smoothly, working well with the students. Old Zheng had also been assigned the role of acting homeroom teacher.

Wu Qiu never told Qin Lang exactly what she was doing, but unlike the first time, she didn’t completely ignore her messages. She would reply to every question Qin Lang sent, and the notebook she carried with her had now become Qin Lang’s personal answer book for difficult problems.

Once, while looking through Wu Qiu’s pictures, Qin Lang caught a glimpse of the word “hospital” and half of a small logo.

After thinking about it over and over, Qin Lang couldn’t help but search for hospitals in the city where Wu Qiu was from.

She found it easily. It was a top-tier tertiary hospital, nationally famous — the kind of cancer hospital Qin Lang had definitely heard of.

At night, Qin Lang tossed and turned, unable to sleep. In the end, she couldn’t resist taking out her phone and messaging Wu Qiu.

「Teacher, are you okay?」

「Hm?」 The reply came very quickly.

「I saw…」

「It’s nothing.」

Again with that light and breezy tone. Qin Lang had tried probing a few times, but Wu Qiu always deflected with other topics. Even during sex, when she wanted to ask what exactly was tiring the woman out, she would be silenced by gentle lips kissing her senseless until her brain turned to mush.

It seemed like something Wu Qiu didn’t want her to know.

Suddenly, she felt really angry.

Qin Lang flipped over, got up, and went out to pour herself a glass of water. She subconsciously reached for a lighter or a cigarette from her room, but there was nothing there.

When had she quit smoking?

She wasn’t even sure. She just felt she couldn’t keep going on like this.

But if she didn’t act this way, Wu Qiu probably wouldn’t even look at her.

That weekend, Qin Lang skipped Wu Qiu’s tutoring session and invited her old friends out for two full days of wild fun.

When she stepped into the classroom on Monday, still riding the high, she looked up and met Wu Qiu’s emotionless eyes.

Qin Lang glared back with a wronged expression and stormed back to her seat in a huff.

Wu Qiu, on the other hand, was a bit confused. This little brat couldn’t be found over the weekend, and now she was acting fierce toward her?

She had quite the nerve.

After class, Wu Qiu signaled for her to come to the office. Qin Lang pretended not to notice and slipped back to the classroom. With so many people around, Wu Qiu couldn’t force anything, so she simply returned to the office and made a note about Qin Lang in her notebook.

When Qin Lang got home that evening, she realized she had forgotten her keys. Already in a bad mood, she kicked the door once and squatted beside it in anger. The auntie’s house wasn’t close by, so she didn’t want to bother her.

Qin Lang completely forgot she could call the driver who had just dropped her off and ask if he had a spare key. When people are emotionally unstable, their thinking ability drops a lot.

Outside, a light rain began to fall, and the temperature dropped sharply. Qin Lang was trapped in the small stairwell and suddenly couldn’t hold back her tears.

She didn’t even know what she was crying about.

Wu Qiu was very good to her — so good that she wanted to possess that person exclusively. She craved that warm embrace. Reason told her she needed to grow up quickly, but fuck growing up. She just wanted to be a child who could be held in her lover’s arms, and she wanted Wu Qiu to stop hiding things from her.

It was contradictory. Qin Lang knew that.

Finally, at one o’clock in the morning, Qin Lang couldn’t hold back anymore and called Wu Qiu. The voice on the other end was a little hoarse, as if she had been woken up, but it was still gentle and soft: “Little Lang, what’s wrong?”

“I forgot my keys…” Qin Lang sounded extremely wronged. The weather was cold, it was raining, and she had been crying all night. She was a bit dazed from all the crying.

“…” Wu Qiu was silent for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll come pick you up.”

“Okay… thank you, Teacher…” Qin Lang patted her own face. It must be bright red from crying so much.

As soon as Wu Qiu entered the stairwell, she saw Qin Lang curled up like a little kitten. Her schoolbag was placed under her butt as a cushion. She was hugging her knees, back against the door, huddled in the tiny space.

Like an unwanted child.

Wu Qiu took two steps forward, picked Qin Lang up, and lifted her easily. The girl who was still growing wasn’t heavy at all.

When she lifted her, she saw the tear-streaked face and noticed something was off with her color. She pressed her forehead against Qin Lang’s and immediately realized the child had a fever.

Silently scolding herself, she picked up the schoolbag and hung it over her arm, then carried Qin Lang downstairs.

——————————
——————————

Author’s Note:

The consequence of wanting to write angst but not knowing how is ending up with patchwork writing.

Ah——

I want to pet a cat. This awkward little Qin who acts like a cat is so cute.

Preview: Tomorrow and the day after might be pure smut chapters. If not, I’ll secretly delete this sentence.

Thank you for reading. Today I also want to be spoiled with comments~

(*′︶`*)