To Covet (GL) - Chapter 7

It seemed I needed some time to digest the visual feast. The forbidden facade had been stripped away so directly that my desire to continue exploring her privacy vanished for a few days, like dust on a wool coat being lifted by an adhesive strip and thrown in the trash.

However, my fantasies about Yu Zhouwan never stopped. In the darkness, she and her pale, flawless body, bathed in moonlight, merged into an undercurrent that filled the crevices of my secret fantasies.

It was like a drug addict, who constantly despises their habit when sober, yet can’t help but try it again and again.

“Hey, Xiao Yu?”

“Yu Keyi?”

Seeing that I was spacing out, Xu Lanlan leaned over and poked my arm under the desk with her pen cap.

It was the last study hall class before school let out for the weekend. I was bored, lying on my spread-out test paper, my thumb rhythmically clicking the end of my ballpoint pen.

“Stop daydreaming. Did you figure it out?” Xu Lanlan hunched her shoulders, glanced at the teacher on the podium, then slowly turned her head to look at the pitch-black hallway. Only then did she confidently lean over to copy the answers. “You got the first question wrong! Mr. Gao is going to kill you…” She squeezed her eyes shut and made a horizontal motion across her neck with her hand. Still not convinced, she retreated to her own desk, carefully reviewing my process line by line before finally nodding in confirmation.

I let out a silent sigh and harshly crossed out my answer.

“Why are you so distracted today?” Xu Lanlan couldn’t help but whisper. “We’re almost done with one test, but you’ve barely started the multiple-choice section. I was counting on you to let me copy.”

I rested my chin on my hand and forced a smile at her. The teacher at the podium caught my smile and glared at me. I immediately dove back into my books, but my hand was aimlessly scribbling illogical lines on my scratch paper.

Ten minutes before the bell, the sky suddenly went dark, and a pouring rain began to fall. The dampness of the rain seeped through the cracks in the windows, making the air feel warm and humid.

Water streamed down the glass one after another. The classroom, which had been buzzing with quiet anticipation for the weekend, fell into a solid silence.

“Did you bring an umbrella?” The sound of the rain cleverly masked a whispered curse. “Ugh, it’s pouring. An umbrella wouldn’t even help.”

The school’s administrative office sent out a temporary announcement over the loudspeaker. Due to the severe weather, students could contact their parents through their teachers’ phones to get picked up from school. The second half of the study hall passed by in a chaotic flurry of students moving in and out of the classroom.

The rain didn’t let up even after all the students were gone, as if it was intentionally trying to ruin the weekend.

The dismissal bell rang again ten minutes later. By now, I was the only one left in the classroom.

I stood there for a moment, weighing my options through the curtain of rain. I took off my school uniform jacket and dashed out, only to be grabbed by the arm by someone holding an umbrella as they passed by. I almost slipped and fell on my face.

The moment I stopped, an umbrella was held over my head.

I instinctively pulled my arm away from Yu Zhouwan. By the time my mind caught up to my body’s reaction, there was already a distance between us.

Drops of water from Yu Zhouwan’s hair were dripping onto the front of her shirt. Little spots of mud had splattered onto her white sneakers and ankles.

She took a step forward, a splashing sound as her foot landed in a puddle. She tilted the umbrella slightly in my direction.

“Dad is waiting at the school gate. He drove to pick us up,” she said, not coming any closer. She looked directly into my eyes, half of her shoulder and back exposed to the rain. Drops of water from the tip of her umbrella had made her sleeves heavy, bunching up at her elbows. “Let’s go.”

I wrapped my arm around hers and stepped into a puddle. My reflection shattered instantly, just like my turbulent fantasies. It created a strange sense of detachment from the real Yu Zhouwan.

The rain outside intensified again. The brand-new towel had a chemical scent, making me feel drowsy as I used it to dry my hair.

Yu Zhouwan took off her jacket, propped it up behind her as a pillow, and scrolled through her phone. She gave off a quiet, lovely aura that clashed with the muddy scent of the rain outside and my own relentless mental depictions of her.

“You got soaked, didn’t you?” She tugged at my wet, discolored sleeve. “Hurry up and change your clothes.”

“Sister,” I said, pushing the stray hairs out of my eyes. “You still haven’t told me what you took that leave of absence for.”

Her scrolling finger paused. “To see someone,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be in touch anymore, so I wanted to see them.”

“Not in touch anymore? What kind of enemy is that?” I said, deliberately going in the opposite direction.

“What do you mean? They’re not an enemy at all,” she said, resting her cheek on her hand with a smile. She raised her hand to help me dry my hair. “If I had to say, we just have different values.”

I quickly backed away, avoiding her touch.

Every word left me confused. I was certain she and the person named Feng Jia were a same-sex couple. I thought she would have just said “friend” or something like that. From the way they were going at it in the classroom, was that a breakup hookup?

A steamy fog filled the room. I wiped the mirror clean, revealing a familiar pair of eyes, then my entire face.

Yang Chun never really kept tabs on me, so the things I saw online were varied, and I had some knowledge of various aspects of sex, including homosexuality. I had also read my share of posts about the pressures gay women face before and after coming out. If Yu Zhouwan had fallen for a man, I would have thought she deserved it. But now, I felt a little sorry for her.

I didn’t know what Shi Yunya and Yu Hanyang thought. Shi Yunya had studied abroad, so her views were probably more open than some people in China. But she was always so anxious about this little detail, which made me think she wasn’t so open-minded that she could fully accept her daughter being a lesbian.

When I was twelve, before Yang Chun was diagnosed with her illness, I told her I wanted to spend the night at my neighbor’s house. She suddenly pulled me into a hug and joked, “Don’t go causing trouble at other people’s houses. What if she’s a lesbian? What if she tries something when you’re asleep?”

“What are you talking about?” I slid off her lap onto the floor, confused but righteous. “She’s not a guy with a dick who gets horny in random places. She can’t rape me, can she?”

I was just borrowing a blunt comment from some online forum. Yang Chun’s face froze. She wasn’t angry, though. She just smiled and flicked me on the forehead. “Little girls shouldn’t use such vulgar language! What do you know, anyway?”

Later, when she was in the hospital, I would see my neighbor—I couldn’t remember her full name—and a girl with a ponytail coming and going together. The ponytail girl would shyly say hi to me whenever she saw me.

After taking a hot shower, I only saw a textbook in the living room. I tiptoed to her room and found the door ajar.

“Keyi, what do you want for dinner?”

Yu Zhouwan was lying on her bed, scrolling through her phone to order takeout. I slowly walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I want rice noodles,” I said, touching my dry, fluffy hair. “I feel a little sick from the rain. I want something warm.”

I slowly collapsed onto the bed. Yu Zhouwan and I lay flat like the hands on a clock, our heads touching. I could feel the heat radiating from her hair, and it had a clean, refreshing scent.

“You can look for yourself if you want to pick something.” She looked up, turned her head, and didn’t say anything else.

I awkwardly shifted my body like a worm, but I accidentally pushed too hard and hit her shoulder. I just decided to lie down and lean against her back.

I was absently looking at the phone screen, but my peripheral vision caught her delicate, smooth neck. A drop of water fell from a strand of hair near her ear. It traced a curve behind her ear, down to the hollow of her collarbone, and stopped.

She gave me a hard shove, as if she didn’t like the weight of my body on her.

I propped myself up on my arms, but instead of taking the hint and leaving, I sat even closer.

She turned onto her side, her back to me. I lay down about an inch away from her, staring silently, waiting for her to close her eyes and fall asleep. My palm accidentally rested on her soft side.

Yu Zhouwan was wearing a low-saturation teal-blue pajama set. I suddenly remembered a short phrase I once saw in a tree: “When she sleeps peacefully, her shoulders are straight peaks, and her slender waist is a valley.” And the narrow, clear stream flowing down the valley wasn’t from a mountain spring, but from her beautiful skin. When my fingertips brushed the surface of that stream, ripples spread across her body. She let out a soft sigh and curled her legs in, her body sinking into the soft bedsheets. Her sleepy eyes opened and closed, like a drop of water falling from the eaves into a puddle.

Yu Zhouwan’s phone suddenly vibrated. She instinctively shot up and got out of bed, running barefoot to the entryway.

“What are you doing here?”

I had already woken up when I heard the knocking and the door opening. I ran my hands through my tangled hair, thinking it was the food delivery, but instead, I heard Yu Zhouwan’s displeased voice.

I perked up and pressed my ear against the door, opening it a crack to see what was going on. But the entryway was in my blind spot. I had to go back to my room, frustrated.

“It’s raining outside.”

“Get out,” Yu Zhouwan said, her words a firm command. “Did I say you could come in?”

I pushed my door open and walked out. Feng Jia, as if she had received an electric shock, immediately let go of Yu Zhouwan’s hand and looked at me with caution.

I pretended not to see the hint of ridicule in Yu Zhouwan’s eyes. I rubbed my eyes, my gaze moving sluggishly between the two of them, as if asking Yu Zhouwan, “Who is she?”

“Keyi, this is Feng Jia, my… former teacher.” Yu Zhouwan’s tone was as normal as she could make it, but I still caught the unnatural note in her voice.

It was a little disappointing, I thought. I wish I hadn’t come out so quickly and spoiled the show.

But Yu Zhouwan knew I was home, so she wouldn’t do anything as outrageous as she did that night. Despite my disappointment, I glanced at Feng Jia and noticed her looking at me with her arms crossed and a sinister look in her eyes. Her clothes were soaked through with rain, and they were dripping onto the floor, forming a small puddle.

“This is my sister, Yu Keyi.”

I stood half a step in front of Yu Zhouwan, perfectly separating the two of them.

The scene felt a little strange. I shuffled my feet, shortening the distance between Yu Zhouwan and me even more.