To Covet (GL) - Chapter 8

“Let’s go outside to talk,” Yu Zhouwan said, her tone softening. She gave Feng Jia’s shoulder a gentle push. “Don’t stand in front of the air vent.”

Feng Jia felt my “abrupt” presence. She raised an eyebrow and stared at me blankly, casually toying with the silver chain on her wrist. When she sat down, the tips of her hair brushed against her shoulders. The reflection of the light on her glasses made it impossible to see where her eyes were focused.

My gaze followed Yu Zhouwan from the living room to the entryway, but my feet were nailed to the floor.

She had such a bland demeanor. All the female teachers I’d met since I was a kid had a certain sharpness in their eyes, giving off a sense of competence and reliability—the kind of person who could make decisions on the spot. But Feng Jia was now face-to-face with her own awkwardness, and she showed her flustered state completely.

I saw the two of them get into the elevator through the peephole and go downstairs. I held my breath and opened the door.

The stairwell was quiet. I leaned over the railing on the second floor, watching their every move.

Yu Zhouwan looked up at the rain, and Feng Jia took an umbrella out of her bag, motioning for her to come with her.

“Just say what you need to say here,” Yu Zhouwan sighed. “The rain is too heavy.”

“I drove here.”

“My mom will be home soon. It’s not good if she sees us.”

I regretted not grabbing the umbrella from the shoe cabinet before I left. I hesitated for a moment but ultimately didn’t have the courage to face the downpour.

By the time I came down with the umbrella, the two of them were gone.

I walked aimlessly through the open-air parking lot, my ankles inevitably getting covered in mud.

“I can’t do it.”

When I heard the familiar voice, I immediately crouched down between two cars like a mushroom.

“You’ve already done everything you need to. You don’t have to apologize, Feng Jia,” Yu Zhouwan said, leaning against the car door. “I told you I don’t like it like that. Give me some time. I’ll figure out what I want on my own. Let’s both just calm down.”

I was completely lost, trying to piece together the context. A pair of shoes and their reflection suddenly appeared in the small puddle in front of me.

“Why are you down here?”

“To bring you an umbrella.” My hand reacted faster than my brain. Before I could finish the sentence, I had already put the umbrella over her head. It was useless, though. In the time she had spent talking while leaning against the car door, she had been soaked to the bone.

I took her hand and affectionately fixed the strands of hair covering her eyes. I glanced at Feng Jia, who was walking toward us with an umbrella, and purposely ignored her.

Yu Zhouwan squeezed my hand. I took the hint and tilted the umbrella toward her, playing the part of a caring little sister.

When I came out after my shower, the takeout was already cold. She didn’t like the strong spices and went to the kitchen to get some floss toast from the fridge and put it in the microwave.

A low-pressure atmosphere hung between Yu Zhouwan and me after Feng Jia left. We didn’t find anything to talk about to break the oppressive silence before we ate.

“Yu Keyi, you still haven’t answered me. What did you go down there for just now?”

“I was worried you’d get bullied,” I said, propping my head on my left hand with a disposable chopstick in my mouth. “She seemed so mean. I thought she was there to get revenge on you.”

She didn’t respond to my joke.

“So, who is she?”

“She’s a teacher I used to have,” Yu Zhouwan said, sounding upset. “Did you hear what we were talking about?”

“Hear what?” I said, feigning innocence. “When I came down, I just saw you standing in the rain. I was too scared to interrupt you two.”

She let out a sigh of relief.

“You seemed really unhappy just now.” This was the perfect time to feign ignorance.

“When you have a problem you can’t solve, it’s hard to be happy.”

“So, was Teacher Feng here for a home visit?”

I was disgusted with myself for acting so stupid. I involuntarily shuddered and shifted my shoulders.

“No, it was a personal matter.”

She washed an apple and cut it in half, still distracted and trying to avoid the question. Even when I asked about other things, she gave me perfunctory answers. Her eyes kept darting toward the entryway. Feng Jia had slammed the door on the way out and took Yu Zhouwan’s thoughts with her.

“You said that if I helped you lie, you’d tell me everything,” I said, pouting, as I picked up the last thin piece of meat from my rice noodles.

Yu Zhouwan chewed her dry bread and pushed her bowl of curry chicken and the apple toward me.

Compared to her, I felt like a garbage can, accepting everything.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“The spices are too strong. I don’t like it,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Yu Keyi, if you ever thought you were close to someone, and then you found out they weren’t who you thought they were, what would you do?”

“If you don’t have anything in common anymore, you just drift apart. People change all the time.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head. “Maybe you don’t understand, but it’s like… you know how people can’t see the world objectively? The world you perceive is different from the real world. It’s the same with people. The person you think you know is always different from who they really are.”

This was easy enough to understand, so I just hummed in agreement, waiting for her to continue.

But Yu Zhouwan suddenly stopped talking.

“So, you and Feng Jia argued because you feel like the person you know is different from who she really is?”

I put down my chopsticks and moved closer, leaning my upper body toward her.

“Oh, let’s not talk about it anymore. I need to think for myself,” Yu Zhouwan said, immediately getting up and walking to her bedroom. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. I must have overreacted.”

I narrowed my eyes and stood up, following her.

Yu Zhouwan quickly washed up, saw me standing by her bed, and gently told me to go to sleep. Then she lay down on her bed with her back to me.

The way the mattress sank under the weight of a body meant that another person had intruded on this territory.

“What are you doing?”

Yu Zhouwan suddenly snapped awake. By the time she turned her head, I was already lying behind her, less than a shoulder’s width away.

“Go back to your own room.” Her ponytail holder had slid down to within ten centimeters of the end of her hair, dangling precariously.

The guess I had made from her abrupt movement to dodge me was now confirmed.

“Don’t touch me.” She lifted her arm to cover her waist.

“Why not?” I asked, casually sitting with my legs stretched out.

“I don’t like sleeping too close to other people.”

She wasn’t satisfied with her own excuse, but the words were out, and there was no taking them back.

“Fine, I’ll go to your room.”

“I want to talk to you,” I said, grabbing her hand.

Yu Zhouwan reverted to her usual gentle and affectionate big sister persona. She brushed the hair from my forehead. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“Is she very strict with you?”

“Who?”

“Auntie Shi.”

The strange nickname made Yu Zhouwan take a few extra seconds to process it.

“Not really,” she said, fluffing up her crumpled blanket and turning off the light. “Do you think she’s strict? Maybe I’m just used to it and don’t notice.”

“So where do you go every night?” I asked, rubbing my itchy nose. “Can I know? You promised me, and I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Sometimes, a genuine lack of filter can be a weapon.

“What’s there to be curious about? It’s just my personal business.” Yu Zhouwan closed her eyes and lay down, clearly irritated by my barrage of questions.

“Does it have anything to do with Teacher Feng?”

I could have just revealed her secret and made her feel utterly humiliated and pained, but I still chose to be roundabout.

Before the words were even out, Yu Zhouwan shot up. We sat there, facing each other, in silence for a while. Then she lay back down on her pillow.

“Maybe,” she whispered. “You… never mind. If you really want to know, promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

I turned over to face the wall.

Yu Zhouwan was silent. When I looked back at her, she was again turned away from me, motionless. I didn’t know if she was asleep or awake.

I held my breath and slowly raised a hand, placing it on her waist. The light from the window was faint, making the shadows darker and the light blurry.

Yu Zhouwan’s body trembled. I took advantage of her moment of hesitation and tightened my arm around her, trapping her in a tight embrace.

Her breathing became loud, and she tried to put some distance between us on the bed.

I pressed my face against her shoulder. My lips were a whisper away from the thin pajama fabric and the fragrant strands of her hair.

Yu Zhouwan put her hand on my wrist and grabbed my fingers with her other hand, desperately trying to pull them away like she was peeling off a piece of dry tape.

“Yu Keyi!” Her anxiety was so jarring in the dead silence of the night. “Let go!”

The way she pushed me away when she was trying to hide her feelings was so annoying. Her frantic, unhinged state—she was like an animal trapped in a snare, and her constant struggles made me feel a sense of pity, but it also made me want to hurt her more, just to see her fight with all her might.

“Yu Zhouwan.”

While she was propped up on her hands, motionless, my hands had already formed a full rope around her waist, holding her firmly in place and tightening with every breath.

I couldn’t see the panic on her face. I could only feel the frequency of her soft abdomen’s breathing against my arm decreasing, but the rise and fall of her chest was getting more exaggerated, like a premonition of suffocation.

“Yu Zhouwan, I know. You like Feng Jia. You’re in a relationship with her, aren’t you?”

My nose grazed the skin on the back of her neck. I could feel the fine sweat constantly seeping from her pores.

Yu Zhouwan was someone who cared a lot about her image, but now, she was kneeling in front of me, her pajamas rolled up to her thighs, and she hadn’t even had a chance to fix them.

I wanted to do it for her, to feel the texture of her fair skin and see the tiny red veins. But I decided to stop provoking her. Yu Zhouwan’s body had gone completely rigid, and her skin temperature had dropped suddenly from the sweat.

“I know you like women, don’t you?” I resisted the urge to bite her shoulder blade, simply rubbing my cheek against it.