Shrine - Chapter 75
Chapter 75
The day Ruan Ruan arrived in Beicheng, the 21st, was met with a moderate rain.
The security camera in Shi Ran's sky garden was off. Raindrops smashed into tiny splashes on the branches, leaves, and ground; even the water seemed to leap with joy. Shi Ran listened to the rain for a while, then flipped through a few sample magazines sent by brands. Around five in the afternoon, the doorbell finally rang.
Her apartment had direct elevator access, and Xiao Lin would help with the passcode and key card from the lobby. So, Shi Ran could have just left the door open and waited, but she was suddenly struck by the need for a small sense of ceremony. She wanted to face Ruan Ruan when she saw her, not have her appear quietly from behind.
The door opened from the inside. Ruan Ruan, in a coffee-colored belted trench coat and high heels, saw Shi Ran standing before her in a thin, off-white sweater and brown casual pants. Shi Ran wore a pair of decorative glasses, the ends of her hair recently trimmed and looking very neat. Her sleeves were pushed up. After opening the door, she glanced at Ruan Ruan, then used her right hand to adjust the bunched-up cuff on her left arm before lowering her gaze to watch her change her shoes.
Neither of them spoke. Both felt an inexplicable shyness.
They didn't feel it during their daily calls, but in the instant they saw each other again, a sense of unfamiliarity suddenly surfaced.
It had been a long time, and they were both very cautious. Being extremely private, they had never said anything explicit during their video calls, mostly just chatting about their daily schedules. It seemed they had never even voiced how much they missed each other. During Ruan Ruan's toughest times, the most she would do was add the two words "Shi Ran" after "good night."
Let alone things like kissing or hugging through the screen.
Thus, any words of intimacy were suddenly caught in their throats. Ruan Ruan bent down to change her shoes, sensing a faint, fragrant breeze from the person beside her. Shi Ran closed the door, and Ruan Ruan's ears turned red.
She reached up and touched the corner of her forehead. She had gotten a haircut before coming over and wondered if Shi Ran would think it looked good.
After rustling through changing her shoes, she mustered the courage to look up, wanting to get a good look at Shi Ran, only to see that Shi Ran had taken a few steps back and was standing a short distance away, watching her.
What did that mean? Was she not allowed to get closer? Ruan Ruan stopped by the door, her fingers curling slightly, her fingertips fiddling together without pressure.
The corner of Shi Ran's mouth twitched slightly. She said lightly, "Back when we were filming and hadn't seen each other for a long time, you would jump up and hug me."
The rhythm of her words was a bit off, tight at the beginning and loose at the end. It wasn't up to her usual standard for delivering lines; she sounded very unnatural.
Ruan Ruan looked at her, then at the floor tiles between them. So that was it—she had stepped back to give Ruan Ruan a running start.
"I," Ruan Ruan touched the side of her neck and said softly, "I can't make the jump."
The two of them stared at each other quietly, blinked, and then smiled at the same time. One lowered her head, the other turned her face away.
The heels of Ruan Ruan's hands touched lightly. Shi Ran sniffled and adjusted her cuffs again, pushing them further up.
"Ruan Ruan." She heard Shi Ran call her name. Standing in the light filtering in from the living room, it was as if for the first time—her lips touching lightly, coolly, and crisply to form the syllables.
The flickering candlelight in Ruan Ruan's heart leaped violently. She raised her eyes. "Hm?"
Shi Ran put her hands behind her back, tilted her head slightly, then raised a hand, her index finger pointing down, and gently made a circle in front of her.
Ruan Ruan's breathing hitched. She understood—it was a common gesture used in auditions to observe an actor's physique. She slowly turned in a circle, presenting her front, back, left, and right sides as if in an audition, letting Shi Ran get a good look at her.
She was thinner. Her hair was a little longer. Her eyebrows were shaped a little more sharply.
Then she held her own elbow and gazed at Shi Ran.
Shi Ran understood immediately. She gave a slight nod, blinked, and then generously presented herself in a full circle as well.
She was also thinner. Her hair was shorter. On her snow-like face, even the frames of her glasses seemed to have been frosted over.
They returned themselves to each other's gaze, whole and intact.
Ruan Ruan's eyes suddenly reddened. She stepped forward and hugged Shi Ran. Shi Ran held her, her heartbeat settling as she gently pressed the back of her pliant head.
The separation had, in the end, bred a sense of grievance. All the suppressed longing and loneliness they had been forced to feign ignorance of had accumulated day by day, weighing down their hearts. If not for a solid embrace to squeeze it all out, they would have soon fallen ill.
Shi Ran let out a soft sigh.
She only asked the person in her arms if she was hungry. Ruan Ruan shook her head. Shi Ran pulled back, reached for her fingers, found her index finger, and hooked it, leading her to turn around.
One in front of the other, they moved as if they were in their early twenties, first discovering love. Amidst the soft rustle of the bedroom curtains closing, Ruan Ruan consciously undressed, then sat on the bed to put finger cots on Shi Ran, who had just washed her hands. They performed these actions without haste, methodical and unhurried, like stacking LEGO bricks. A thin layer of goosebumps rose on Ruan Ruan's cheeks as she pushed the finger cot to the base of Shi Ran's finger.
"Put on another one." Shi Ran wiggled her ring finger, her gaze fixed on the small mole beneath Ruan Ruan's eye.
Ruan Ruan unwrapped another. As the foil wrapper was torn, her gaze seemed to split as well.
They were always like this, first savoring each other with their eyes. Every stage of their reactions pleased one another, not just the touch of skin on skin.
This time, Shi Ran was very slow and gentle. She had been thirsty for a long time, but she respected the hard-won sweetness. She wanted to wait for the wine to decant to its perfect moment, when the fragrance was rich at the nose and the scarlet liquid clung to the sides of the goblet like the afterimage of a gaze.
Their chests filled with the heady feeling of wine. The people in the room, like the rain-drenched garden, were slick with sweat.
Shi Ran was intimately familiar with the shape of the garden's soil. It was like she was loosening the earth. Moist vegetation is best at nourishing life. As she kissed her, she met with the nourished creature, reuniting with Ruan Ruan from the inside out.
The intimacy returned. Only in this way could they prove they were open enough with each other to talk about anything.
From dawn until dusk, they were utterly exhausted.
Shi Ran touched the back of Ruan Ruan's knee as she always did, feeling Ruan Ruan's light caress. She took another long, careful look at Ruan Ruan, and then, she made a different request: "Comfort me."
"What's wrong?" Ruan Ruan lay there limply, cupping Shi Ran's left cheek in her palm.
"My girlfriend was crying her heart out downstairs in the middle of the night, and she didn't tell me," Shi Ran swallowed, her eyes fixed on Ruan Ruan. "I saw it on the trending topics."
Only after pleasing Ruan Ruan did she begin to hold her accountable.
Her tone when she made the demand was cool and distant, as if she were assigning a work task. But Ruan Ruan knew she was very upset.
To see the person you love looking lost and heartbroken online, crying bitterly late at night, while you yourself knew nothing—and couldn't even ask over the phone for fear of not understanding the cause and handling it poorly. Shi Ran must have been suffering, too.
Ruan Ruan's heart instantly collapsed. After what they had just done, her body and emotions were extremely sensitive, making it easy for her nose to sting and her eyes to well up with a slight wetness.
She tried hard to hold it in, asking softly in a vulnerable tone, "Am I not your wife?" They were almost the same words as before, but spoken in a completely different way.
"Are you?" The tips of Shi Ran's eyebrows moved feebly.
"I am." Ruan Ruan hugged her tightly.
Shi Ran pressed her lips to the shell of her ear, her breath trembling.
Ruan Ruan kissed her back near her ear and whispered, "I missed you so much."
"Mm." Shi Ran closed her eyes, kissing her inch by inch. She was comforted. She wouldn't pursue the matter any further.
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