Drifting on a String - Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Looking out from the air-conditioned room, the glass windows of the building looked like colorful, chilly popsicles.
This little apartment of Tao Jin's was very much like the one in the dream Chen Piaopiao had about being an adult on her flight to Beicheng.
Back then, she had imagined that after graduating from university, she would find a respectable job, become a nine-to-five white-collar worker, click-clack in high heels to various meetings, the kind of busy where you don't even say 'hello' when you answer the phone.
Maybe she'd rush through a project at a café during lunch, making do with a sandwich. Coffee, of course, would be essential.
In the evening, she would return to a home just like this one, turn on the air conditioner first, kick off her high heels, and without even needing to turn on the lights, collapse onto the sofa from memory and lie there for an hour or two.
Only after the air conditioner had cooled down the corporate drone stench clinging to her would she go wash her hands and cook.
Chen Piaopiao laughed out loud.
Clearing her throat, she looked at Tao Jin, who was coming out of the bathroom.
She had a face mask on and was rubbing hand cream onto the back of her hands. She asked Chen Piaopiao, "Does your head hurt?"
Chen Piaopiao shook her head. It was just one beer; the effects were long gone. Right now, she smelled of Tao Jin's usual body wash and was wearing a rumpled nightgown, looking like a fox whose fur had been soaked and ruffled.
She needed someone to smooth her fur with their gaze.
Tao Jin sat down next to her, opened her phone to reply to a few WeChat messages, and casually asked, "What time are you getting up tomorrow? I'll set an alarm."
"Eight."
The anxiety that had been hanging over Chen Piaopiao all evening inexplicably vanished, replaced by a sense of emptiness. She stared intently at Tao Jin, and suddenly, she felt that Tao Jin was very straight.
Applying a face mask, rubbing on hand cream, showing no reaction to her even more provocatively wrinkled nightgown, and sitting next to her only to ask what time to set the alarm.
How could this be? The ambiguity and the push-and-pull she had sensed before couldn't possibly have been just her imagination.
Then she remembered Tao Jin saying she wouldn't be so nice to people she disliked, which meant Chen Piaopiao wasn't someone she disliked.
Just not disliked. That was all.
She was spacing out again. Tao Jin put down her phone and glanced at Chen Piaopiao. "Did you put on any skincare products?"
She carefully examined the bare face, so fair it could be in an advertisement—the airbrushed kind.
"No." Chen Piaopiao hadn't brought any skincare products and felt too shy to use Tao Jin's.
"Well, do you want to do a face mask?"
Chen Piaopiao looked back at Tao Jin and nodded. Whatever Tao Jin had, she wanted to try it too.
Tao Jin's eyes curved, but she didn't smile because of the mask. She stood up, went to the bathroom to wash the mask off her face, then mixed a new small bowlful, placed a mask brush beside it, and carried it over.
Chen Piaopiao's little heart fluttered. Tao Jin had turned on the floor lamp, dimmed the overhead light, taken a cushion and placed it by Chen Piaopiao's feet, and sat down with her legs to one side. "Tie your hair up first."
Her freshly washed face was dewy and translucent, with tiny vellus hairs, looking much softer than usual.
Chen Piaopiao reached back to tie her hair, but she wasn't very good at it. It came out loose and messy. She tucked the stray strands behind her ears, lowered her gaze, and met Tao Jin's eyes. "Will you help me?"
"What else?" Tao Jin smiled, holding up her wrist. "Do you know how?"
"No." Chen Piaopiao had never used a wash-off mask before.
With a soft breath, Tao Jin said no more. Feeling it was awkward to apply force while sitting, she simply straightened up and knelt on the cushion. She raised a hand to smooth the hair by Chen Piaopiao's ear, then picked up the mask brush and gently swept it across her cheek.
A tingling numbness spread through her. Chen Piaopiao's skin was so delicate she could feel the very tips of the bristles. Goosebumps immediately rose on her back. Her breathing hitched, and she instinctively held it, blinking twice as she gazed at Tao Jin.
"Is it cold?" They were very close, and Tao Jin's low voice was like a murmur.
She was intently observing the path of the brush, her eyelids lowered, her gaze languid, yet her breathing was controlled. It was as if she were painting.
Chen Piaopiao felt she wasn't painting on her face, but on her body.
One layer was too thin, it didn't cover everything. Another layer. As the paste-like mask gradually set, her wild thoughts should have set along with it.
"It's okay." Chen Piaopiao only answered after half a minute, her soft voice slightly muffled, as if damp with moisture.
Tao Jin tilted her head to the other side, then reached out to hook the hair by Chen Piaopiao's left ear back into place.
No one could remain unstirred by this gesture, because it signified preparation. It was like tidying the bed, wanting Chen Piaopiao's face to be perfectly clean before proceeding to do as one pleased.
But Tao Jin's mastery lay in the fact that her fingers didn't linger at all. She quickly picked up the mask brush again, bypassed the brow, and painted a horizontal stroke at the corner of her forehead.
"Do you… do face masks often?" Chen Piaopiao remembered the way Xiao Ma had joked with Tao Jin.
Tao Jin's warm breath sighed against Chen Piaopiao's cheek. "Mhm, I apply them for the others often."
"I'm very good at it." After she spoke, her lips curved into a smile. It was a fleeting smile, one that almost didn't register in Chen Piaopiao's ears.
Chen Piaopiao couldn't take it anymore.
Her gaze heavy, she stared at Tao Jin's collarbone. She was still wearing the same tight-fitting utility tank top from before. Because she was kneeling below her now, Chen Piaopiao could easily see the rise and fall beneath her collarbones.
The fullness and the hollows seemed premeditated, a symphony of sensual sights and sounds.
There it was again, the uncontrollable fantasy.
She wanted to reach out, to push aside her clothes and see the unrestrained fairness of her skin, and the peaks that stood erect—to see if they, too, were so upright.
Just as she was when she dealt with everyone—so innocent and upright.
"All done." Tao Jin pulled back, set the mask bowl down, and smiled, a smile as clean as early spring.
Chen Piaopiao took a deep breath. "Thank you."
"Fifteen minutes," Tao Jin said, tapping her phone to show Chen Piaopiao the timer. "Then go wash it off."
"Okay."
Tao Jin stood up, stretched her stiff shoulders, said goodnight, and went into her room to sleep.
But for Chen Piaopiao, this night was not as innocent as the ones before. She tossed and turned, restless. Finally, lying on her side in Tao Jin's bed, she blushed and let her hand drift downward.
An eighteen-year-old's gasps are reserved and faint; an eighteen-year-old's fantasies are lawless.
She bit down on the corner of the duvet, experiencing for the first time her body's lack of control, using it to vent her mind's lack of control.
This night was a secret, one that vanished before the light of dawn.
Chen Piaopiao and Tao Jin returned to campus together, and back to their studies. Chen Piaopiao attended her classes while planning a travel itinerary for her grandma's trip to Beicheng, and then counted down the days until the holiday.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Grandma arrived on the afternoon of September 30th. Tao Jin didn't have classes either, so she went with Chen Piaopiao to the airport to pick her up.
The two of them first took a taxi to Sanmuqiao, then rode the airport express rail, which got them to Terminal 3 in twenty-five minutes.
Chen Piaopiao was a little giddy with excitement, and Tao Jin could tell. Usually, she walked with a lazy gait, but today she was bobbing her head and darting ahead of Tao Jin, as if trying to lead the way.
Tao Jin was wearing a casual long dress with a dolman-sleeve shawl-like blouse over it, and sneakers. She followed behind Chen Piaopiao.
Chen Piaopiao wove through the crowd of people waiting for arrivals, found a small spot for herself, and gripped the railing with both hands, unable to stop herself from looking around.
She was a little worried. Her grandma's eyesight wasn't good, and she was in an unfamiliar place. What if she got lost?
But she didn't say anything to Tao Jin, only kept looking up at the changing information on the arrivals board, occasionally glancing down to reconfirm the flight number in WeChat.
Travelers pushing luggage carts trickled out. There weren't many elderly people. Chen Piaopiao's eyes were starting to blur from staring when she finally fished out a figure in a brown long-sleeved shirt from a corner of the crowd.
She was shorter than most people and a little plump, but she walked briskly, a small bag on her back, her arms swinging leisurely at her sides. She very much looked the part of a tourist.
Chen Piaopiao laughed out loud when she noticed her grandma was also wearing a red tourist hat. She was probably afraid of getting lost herself.
"My grandma," Chen Piaopiao said to Tao Jin, grinning, her eyes bright and her teeth pearly.
Her grandma was as adorable as ever. She had befriended an 'auntie' on the plane, and the kind woman had even helped put her backpack on the luggage cart to push it along.
"I see her," Tao Jin said with a smile.
Chen Piaopiao waved, reached over the railing to grab her grandma's hand, and led her out.
"Piaopiao'er." Her grandma's face lit up with a smile. When the old woman got excited, she had a habit of stamping her feet. She pulled Chen Piaopiao into a hug.
Piaopiao'er? Tao Jin's brow twitched. Her grandma had a Xindu accent. So, back home, that's what they called her?
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