Drifting on a String - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Chen Piaopiao liked Tao Jin.

Not admiration in the usual sense, but a "like" with a hidden meaning.

She had known she liked girls since high school. She was from Xindu, an open and inclusive city, so for most people her age, sexual orientation was nothing strange.

Chen Piaopiao's affection came easily. She had liked her plain-looking deskmate because one day, she wore a pink T-shirt that smelled of fabric softener. When Chen Piaopiao leaned closer, she thought it would be so soft and fragrant to rest her head on her shoulder.

She had liked the young geography teacher because when she was lecturing, she would casually rest a hand on Chen Piaopiao's desk. Her fingers were warm, soft, and clean, carrying the faint, elusive scent of perfume.

But these affections were all fleeting, like tiny dewdrops that would dry into small water stains long before the sun was fully up.

The next rain would wash away even those traces completely.

The reason she liked Tao Jin was simple. Upon entering university, Chen Piaopiao decided she ought to fall in love. After learning she'd been accepted, she opened the school forum. Of the thirty posts on the homepage, three were about Tao Jin.

Someone asked if Tao Jin counted as An University's campus belle.

Someone else posted, "Let's gossip, does Tao Jin have a boyfriend?"

Clicking on the posts revealed photos of Tao Jin. She was very fair, very tall, and her eyes were particularly special. They weren't the trendy high-brow-boned, wide double eyelids, but rather a more subtle, tapered shape. The bridge of her nose wasn't particularly high-set, but her nose itself was an absolute masterpiece. When she turned her face slightly to the side, she was as beautiful as a one-of-a-kind piece in a museum.

So exquisite, you'd fear that if the bone were ever accidentally injured, no repair could ever restore its perfect curve.

Tall, slender, and fair-skinned girls, if they carry themselves with ease, often exude a kind of crisp, clear gentleness. To Chen Piaopiao, that was incredibly attractive.

Since she was young, she had always liked girls like this—who lived openly, casually, and effortlessly. Unlike her.

Using a popular term nowadays, she felt her life had a heavy "stolen" feeling.

Her personality wasn't good—insecure yet arrogant. She wanted to be liked but felt she wasn't worthy of it. She longed for the world's love, yet often feigned aloofness.

When her parents divorced, she was still young. They asked if she wanted to live with her father or her mother. Worried that neither would want her, she said, "I don't want to live with either. I'll live with my grandma."

In high school, her classmates disliked her. It started because she wore a pair of rather mature-looking hot pants, her two pale thighs drawing attention. Some guy with a big mouth claimed that someone from another school said they had hooked up with Chen Piaopiao.

She disdained to explain, feeling that no one would truly believe her anyway.

People with a low sense of worthiness are always drawn to those with a high sense of worthiness.

It was only human nature.

So when Chen Piaopiao saw Tao Jin's photo, she thought, What if... she's gay?

What if the person everyone likes... likes me?

Every girl has probably had such a fantasy. It wasn't shameful, but Chen Piaopiao still felt like a little thief, her heart pounding.

You see, for someone who wasn't open and confident, forget being candidly photographed like Tao Jin. Just the act of coveting or desiring something that didn't belong to her felt like a shameful, dark secret.

After falling for Tao Jin—both rashly and not so rashly—Chen Piaopiao began to look for ways to learn more about her.

First, she took advantage of the summer break to join the university forum's Lesbian Chat Group. Posing as a new freshman, she struck up conversations in the group chat. The group admin was a third-year senior who took a liking to her, enthusiastically introducing her to the school's cafeterias and nearby shops. She even came to pick her up in the scorching heat, bustling about to get her settled.

Chen Piaopiao was very grateful, but nothing developed between them, because their roles clashed.

The second time they ate at the cafeteria, Chen Piaopiao slowly and deliberately asked the group admin across from her, "Last time, I heard you mention a 'Jinjin' to someone. Is she in our group?"

The admin thought for a moment, swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs with tomato, and remembered a few seconds later. "Oh, no, I was talking about Tao Jin. From the Finance Department. She lives next door to us."

"She's a third-year too?"

"Mhm, yeah."

"Are you two friends?" Chen Piaopiao picked up a stalk of green vegetable and placed it on the side of her bowl.

The admin smiled. "We're okay, I guess. We say hi when we see each other. She's pretty fun. She looks quite cold and aloof, but she's always asking if anyone in our dorm wants to go shower with her."

"Go… shower together?"

"Yeah. She's pretty busy, so she often showers right when the bathhouse is about to close. She," the admin smiled again, "is afraid of the dark."

The bathhouse closed at 10 p.m. The walk back required passing through a small grove of trees. The streetlights weren't that bright, but it wasn't pitch-black either. She hadn't expected Tao Jin to be afraid of even that.

Chen Piaopiao was happy to have learned this little detail about Tao Jin, but the thought of her showering with other people made her not so happy.

It wasn't out of possessiveness. It was that her proactive search for someone to accompany her to the showers seemed so… incredibly… straight.

If Chen Piaopiao were to livestream her secret crush history on the forum, she'd probably get replies like this: "Give it up, OP. She's straight as an arrow. What kind of gay girl likes to shower with others?"

Several forum-style posts popped into Chen Piaopiao's head, but in a corner, there was another reply that said: "I think there's still hope. I'll be watching. Hope the OP comes back next time to say, 'Thanks everyone, we're together now.'"

Chen Piaopiao mentally highlighted it in yellow.

After several instances of asking around, both openly and subtly, the Musical Theater Club's audition was the first time they actually spoke.

Chen Piaopiao had imagined several times what Tao Jin's reaction would be when she walked in, but when she actually did, she found it was different from what she had expected.

Tao Jin wasn't one of the interviewers. She seemed to just be there to find someone, sitting at the edge of a row of tables and chairs, talking to a core member of the club in the corner.

The whole classroom was quiet, but not tense. The upperclassmen were all quite casual. Seeing Chen Piaopiao enter, they greeted her with a smile. "Hello."

"Hi." Chen Piaopiao gave a soft smile. "Hello, seniors. Should I do a self-introduction?"

"Yes, just a casual one is fine." The senior sister in the middle was a bit chubby, wore glasses, and seemed easy to talk to.

"My name is Chen Piaopiao. I'm a freshman, eighteen years old, from Xindu. Um, I studied music in middle school, but I have absolutely no acting experience. To be honest, I haven't even listened to many musicals."

The upperclassmen chuckled. Such a beautiful girl, and so frank. She was likable no matter how you looked at it.

Tao Jin looked up, glanced at her, and smiled too.

"Then why did you want to join our club?" The senior with glasses tapped the desk with her pen and asked her seriously.

Tao Jin stopped talking to her friend. She tilted her head slightly, watching Chen Piaopiao quietly.

Chen Piaopiao pursed her lips and looked down, thinking for a moment. "I'm just… quite interested."

It was similar to what she had told Tao Jin earlier, but she didn't specify whether her interest was in musical theater, or in Tao Jin.

The interview process was short. Chen Piaopiao sang a small snippet of a song, and it was pretty much over. As she neared the end of her song, she saw Tao Jin lean forward slightly, reach past the friend in the middle, and tap the desk in front of the senior with glasses to ask for a piece of paper.

It was probably the paper the senior with glasses was using to record Chen Piaopiao's score.

Then she lowered her head, her pretty eyelashes fluttering as she pursed her lips, observing the club's evaluation of Chen Piaopiao from above.

The silent gesture made Chen Piaopiao's heart pound again.

It was like blowing up a balloon, but the other person was taking their sweet time, and she had no idea when it would finally inflate.

Chen Piaopiao felt that she might have truly fallen for Tao Jin. Even if it had started from shallow vanity, a heartbeat couldn't lie. A heartbeat was always honest.

She returned to her dorm in a bit of a daze, too distracted to even browse the forum that afternoon.

The club said they would notify them, but they didn't say how long it would take. A day? Two days? Three?

She habitually hugged her knees, her index finger clicking unconsciously on the mouse. Click, click, click.

The computer screen blurred in her unfocused vision, then sharpened again when she blinked.

After their brief interaction, she felt a strange sense of loss. She and Tao Jin were probably from two different worlds. If the club didn't accept her, they would truly have no connection.

The moon had begun its descent, but her phone remained silent. Chen Piaopiao showered, dried her hair, and lit up her phone screen. 10:43 p.m.

Lights-out was soon. She climbed into bed early, pulled the curtain shut, and played on her phone while resting on her pillow.

At 11 p.m., the fluorescent lights went out on schedule, leaving only a few small, charging desk lamps in the dorm.

The dim, yellow light wrapped the night in a stable, lingering tranquility.

A small envelope icon appeared at the top of her phone screen first, followed by a notification on the app's interface: "You have received a new text message."

A smile reached Chen Piaopiao's eyes first. Of course, she had a feeling.

It was from an unfamiliar number starting with 158. The first sentence was: "Piaopiao, hello."

She quickly scanned it. The gist was that she had passed the audition and that there would be a welcome meeting next Tuesday in Academic Building 2, room 503. It asked her to reply if she had received it and had no issues.

Chen Piaopiao couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from turning up as she typed back a reply of "Received" with a flurry of taps. She then added another question: "May I ask if you are my point of contact from now on? I'd like to save the club's contact information."

"Add me on WeChat. It's this number."

Chen Piaopiao stared at the message for two seconds. This person was probably very meticulous; their use of punctuation was very formal.

She entered the number into the WeChat interface. The profile picture was gray and white, and the ID was a small whale symbol, but Chen Piaopiao had a gut feeling it was a senior sister.

So she greeted her first: "Hello, senior. This is Chen Piaopiao."

"This is Tao Jin," the other person replied.

...

Chen Piaopiao's mind froze for three seconds. Her first reaction was to look back at the profile picture. It looked like a beach at the edge of a cliff.

A whale, a beach… does she like the ocean?

She didn't know what to say, but she was reluctant to end the conversation. Her ears felt a little hot, and her palms were a little sweaty.

Chen Piaopiao typed: "Hello, Senior Tao Jin."

Pressing the phone to her chest, she stared at the halo of light from her desk lamp on the ceiling, calming herself for a moment. She picked it up again. Before Tao Jin could reply, she sent another message: "I'm so happy. I don't have much experience with musicals, so I thought I wouldn't get in."

After a long minute, the other person finally replied: "You have a beautiful singing voice."

"And the performance of turning and bumping into a stranger wasn't bad either, I think."

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