Drifting on a String - Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Chen Piaopiao and Tao Jin didn't take the elevator. Instead, they entered the emergency exit and walked down the stairwell.
It was almost lights-out, and the sounds of washing up grew more frequent. Someone was talking loudly on the phone in the stairwell. The two of them entered a small, enclosed space, like finding a deserted wilderness in the middle of the city.
They walked one after the other, with Chen Piaopiao on a lower step than Tao Jin. She tapped her fingers on the handrail but didn't hold it, afraid it was dirty.
When they reached the 10th floor, Tao Jin placed her hands on Chen Piaopiao's shoulders and caressed her cheek.
When they reached the 9th floor, Chen Piaopiao was about to push the door open to leave, but Tao Jin caught her wrist and led her further down.
On the 8th floor, the voice-activated light was still broken. It was very dark. They stopped there and kissed.
Tao Jin cupped Chen Piaopiao's face, and Chen Piaopiao's hands rested on her waist before involuntarily tracing up her spine to finally wrap around her neck.
In the darkness, there was only the faint, tangled breathing of girls. Even their desire was soft and gentle.
The kiss sent Chen Piaopiao's heart into a flutter. When they parted, Tao Jin gently pressed her lips to the corner of Chen Piaopiao's mouth, then caressed her face before pressing her own lips together. Her collarbones shifted slightly.
Light from the floor above spilled down around Tao Jin's feet. Chen Piaopiao lifted her eyelids and gazed softly at Tao Jin, her voice even hoarser now.
She didn't know what to say. After a moment of silence, she just asked in a small voice, "Did you go shower?"
"No." Tao Jin's voice was so soft it was barely more than a breath escaping her lips.
Chen Piaopiao stroked the small of her back. "From now on, when you shower, do it with me, okay?"
She didn't know how to display her possessiveness without going too far, so she carefully added the word "okay."
She heard Tao Jin chuckle softly. Tao Jin tilted her head in thought, her nose brushing against Chen Piaopiao's, cool to the touch. "Well, what if my roommates ask me to go with them?"
"You tell them you have to go with Piaopiao."
"What if they ask me why I go with Piaopiao every day?"
...
Hmm... "I don't know. Just say whatever."
She wanted to kiss her again. Chen Piaopiao hugged Tao Jin and kissed her neck.
"Then I'll say whatever." Tao Jin's voice had also grown hoarse, but it wasn't obvious. To Chen Piaopiao's ears, it was very sexy.
They didn't hide in the stairwell for too long. They walked back up, hand in hand, their steps unhurried. Both of them looked down at their blurred shadows, a faint pink blush on their cheeks.
They stopped in front of the emergency exit door just as the lights-out bell rang. Tao Jin tucked Chen Piaopiao's hair behind her ear. She had intended to say goodbye, but after a pause, she said, "I'll walk you over."
I'll walk you to your door.
Chen Piaopiao let her fiddle with her hair, the back of her neck damp with sweat. "It's lights-out. Let me walk you up."
Tao Jin's eyes crinkled brightly in a smile. Before she could speak, Chen Piaopiao hooked a finger around Tao Jin's dangling one and repeated, "You're afraid of the dark. Let me walk you."
"You didn't even bring your phone, how are you going to walk me?" She couldn't turn on the flashlight.
"Didn't you say I'm so pale I glow like a lamp?" Chen Piaopiao looked up at her.
She could be Tao Jin's flashlight. She could be other things, too.
Tao Jin's right hand, which had been arranging her hair, paused. She squeezed Chen Piaopiao's earlobe, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her lips. "Go back. Good night."
An upperclassman was an upperclassman, after all. She knew how to gently cut short the mutual, draining reluctance to part.
"Oh," Chen Piaopiao said in a low voice. "Good night."
Tao Jin watched her push the door open and walk into the hallway. Only then did she head up to the 11th floor, the lights-out bell still ringing. She pursed her lips, but the smile wouldn't obey. Even after she opened her dorm room door, her gaze, fixed on the floor, remained joyful and soft.
From the moment she entered, Xiao Ma stared at her, stared at her intently, even signaling for Lao Hai to stare with her.
Tao Jin sat down in her chair, wiggled the mouse, and woke her sleeping computer.
Xiao Ma rolled her textbook into a megaphone and held it behind Tao Jin's head to snap the not-quite-right Tao Jin to attention. "You've been surrounded by the organization! Are you going to confess, or do we have to resort to threats and enticements?"
"Enticements," Tao Jin said without turning her head.
Xiao Ma leaped over and wrapped her arms around her neck. "If you say Chen Piaopiao is your girlfriend, I'll jump from the 11th floor."
This was exactly the kind of drama Tao Jin loved to watch. This was the kind of "enticement" she liked.
As expected, Tao Jin smiled happily and said breezily, "Go ahead and jump."
Holy shit...
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!" Xiao Ma let out a sharp shriek.
Tao Jin raised a hand to pat her arm. "Quiet down, it's lights-out."
Ah...
Xiao Ma's scream got stuck in her throat, twisting into a strangled noise. She let go of Tao Jin and started smacking her arm, again and again.
"Ow..." Tao Jin frowned and clutched her arm, but the lingering sweetness on her lips made her cry of pain sound very soft.
A chair scraped across the floor. Lao Hai slid over, chair and all, and pushed up her glasses to restrain Xiao Ma. "Go easy on her. You're going to break her."
"I'm gonna break her right now," Xiao Ma said, hitting her again. "Putting on an act in front of us, putting on an act! Tao Jin, Jinjin!"
Tao Jin hugged her little whale plushie and smiled.
"I knew something was off with them earlier," Xiao Ma said, her eyebrows wriggling like earthworms. Standing behind Tao Jin, she kneaded her face while recapping with Lao Hai. "I felt something was off during the mahjong game. Hey, didn't I say, 'How could Baby Jin bear to scold you?'"
She mimicked the tone sarcastically, and Lao Hai chimed in, "And do you remember, before she went to shower, she heard us talking about playing Xindu mahjong and randomly said, 'Chen Piaopiao is from Xindu, too.'"
And then she'd grabbed her basket and left, and then Xiao Ma had gone downstairs.
She'd gone to fetch her a wife.
Oh, god... Lao Hai wanted to hit Tao Jin, too.
Tao Jin was still smiling, her ears turning red as she buried her lips in the whale plushie, then turned her head to rest her cheek against it.
"And I was wondering why she kept looking at the door after she got back today," Xiao Ma said, a little exasperated. She must have been thinking, should I go down and find her?
"It's pretty good," Lao Hai said, glancing at the vibrant Tao Jin. She clicked her tongue. "At least it proves she's not an AI, right?"
"But why Chen Piaopiao, you know?" Xiao Ma pulled over a chair to gossip with her.
"She's pretty," Lao Hai nodded. "Very pretty."
"And her figure is great. Wow, in that nightgown."
"Does it make us sound like perverts to talk like this?"
"If anyone's a pervert, it's her. She's not my girlfriend."
"But isn't it kind of creepy for us to be talking about her girlfriend's looks and figure?"
"What's creepy about it? We're both straight. Can't we appreciate it? She is pretty, and her figure is great. I appreciate it."
They went back and forth, chatting right in front of Tao Jin. Before Tao Jin had a chance to stop them, a weak voice came from the innermost bed. "Do you people have any humanity..."
The two of them froze, only then remembering the sick person lying in bed. It was pretty messed up for them to be so loud.
Xiao Ma was about to apologize when she heard Tizi flip over and sit up. Gripping the bed rail, she said to Tao Jin, "She just started school! Do you have any humanity?"
Getting together this fast meant she must have started pursuing her the moment she arrived on campus. She hadn't given the girl any chance to enjoy the colorful world of university life. And that underclassman seemed so quiet, she barely even spoke. Could she even let her study in peace?
Now it was Tao Jin's turn to be stunned.
No matter how boisterous the noise and excitement, it was eventually subdued by the night. The late-night chatter in the dorms gradually faded, and the hot water room was left with only the hum of machinery. Room 0908 was much quieter. Only Qi Mian was on a video call with Wang Xing, wearing headphones. Luo Yue had moved a small table into the hallway to study. An Ran sent a message to their three-person group chat on WeChat: "How long is she going to be on that call?"
Chen Piaopiao lay in bed, the curtain drawn, and replied, "I don't know."
She exited WeChat and played with her phone while listening to music through her headphones.
She was listening to the same kind of super-sweet songs she used to dislike.
She opened the campus forum and searched for "Tao Jin," opening the posts one by one to look at her photos and read what people said about her.
It still felt unreal.
Forget the fact that her girlfriend was Tao Jin. Even if it weren't Tao Jin, even if it were someone less conspicuous in others' eyes, she would probably still find it magical. The person she liked just happened to like her back, and they were both gay. The probability of that had to be lower than winning the lottery, right?
And for it to be Tao Jin was nothing short of winning the grand prize.
Chen Piaopiao felt like she was pulling in a net, trying to haul back her dizzy, infatuated state. She had never received anything good in her life, and when accepting fate's gift, she felt both ecstatic and uneasy.
"Sleeping?" Tao Jin sent her a message.
The song in her headphones happened to reach its sweetest chorus, and a tremor went through Chen Piaopiao's heart.
It turned out that when you were with someone you liked, you started to believe in every accidental coincidence in the world. For a second, for example, Chen Piaopiao believed that the chorus had been triggered by Tao Jin's message.
How ridiculous.
She turned on her side, hugging her blanket, and replied, "Can't sleep."
She missed Tao Jin so much. She wanted to be like the past two days, resting her head on Tao Jin's neck, her hand on her waist. Tao Jin's waist was very slender and smooth.
She shifted her shoulders. Her own waistline was missing Tao Jin, too.
Chen Piaopiao looked at the clean chat history with Tao Jin and couldn't resist the restless urge to dirty it.
"Miss you."
Her heart thumped abruptly in the ordinary dorm night. An Ran was tidying up, Qi Mian had finished her video call and was climbing down to wash up in the dark, and Luo Yue was still studying outside. And Chen Piaopiao possessed a rebellious secret of just two words.
The person on the other end was silent for a while. When a reply came, it was a voice message.
The sweet song in her headphones was interrupted. Chen Piaopiao tapped play.
"Me too."
Tao Jin's voice was very soft, whispered from under the covers.
She had a secret, too.
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