When she woke up, she was still in the infirmary.
Friday afternoons had no elective classes, only club activities. The cicadas chirping outside, along with the chatter and laughter of students, roused Ji Shu from her groggy sleep. Her head felt dizzy and heavy.
The air conditioner sent cool breezes through the room, and sunlight filtered through the window, tracing patterns over the disinfectant-scented blankets.
Ji Shu looked at her left hand, hooked up to an IV. The drops fell with a soft “tick-tick” through the transparent tube, merging into the bluish veins beneath her skin.
She tried to speak, but her throat burned painfully.
Hearing the movement, someone carefully lifted the white privacy curtain and revealed a short-haired boy’s face. He looked bright and cheerful, his features sharp and defined. Dressed in the club activity’s sports uniform, he smiled at Ji Shu, eyes curved warmly, and asked softly, “You’re awake?”
Seeing her unfamiliar gaze, he explained, “I’m Jiang Zhaoming, from the class next to yours. You fainted at noon, and the Young Duke, along with a few of us, brought you to the infirmary. You had a high fever, so the school doctor hooked you up to an IV and told you to rest here.”
Ji Shu asked, “How long have I been lying here?”
Jiang Zhaoming glanced at his sports watch. “About three hours or so.”
Ji Shu nodded softly. Jiang Zhaoming seemed to remember something else and quietly brought something in. She realized it was her school bag.
“All your things are here, and your phone too.” He handed her the phone, then brought in a plastic bag.
Ji Shu took the phone and unlocked it. There were no messages, and the battery was low. She plugged it in before opening the plastic bag.
Jiang Zhaoming said, “You didn’t eat lunch, and the cafeteria is closed this afternoon. The Young Duke asked us to bring you some food. Also, the stuff you bought this morning… it’s all here.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Usually, these errands are something we fight to do ourselves, so having a girl handle it today is… really my bad. Next time, if something like this happens, just tell the others, you’ll see, they’ll be more than happy to help!”
Ji Shu glanced at him. He didn’t seem to know the full situation from that morning, and she didn’t intend to explain.
Her throat ached badly. She took a bottle of water from the bag, and he immediately reached for it: “I’ll open it for you!”
She didn’t refuse. He also unpacked a few boxes of Pocky and some bread, placing them neatly on her bedside table.
After drinking some water, the burning in her throat eased slightly, but cramps in her stomach became more pronounced.
She silently bit into a piece of bread and suddenly asked, “Lu Mingxi is here, isn’t he?”
Jiang Zhaoming looked as if he had been seen through, drooping his ears slightly and forcing a smile: “The Young Duke is asleep here, and he told me to keep watch.”
Ji Shu said, “I know.”
Otherwise, Jiang Zhaoming wouldn’t have been speaking so softly earlier, as if afraid of disturbing anything.
And there was something Ji Shu could perceive.
In this small infirmary lingered a faint, inescapable scent of perfume. The top notes had faded, but the middle and base notes, wine, blackcurrant leaves, and white resin, pierced boldly through the heavy smell of disinfectant, carving out a territory of their own in the confined space.
Jiang Zhaoming said, “The Young Duke usually skips afternoon classes to take a nap, either in the Chief’s lounge or his private library. This is the first time he’s whimsically decided to sleep in the school infirmary.”
That was just the kind of person he was. Otherwise, the school doctor wouldn’t have, to avoid disturbing him, moved her IV setup and cleared this spot for him to sleep.
After finishing her bread, Ji Shu felt the discomfort in her stomach ease a little.
She had just picked up a stick of Pocky when voices from outside the infirmary startled her, two girls whispering with obvious excitement.
“…Are you sure it’s here?”
“No doubt about it, the Young Duke has to be here!”
Jiang Zhaoming’s expression shifted slightly. He forced a hurried, helpless smile at Ji Shu and said, “I’ll step out for a moment.” He then rose from his chair, drew the privacy curtain, and pushed the door open to leave.
Ji Shu could hear their conversation faintly, carried through the white curtain swaying gently in the sunlight and breeze.
“Jiang Zhaoming! Why are you here? Then… the Young Duke is here too, right?”
“Sorry, he’s not here.”
“Then let us come in and see!”
“No, there’s a patient resting inside, you can’t disturb her…”
“Liar! If the Young Duke isn’t here, why are you here? Let us in, just for a glance!”
“…”
Ji Shu drifted into a daze as she listened. She snapped off the Pocky, slowly got down from the bed, and gently drew the curtain aside.
A few steps away, another bed had been moved out of its partition and positioned by the window. The window was cracked open, letting in a crisp, scorching breeze that made the curtain sway lightly.
On the bed lay a figure. Ji Shu saw him lying slightly on his side, his uniform jacket removed and hung on a nearby metal stand, sleeves rolled up, arms resting over his lower abdomen. His thin shirt clung to lean, strong muscles, his joints were prominent and sinewy, faint veins showing under pale, cold-white skin. His long fingers curled naturally and relaxed, his chest rising and falling evenly with each breath.
He had been sleeping just a curtain’s width away from her.
Ji Shu drew the curtain fully aside and saw Lu Mingxi’s face.
In the rippling sunlight, his features shimmered with rare elegance. Pink strands of hair fell over his cheeks, fluttering slightly in the breeze. The sharp contours of his face, the shadow cast by his nose, seemed almost etched into his skin.
A rare moment of stillness, only visible when he was asleep.
Ji Shu thought with a blank expression: If only he would just stay asleep.
Suddenly, the door was pushed, and the girls’ hurried footsteps echoed inside. It sounded like Jiang Zhaoming hadn’t stopped them.
Ji Shu quickly drew the privacy curtain closed.
“—Yo-Young Duke!”
“Right here, thank goodness we weren’t fooled earlier.”
“We clearly said not to come in, so why…”
Ji Shu suddenly heard the sound of movement on the bed, Lu Mingxi had been woken. The bed frame creaked, followed by a lazy, irritated tut, mixed with the lingering drowsiness of just waking. Lu Mingxi stretched.
“Young Duke!”
Ji Shu could hear the two girls’ excited, nervous voices. They pushed forward, crowding near the bed, introducing themselves with a mix of shyness and confidence: “We know you also chose the World Classical Music Appreciation course, so we came to ask if you could perform with our theater group’s selection…”
The rustle of papers sounded.
Lu Mingxi seemed not to open his eyes, leaning lazily against the bed. His hair was slightly messy as he yawned and, with cold indifference, uttered a single word:
“Get out.”
The girls’ smiles froze. Probably not processing what had been said, they forced a faint smile and stepped forward a few paces, handing him the script: “We are the organizers of the vocal club. The script this time is the world-famous Romeo and Juliet. The club members have even adapted the score to better fit popular styles. We believe once you see it, you will—”
But Lu Mingxi didn’t even take it. He didn’t lift his eyelids, rubbed his hair sleepily, and repeated:
“Get out. Don’t make me say it a third time.”
Both girls stiffened.
The two who Jiang Zhaoming hadn’t been able to stop earlier now turned pale and embarrassed. They stammered backward and, finally realizing the situation, exited the infirmary without saying another word, closing the door behind them.
Jiang Zhaoming scratched his head with a wry smile: “Young Duke, it’s my fault I didn’t stop them… I told them you weren’t here, but they didn’t believe me. Normally, they can’t get into your usual sleeping spots, but today they somehow found one they could get into…”
Lu Mingxi let out a lazy “hmph,” stretching in the sunlight that filled the room, then yawned again. “Forget it.”
He got out of bed.
Ji Shu heard the creak of the bed and the sound of his footsteps hitting the floor. She immediately tried to turn back onto the bed and pretend to be asleep, but it was too late.
The privacy curtain was swiftly pulled aside.
Lu Mingxi leaned halfway in, smirking mischievously, one eye squinting. His slightly tousled hair still clung lazily to his cheeks from just waking. Curling the corner of his lips, he asked,
“How long have you been listening?”
Ji Shu’s heart skipped a beat as he suddenly leaned in close, and she tumbled backward onto the hospital bed.
She braced herself and said, “…I just woke up.”
“Oh.” Lu Mingxi nodded as if he believed her. “What a coincidence, you woke up just as I did.”
Jiang Zhaoming behind him looked sheepish, eyes glued to his own nose, trying not to draw attention.
Ji Shu remained expressionless. “You guys were too noisy, so of course I woke up.”
Jiang Zhaoming frantically waved at her from behind Lu Mingxi, but Ji Shu ignored him entirely.
Lu Mingxi studied her for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed. “Ji Shu, now that I’ve caught you, you really aren’t pretending at all, are you?”
Ji Shu met his gaze and said coldly, “It’s all going to end the same way anyway, isn’t it?”
Jiang Zhaoming behind her covered his face, pale as death.
Lu Mingxi, however, was genuinely amused. He stretched his long arm over and pressed it beside Ji Shu, leaning down to study her. After a moment, he chuckled twice and nodded. “Yes, that’s the expression. Just like when you bit me in the storeroom that day, like a dog that won’t let go until it gets the meat.”
Ji Shu tried to move back, but there was nowhere to go. She forced herself lower to the bed, reducing the angle of her body, trying to create distance from him. Even so, she could feel the heat of his breath as he spoke, hotter than the summer sun outside.
She had no choice but to turn her head aside.
Taking advantage of this, Lu Mingxi reached over and grabbed the phone from her bedside table. He hooked her free hand, the one without the IV, holding her fingers to unlock it with her fingerprint.
Ji Shu froze before reacting. “What are you doing?”
She reached to snatch it back, but Lu Mingxi held her head down. He was nearly two heads taller than her, one long arm pinned her to the bed, making it impossible for her to reach.
With one hand restraining her, the other he used to tap through her phone. Smirking, he said, “Why rush? Let’s just check your schedule and the plays you’ve selected.”
Ji Shu had set her class schedule as a widget on her phone home screen. Lu Mingxi casually saved a copy to his own email, then went to look through the weekend performance schedule she had added.
“Don’t mess with my stuff!” Ji Shu panicked. She hated anyone looking at her personal things without permission. She kicked toward him, but Lu Mingxi, experienced this time, bent his body and flexed his knees to block her legs, pinning her firmly to the bed so she couldn’t struggle.
The sudden movement made her shift, and she gasped as she covered the hand with the IV.
Lu Mingxi noticed immediately and moved his focus. He paused, asking, “What’s wrong? Did you hit the IV needle?”
Ji Shu said nothing. She just lowered her head, holding the back of her hand, shoulders curling as though in pain.
Lu Mingxi furrowed his brows and clicked his tongue. He bent down, reaching for her wrist to check if she was bleeding.
But Ji Shu suddenly jumped up, snatched the phone from his hand, rolled away from beneath him, and grabbed her backpack from the cabinet, clutching it tightly to her chest. She kept a wary eye on him while cautiously putting some distance between them.
Lu Mingxi looked down.
Somehow, the IV needle had been pulled out along with the adhesive tape. Tiny droplets of blood beaded at the tip, quickly dissolving into the clear liquid still dripping from the IV, falling onto the bedsheet and spreading a wet stain, the sharp scent of medicine filling the air.
Ji Shu, meanwhile, had her backpack on, her phone put away, and she held the puncture site on the back of her hand as she backed toward the door.
Lu Mingxi laughed in disbelief at her audacity. “Ji Shu, you’re unbelievable.”
He shook his head at Jiang Zhaoming by the door, then leaned over to grab a bag of cotton swabs from the cabinet and tossed it to her.
Ji Shu quickly caught it.
Lu Mingxi said, “Alright, I didn’t look at anything besides the schedule. You were panicking like crazy.”
Half amused, half exasperated, he waved his hand. “The schedule’s checked, the IV’s done, so why are you still just standing there?”
Ji Shu froze for a moment.
…So he’s actually letting her go?
She cautiously stepped outside the door. Seeing him relaxed, smiling at her with a playful look, she immediately turned and ran.
Her figure quickly disappeared from the medical room entrance, vanishing without a trace.
Jiang Zhaoming, still startled from before, whispered nervously, “Young Duke…”
Usually, Lu Mingxi woke from his nap in a terrible mood, but today he seemed unusually good-tempered, leaving Jiang Zhaoming baffled.
Lu Mingxi hummed softly, slowly turned back to the bed Ji Shu had been lying on, sat down, and picked up the broken Pocky stick from the box, biting it.
“Jiang Zhaoming, you don’t have club activities this afternoon?”
“…The tennis club starts at 4:30, still a little while,” he replied.
“Then you can go now,” Lu Mingxi said.
Jiang Zhaoming blankly went “Ah,” realizing what he meant. He stepped back toward the door, then turned back hesitantly, asking, “Will you go back to the Chief’s lounge afterward?”
Lu Mingxi had already lain down. He said, “Not going. That little brat Chi Yaoxing is probably hogging the screening room playing NS again, so noisy. Later, you can go to the tennis club and look for Xie Zhoulin while you’re at it, tell him the matter’s been resolved.”
He chuckled with a hint of schadenfreude. “The kids in his class did something that’ll probably get them publicly criticized school-wide, and it’s not just one person. Their faces must be terrible right now.”
Jiang Zhaoming nodded, silently backed out, and closed the door behind him.
Lu Mingxi bit off the Pocky stick and closed his eyes. Apart from the strong scent of the medicine, the bed still carried a faint, delicate fragrance from the girl, a soft, almost imperceptible scent unique to her. On top of that, there was her special, cold, singular aroma.
Since the age of twelve, Lu Mingxi had wandered around Lotus all day and even had his own private perfumery by that same year, yet he still couldn’t precisely identify the notes of this scent.
It reminded him of Ji Shu at noon in the bathroom stall.
She wore a shirt almost soaked through, half the buttons undone, revealing faint, tender lines and soft curves beneath. Pale pink and cool green tones showed subtly through the semi-transparent fabric. Her wet hair draped over her shoulders, water dripping down in tiny beads.
Her face was cool and calm, her ears flushed red, and her gaze slightly hazy. Under the harsh, glaring white light, she lifted her head and looked toward him, not realizing who was there.
Although she quickly averted her eyes after a glance, it left a strange itch in his chest.
Lu Mingxi turned over. Sunlight slowly shifted across the bed, warm and bright wherever it touched.
He felt a flutter of heart and a wave of heat, suddenly aware of something. His Adam’s apple moved irritably, and he tugged the blanket over his lower abdomen.
…Then he went back to sleep.