“Is there any contradiction between enjoying smiling and having a bad temper? There’s no contradiction at all.”
The moment she blurted it out, Shi Bei remembered that she was supposed to say something nice to close the distance between them, so she quickly added, “I didn’t mean that’s a bad thing.”
“You’re being very strange today.”
Kong Lingrou turned her head to look at her closely, “Duplicitous words, an attempt to hide what is already exposed.”
“…”
“What is it that you actually want to say?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Shi Bei tried hard to control her expression, imitating Kong Lingrou’s flat, matter-of-fact tone as she said, “I was just thinking about how well you took care of me in the past, and that I should repay you properly.”
The indifferent look on Kong Lingrou’s face finally vanished. A flash of surprise passed through her eyes before she immediately said, “No need.”
She said, “Back when you were little, you had no mother, an unreliable father, and couldn’t find a single dependable person in your entire family. A child from a family like that staying by my side gave me a strong sense of superiority. Even if I ever took care of you in any way, it was merely to find a sense of superiority from you.”
Shi Bei: “…”
Kong Lingrou added, “If you were a child with both parents present and a happy family, I wouldn’t have spared you a second glance.”
Shi Bei was somewhat speechless.
Even if it was the honest truth, there was really no need to chase after her to blurt out such a massive block of text…
“Even so, you still showed me immense kindness and grace.”
Kong Lingrou stayed silent for a few seconds, then suddenly stared at her with a half-smile that wasn’t quite a smile and asked, “Beibei, didn’t you serve as my follower for many years? Did you suddenly feel that those years couldn’t settle the score?”
Ignoring her, Shi Bei continued, “I still don’t have a mother now, and my family is still unreliable. You don’t need to be nice to me, but you can continue finding a sense of superiority from me.”
Kong Lingrou knitted her brow slightly.
She suddenly raised her hand. Shi Bei’s long eyelashes fluttered as she watched the back of Kong Lingrou’s hand press against her forehead before being quickly drawn back.
She heard Kong Lingrou let out a sigh that held back her irritation:
“Did you take the wrong medicine today?”
Getting involved with Shi Bei again was something Kong Lingrou had never anticipated.
When they broke off their friendship back then, she had to admit that most of the reason lay in her own terrible personality and the dark side of her nature at work. However, being clear about her own fault certainly didn’t mean she had undergone any changes now.
The past hadn’t completely passed, leaving an lingering gloom in her heart that she couldn’t shake off.
Shi Bei didn’t answer.
The words hidden in her heart hesitated because she hadn’t caught the right opportunity.
After exchanging looks for a few seconds, Kong Lingrou averted her gaze.
She opened the notebook beside her hand, but flipped it too quickly without holding it down, causing the book to snap closed with a clack.
Pausing for a moment, she pressed her hand onto the cover and reopened the book.
“Are you…” Shi Bei stared at her for a long while, her eyes flickering slightly before she finally managed to ask the question, “still painting nowadays?”
“What about it?”
“Can you please not answer a question with a question?” Her tone suddenly softened, carrying a hint of a plea.
“…I suppose so.”
Kong Lingrou answered after all. But she clearly didn’t want to pursue the topic any further, handing over the scratch paper and pen as she said, “Last time I said you needed to memorize everything I went over. Did you memorize it?”
“…”
Shi Bei had no choice but to reach out and snatch the notebook, “Let me look through it one more time.”
Her gaze focused intently, sliding over every single character.
She checked extremely thoroughly, ensuring she remembered everything before handing the notebook back to Kong Lingrou.
“All set.”
Kong Lingrou read out the Chinese example sentences, and Shi Bei wrote out the translations from memory.
She felt Japanese was very simple; though called a brand-new foreign language, it was filled with far too many Chinese elements.
She finished checking it over very quickly.
Unsurprisingly, every single one was correct.
The tip of Kong Lingrou’s finger gently tapped below the round, plump Japanese characters Shi Bei had written, saying objectively, “You learn very fast.”
Shi Bei: “Oh.”
“Memorizing the vocabulary and grammar books from cover to cover comes easily to you in the first place. You might as well study on your own, and just ask me whenever you run into places where the book’s explanations fall short—that’s the most efficient way.”
“…”
If I knew this earlier, I wouldn’t have written out the dictation so well.
Shi Bei leaned her back against the chair and let out a sigh.
The rain continued its pitter-patter, making a soothing, calm sound. The gloomy weather made it hard for one to muster up any emotion, even to throw a temper tantrum.
“No way,” Shi Bei said flatly. “Unless you’re going to break something you promised.”
Both of them fell silent.
Shi Bei closed her notebook, opened her textbook, and finally closed her textbook again.
Ding-dong—
The sudden sound of the doorbell broke the stalemate.
Shi Bei felt it was strange, instinctively glancing over at Kong Lingrou.
Kong Lingrou got up and walked to the entryway, checked through the peephole, and opened the door.
“Sis, why are you here too?”
It was a voice so bright and cheerful that it felt completely out of place in this room.
“Hello! I had to rush back to Tokyo today to take classes in my sister’s place, so I came over to see you. How’s your leg recovering now?”
Kong Lingyu was wearing a dress, her long hair—dyed pink and loosely curled to attend her idol’s fan meetup—draped over her shoulders. Both of her hands held bulging plastic bags filled entirely with colorful snacks.
She looked to be in a fantastic mood, completely out of tune with Tokyo’s continuous overcast rain.
Shi Bei suddenly didn’t know what to say, so she simply stayed silent.
“What’s wrong?” Observing facial expressions was Kong Lingyu’s strong suit. She glanced at Kong Lingrou, who sat nearby acting as if nothing had happened, and asked, “Were you being mistreated by my sister?”
Before Kong Lingrou’s gaze could sweep over, Shi Bei quickly kept her face rigid and gave a small, subtle nod.
“Sis! Didn’t you promise to take good care of Shi Bei for me?”
Kong Lingyu was eager to stick up for Shi Bei, but right after she let out her first indignant cry, Kong Lingrou shot her a glance.
Shrinking her head back, she switched the topic without holding her ground for even a second: “By the way, Sis, I met a really wonderful girl these past few days and I want to introduce her to you. She might just be your type!”
Her completely natural sentence, however, caused Kong Lingrou to abruptly stand up:
“Mind your own business.”
Kong Lingyu knew that Kong Lingrou had never hidden her sexual orientation, so she blurted out casually, “Just because you failed once doesn’t mean you can’t get to know other girls for the rest of your life, right?”
Shi Bei: ?
She listened on silently.
“Why don’t you take a look at her photo first?” Kong Lingyu enthusiastically opened her phone’s photo gallery and handed it over.
Only to meet Kong Lingrou’s exceedingly icy gaze.
Startled, she hadn’t expected introducing a partner to her would draw such intense aversion. She hurriedly dimmed her phone screen and apologized, “Alright, I’m sorry, okay? I won’t talk about it anymore in the future.”
Kong Lingrou turned around, picked up her bag, and said, “I’m leaving.”
The two watched her walk out the door.
At this moment, Shi Bei finally barely managed to understand what that conversation earlier meant.
—It meant that Kong Lingrou was gay.
Because it was too much of a shock, she couldn’t express what she felt in her heart. She didn’t have any concrete feeling toward this term that had only popped into her head after repeated deductions.
Knowledge in this realm belonged to the realm of legends for her. She had heard of it, but had never thought it would appear right beside her.
“What happened between you two just now? Did my sister think you were studying too slowly and call you stupid? Actually, it’s fine. She’s just someone who likes to put pressure on the people around her—intentionally or unintentionally—and basically never considers other people’s feelings.”
At least the last sentence was accurate.
Shi Bei thereupon nodded her head.
Right now, she only wanted to send Kong Lingyu away so she could open her computer and gather enough information to fully process the intelligence she had just obtained.
However, Kong Lingyu fell silent for a moment and found a spot to sit down.
“Although I haven’t asked you… I could tell from your English accent that you probably attended the same school as my sister for a long time back then. Right?”
There weren’t many places that would deliberately seek out teachers who spoke old-fashioned British accents to teach Chinese children; Kong Lingyu knew with a single guess that she had gone to school with her sister for a long time.
Shi Bei said honestly, “From kindergarten up until the second year of middle school.”
This time, Kong Lingyu hesitated even longer.
In the end, she decided to speak her mind: “Actually, my sister never comes to my birthday parties, because she said someone she used to like shared the exact same birthday as me.”
“…”
“Do you know if anyone in your former school had a birthday on July 11th?”
Shi Bei: “Me.”
“Huh?” Kong Lingyu took a moment to react. Seeing Shi Bei’s expressionless face didn’t look like she was joking, she continued, “Ah, so your birthday is on that day too?”
“Mm.”
“Quite a few people are born in July, actually. Then do you remember if anyone else among your former schoolmates shared this birthday?”
For so many years, Kong Lingyu had been dying of curiosity, yet couldn’t uncover a single piece of news.
She had secretly searched around the high school they both attended, and back then, three girls in the entire school matched that birthday, but none of them had any contact with Kong Lingrou.
In the end, she couldn’t help suspecting that this feeling had actually taken place during middle school.
What kind of person was it?
Kong Lingyu had been curious for so many years. Now that an opportunity that might finally approach the truth had appeared, even if prying into this meant she might get severely disciplined by her sister once it was exposed, she was prepared to risk it all.
“Impossible,” Shi Bei said in an extremely certain tone. “She didn’t like anyone, at least not before the second year of middle school.”
“No, no, no—this was told to me by my sister herself. I’ve already screened the people from high school and not a single one fits, so it most likely happened in your middle school. Help me think carefully about it again, please?”
A long period of silence followed.
Shi Bei tried hard to search her memory for the birthdays of those former classmates.
Forget birthdays, though—she couldn’t even recall more than a few of their names.
She had basically never cared about her classmates, but if someone shared the same birthday as her, she should still have a vague impression, right?
Not necessarily.
Scientifically speaking, the number of people who share the same birthday is simply higher than what intuition suggests.
Shi Bei: “…Is it possible that person is me?”
Three seconds of silence.
Kong Lingyu: “You?”
Shi Bei had originally intended it as a joke, but speaking the words out loud made things awkward even for herself.
She thought about it and said, “When I return home, I can go flip through our old class yearbook. Everyone’s birth date should probably be in there.”