I stayed in the bathroom long enough for the water to run cold and my face to return to a normal color.
When I finally opened the door, the bedroom was empty. The pillows were back on the bed in a suspiciously neat arrangement. Wen Xiao’s side looked as if she had tried to erase any evidence of the earlier disaster. I changed into clean clothes, towel-dried my hair, and walked out expecting another round of interrogation.
Instead I found her in the kitchen making coffee.
She did not look at me right away. She poured two cups, set one on the far side of the counter, and kept the other for herself. The silence felt deliberate.
I picked up the cup she had left for me. It was made exactly the way I usually drank it, less sugar than most people preferred. I hated that she knew that.
“Truce until noon?” she asked without turning around.
“That depends on whether you plan to bring up plushies again.”
“I can wait until afternoon.”
“Generous.”
She finally glanced over her shoulder. There was still a faint trace of amusement in her eyes, but it was quieter than before. The sharp edge we usually carried around each other had softened into something more complicated. I looked away first.
We drank the coffee standing on opposite sides of the kitchen. The ordinary sound of the refrigerator cycling on and off filled the spaces where arguments used to live. I kept waiting for her to push, to ask again about the dream or the way I had pulled her in. She did not.
After a while she spoke again, voice lower.
“Yes.”
“Evenings.”
“Yes.”
“You will come back later than before.”
I set the cup down carefully. “That is the point of earning my own money. I get to decide my own hours.”
Wen Xiao nodded once, as if she had expected the answer. She turned the empty cup in her hands, staring at the remaining foam instead of me.
“I am not going to stop you,” she said. “I just want you to know the apartment will still be here. The rule about the credit cards does not change that.”
The words landed heavier than they should have. I had spent days preparing myself for distance, for the clean break that financial independence would eventually allow. I had not prepared for her to say the door would remain open.
“I did not ask for reassurance,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why give it?”
She shrugged, still not looking at me. “Because the last few days have been a mess. And because I am tired of every conversation ending with one of us walking away angry.”
I had no immediate reply. The memory of the dream, the real weight of her body against me that morning, and the quiet way she was standing in the kitchen all tangled together until I could not separate irritation from something warmer.
I finished the coffee and rinsed the cup.
“I make excellent comments about your chords.”
“That is exactly why you are banned.”
A small huff of laughter left her. I walked past her toward the living room, guitar case already in sight near the terrace door. As I passed, her voice stopped me one last time.
“Linling.”
I waited.
“The plushie story is still terrible.”
I kept walking so she would not see the unwilling smile that tugged at my mouth.
Behind me I heard her set her own cup in the sink, the quiet sound of someone who had decided, at least for this morning, not to push any further. The apartment felt different in the daylight. Not fixed. Not safe. But less like a battlefield and more like a place where two people were still figuring out how much distance they actually wanted.
I opened the guitar case and began tuning the strings, pretending the warmth in my chest was only from the coffee.
If you like dark, obsessive yuri, I just started a new story called Love at First Knife.
A villainess who chose the knife over silence. A heroine who wakes up in chains.
Multiple lives, twisted care, and a relationship that refuses to stay buried.
Link:https://www.NovelPhoenix.com/series/2594269/love-at-first-knife/