I woke up sore.
The ache settled deep between my legs and along my thighs, a dull reminder that refused to be ignored. My neck throbbed where her teeth had broken skin. The moment I shifted under the blanket, everything from the night before returned in a single rush of heat and memory. The shower. Her voice asking for a clear answer. The way she had held me up when my legs gave out. The mark she left behind.
I understood immediately.
I turned my head.
The other side of the bed was empty. The sheets were cool. Wen Xiao was already gone.
For a moment I simply stared at the vacant space. Something tight and unpleasant curled in my chest. I pushed the blanket aside and sat up slowly. My body protested. I ignored it, pulled on the first clothes I could find, and opened the bedroom door.
A warm, savory smell drifted from the kitchen. Eggs. Butter. Something lightly seasoned.
Wen Xiao stood at the stove with her back to me, spatula in hand, hair still slightly damp from a morning shower. She moved with the same casual ease she always did, as if nothing had changed. As if last night had been ordinary.
She glanced over her shoulder when she heard me.
“Good morning, Linling.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The words landed softly. Ordinary. Polite. The same tone she used when she passed me the salt or reminded me about the credit card rule. There was no hesitation in her voice. No lingering heat. No acknowledgment of the mark on my neck or the way she had asked me to call her jiejie only hours ago.
It sounded exactly like the silence she gave me when I was seven.
I remembered standing in that doorway after Mama’s funeral, looking up at her with complete sincerity and telling her I loved her, that I wanted to marry her when I grew up. She had only patted my head once and said nothing. She had taken care of me after that, yes. She had checked my homework and waited outside the music room and never let anyone call me the adopted one to my face. But she had never answered the feeling I offered her. She had simply carried the responsibility and left the rest untouched.
This morning felt the same.
She had taken what she wanted in the shower. She had marked me. She had carried me to bed. And now she stood in the kitchen making omelettes and greeting me like any other day, as if the night had already been filed away under duty or instinct or temporary heat. As if it cost her nothing.
The misunderstanding that had lived between us for years settled heavier than before. Every old wound opened at once. The destroyed plants. The missing title. The careful distance she kept even while living in the same house. All of it lined up behind this single, casual “good morning.”
She did not care.
Not in the way I had once hoped. Not in the way last night had briefly made me believe.
I turned around without answering.
“Linling?” Her voice followed me, slightly confused. “Where are you going? Breakfast is almost ready.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
I did not stop. I picked up my bag from the living room chair, slipped on my shoes, and opened the front door.
“Linling.”
She called my name again, louder this time. I heard the spatula set down against the counter. Footsteps started across the kitchen floor.
I closed the door behind me and walked down the hallway toward the elevator. My neck still ached. My body still remembered her hands. But the quiet resentment that had grown for eleven years had finally found a sharper edge.
She had treated last night the same way she treated my confession.
Like it was nothing.
I left for university alone.