I spent most of the morning trying not to think about the shower.
It did not work.
Every time I shifted in my seat during class the dull ache between my legs reminded me of her hands and her mouth and the way she had asked me to call her jiejie. My face heated without permission. I pressed my palms against my cheeks and stared at the lecture slides until the words blurred. The mark on my neck felt like it was burning under the collar of my shirt. I kept it hidden. I did not want questions.
Band practice should have been a relief. Instead my bandmates noticed immediately.
“You look feverish,” one of them said, squinting at me. “Are you getting sick?”
“I am fine.”
“You keep touching your neck.”
I dropped my hand. “It is nothing.”
They exchanged looks but did not push further. We ran through the set twice. My voice stayed steady. My fingers remembered the chords. Only my mind kept slipping back to cold water and the weight of her body against mine. By the time practice ended I needed air more than music.
After the final class I let my friends pull me along to a café near campus. I ordered something sweet I did not taste and listened to them talk about assignments and weekend plans. Their voices washed over me without sticking. I laughed when they laughed. I nodded when they expected a response. The whole time I was only trying to keep last night from rising up again. The source of this chapter is novelping dot com.
We left the café together as the sky began to darken. Halfway down the path that cut between the sports complex and the main gate I saw her.
Wen Xiao stood near the basketball courts with a bag over one shoulder. She had clearly finished training. Her hair was tied back and her expression was unreadable from a distance. The moment she noticed me she slowed. Her mouth opened.
“Linling.”
My name came out quietly, almost careful.
I kept walking. My friends kept chatting beside me. I did not turn my head. I did not slow down. I felt her gaze on my back until the path curved and the courts disappeared behind the trees. The sound of my own name lingered longer than I wanted it to.
By late afternoon the sky had turned the color of wet slate. I realized too late that I had left my umbrella at the apartment. My bandmates scattered in different directions. One had practice with another group. Two lived on the opposite side of the city. None of them had a spare umbrella to offer.
I waited under the covered walkway outside the music building. Rain fell in thick sheets, turning the pavement into a shallow river. Minutes stretched. Students with umbrellas hurried past. The air grew colder. My phone showed no messages. I told myself the rain would ease. It did not.
Eventually I stepped out from under the shelter.
The first drops soaked through my sleeves in seconds. I lowered my head and started walking. Cold water slid down the back of my neck and under my collar. My shoes filled quickly. I kept my eyes on the ground and counted steps so I would not think about anything else. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
A shadow fell across the wet pavement beside me.
I looked up.
Wen Xiao held a large black umbrella over both of us. Rain beaded on her shoulders and dampened the ends of her hair. She did not speak at first. She only adjusted the umbrella so the worst of the rain no longer reached me.
I stared at her for a second longer than necessary.
“Do whatever you want,” I said, and kept walking.
She said nothing. She simply matched my pace, shortening her longer strides so we moved side by side under the shared cover. The umbrella was not wide enough to keep us completely separate. Every few steps her arm brushed mine. Neither of us moved away.
The rain continued. The streets emptied. We walked the rest of the way home in silence, close enough that I could still smell the faint trace of her scent under the wet air, and far enough that the distance between us felt exactly as wide as it had that morning.