12.
As I showered, I kept thinking about those two things he’d said.
“A normal man’s physiological response.” His voice had been utterly cold, yet after hearing it, I felt my ears burn.
Water poured steadily from the showerhead, and it took all I had to stop my thoughts from running wild.
After getting dressed, I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, my face was bright red.
When I came out of the bathroom in my nightgown, Lục Dật Lâm was sitting on the sofa reading.
The warm light from the floor lamp fell across his profile. The line of his jaw was even more clearly defined than the course of my future.
He had just taken off his glasses and looked up when he saw me. I could tell he was caught off guard for a few seconds before turning his gaze away.
His eyes were dark, deep, and beautiful.
“Aren’t you cold wearing so little?”
“Huh? I dress like this in the dorm. Is it really that little?”
I moved closer to him, and he suddenly shut his book.
He lightly tapped my forehead and lowered his gaze.
“Don’t lean on me right after you’ve showered. You’re dirty.”
“I’m going to take a shower. Stay if you want; otherwise, go home.”
I nodded and watched him walk into the bathroom.
Only afterward did I realize I hadn’t brought my room key.
13.
The living room in Lục Dật Lâm’s home was practically mine.
After all, he’d neatly folded my star-patterned air-conditioning blanket and put it in the corner of his bed.
I wasn’t a picky sleeper. I could sleep anywhere.
But no matter what I did, I couldn’t fall asleep tonight.
Out of nowhere, my stomach started hurting. When the pain began to feel all too familiar, I suddenly realized there was a very serious problem.
My time of the month… might have… come early.
I didn’t know how to tell Lục Dật Lâm. But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to take it much longer.
As I hesitated in our chat, my hand trembled and I accidentally sent a sticker.
A miserable-looking cat sticker.
At 12:40 a.m., he replied at once with a question mark.
I was still trying to figure out what to say next when he called me directly.
Even though he was right next door.
“Lục Dật Lâm.” I called his name. He gave a tired, sluggish “Yeah.”
“I, I-I-I… it’s that time…”
“Hmm? What’s wrong…”
He clearly wasn’t paying attention to my explanation. His voice remained hoarse and cool.
“You know, the thing that happens to girls once a month…”
“…”
The silence in the middle of the night only made everything more awkward. A long while later, his voice finally came through the phone.
“Are you having cramps?”
I gripped my phone tightly. Someone knocked on the door.
I hugged a pillow, my stomach hurting more and more. This was an old problem of mine; the first few days were always painful.
“Why are you lying on the sofa?”
In the darkness, his tall figure came in, the light from the room behind him. His warm hand gently touched my forehead.
“I didn’t want to get your sheets dirty…”
Before I could finish, he scooped me up. The sudden loss of balance made me instinctively clutch his collar. In the dark, I thought I heard him chuckle softly.
“Get my sheets dirty?”
“My sheets are there for you to get dirty.”
“Lie still.”
14.
Lục Dật Lâm went out to buy me sanitary pads.
It was hard to imagine him buying sanitary pads.
But he calmly put on a mask and went out. Later, he even video-called me.
“Are you lying in bed?”
“Y-yes.”
“Which kind do you use?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, and the phone camera shifted. All I could do was blush and point out the kind I usually used.
…Even after we hung up, I couldn’t help imagining how composed and proper he must look buying this for me.
He came back very quickly, carrying a big bag.
At first I was still skeptical. Then, after I’d changed and returned to the room, I saw a cup of brown sugar and ginger tea beside me.
I touched the rim of the cup. It was still hot.
“Drink it, then go back to sleep.” He leaned against the doorway, keeping a distance that was neither near nor far.
My fingers touched the rim of the cup. I pursed my lips. “I don’t like ginger.”
“You dislike it so much you’d rather have a stomachache than drink it?”
My lower abdomen still throbbed with cramps. After a moment’s thought, I wrapped myself in the blanket and took a small sip.
“Is it that bad?” My movements seemed too slow, because he came over and raised an eyebrow at me.
“There’s so much ginger…”
I thought he was only looking at the ginger in the cup, but to my surprise, he suddenly leaned down and took a sip.
Even if it was only a small sip.
Even if we didn’t drink from the same spot.
Still, my heart burst into fireworks in the quiet of the night.
15.
The next day, Lục Dật Lâm drove me back to school.
Our school wasn’t very big, so keeping faculty and staff apart was pretty difficult.
Well, knowing a professor did come in handy. Though sneaking into school hidden in his car wasn’t exactly the right thing to do.
My roommate thought I hadn’t come back to the dorm last night because I’d spent the whole night in the study room.
I obediently let her believe that.
Before he left, Lục Dật Lâm handed me back my reflection paper.
The paper was clearly crumpled, and he clearly knew I’d run a lot of the sentences through an online translator, yet he’d still written his corrections and comments with great care.
His English handwriting was firm and looked beautiful on the page.
It made me feel incredibly guilty about the mess I’d written for my paper.
…
During lunch break, a professor from the architecture department called me.
She told me that another student and I would work together to complete a project design about the history of Western architecture.
She said the other student and I were both among her top students, and hoped we wouldn’t disappoint her.
Let’s call the other student Tiểu L.
Tiểu L was well known in the department, and her abilities were plain to see. She also took part in activities often and got along very well with the department’s professors.
This was my first time working with Tiểu L. Because of the school’s restrictions, we arranged to meet in the cafeteria.
She was a talkative, friendly girl with a baby face. When she smiled, two little canine teeth showed.
Since the paper was fairly long, we agreed to each do half and then put it together.
But when I got back to the dorm and turned on my computer, I discovered something truly tragic.
The computer I’d bought three years ago could no longer load my design at all.
I bit my lip and glared at my computer, which could barely even move the cursor.
Give up.
16.
Lục Dật Lâm’s office was the farthest from our dorm, but it was a nice one. He was an outside professor, so he had his own office and computer.
I peeked through the crack in the door. No one was inside.
It was lunch break, so he should have been in his office resting.
A freezing finger suddenly touched the back of my neck.
“Is it so hard to come into my office openly?”
In the warm afternoon sunlight, Lục Dật Lâm’s eyes were as beautiful as amber, though they held not a trace of feeling.
“My computer’s broken.” I tugged at his sleeve.
He glanced at me, then walked into the office.
I followed behind him until he sat down and looked up at me.
His Adam’s apple stood out in the sunlight, moving gently up and down.
The metal fountain pen in his hand traced a perfect curve over his knuckles.
“I have a design project to do with someone else, but my computer can’t load the design software. Could I borrow yours for a bit?”
I tried to make my voice sound pitiful, but he sat perfectly still, his eyes lowered. I panicked, unable to tell what he was looking at.
Then my knee suddenly felt icy cold.
He rested his pen against my knee and spoke in a hoarse, reluctant voice.
“Don’t move.”
“Hold it between your legs.”
…
…?
I followed his words without thinking. It was only after about two seconds, when he relaxed his hand, that I came to my senses.
The fountain pen hit the floor with a clack. From the sound, it must have fallen hard.
“Lục Dật Lâm, you can’t treat people like that…”
“You’re wearing a skirt that short.”
He picked up the pen from the floor and nudged the hem of my skirt up a little. He barely touched it, never making full contact.
And he pulled his hand back just as quickly.
He turned on the computer and suddenly spoke while it was starting up.
“Would you really not pull away no matter what I did to you?”
“Huh?”