The Third Fallen Leaf
When Ji Shiqiu gripped her chin and kissed her, Wu Yu realized that something was wrong.
This wrongness was within her expectations.
More precisely, she had vaguely sensed it from the moment he entered the room.
Ji Shiqiu was too inexperienced, even a little clumsy. His tongue swept in, grinding against hers without the slightest technique, unable to stir up any desire.
There was no ripple in Wu Yu’s eyes.
Even when, in the midst of their movements, droplets of water from the boy’s bangs were flung into her eyes.
She simply kept them open, quietly and without a sound.
Ji Shiqiu noticed. He, too, was not focused, as though he were dealing with a rotten bone. He only needed to lick the scraps of meat clean, and the task would count as completed.
Compared with the tussle of lips and teeth, the two of them seemed more like they were fighting with their eyes.
She looked at him, and he looked at her.
The woman’s eyes were very bright, the outer corners slightly lifted, her upper eyelids creased in folds as thin as jellyfish. The skin over her cheekbones was smooth and delicate, gleaming like white porcelain. On closer inspection, it gave off only a clean, cool sensation.
Suddenly, the corners of her eyes curved, pulling out a shadow and forming a completely natural line of eyeliner.
She was mocking him.
Ji Shiqiu was instantly enraged. He pushed her onto the bed and pinned her down.
Wu Yu was forced to lie there, her lower legs suspended over the edge of the bed in a very uncomfortable position. But when it came to the contest of physical size and strength, she was far inferior to him.
Both their bodies rapidly heated.
“You haven’t…” She caught hold of the boy’s wildly sweeping hair. “Mm…”
Wu Yu let out a hum because Ji Shiqiu had bitten the side of her neck, at the point where it joined her collarbone. It hurt enough to draw her brows together.
Her fair fingers sank into his black hair, pulling backward with all their strength, desperately trying to wrench his head away.
“Ji Shiqiu, you’ve never done this before.” She said it without sparing his feelings.
But the boy paid no attention, seemingly unable to feel the pain in his scalp either.
From her chin down to her chest, everything had been rubbed wet and slick, some of it from his kisses, some of it from his hair. Wu Yu tipped her head back, her face flushed, unable to tell whether she was supposed to welcome it or resist.
Technique had become irrelevant at this moment.
Wu Yu had no choice but to stop herself from sinking into it, into these surging, naturally endowed hormones.
Her calm voice changed, deliberately fierce. “Get lost…”
Ji Shiqiu stopped.
Taking the hint, he did not linger. He pushed himself upright from the bed, casually snatched up a T-shirt from the foot of the bed, rubbed his hair with it, and walked toward the window.
Wu Yu steadied her heartbeat, wiped her mouth, and sat up.
The area around her lips, her chin, the angle of her jaw, her chest, all were damp and quickly changing from hot to cool. She drew a breath and looked toward the boy by the window.
“You really haven’t done this before.”
Ji Shiqiu’s chest rose and fell. After two or three swipes, he pulled on the shirt he had been using to dry his hair and turned his face toward her. “So what? Does it affect me fucking you now?”
Wu Yu laughed. “You can actually say something like that out loud. Do you have any sense of shame?”
In the end, who was the one without any sense of shame?
Ji Shiqiu found it utterly absurd and no longer bothered arguing.
The night breeze drifted gently. His eyelids were so heavy that he could fall asleep in an instant just standing there.
Ji Shiqiu stopped fighting his drowsiness. He scratched his half-dry hair, walked back to the other side of the bed, and dropped down onto it.
He was practically lying across the edge of the bed, not caring whether there was still another person sharing it.
In any case, he had his back to her. What the eyes did not see, the heart did not have to deal with.
In his haze, Ji Shiqiu vaguely thought that there was nothing about this woman worth guarding against. Besides, he had nothing left anyway.
But he had underestimated just how annoying she could be.
Ji Shiqiu was a light sleeper. He did not know what time it was when the moon spread a layer of salt-white frost over the corner of the bed. He felt a hand stroking his back, through his clothes, the fingertips pressing inch by inch over his shoulder blades, his spine, every one of his bones, as though measuring him, or perhaps appraising him.
Ji Shiqiu had originally been unwilling to pay it any attention. But that hand became even more brazen, reaching beneath the hem of his clothes.
Ji Shiqiu clenched his back teeth slightly, turned around, and intercepted her restless hand.
“Are you ever going to stop?” He restrained her hand and pinned it back beside the pillow.
In the darkness, the woman’s gaze was deep and unfathomable. “Sleep facing me. Face to face.”
Ji Shiqiu said, “I don’t like it.”
“You’ve slept with someone before?”
Ji Shiqiu did not answer.
“You’ve never slept with anyone. How do you know you don’t like it?”
Ji Shiqiu did not turn away again.
The woman took advantage of the opening and moved closer, stopping at a place where, if he lowered his head just slightly, he could press a kiss to the tip of her nose.
The two naturally exchanged breaths, so close that there was warmth between them.
Ji Shiqiu’s eyelashes fluttered lightly. He was uncomfortable, but there was nothing he could do.
Wu Yu’s breath was sweet and clean. When she parted her lips, they lightly brushed against his chin, seeming to kiss him almost imperceptibly, unusually intimate. “Xiao Qiu, are you an adult yet?”
Ji Shiqiu’s chest tightened. He gave a muffled “Mm.”
“How old?”
Ji Shiqiu did not answer, merely pressing his lips together. He knew that once the topic was opened, there would be no end to it.
Fortunately, she did not press further.
Ji Shiqiu closed his eyes. He consoled himself that, in complete darkness, perhaps he could better adapt to her breathing, and to her excessively soft, tender body.
But no.
Darkness would only amplify every sense.
Even without deliberately touching her, everything that belonged to a woman seemed to envelop him more completely, tugging at his nerves.
Ji Shiqiu’s brow twitched, and he opened his eyes again. Sure enough, the woman was still staring at him without blinking, with those uniquely shaped eyes that seemed to embody the phrase “eyes clear and bright as water.”
They were covered by thin, delicate eyelids, their dark pupils cool and crystalline like gemstones, yet irresistibly alluring.
Ji Shiqiu’s throat grew dry.
“Are you going to sleep or not?” When he spoke again, his voice was already somewhat hoarse.
Wu Yu curved her eyes indifferently. “You sleep. Don’t mind me.”
Ji Shiqiu said, “Your eyes are too noisy.”
The curve of Wu Yu’s lips grew wider. Not merely wider, she was practically laughing herself to pieces. She stopped clinging to him, rolled over onto her back, and giggled incessantly.
Ji Shiqiu’s skin prickled faintly with embarrassment.
After a while, Wu Yu turned back toward him. The boy beside her had fallen deeply asleep again, his closed eyelashes thick and long. Wu Yu brought her fingers over and lightly stroked them, as though plucking a soft, delicate string. Beneath that string was the melody of Ji Shiqiu’s breathing, even and deep. This boy had the most peaceful sleeping face Wu Yu had ever seen, utterly tranquil, and deeply soporific.
—
The second time he woke was because the smell of smoke in the room choked him awake. Ji Shiqiu cleared his throat twice and caught sight of the woman sitting beside the table.
She held a cigarette between her fingers. The daylight was just beginning to brighten, and the breeze brushed the strands of hair at her temple.
“Awake?”
She took a drag and rested her cheek on the same hand. A wisp of milky-white smoke rose languidly from between her fingers and drifted through her hair.
Ji Shiqiu sat up, having slept to the point of losing all sense of time. “What time is it?”
Wu Yu picked up the phone beside the table and glanced at it. “Seven. It’s still early.”
Ji Shiqiu got out of bed and bent down to put on his shoes.
Wu Yu watched his slender feet slip into his sneakers, then her gaze traveled from his calves upward to his hips, his chest, and finally settled on his sharp features. “You had a nightmare?”
Ji Shiqiu straightened, his manner like that of a stranger. “I don’t remember.”
Wu Yu pursed her lips slightly. “You kept calling for your mom in your dream.”
Ji Shiqiu’s expression stiffened. After a brief silence, he asked, “A lot?”
Wu Yu said, “Not much. Only three times.”
“The third time I said ‘hey,’ and you stopped calling.”
Ji Shiqiu: “…”
He got up and went to the bathroom. Stopping at the doorway, he suddenly lifted his eyes and saw the woman some distance away, watching him through clouds of smoke. That look did not resemble the way one looked at a person. It was the scrutiny one gave an object, an object that belonged to her, or would eventually belong to her.
Ji Shiqiu slammed the door shut with a bang.
The walls and ceiling suffered by association, the aftershocks continuing without end.
Wu Yu tapped the middle finger of her cigarette, shaking off the burned ash, and silently began to laugh.
When he came out after washing up, the woman was already waiting by the doorway.
She looked at Ji Shiqiu. “I’m going downstairs for breakfast. Want to come?”
Ji Shiqiu acted as though he had not heard her and walked straight toward the television.
Wu Yu folded her arms and turned halfway with him. “I’m talking to you.”
Ji Shiqiu lifted his eyes and discovered that the woman was still wearing that tight gray camisole. She was not wearing a bra, and the two points were clearly visible. He had noticed them yesterday afternoon. Later, with the fabric between them, he had also indulged himself without restraint. Ji Shiqiu could stop himself from looking there too much, but he could not stop himself from feeling contempt, disgust… and an inexplicable irritation.
Seeing Ji Shiqiu remain silent, Wu Yu had no desire to coax the young master first thing in the morning. She turned and opened the door.
Seeing this, Ji Shiqiu furrowed his brow, grabbed the sweatshirt hanging over the back of the chair, and called out to her before she could leave.
Wu Yu looked back.
Her eyebrows were very pale, the tails a gray that was almost white. Yet set against her nearly flawless complexion, they were not at all bland. On the contrary, they were harmonious and full of beauty.
Ji Shiqiu swiftly lowered his eyes.
As he strode past her, he tossed the clothing to her and said coldly:
“Put it on.”
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