Lin Qi walked back in after washing his face, shaking his hands dry. He looked at the two of them staring each other down and said, “What’s going on with you two?”
Lin Luxiao: “……”
Nan Chu: “……”
Going on. As if.
Lin Luxiao was the first to stand and walk out. Nan Chu’s expression returned to its usual cool composure, and she followed after him at a relaxed, unhurried pace.
The three of them got in the car.
Lin Qi — sweet and simple as ever — immediately climbed into the front passenger seat. Nan Chu glanced over at Lin Luxiao, and by coincidence, he happened to glance at her too. He was tall, looking down at her from that height with a casually dismissive expression, chin tipping toward the car door. Nan Chu rolled her eyes at him and pulled open the back door to get in.
Lin Luxiao lowered his head and laughed to himself, then followed her in.
The two of them didn’t talk for the entire ride. Nan Chu kept her gaze on the window, as though completely captivated by the neon-lit nightscape outside, while Lin Luxiao chatted in a half-hearted, off-and-on sort of way with Lin Qi. Lin Qi was like a chattering little sparrow — he seemed to carry a certain dependence on Lin Luxiao.
Nan Chu rolled the window down. Wind rushed in, filling the car. The trees along the road swayed vigorously in the breeze. She turned her head, and happened to catch Lin Luxiao looking at her — too many unreadable things in that gaze, more than she had time to decipher.
She looked away, and a memory surfaced without warning — five years ago, when she had moved into his apartment.
The year Nan Chu turned sixteen, she had lived in Lin Luxiao’s home for a month. He had come back two or three times during that stretch, each stay lasting a day and a half at most, while all remaining time was spent at the base. By that measure, the two of them could hardly be called close.
At the time, the apartment was a bachelor flat Lin Luxiao had rented — three bedrooms and a living room. Besides one actual bedroom, the other two had been converted into a study and a storage room, filled in a haphazard pile with all manner of training and exercise equipment.
Nan Chu couldn’t cook, so she ordered takeout every day. One time, when she went downstairs to collect a delivery, she ran into him coming back. While she waited for the delivery rider to make change, Nan Chu shoved the food hastily under her coat and rushed to trail after him up the stairs.
Once they were upstairs, Lin Luxiao was changing his shoes. Nan Chu stood there holding a container of curry rice, feeling slightly awkward. She thought it over, then held it out toward him: “I didn’t know you’d be back today. Why don’t you eat this first, and I’ll order another one.”
Lin Luxiao tossed his keys onto the cabinet. Without turning around, he walked in and said: “I already ate at the base.”
“Oh.”
Nan Chu sat down at the dining table to eat.
Lin Luxiao went to change out of his uniform, his eyes wandering idly around the apartment as he did so. Even though this girl’s culinary abilities were nonexistent, the place was fairly clean — she hadn’t made too much of a mess. At the time he was still a young man who wasn’t particularly skilled at looking after others, so the rest he could take or leave. But the moment he glanced at the bed, his eyes sharpened considerably.
He had something of an obsessive streak — no matter what, the blanket absolutely had to be folded into a perfect cube.
The kind that was just left there in a crumpled heap without any attempt at folding — that was the kind of sight that made him want to grab someone and deliver a swift beating on the spot.
The room was heated.
Lin Luxiao changed into a loose gray cable-knit sweater and black trousers and walked out of the bedroom. He picked the young woman up from the dining table mid-meal, set her down on the chair by the edge of the bed, and said: “Watch.”
Nan Chu still had a few grains of rice on her lip.
Then Lin Luxiao smoothed the blanket flat. While he worked, he asked: “Didn’t your mother teach you how to fold a blanket?”
“……”
Lin Luxiao’s build back then wasn’t as well-developed as it was now — the lean, upright frame of a young man, his features not yet as sharply defined, softer and more classically handsome, his skin a shade fairer. His eyes tilted upward at the outer corners, giving him a slightly roguish look; his temperament had been less calm and restrained than it was today, more willful and brash.
But his tone of voice, at least, was even.
He bent over the bed, bowing his back, with an unusual degree of patience: “First, flatten the blanket out. Leave a third of the surface and fold it over.”
He walked her through it in an orderly manner.
“Same as before — fold the other side over, about a third of the width, and then use your fingers to pinch out a section roughly ten centimeters wide.”
His hair was a little longer back then, if she remembered right — soft and loosely falling in the lamplight, making you want to reach out and touch it.
He deliberately slowed his movements, pointing to the corner of the blanket. “Here — fold it into a right angle.”
His voice, too, had the clear, warm quality unique to youth — none of the cool, guarded restraint of his present self.
When he bent forward, the collar of the sweater fell open just slightly. Beneath the faintly prominent collarbone were the pleasing lines of his chest — not over-defined, but shaped to exactly the right degree. Below his flat stomach, the faint suggestion of a V-line was barely visible.
Nan Chu’s heart was pounding, picking up speed.
She had always been more mature than children her age. She knew what that feeling was — knew what that kind of physiological reaction meant.
She didn’t find it strange at all, even though she was only sixteen at the time.
A man’s voice in the quiet of the night had a particular smoothness, richly alluring.
“This side — same method, fold the inner edge into a right angle.”
As he spoke, Lin Luxiao looked up slightly and caught Nan Chu’s gaze — the young woman was staring at him, unmoving. A moment later, she swallowed, clearly having missed everything he’d said.
He frowned. He straightened up, hands on his hips. “Am I that good-looking?”
“……”
Nod. Nod.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Do you know how to fold it?”
“……”
Shake. Shake.
“If you can’t fold it, no dinner tonight.”
He said it simply, looking right at her.
“……”