Under the Same Roof (2)

When old lovers reunite, they either talk deep into the night or part on bitter terms.

Liu Huisheng and Zhao Yu fell into the latter category, yet through a series of circumstances, they hadn’t managed to part ways at all.

Zhao Yu carried her into the apartment, set her down, and poured a glass of hot water before turning back to clean up the mess at the door. Lipstick, earphones, medicine bottle… she gathered the scattered debris, wiped each item clean with an alcohol wipe, and arranged them neatly on the coffee table for Liu Huisheng to put back into her bag.

During this time, Liu Huisheng sat at the furthest corner of the sofa, leaning weakly against the armrest. Her head tilted to the side, she stared blankly at the sliver of light peeking through the gap in the curtains—quiet and fragile, like a paper doll.

The light filtered through that crack and fell upon her face, a perfectly straight vertical line of brightness. It ran from her crown, down her nose, to her chin, slicing her beautiful face into two equal halves like a sharp blade.

In that moment, Zhao Yu felt a sharp pang in her chest.

Instinct told her that something had happened during those eight years of separation—something that had shattered the once gentle and strong Liu Huisheng, only for her to be pieced back together with cheap glue, leaving her jagged and uneven.

She had so many questions. Why did they break up? Why come back now? What happened in between? But those words churned in her mouth, turning into a bitter, stagnant taste, until she ultimately couldn’t voice them.

The scent of cigarette smoke still lingered in the living room. As the memory of their earlier friction rushed back, Zhao Yu felt a surge of annoyance. She reached out, yanked the curtains open, and violently pushed the glass window wide.

Creeeeak— The rusted hinges of the window let out a piercing metallic screech. It hit Liu Huisheng’s eardrums like a counter-spell; her slender frame jolted, the dullness vanished from her face, and her eyes clamped shut. When she opened them again, the shallow smile and shimmering gaze had returned.

“So, Captain Zhao does know how to open a window.”

The mockery succeeded in making Zhao Yu’s face turn a shade grimmer. Whenever Liu Huisheng put on this mask of smiles and light conversation, it meant she had donned her armor of superficiality again.

A foot apart, yet worlds away.

Zhao Yu’s eyelids drooped, her tone icy:

“What do you want for dinner?”

Liu Huisheng’s eyes crinkled slightly as if laughing. “Are you going to cook?”

“I don’t know how.”

“You surely aren’t expecting a guest to cook, are you?”

“I only know how to make instant noodles.”

Liu Huisheng nodded in mock understanding. “That works.”

Zhao Yu pulled three packs of instant noodles from a storage cabinet beneath the TV wall and turned toward the kitchen. She had only taken two steps when that annoying voice drifted over again—

“I like one tomato added, sliced very thin. Put it in right before serving; don’t boil it. Fry the egg into a perfect circle, don’t scramble it. It would be better if there were scallions—place them on top with minced garlic and pour scalding hot sesame oil over them.”

Zhao Yu’s footsteps toward the kitchen came to a dead halt. Without thinking, she turned around and shoved the noodles back into the cabinet. Her well-defined face remained expressionless, but it radiated a specific kind of exasperated anger.

“Ordering takeout.”

Zhao Yu truly had no expression.

Even her eyes and brows, where muscle movement is easiest to spot, showed no shifts. This was different from before. Liu Huisheng watched her, a dark cloud forming in the depths of her gaze, but she said nothing, pretending she noticed nothing at all.

“Fine. You decide.”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Anything.”

Zhao Yu ordered a chicken claw pot. Boneless chicken claws, because Liu Huisheng hated gnawing on bones. She avoided seafood, because Liu Huisheng was allergic.

“It’ll take about forty minutes to get here, right?”

Liu Huisheng rose gracefully, her hair curling slightly against her clothes.

“I want to take a shower. Do you have extra pajamas? Let me borrow some.”

Zhao Yu looked impatient, scratching the bridge of her nose. “No.”

Liu Huisheng’s eyes narrowed. “You do.”

“No.”

“When you said ‘no’ just now, you scratched your nose. That means you’re lying. When people lie, the nerve endings in the nose tingle slightly, causing an instinctive touch.”

Zhao Yu froze. Her gaze locked onto Liu Huisheng’s face—looking at her, yet seemingly piercing through the skin to see the soul beneath.

“First day at the bureau and you’re already treating me like a suspect?”

Liu Huisheng raised her hands innocently. “Wrongly accused, Madam. You lied to me first.”

Zhao Yu stared at her, her gaze never wavering, yet unable to see anything deeper. After a long stalemate, she withdrew her look without a word, turned into the bedroom, and opened the wardrobe.

A moment later, a nightgown was thrust into Liu Huisheng’s hands.

Liu Huisheng rubbed the fabric with her thumb; it was silk, light and smooth. The lotus-pink color suggested a level of coquettishness entirely inconsistent with Zhao Yu’s persona, and the thin spaghetti straps were a style Zhao Yu would usually run from.

Her beautiful eyes suddenly dimmed. “I don’t wear clothes that others have worn.”

The words were laced with a hint of acidity.

Zhao Yu blinked. “It’s never been worn.”

“Just because you haven’t worn it doesn’t mean no one has.”

Liu Huisheng slowly looked up, her gaze meeting Zhao Yu’s, looking for ripples.

“Did you scratch your nose just now?”

She had been too busy wondering who the owner of this dress was—which girlfriend of Zhao Yu’s from the last eight years? What profession? What build? What personality? She had thought so deeply about it that she missed seeing if Zhao Yu’s body language indicated a lie.

What a pity.

By the time they made eye contact again, the “golden quarter-second” for observation had passed. Zhao Yu licked her back teeth, remained silent, and snatched the thin nightgown back. She reached in and grabbed an oversized white shirt instead.

It was the only new piece of clothing she had.

“A white shirt.”

Liu Huisheng nodded, not being picky this time. She held it up to her shoulders to measure; the hem barely reached her mid-thigh, which would serve as a nightshirt.

Her peach-blossom eyes tilted up, an unreadable intent in her gaze, her voice husky:

“So, I’m wearing this tonight?”

Snap! A spark ignited in the dark, racing along a fuse toward a barrel of C4 explosives a few meters away. It detonated in Zhao Yu’s mind, a mushroom cloud of white-hot shock.

She whipped the shirt back and pulled Liu Huisheng toward the wardrobe.

“Pick one yourself.”

With a sharp flick of her wrist, she snapped the shirt onto a hanger and shoved it back into the long row of shirts.

Liu Huisheng took a moment to admire Zhao Yu’s organizational habits.

The hanging clothes were arranged with trench coats on the far left and shirts on the right, getting progressively shorter from left to right. Everything was ordered by color from dark to light. The palette was limited—black, white, gray, with an occasional deep blue or cyan. There were about ten white shirts on the right, looking crisp and clean.

It was still the same Zhao Yu, the one who loved keeping everything in its perfect place.

In an instant, the bitterness in Liu Huisheng’s heart felt like a balloon losing its air. A genuine smile finally bloomed on her lips.

She reached out her slender arm toward the right side of the wardrobe and pulled out that same white shirt again, draping it softly over her arm.

“This one.”

She turned toward the bathroom, but was stopped after only two steps.

“Liu Huisheng.”

There was a heavy warning in Zhao Yu’s tone, as if that shirt held a dangerous secret.

“What is it?”

Liu Huisheng’s voice was light as air. She looked back, though her body didn’t fully turn.

Zhao Yu was dissatisfied with her nonchalance. “Do you not know what a white shirt means?”

Liu Huisheng shrugged. “I seem to have forgotten. If Captain Zhao remembers, why don’t you tell me?”

***************************************

Eight years ago, at the door of a humid, steamy bathroom.

— A-Sheng, can you please not wear my clothes?

— Hmm?

— Es-especially the white shirts.

— Why?

— Just… anyway… I can’t stop looking at you. And when I look at you, I… I can’t hold back even more.

— Then don’t hold back.

Ever since then, whenever Liu Huisheng wore a white shirt, it was the signal for a night of passion.