Heading for the Plains - Chapter 39

After that, they continued to live together.

But it was different. Even though they still stayed in the same apartment; reading, eating, drinking water, sharing a bathroom to wash up, and hearing the faint, elusive music from Ping Yuan’s headphones as they brushed past each other in the hallway, being “together” was no longer the same as it used to be.

The first to notice the change was Xiao Zhen. In the days following the trip to the amusement park, Xia Chao suffered from insomnia every night. She showed up to work yawning constantly. As she stood beside Xiao Zhen tying her apron and used her hair cap to pin back her bangs, she revealed dark circles under her eyes so deep they almost reached her chest, giving Xiao Zhen quite a fright.

“Are you trying to die?!” Xiao Zhen was profoundly shocked. “You were fine when you left the police station the other day! Were you out stealing chickens or dogs in the middle of the night?”

Her shrill voice pierced the air. Even though Xia Chao knew she was just worried, she couldn’t stand the way the other coworkers turned their heads, attempting to inspect her dark circles as if she had just escaped from a panda sanctuary.

Feeling incredibly embarrassed, Xia Chao gritted her teeth and lowered her voice to shut her up: “I’m heartbroken, okay?!”

“!”

Ms. Fang Baozhen let out a sharp gasp. “You’re heartbroken?!”

This time, she knew to keep her voice down. Xia Chao watched as she leaned in sneakily, her face glowing—not with a shred of sympathy for her “heartbroken” best friend, but with the radiant light of high-octane gossip. “Who is it?”

You couldn’t really blame her for gossiping. In Xiao Zhen’s eyes, Xia Chao was a legend who had once beaten a middle-school boy into the dirt for confessing to her. For someone who seemed to understand absolutely nothing about romance to suddenly show up looking like a soul-crushed victim of love… who wouldn’t be curious?

Even the strongest bond between sisters couldn’t withstand the pressure of such curiosity!

Fang Baozhen suppressed her bouncing conscience and silently projected a powerful thirst for knowledge through her wide eyes.

Xia Chao couldn’t be bothered with her. She rolled her eyes with heavy, swollen lids and turned away. Xiao Zhen didn’t let her off, trotting after her while still fumbling with her apron strings.

“Tell me! Tell me~” To get a earful of gossip, she even started acting cute, tugging at the edge of Xia Chao’s apron and swaying in the air like one of those inflatable tube men at a store opening. “If you don’t tell your sister your troubles, how can your sister help you solve them?”

Xia Chao had enough. “…Don’t force me to slap you with these gloved hands!”

*****

The saying “work is the only cure for sorrow” proved true. She stopped acknowledging Xiao Zhen and buried herself in prep work. Unfortunately, there weren’t many pre-orders lately, and not a single dine-in customer appeared, making it difficult for Xia Chao to even find tasks to keep her busy.

Likely affected by the recent “incident,” everyone was feeling a bit apprehensive.

A delivery rider wearing a yellow rabbit-eared helmet stopped at the door, yawning. He squinted at the shop sign, suddenly shuddered, snatched the bagged milk tea from the pickup counter, and sped off on his electric scooter. It was as if he were afraid someone would stab him if he moved a second too slow.

Xia Chao remained silent, wondering what kind of rumors about that brawl were circulating now.

As one of the participants, she didn’t feel much of anything. Except for the fact that right after the fight, she had been hauled back by Ping Yuan to work unpaid overtime for ten more cups. Xia Chao squeezed her eyes shut, feeling as though she hadn’t rested since the dawn of time.

She performed her tasks mechanically. Every time she remembered that night, she felt a dull, throbbing pain in her heart.

Xiao Zhen continued to buzz around her like a self-appointed Sherlock Holmes. Since Xia Chao ignored her, she resorted to the process of elimination, rattling off names like beans pouring out of a jar.

“So who is it? Xiao Zhou? Old Zheng? That classmate whose tooth you knocked out? What, you say you’ve knocked out too many teeth to count? Is it that new customer who came in a few days ago and kept smiling at you?”

She racked her brain, talking nonsense, until she eventually tried to play matchmaker with a delivery man who had stopped by two weeks ago. Xia Chao’s scalp tingled from the constant murmuring. Finally reaching her breaking point, she shut her up in one breath: “I have a crush on you! I’ve had a crush on you since the first moment I saw you! Happy now?!”

“Ah! You can’t do that!” Xiao Zhen shrieked, twisting her body in an exaggerated motion as if to hit her. “How disgusting!”

*****

The air suddenly turned cold. Xiao Zhen’s hand landed on Xia Chao, but she felt no attempt at a dodge.

Xia Chao stood frozen on the spot. She didn’t know what expression she should make. Perhaps she should laugh and brush the joke aside, but when she tried to lift the corners of her mouth, she found she lacked the strength to pull them up.

Finally, she just asked softly, “Is it… really disgusting?”

Is a girl liking another girl something that makes people feel disgusted? If I like someone, will that person feel disgusted too?

She turned her head to look at her friend, her eyes silently asking the question that her voice had barely dared to utter.

Xiao Zhen realized the weight in her gaze. But for her, this question was too difficult to answer. In the end, she just blinked with effort, thought long and hard, and stammered out an explanation: “It’s… it’s just, we’re both girls. Two women dating… it’s weird, right? But I’m not saying you’re weird!”

As the tail end of the sentence trailed off, Xiao Zhen’s expression finally shifted.

“You weren’t joking,” she said quietly, the confusion in her eyes turning into a probing gaze. “You… you’re actually heartbroken.”

“Who is it?” she asked in a low voice.

Fang Baozhen wasn’t so narcissistic as to truly believe Xia Chao liked her. Their interactions had always been loud and straightforward, with nothing remotely romantic about them. She was simply confused. She didn’t realize that such youthful confusion often happens in a flash.

In the dusty, dim gym equipment rooms of middle school, or in cheap group rentals with tangled wires and old, whirring fans, her roommates and classmates had all worn that same confused, vacant look. Girls huddling together, aimlessly painting sparkly nails, drying their damp, long hair, and talking about someone who had run across the basketball court during a distant cheer, or someone who had passed under the magnolia trees outside the window.

That is how the romance of girlhood begins. Even if Fang Baozhen had never been in love, she still recognized that dazed look of being struck by it. The companion you were playing in a sandcastle with yesterday suddenly has a secret; they’ve become an adult overnight.

*****

But Xia Chao didn’t answer. The girl who was usually gentle and answered every question remained silent for the first time. She lowered her head and began slicing lemons on the cutting board with sharp, clean motions. Juice splattered everywhere. After a long silence, she looked up and said: “I was just kidding.”

“I just had a cup of lemon tea last night and couldn’t sleep,” she said with a helpless tone. “Look at how much I scared you.”

Fang Baozhen didn’t believe a word of it. “Was it really just insomnia?”

“Yeah,” Xia Chao said crossly. “I shake milk tea every day; I’m not allowed to have a lemon tea?”

She turned to look at Fang Baozhen, her brow furrowed in an expression as helpless as her tone. Xiao Zhen looked at her intently. Even now, she couldn’t help but admit that even with the faint dark circles, her friend had a very deceptive face. Young skin, bright eyes with thick black lashes, and shallow dimples that appeared whether she smiled or pursed her lips. It made even her feigned anger look pleasantly gentle.

It made it impossible to guess whether she was truly sad or not.

Xia Chao continued to look at her, her gaze steady, as if asking: Do you have anything else to say?

Xiao Zhen couldn’t find any other words. The morning sun was too bright, making Xia Chao’s face shine like white jade. A few strands of her dark bangs fell over her eyes. For a moment, Xiao Zhen felt her friend’s eyes were as transparent and bright as glass, just like the determined reflection on the blade she had grabbed that day.

Her silence was as hard as a knife’s edge. Xiao Zhen’s heart skipped a beat for no reason. Finally, she could only shake her head and say, “Alright.”

“You… you get back to work,” she said with the awkwardness of someone who had overstepped. She waved her hand lamely. “I won’t bother you.”

Xia Chao gave her a small smile and went back to slicing lemons.

Actually, she was slicing them wrong. Lemons that were supposed to be sliced into rounds were somehow being cut into wedges. Xia Chao looked down and threw them into the trash.

When Xiao Zhen had said it was “weird” to put two women together, Xia Chao had actually wanted to ask: Then why can you so naturally put me together with a man I don’t even know?

If the idea of two women being together makes people scream “how disgusting” just by mentioning it in a joke, then why can everyone blithely joke about her and other men with such ease? Is that not sudden? Is that not offensive?

In that moment, she had wanted to bite back. A sudden aggression pricked at her like a thorn, piercing through her usual gentle temperament. But in the end, Xia Chao held back. After all, what answer would she get from Xiao Zhen? She knew Xiao Zhen meant no harm.

For most people, it starts as a joke. In many eyes, feelings are something that only occur between the opposite sexes. It’s natural, logical, and requires no explanation.

Xiao Zhen didn’t like girls, so her instinct was that two girls together was “weird.” What about for Ping Yuan?

The answer was likely undeniable.

A wave of apprehension washed over Xia Chao. She had never thought such anxiety would appear in her life. She wasn’t terrified in the dream, nor was she terrified when she woke up and realized she had kissed a woman. Since she had never planned on establishing any “damned feelings” with the opposite sex, accepting her preference for girls was a logical progression.

But today, she realized once again that what causes fear and unease is never the orientation itself. It is how this society and the person you want to love will treat your orientation, and how they will treat you.

A deep, heavy exhaustion spread through Xia Chao’s heart.

She looked down at the workstation. The ice machine whirred softly. The sun rose higher. Delivery orders finally began to pile up, the notification sounds chiming one after another. Xiao Zhen stood behind her, occasionally casting hesitant, concerned glances, but Xia Chao just kept her head down, feeling as if the bitter juice of the lemons had splashed into her eyes.

She rubbed them clumsily with the back of her hand. Realizing it was useless, she gave up entirely. She mechanically turned on the faucet, washed the green grapes, and threw herself completely into the repetitive labor of the day.

When she finished work, it started to rain.

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