Chapter 27: Words She Never Forgot

 

Ruan Jing had never imagined she was capable of this — of caring so completely, of setting down all her hesitation and timidity the way you set down something you have been carrying for too long and simply cannot carry anymore. Love, it turned out, was not impossible. She had only been making it so.

That night, they didn't talk much. In front of everyone, Zhao Qiyan drew her away from the group with a quiet, unhurried certainty, said have a good night close enough that only she could hear it properly, and led her out of the bar. Ruan Jing's face was still warm by the time they reached the street. She had never experienced anything quite like this before — the specific, bewildering sensation of being led somewhere by a person and not minding at all.

She came back to herself fully only once she was inside the car. She turned her head. Zhao Qiyan was already watching her, a smile resting easily on his face, in no particular hurry to start the engine. Ruan Jing cleared her throat. "Aren't we going?"

"Where would you like to go?" he asked, with the unhurried gentleness of someone who has decided the destination is entirely secondary.

Home was the obvious answer. It was the sensible answer. She turned it over for a moment and watched a different thought surface in its place. "If you don't mind — could we go to your place?"

He went still. "Are you sure?"

"You don't seem very enthusiastic."

Qi Yan laughed — a genuine one, breaking through the careful composure. "That's not true at all."

The amusement that moved through Ruan Jing's expression was warm and slightly wicked. She leaned across, pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, and then patted the top of his head with the easy authority of someone patting a well-behaved animal. "I've reconsidered. I'm going home."

The exchange lasted less than three minutes and contained, in its brief duration, enough misdirection and reversal for an entire evening's worth of conversation. Qi Yan sat with it for a moment after she delivered her verdict, feeling the very precise shape of the situation he had found himself in. I could simply drive in the other direction, he thought to himself with a patience that was mostly sincere. But somehow I just can't bring myself to do it.

That night, Zhao Qiyan saw Ruan Jing home with exceptional propriety. His farewell kiss was appropriate in every outward measure. It was the last thing he said to her — low, close to her ear, as he turned to leave — that kept her standing at her doorstep afterward, staring at nothing, long after his footsteps had faded.

Next time, I might not particularly care whether you want to or not.

Ruan Jing exhaled slowly into the quiet corridor. She was beginning to form a comprehensive picture of Zhao Qiyan's character, and it contained several habits she had not initially anticipated.

The following morning, Ruan Jing drove to the university to register. Her car had barely cleared the school gate when her phone rang.

"I'm in my office. When will you arrive?"

"About ten minutes."

A short response, and the line went quiet. No further elaboration offered or required.

Jiang Yan had been instructed by his grandfather to take her under his wing, and Ruan Jing had no reasonable grounds for refusal. She went where she was directed.

She pushed open the vice director's office door to find Jiang Yan standing at the window with his arms crossed, apparently absorbed in something only he could see. He turned at the sound of the door. There was a brief, cold flicker in his eyes before his expression settled — the kind of involuntary thing that surfaces before a person remembers to manage it, and it reminded Ruan Jing immediately of the strained quality of their last parting in the corridor.

They could never be entirely comfortable with each other, she accepted that. But running from it indefinitely wasn't going to resolve anything either. Better to be direct, to meet halfway, and see if the distance between them could be made liveable.

"I'm sorry to be late." She offered him a genuine smile, making an honest effort.

Jiang Yan returned to his leather chair with the unhurried ease of someone who has already decided the parameters of this conversation. His tone was flat and without particular warmth. "I'd prefer there isn't a next time. I don't have the spare hours to sit here waiting." He indicated the chair across from his desk. "Sit."

Ruan Jing paused for a fraction of a second, then pulled out the chair and sat.

"I'll be relying on your guidance from now on."

"I wouldn't presume to accept that."

She knew exactly what kind of person Jiang Yan was. Whatever ground she conceded, he would still be precisely himself on the other side of it. A hundred steps back would change nothing about that fundamental fact.

Later that morning, as Ruan Jing made her way down to the administrative office on the floor below, one of the staff members fell into step beside her and slung a familiar arm around her shoulder. "How did it go up there? Did anyone give you trouble?"

"Nearly came to blows."

Ruan Xian laughed with full satisfaction. Then she turned to introduce Ruan Jing to the six faculty and staff members of the administration department with the confident ease of someone who has never doubted the weight her name carries. "This is Ruan Jing — my younger sister. I hope you'll all look after her."

"Of course, of course."

Ruan Jing thought to herself, with a quiet, uncomplicated gratitude: This backing is really something.

In the afternoon, she was called into the school leadership meeting. The speeches were thorough, considered, and extremely long. Ruan Jing maintained her posture and kept her attention directed at the speaker, which was how she noticed that Ruan Xian across the table had already drifted decisively into sleep. She straightened her own back a fraction further and continued listening. After some time, her phone gave a quiet vibration from inside her bag. She retrieved it with the careful inconspicuousness of someone who knows perfectly well this isn't appropriate.

Are you busy?

She knew she shouldn't. She replied anyway. In a meeting. You?

About to play ball with some friends. Come along?

This person, Ruan Jing thought with dry clarity, was doing this deliberately. No time, she typed back.

I see. A pause longer than the others. Then: I miss you.

She stared at the screen for a moment. She had not expected that. Not from him — not stated so plainly, without the armour of irony or indirection. Something caught in her chest, warmth and embarrassment arriving at the same time. She thought about it for a moment, then replied: I understand.

Across the city, Zhao Qiyan read her response and laughed to himself — a short, genuine sound. How thoroughly unmoved. His friend's voice carried across the court: "Qiyan, are you still playing or not?"

He put the phone down, picked up his racket, rolled his shoulders once, and walked onto the court.

"I'm giving you time to prepare," he said, "so the defeat isn't quite as comprehensive as last time."

"Nobody can beat you at arrogance. That much is settled."

Zhao Qiyan smiled and did not argue the point.

Ruan Jing tucked her phone away and looked up directly into a cold, level gaze. The speaker on the stage had paused and was looking, with faint but unmistakable displeasure, in her precise direction. Ruan Jing sat up immediately, and quietly marvelled at the reach of Jiang Yan's peripheral vision.

An hour later, the meeting released. As the room gradually emptied, Ruan Jing stood and Ruan Xian fell naturally into step beside her in the corridor. "Going home for dinner?"

"We'll see."

"You have plans?" The directness of it was entirely characteristic.

"...Not yet."

Ruan Xian looked at her younger sister with visible amusement. "Why all this coyness? Zhao Qiyan has already told me."

Ruan Jing turned. "What exactly did he say?"

That pursuing you was genuinely difficult work.

This answer arrived from a completely unexpected direction. Ruan Jing absorbed it for a moment, something shifting quietly in her chest. "Sister — you really don't mind?"

"Mind what? I may admire Zhao Qiyan, but I love you more."

It was straightforwardly sentimental, and Ruan Jing knew it, and she said it anyway. "I love you too."

Ruan Xian shuddered with theatrical thoroughness. "So this is what happens when people say things like that out loud. I'm never doing it again."

"Thank goodness."

"I'm going to expire."

They walked down the corridor together, playfully jostling each other with the physical ease of people who have been doing this since childhood — entirely unaware of the footsteps a short distance behind them.

At five o'clock, Ruan Jing drove to the coffee shop.

Zhao Qiyan looked up and saw her and went still for a fraction of a second — the very specific stillness of someone who had been quietly hoping for something and has just watched it actually happen. He had spent the better part of the afternoon wrestling with whether to call her. He had been afraid she would find it too much, that she would pull back, and so he had held off. And then she had simply appeared.

He took her hand without preamble and walked her toward the lounge at the back of the shop. The waiter's expression held a smile that made Ruan Jing's cheeks warm slightly. She didn't pull away. Something about the comfortable weight of his hand around hers felt, already, like something she had been allowing herself for longer than she realized.

The door to the lounge closed behind them, and she received a tender, unhurried kiss — the kind that contains apology and homecoming in equal measure. Couples kissed; this was ordinary. Ruan Jing knew this. But she had never truly been in a relationship before, not one that felt like this from the inside — and so every part of it still carried the particular, slightly overwhelming quality of something entirely new. A first love, wearing the face of someone she had known for some time, arriving late and meaning everything.

"Sorry." He said it quietly, close to her. "I missed you all day."

Ruan Jing laughed — she couldn't help it. It was so precisely him: the surface manners impeccable and formal, sorry offered with complete sincerity before and after doing exactly what he had intended to do. Such a carefully maintained contradiction. Such a very particular person.

"Qiyan," she said, "what is it you actually like about me?"

Zhao Qiyan considered this with the unhurried attention he brought to things that mattered. When he answered, his voice was quiet and certain and without any performance in it. "That question is too large to answer completely. The only thing I can say is — if fate has both good and bad aspects to it, then whatever is best in mine is in your hands."

Many years later, Ruan Jing would still be able to call up this moment with perfect clarity — the quality of the light in that room, the unhurried warmth of his expression, the exact shape the words took as he said them. She carried it the way you carry certain things: without effort, without intention, simply because they have become part of the structure of you.