Chapter 24: Fake Kiss
Yu Yuhui’s light-hearted rhetorical question was like an invisible needle, piercing the already tense atmosphere in the alley.
Xiahou Ming didn’t know how to answer.
And this question was an extremely provocative humiliation to Ling Yicai.
“Shut up!”
Ling Yicai suddenly turned her head and stared at Yu Yuhui.
“Stop saying these weird things to my Xiao Ming!”
Faced with her attitude, Yu Yuhui just frowned slightly, as if her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden dog bark.
“Why do you always interrupt when others are talking?”
She complained in a low voice, as if complaining to Xiahou Ming, and then glanced at Ling Yicai condescendingly.
“It’s so noisy.”
The two words were very light, but they were like a red-hot iron, instantly burning Ling Yicai’s eardrum.
“You…!”
Ling Yicai was so angry at this contempt that she trembled all over, but Yu Yuhui didn’t even look at her.
It was as if she was not a living person, but just a noisy summer cicada beside her, just a background noise that could be muted at any time.
“Could it be that you are afraid that she will make a choice?”
“What do I have to be afraid of?”
“That’s right.
After all… you should have done something even more outrageous last night, right?”
Yu Yuhui’s tone suddenly became meaningful.
“Let me guess…”
Ling Yicai’s whole body stiffened.
Facing Yu Yuhui’s eyes that seemed to see through everything, she felt like she was standing naked in front of the judgment seat.
All the dark secrets that were unknown to others could be easily revealed by this woman.
“In that case,” Yu Yuhui’s eyes swept across her flushed cheeks, a wicked smile curling up at the corner of her mouth.
“Then if I let her kiss you, wouldn’t you have even less reason to object?”
Xiahou Ming listened to their conversation and felt like she was on a dissection table.
Everyone wants to cut her open.
She wanted to speak, wanted them to stop, but the vortex created by the two women was so strong that she couldn’t make any sound.
Alarm bells rang in Ling Yicai’s heart.
‘No.
This can’t go on any longer.’
She couldn’t let Xiao Ming be led by that woman anymore.
She couldn’t let that woman look down on her and let her think that the unique bond between her and Xiao Ming could be destroyed with a few provocative words.
She wants to take back the initiative.
‘Doesn’t that woman want to watch a show?
OK.’
A crazy idea popped up in Ling Yicai’s mind.
She no longer looked at Yu Yuhui, but focused all her attention on Xiahou Ming’s stunned face.
She wants to take the initiative.
She wanted to prove to that woman who was the one who truly owned Xiao Ming.
Driven by love, hate, jealousy, and the desire to perform, Ling Yicai took a step forward and held Xiahou Ming’s pale face with both hands.
Her fingers were hot and her nails were so hard that they almost dug into Xiahou Ming’s cheek.
Then, in front of Yu Yuhui, she kissed her fiercely.
This kiss was abrupt and forceful.
The feeling on her lips was not the soft and warm one she had imagined.
Rather, it created an illusion of being cold, hard, and plastic-like.
In an instant, what Xiahou Ming tasted was not the taste of another girl.
But it was the taste she felt that evening when she was alone in the classroom, putting the white recorder that did not belong to her into her mouth…cheap, hollow, with a faint aftertaste of unfamiliar saliva.
It seemed as if that moment that belonged only to her and Yu Yuhui, and the secret about the recorder, became insignificant at this moment.
Because it was covered by a more real and aggressive “fake.”
The next second, a feeling of anxiety stronger than humiliation erupted from the depths of her instincts.
This is a kind of anger that comes from having one’s territory invaded.
It was the unique “connection” between them that was forcibly broken into and destroyed by an outsider, which made her furious.
She exerted force suddenly and pushed Ling Yicai away.
Almost at the same moment, her head turned to Yu Yuhui who was standing beside her.
Her eyes were filled with panic and anxiety, like a child who had done something wrong and was eager to explain or prove something.
“What are you doing!?”
She yelled at Ling Yicai, but her eyes were still on Yu Yuhui.
Ling Yicai, who was pushed away, staggered back two steps.
But her face no longer had the hurt from being rejected last night.
She raised her head and gently wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
Then she followed Xiahou Ming’s gaze and looked at Yu Yuhui with a sympathetic smile on her face.
“You don’t need to listen to her, Xiao Ming,” she said softly, as if comforting a frightened child, “I’m here.”
Yu Yuhui watched the farce in front of her quietly.
She looked at Ling Yicai’s self-righteous attitude as a winner.
She looked at Xiahou Ming’s eyes that were still looking at her, full of excuses and pleading.
Xiahou Ming felt that she might be having an illusion.
At that moment, she seemed to see an expression on Yu Yuhui’s always calm face that she had never seen before.
It wasn’t anger, nor was it disappointment, but something more complex.
It was like the feeling a child would have when she discovered that her beloved and unique toy had been snatched away and soiled by another child…
Disgust, grievance, and a hint of vague hurt.
That expression lasted for less than a second and disappeared in a flash.
Immediately afterwards, Yu Yuhui unconsciously bit her lower lip with her teeth.
“…It’s really ugly.”
She whispered.
She didn’t know if she was talking about Ling Yicai who initiated the kiss, or Xiahou Ming who passively accepted it, or maybe she was talking about herself who was showing an embarrassed emotion in this situation.
After saying that, she didn’t stay for another second.
Yu Yuhui turned around, walked away quickly, and soon disappeared into the shadows at the end of the alley.
The alley fell into a long period of dead silence.
Xiahou Ming looked at the direction where Yu Yuhui disappeared, and suddenly felt that the world she had carefully built over the past few days, which was full of danger but inexplicably safe, collapsed along with that wounded look.
She didn’t know what to feel at this moment.
‘Finally, I don’t have to be at her mercy anymore?
Or… lost the last place to stay?’
She raised her hand and, with the back of her hand, rubbed her lips back and forth very vigorously until her skin turned a stinging red.
As if by doing this, she could erase the kiss that didn’t belong to her and pretend that nothing had happened.
Ling Yicai looked at her disgusted actions, and the smile on her face shattered bit by bit.
“Xiao Ming…”
She walked forward, stretched out her hand, and tried to grab Xiahou Ming’s wrist.
“Let’s… go home…”
Xiahou Ming took a step back suddenly and avoided her hand.
Then, as if all the strength in her body had been drained away, she slowly squatted down along the cold wall.
She buried her face deeply in her knees, hugged herself with her arms, and curled up into a ball.
“Xiao Ming…?”
Ling Yicai’s outstretched hand hung awkwardly in the air.
“Satisfied?”
Xiahou Ming didn’t look up, but continued in a tired voice without any emotion:
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Let me…be alone, quiet for a while…”