“Wait…!”
Su Yuqing’s mind went blank.
She needed a few seconds just to process the word.
“What did you just say you were going to do… with me? Kiss?” she repeated almost mechanically, her voice dry.
“Kiss.”
Bai Wanxue confirmed.
She even patiently spelled it out in her strangely textured voice, “K-I-S-S.”
‘If I remember correctly…’
Su Yuqing felt a surge of absurd dizziness.
‘That word means… k-kissing… right?’
She exhaled those last few words like a faint gasp.
Just as her reason and the absurdity of the situation clashed, and the air froze to the point of shattering
Knock, knock, knock!
A series of blunt knocks exploded from outside the door like thunder.
A crisp, lively female voice followed, though it sounded incredibly piercing at this moment:
“Senior! Senior! Are you in there? I heard you’ve already scouted a new genius idol candidate! Everyone in the makeup team is dying of curiosity. They sent me as the representative to get a feel for the situation!”
It was Sakura Onodera!
Su Yuqing’s face instantly turned pale.
Blood rushed to her head and then drained away just as quickly, leaving behind a cold fear.
She whipped her head toward the closed door, her heart pounding so hard it felt like it would shatter her ribs.
“Huh? Why is the door locked? Senior? Are you busy in there?”
Sakura’s puzzled voice came again, accompanied by the click of the doorknob being tentatively turned.
“Ah — ! That! Sakura!”
Su Yuqing practically screamed her response.
Her voice was pitched high and distorted by extreme tension.
She rushed to the door and pressed her body against the wood, as if that would add another layer of protection.
“I… I happen to have some very, very important private business to handle right now! It’s very urgent! Can you… can you come back later? Maybe in 30 minutes, no, 1 hour! I promise I’ll tell you everything then!”
She was incoherent, desperate to get rid of the curious girl outside.
“Important private business?”
Sakura’s voice was full of doubt, but she seemed temporarily convinced.
“Well… all right. Be quick, Senior. Everyone is waiting for me to report back.”
The sound of footsteps seemed to drift away hesitantly.
Su Yuqing was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a cold sweat broke out across her back.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bai Wanxue, who had been standing quietly in the middle of the room.
At some point, the girl had moved silently to her side, so close that Su Yuqing could almost feel her chilly aura.
Even more terrifyingly, Bai Wanxue’s hand — the one not holding the parasol — was slowly reaching for the door handle she had just locked!
“Hey! You! Your hand! What are you doing?!”
Su Yuqing hissed in a low, sharp voice.
She reached out to stop her, but her movements were restricted because her back was against the door.
Bai Wanxue turned her head.
Her pale red eyes looked at her calmly.
There was no malice or mockery in them, only a pure, direct sense of “solving the problem.”
She used that ethereal voice to repeat the spell-like word again, as if it were the only indisputable solution:
“Let’s kiss. Meow.”
Her fingers were already on the cold metal handle.
“There is… no more time,” she stated, as if speaking about something that had nothing to do with her.
Outside, Sakura didn’t seem to have gone far.
She might have been lingering just several meters away.
“No! Don’t — !”
Su Yuqing’s protest was drowned out by a faint click.
Was that the sound of the lock being triggered, or was it just a hallucination brought on by her extreme stress?
In the next second, she didn’t know if Bai Wanxue had actually turned the handle, or if she had lost her balance from panic, or if the other girl had gently pulled her.
In any case, amidst a sudden, violent forward lean that caught her completely off guard, Su Yuqing felt the world spin.
Her exclamation caught in her throat as she tumbled forward uncontrollably.
There was no anticipated pain from hitting the door or the floor.
Instead, she fell into an unexpected embrace.
It was a hug that carried a faint, cool fragrance like a pine forest after snow.
It wasn’t broad — it was even a bit slender — but it was exceptionally stable, as if it had been prepared to catch everything all along.
At some point, Bai Wanxue had let go of the handle and turned gracefully to catch her with both arms.
The black parasol, which had never left her hand and served as a sort of barrier, slid from her loosened fingers.
It fell silently onto the polished marble-like floor, bouncing slightly before coming to a rest.
Time seemed to stretch infinitely in that moment.
Su Yuqing was frozen against Bai Wanxue’s shoulder.
Her mind was a complete blank.
All her thoughts and fears vanished instantly.
She could only feel the cool touch coming from the other person, a temperature significantly lower than a normal human’s, pressing through their thin clothes.
And, right against her ear, she could hear the heartbeat inside the other girl’s chest —
Thump, thump, thump.
It was regular and calm, forming a strange and heart-pounding duet with her own heart, which was racing like a wild horse and drumming like a war god.
Then, she felt it.
Bai Wanxue tilted her head slightly.
Those cool, soft lips, carrying a strange moistness and a sense of absolute determination, pressed gently but with perfect accuracy against the exposed skin of her neck.
It wasn’t lip-to-lip.
Her lips were pressed against the side of Su Yuqing’s neck, right on the clearest, most fragile, and most sensitive spot over her carotid artery.
An indescribable sensation, like a faint electric current running through her or a feather brushing by, felt like a melting snowflake — gone in an instant.
“Meow…”
A very soft sigh, mixed with the satisfied purr of a feline, accompanied a warm breath with a faint sweet scent.
It brushed over the skin on the side of Su Yuqing’s neck that had just been touched, which was now trembling slightly.
Then, in the instant following that sigh, while Su Yuqing was still in a state of extreme shock and confusion, she felt it with absolute clarity.
The furry sensation that had been rubbing against her cheek, vibrating with life… it had vanished!
The pair of cat ears that had been screaming “non-human” and kept her on edge all day… after that kiss, they had literally disappeared into thin air like a magic trick.
Only smooth, silver-gray hair remained on top of the girl’s head.
However, before Su Yuqing could recover from the succession of shocks, think about the principles behind this supernatural phenomenon, or process the chaotic feelings from the sudden kiss —
“Hehe! Didn’t expect that, Senior! I knew you were hiding someone! I’ve made a U — turn… ?!”
In the split second when Bai Wanxue let go and Su Yuqing forgot to brace against the door due to shock, the office door was suddenly pushed open from the outside with considerable force!
Sakura Onodera’s smug, smiling face, which practically screamed “I caught you,” was accompanied by her cheerful voice as she burst into the room.
She was met by the sight of the two people, shattering the brief and eerie silence.
The mischievous grin on Sakura’s face froze the moment she saw the scene inside.
It turned to ice, solidified, and then cracked bit by bit.
Her gaze fell directly on the two people who were practically embracing inside the door.
Senior Su Yuqing’s clothes were slightly disheveled from the previous struggle, her cheeks were flushed with an unnatural redness, and her eyes were panicked.
She was leaning against the stranger silver-haired girl’s shoulder in an extremely ambiguous posture.
Meanwhile, the girl, who was so beautiful she didn’t seem real, had her head tilted slightly.
Her lips seemed to have just moved away from Senior Su Yuqing’s neck, and a trace of a satisfied blush remained on her face.
Time seemed to stand still again.
The air was dead silent.
“Ah… that! S-Sakura! Let me explain! It’s not what you think! Listen to me for a second, okay!”
Su Yuqing bolted out of Bai Wanxue’s arms like she had been electrocuted.
She stumbled back two steps, frantically trying to smooth out nonexistent wrinkles.
The color drained from her face before it turned bright red again, and her ability to speak completely collapsed.
Sakura Onodera’s big eyes, usually full of energy and curiosity, were wide with disbelief.
They held an extreme panic, as if she were thinking she had seen something she should not have seen.
She opened her mouth, seemingly trying to say something, but no sound came out.
Several seconds later, she finally found her voice, but it was dry and trembling:
“No… there’s no need to explain, Senior. I… I get it. I didn’t see anything today… right, nothing at all. My eyes suddenly feel uncomfortable. Maybe I have eye floaters, or intermittent blindness… I’ll leave now, right now…”
She murmured incoherently, her eyes darting around as her stiff body tried to turn away.
But in the next second, that floating voice suddenly pitched higher, becoming sharp enough to pierce an eardrum.
It was filled with the anger of betrayal and the heartbreak of a shattered idol:
“LIKE HELL I DIDN’T!!!”
Sakura whipped around.
Her eyes turned red instantly, and her finger shook as she pointed at Su Yuqing.
“Senior! Senior Su Yuqing! You… you… you… how could you do this to Zhiai?! Huh?! How can you face her?! She’s enduring so much pain from her foot injury just for the performance! And you?! You’re in the office… in the office with a newcomer… doing this kind of thing?!”
She became more agitated as she spoke, her voice cracking with a sob.
“So… so the terrifying rumors about the management of our Little Paw Agency and the Hidden Rules for managers… were all true?! The Super Pervert hidden deep within the management who uses their power to prey on newcomers… was actually you, Senior?! I’ve always admired and trusted you so much… I really misjudged you! Waaah…”
“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Sakura! You really can’t say things like that! You’re going to kill me!”
Su Yuqing was scared out of her wits.
Regardless of her image, she lunged forward to cover Sakura’s mouth.
She was so frantic and panicked that her tongue was practically tied in knots.
“It’s a misunderstanding! A huge misunderstanding! Listen to me, there’s a reason for this! She… she was just… she was just…”
Su Yuqing stammered for a long time but realized she couldn’t use any normal logic to explain the bizarre scene from moments ago.
An interviewee suddenly kissed the chief examiner’s neck, and then her cat ears disappeared?
Who would believe that?!
“Let go of me! I won’t listen! I don’t want to hear your excuses!”
Sakura violently shook off Su Yuqing’s hand.
Tears finally burst from her eyes.
She thought back to how Su Yuqing had uncharacteristically and enthusiastically invited her, a mere makeup assistant, to the Idol Newcomer Audition…
Could it be that Senior had those unspeakable thoughts about her too?!
This terrifying connection made Sakura feel cold all over.
A massive sense of disappointment and betrayal instantly overwhelmed her.
She stopped looking at Su Yuqing’s face, and she did not look at the silver-haired girl standing quietly to the side, who still looked innocent and confused as if none of this involved her.
Sakura stomped her foot, turned, and used all her strength to slam the heavy office door with a resounding thud.
Then, she bolted down the hallway without looking back.
The sounds of sobbing and running, mixed with scattered cries of “Senior is a pervert!” and “I’m sorry, Zhiai!”, faded quickly.
They left behind only hollow echoes and a dumbfounded Su Yuqing, along with the culprit, Bai Wanxue, who looked as calm as if she had just taken a sip of water.
The small black parasol still lay quietly on the polished floor, reflecting the pale light of the office’s ceiling lamps like an absurd, silent period at the end of a sentence.