“Bai Yao? I’m Going to Work”
It wasn’t even eight in the morning when Mother pushed open the door to the second bedroom and poked her head in to look at Bai Yao.
Compared to her grumpy mood last night, after another full sleep, Mother was noticeably gentler.
Bai Yao lay groggily in bed, hearing the noise in a half-awake state.
She half-opened her eyes and looked toward the door, responding weakly.
Keeping warm and heating up really helped with dysmenorrhea.
The electric blanket plus the electric heating pad pressed against her belly—hard to say if it completely relieved the pain, but at least it made her much more comfortable.
“I put the ibuprofen on the table for you. I’ll boil some hot water too.”
“Okay…”
“Honestly.”
Mother sighed and reminded her worriedly, “You need to take better care of your body.”
“I know.”
“Especially with Xiao Ye. You two need to be careful about safety.”
“I kno… huh?”
A blush spread across her pale face.
Bai Yao suddenly sobered up a lot, staring at Mother with wide eyes.
She hid half her face in the blanket and mumbled, red-faced:
“We’re not that close…”
The truth was, her views on chastity weren’t very strong.
Maybe it was leftover male thinking, or maybe she’d just read too many pornographic doujins and was looking forward to it.
If she weren’t afraid of getting too caught up in it and if she weren’t so thin-skinned, she probably would have given herself away during that month in the rented apartment.
Thankfully, Qiu Ye had never mentioned wanting to eat her up, even though his eyes often looked like he couldn’t wait to devour her.
“Mom, hurry up and go to work. I’m feeling much better.”
Bai Yao was afraid her mother would bring up that topic again, so she quickly drove her away.
“Your father will be home all day. Call him if you need anything.”
“Mm, I know.”
“Be careful around your father too. Don’t accidentally expose yourself. You’re not a boy anymore.”
In the dead of winter, with this terrible weather, Bai Yao was bundled up tightly.
How could she possibly expose anything?
“Remember to get up later and change your sanitary napkin.”
Mother nagged for quite a while.
After the hot water boiled, she filled five whole thermoses before finally heading off to work uneasily.
Bai Yao drank some hot water and then continued lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep.
‘No way! No way!’
‘How did my childhood friend show up?! Or should I say my childhood sweetheart?!’
‘She doesn’t know about my situation too, does she…’
Bai Xinyi was about the same age as Bai Yao.
When they were kids, they were neighbors in the same village with the same surname, and they often played together.
After elementary school, Bai Yao moved to the county seat, but whenever she had a break, she’d still go to the countryside to hang out with Bai Xinyi.
It wasn’t until middle school, when they hit puberty and became aware of gender, that their contact gradually faded.
In recent years, they hadn’t even heard news of each other.
“Xinyi, have you seen your little sister?”
Father heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen to ask.
Clearly, he and Mother hadn’t coordinated their story for outsiders.
They were still stuck on Bai Yao being the “little sister.”
“Mm! Such a pretty little sister~”
“Her older brother is working a winter break job and hasn’t come back. I figured she had no one to keep her company…”
Bai Xinyi waved her hand generously.
“No problem, no problem. I have nothing to do on break anyway.”
But she still muttered with some confusion:
“But I never heard he had a little sister before?”
Bai Yao heard their conversation from the bathroom and breathed a slight sigh of relief.
‘Probably Dad called Xinyi over to keep me company?’
‘But Bai Yao doesn’t need company at all! Sure, she stays in her room all day, but she’s perfectly content playing computer games and queuing up with Qiu Ye!’
‘Plus, with her period today, she’s not in good shape anyway.’
Bai Yao dawdled in the bathroom for half an hour before finally shuffling out slowly.
Father happened to have lunch ready and called out:
“Come eat!”
“Oh…”
Bai Yao walked over to the table and sat down.
She couldn’t help being curious, stealing a glance at her childhood sweetheart with her peripheral vision.
‘Must be about five or six years since we last saw each other, right?’
In her memory, Bai Xinyi was still a slender middle schooler with a short student haircut.
Now her hair was so long.
‘She seems a bit prettier than when she was little?’
But her figure… it was worse than Bai Yao’s, who had only been a girl for nine months.
‘She is quite tall, though. Feels like she’s a few centimeters taller than me.’
“Little sister… uh, fourteen?”
Bai Xinyi also studied her childhood friend’s “little sister” while eating, and asked curiously:
“How old is the little sister? Still in middle school?”
It was lucky that Bai Yao had delicate skin, youthful features, and was completely hidden under thick loungewear.
Besides, middle schoolers these days were more mature every year.
Saying fourteen wasn’t that off.
“Mm…”
Bai Yao silently bowed her head and shoveled rice.
‘Dad’s cooking is terrible.’
Good thing Father knew his cooking was average, so he’d also bought some braised food and roast duck from the market.
“How’s your older brother doing now?”
Bai Xinyi, being much more outgoing than Bai Yao, took the initiative to ask:
“Did he go to college?”
“Mm… undergrad. He should be doing pretty well.”
‘Pretty well’ indeed—he just lost his little brother and got a boyfriend instead.
Seeing them go back and forth with questions and answers, the atmosphere at the table was awkward.
Father suggested dryly:
“After you eat, take your sister to your bedroom to play on the computer.”
“Mm.”
Bai Yao frowned and put down her bowl and chopsticks.
She glanced at the roast duck reluctantly.
Still no appetite from the dysmenorrhea, she’d only eaten half a bowl of rice.
She got up helplessly:
“I’m full.”
Bai Xinyi quickly picked up her bowl, finished her meal in less than half a minute, and ran after Bai Yao, following her into the girl’s room.
As soon as the door closed, Bai Yao felt the atmosphere grow even more awkward.
‘An old childhood friend reunited after so long.’
‘The little girl back then had become a beautiful woman.’
‘The little boy back then was now even prettier and had a better figure than his childhood sweetheart.’
‘If she finds out, the good image I had in Bai Xinyi’s mind will be completely shattered!’
Bai Xinyi looked around the room, then her eyes landed on Bai Yao:
“Your face is really red?”
“Uh… a bit of dysmenorrhea.”
“You look a lot like your brother.”
Bai Xinyi casually found a seat and pulled out her phone:
“Want to add each other on WeChat? Reach out if you need anything.”
“Okay… I’ll scan you.”
Bai Yao sat awkwardly in front of the computer, not knowing what to say.
After adding each other as WeChat friends, she racked her brain to lighten the mood and randomly picked a topic:
“I used to hear my brother say you were pretty.”
“Really? You don’t know this, but your brother was really pretty when he was little too, like a girl. Too bad he got ugly in middle school.”
“No, he didn’t! In middle school, he just got some pimples, and then he shot up in height and became a beanpole.”
Too bad he never got very tall in the end.