“Ken, if provoked, he still cries. When we were kids, I always wanted to dress your brother in a skirt, but he just wouldn’t wear it.”
“Well… wearing a skirt is probably not that great, right?”
“But he was super cute back then! I even have his photo! Hang on!”
As they chatted about the past, Bai Yao, in her role as the sister, asked questions, and Bai Xinyi eagerly shared with her, instantly livening up the atmosphere.
“He cried more easily than girls and I used to bully him often. Does he still cry now?”
“Of course he doesn’t cry anymore.”
Even so, last night when the dysmenorrhea was really painful, Bai Yao still hid under the covers and cried a bunch.
“Look at the photos!”
Bai Xinyi pulled up some old photos.
In the picture, two little girls were arm in arm, smiling at the camera.
Hmm, Bai Yao only then realized that during kindergarten, her hairstyle was actually little pigtails just like a girl’s—standing there, you couldn’t even tell her gender.
Was it her mother’s weird taste?
“Cute, I guess it is pretty cute～”
Bai Yao leaned in, almost head to head with Bai Xinyi, looking at the phone screen.
“You still have such an old photo?”
“My mom took it and posted it on QQ Zone. I only found it a couple of years ago.”
After all, they were childhood sweethearts.
After the initial tension and awkwardness, they opened up, and Bai Yao’s face showed a trace of nostalgic smile, unlike the tense, icy expression she wore when facing Gu Wanwan or other girls.
She was already a girl.
Although it had only been a few months, when talking about things from when she was a male, there was a sense of distance, as if the memories were veiled, like something that happened in a dream.
“Where does your brother go to school?”
“Lu Island.”
“That’s not far, is it? He didn’t even come back for New Year. He hasn’t come to hang out with me for years.”
“I remember he went back to the countryside a couple of years ago?”
“I moved too a couple of years ago～Moved into town.”
Bai Yao picked up the thermos on the nightstand and took a couple of sips.
The dysmenorrhea was starting up again.
Although they were chatting happily, her stomach was aching dully.
“Is your stomach starting to cramp again?”
Bai Yao’s mood sank from the pain.
Bai Xinyi gently rubbed her head.
“There, there, it doesn’t hurt.”
Bai Yao was stunned and looked up.
So Bai Xinyi really thought of her as a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old little girl, huh?
“I was planning to drag you out to have fun this afternoon.”
“Should I be okay?”
Bai Yao didn’t want to refuse either.
“I took painkillers, maybe it’ll be better.”
[You have finally made a new friend! Cash reward of 10 yuan!]
“A new friend?”
This hundred yuan cheered Bai Yao up a lot.
She hadn’t gotten any freebies in a long time since the car accident.
“I had a car accident a while ago…”
Bai Xinyi immediately perked up.
“Huh? Go shopping?”
Bai Yao’s enthusiasm instantly vanished.
“My leg hasn’t healed from the fracture yet. Where would I go to have fun?”
“You probably don’t know, but yesterday I went out with my mom to buy clothes. Even though she loves shopping, just for my sake, she only bought some clothes, had a meal, and then came home.”
“Even though I don’t necessarily need a crutch to walk anymore, it still hurts if I walk too much.”
“I thought your walk was a bit off.”
Bai Xinyi had noticed it earlier but hadn’t had the nerve to ask.
“So what do we do this afternoon?”
Bai Yao thought for a moment and asked.
“Do you still play games?”
Back in elementary and middle school, when they were together, they either ran wild in the village or played computer games at Bai Xinyi’s house.
“I mostly play mobile games now, like Delta Force, PUBG, stuff like that.”
“Mobile games huh…”
On Bai Yao’s phone, she only had card games like Que Hun, which she used to kill time occasionally.
If she had a computer, she would rather sit in front of it and play Que Hun.
She thought for a long time but couldn’t come up with anything.
They used to be able to play together all day, so why now did they not even know what to play?
Bai Xinyi turned her head to look at the poster on the wall.
“This is your brother’s room, right?”
“Yeah, after he went to college, it became my room.”
“Is your brother seeing someone?”
“Eh～Why are you asking that?”
Maybe after becoming a girl, she was a bit too confident in her own looks.
Bai Yao tested the waters.
“Probably not? Do you like my brother?”
“No way?”
Bai Xinyi rolled her eyes.
“We grew up together, I’ve never felt anything.”
“That’s true.”
Although Bai Xinyi was quite pretty, Bai Yao had never had any special feelings for this childhood sweetheart.
She might not even have considered Bai Xinyi as a girl.
Normally when meeting a girl, she would get so nervous before even speaking that her face would go blank, acting super cold and aloof.
They hadn’t been chatting long, but Bai Xinyi felt something was off.
She looked Bai Yao up and down as she sat on the edge of the bed, staring intently at her face.
Although Bai Yao enjoyed the attention of being seen out and about all dressed up, this kind of head-to-toe scrutiny still made her feel uncomfortable and flustered.
Subconsciously, she pulled the covers over her lower body, her gaze shifting guiltily.
“You look just like your brother.”
Bai Xinyi murmured.
“You have similar features, and a similar personality.”
“Really?”
“Seriously～The facial features are especially alike, but his eyes aren’t as big as yours?”
“Unlike you, you’re as delicate as a doll.”
“And your skin is way too good～How do you take care of it?”
“Your brother had tons of acne in middle school.”
“And you’re both really introverted.”
“Well… we have the same mother, and the same home environment…”
Bai Yao frantically tried to come up with excuses and reasons.
But then she heard Bai Xinyi mutter enviously.
“You’re only in middle school and your boobs are already bigger than mine…”
“This?”
‘Envious of bigger breasts?’
‘And I’m actually a little happy about it?’
Bai Yao never imagined that one day her childhood sweetheart would envy her chest size.
She looked down at her chest.
At home she usually wore a bathrobe as loungewear, but while chatting, the collar of her bathrobe had fallen open, revealing the flimsy nightgown underneath.
The small but perky mounds pushed against the nightgown, creating a nice curve.
This made her face burn, and she quickly wrapped her bathrobe tight again.
“Let’s go out for a bit?”
Bai Yao quickly changed the subject.
“Is your leg okay?”
“Taking a short walk counts as rehab. I also want to get some sun.”
“Sunning myself helps with the cramps too.”
“Even though it’s still the New Year, the temperature has risen to over twenty degrees these past two days, and it’s sunny.”
“But according to the forecast, it’s going to drop back down to single digits in a couple of days.”
“Okay, be careful then.”
Bai Xinyi temporarily stepped out.
Bai Yao got up and walked to the closet.
“Um, I need to change…”
She thought about what to wear in the over-twenty-degree temperature.
In this erratic weather, on the streets you’d often see three totally different outfits: t-shirts, autumn wear, and heavy winter coats.
“A skirt! If I’m cold I’ll add some thick stockings and throw on a little jacket.”
“Dress up cute～”
She put on the short skirt, tidied herself up simply, and walked out of her room.
Then she met her father’s gloomy, piercing stare.
“This skirt…”
Her father hesitated.
It was the first time he had seen Bai Yao in a short skirt.
He was both surprised that his son had such strong mental fortitude and adapted so quickly, and displeased that his son was wearing black silk stockings under a skirt, showing off half her thighs.
Bai Yao retreated back into her room, her face bright red.
She’d better change into pants.