Hedi handed Selina a glass of water, catching a strange scent spilling from the white robe’s collar—orange shampoo mixed with skin steamed by hot water—beyond any metaphor, like mist you can’t cup.
Her mouth felt parched. She swallowed the last trace of saliva; no relief came, like a saccharine-laced drink that wets for a moment and leaves the throat a desert again.
Why so?
Turns out my body’s heating up.
A small ember inside got fanned by my heartbeat, burned brighter, then rode the rivers of blood to every corner and flooded my face a deep, quiet red.
Hedi lifted a lock at her temple, brushing it aside like a reed blade in wind.
Outside, steam-cars rumbled now and then, iron beasts snorting on the road.
A biting cold wind lazily churned the room’s air; the damp chill changed little, just flowing in and out like a slow tide.
“Pro… hic… Professor…”
“It’s fine, I just—” Hedi bit her lip, her throat bobbing; the words stalled. “Need to wash up.” Her voice held a rough, grainy rasp that matched the charged air like sand in a bell.
It was clear the line had looped around her tongue more than once before it finally slipped out, like a kite string circling the hand.
“Sorry… hic… I’ve been blocking the bathroom!”
“It’s okay.”
Selina ducked her head and trotted to the sofa. Her scent tugged at Hedi’s soft heart like hunger catching a warm bakery’s breath; somewhere in her body—not as dramatic as a stomach crawling—itched faintly, like grass waking under dew.
Hedi stepped into the bathroom and faced a mirror filmed with mist. Her complexion wasn’t as flushed as she’d imagined—just a small patch, clinging to her cheeks like powdered rouge dusting spring petals.
From those hiccups, she could infer Selina held a special feeling for me, a shy bird fluttering against the ribs.
Drawn to me—a soul with a male past—and nudged by that suspension-bridge effect, an inexplicable flutter rose, like a fish flicking its tail in moonlit water.
And me?
Am I under the same suspension-bridge spell?
Rather, misjudgment came with waves of awareness, tiny ripples rolling into the brain in measured sets, sketching soft curves, then leaving white foam retreating along the shore.
Insignificant, yet a tide that truly shifts the body’s senses, like wind that bends a reed without breaking it.
“Explained like that,” Hedi stroked her itchy belly, “it proves nothing—smoke slipping through fingers.”
But to end this bond or move toward its core feels terrifying, like walking into a forest at dusk where paths look like shadows.
Even a simple touch to a cheek wears a veil of ambiguity, silk thrown over a lantern, light dimmed to honey.
This knot inside isn’t like those romance anime where the first confession loses; to face it and cross that border means baring yourself to hurt and uncertainty, like stepping into rain without an umbrella.
Across two lives, forty-five years, I’ve only had one school crush, and it faded without a ripple, chalk washed thin by drizzle.
How to handle this? No grimoire taught it; the novels I’ve read are sticky and tangled, like syrup threads winding and refusing to snap.
Hedi let out a long breath and rinsed her cheeks again and again under tap water, cool as streamlight over stone.
The fog clinging to the mirror thinned and drifted out through the open bathroom door, like ghosts slipping past a threshold.
Her reflection sharpened, a pale moon coming out of cloud.
She held the gaze of her tired, tangled eyes; droplets tracked her jawline and fell onto the basin like beads sliding off a string.
One step at a time; future-me will know the method, a path appearing underfoot as lanterns light.
Hedi cut the thoughts off, like snipping thread at the loom.
Selina tucked her legs, wrapped in a soft heavy quilt, nestled into the corner of the folding sofa like a kitten curling into a basket.
“Professor.”
“Feeling better?”
“Not hiccupping much.” She looked at toes peeking from the bedding like pearls. “Am I weird?”
“Where’s the weird?”
“Touching… lips…”
“I saw you shy from the CPR and wanted to tease you. I’d just woken from a coma and needed a soft atmosphere to ease the knot.”
“But since then, I get tense when I see you. I don’t feel that with seniors at the institute—my nerves pull tight like a string only with you.”
“Tense when we eat or walk around?”
“Not then.”
“What about climbing onto my bed at midnight?”
“A little.” Selina added, “I wanted to sneak back before you woke, like a mouse with crumbed paws; didn’t think you’d be up so early.”
“No blame.”
“Mm… while you were washing up, I thought: please, please don’t treat me like a monster!”
“I won’t.”
Selina stared at her toes and stayed silent for a long time. Then she lifted her face, met Hedi’s eyes, and in a thread of sound thin as silk said, “Never mind. You’ll call me a monster.”
“Everyone acts unusual under certain conditions—”
“You too, just now?”
Hedi rubbed the handrail of the spiral stairs, a shell of wood under her palm, and mused, “No one’s ever stayed at my place, let alone bathed.”
“Because you’re embarrassed? I thought…” Selina stopped, tongue heavy as clay. “It’s that suspension-bridge effect, like you said?”
“There’s no danger. Where would the bridge effect come from?”
“I mean my feelings.”
“…Maybe.”
“It’s not.”
“If you’ve got an answer, don’t self-erase; let it stand like a stone on the riverbed.”
“Isn’t research just inching toward the right answer through endless overturns, like waves refining a pebble?”
Hedi scratched her hair, fluffing it like a crow’s nest.
This topic would stretch on forever, taffy pulled and pulled, never snapping clean.
The phone rang, cutting in like a knife on silk.
She lifted the receiver to her ear. The same annoying voice spilled out: “Hello, hello?”
“Get to it.”
“Free this weekend? I want you at the institute,” Evelyn said. “Just reviewing files; concrete progress is a rare bird.”
“I’ve thought of a few possibilities, but I won’t tell you over the phone.”
“That fills me with anticipation! Oh—did I interrupt your sleep?”
“Don’t ask that halfway through!”
Evelyn floated a few laughs. Through the phone’s grain, they sounded sharp as glass chips. “Have Selina bring you. It’s hard to find the institute alone.”
“Anything else?”
“No, no. Here’s to smooth cooperation.”
“That’s coercion, right?”
“You can’t say that. What I promised—”
Hedi hung up first and looked at Selina. “This weekend, can you take me to the institute?”
“Sure. Was that the deputy director?”
“Yeah.”
“You called it coercion?”
Hedi thought for a moment, café steam curling back in memory, and recounted their talk to Selina. “That’s about it.”
“That’s very much her style.”
“I hate that type.”
Selina nodded without comment. “No wonder you looked sour when you got home—clouds gathering on your brow.”
“Your comfort helps.”
“It’s all I can do.”
“Keeping things as they are is good. Don’t do too much; it only piles pressure on yourself, like loading stones onto a boat.”
“One favor off the ledger. You’re not someone I saved.”
Hedi blinked fast and objected, “Forget CPR—carrying me while we ran was already saving me. Better to spend favors than erase them, coins tossed into a wishing well.”
“Then can I… hear your thoughts? The one we were discussing.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Yours.”
“Blushing isn’t from embarrassment,” Hedi drew a deep breath and gathered courage like lighting a lantern in night fog. “I… do have… feelings for you.”
.
.
.
