Ring ring ring.

“Professor! Phone for you!” Selina called from outside the bathroom. “Should I pick up?”

“It’s probably a sales call. Leave it.”

“Where did you enter your personal info again?”

Hedi poured orange-scented shampoo, a sun-bright ribbon in her palm. “Milk,” she said, rubbing it in.

“We already subscribed.”

“I… upgraded to the highest tier… something like that…”

“If you say that, it’ll keep leveling up. High, higher, highest, highest-of-the-highest!”

“Maybe.” Hedi didn’t care; she chased lather like clouds across her scalp. “Is it still ringing?”

“It stopped.”

Hedi faced the showerhead, heat raining down. Foam slid like white fish over her ash-gray curls, streamed along her curves, and dove into the drain like a creek into night. She bent to check her unwrapped right foot; the swelling at her ankle had ebbed, leaving faint marks like tide lines from the bandage.

The phone rang again.

“I don’t think it’s the milk company,” Selina said, brows lifting like startled birds. “Who keeps calling non-stop?”

“No one calls me except sales.”

“That sounds so lonely.”

“Huh?”

“No friends.”

Hedi rinsed clean, skin humming with heat. She slipped into a white pajama set and pushed open the door through a curl of steam, like moonlight cutting through mist. “We see each other every day,” she said. “Why would anyone call?”

“So that means you belong only to me?”

“Yeees— only to you.”

Selina stood in the doorway wearing a dog onesie with a hood. The plush hood framed her face small and impish, ears and a little tail bobbing like leaves in a breeze.

She stepped up and hugged Hedi. “Say it again!”

“People decide with their own will. So, I belong only to myself.”

“Say the other line!”

“No.”

Hedi swayed toward the sofa, her head bobbing like a lazy cattail in wind.

Selina clung to her and wouldn’t let go.

They leaned into each other and shuffled sideways like two crabs crossing a tidepool.

“I almost forgot to change your dressing!” Selina let go and darted around the room like a sparrow.

“We’re going out to eat. Do it before bed,” Hedi said, words drifting like a fan’s breeze.

“No way. We always do it the moment we get home. The ringing threw me off.”

Hedi glanced at the phone table, a beat behind the world. The phone lay quiet, black as a sleeping stone. She couldn’t tell when it had gone silent. The ringing had melted into the room like rain into fog, thinning out among the other background sounds until only by staring at the phone did she understand the caller had already given up.

“What are you looking at?” Selina came over with powder and bandages, steps crisp as beads on a string. “Is there anything special there?”

Hedi shook her head and lounged on the sofa. Her shoulders peeked from the robe, silvered like skin dipped in moonlight.

“You sitting like that—” Selina swallowed, the tiny sound loud as a pebble in a well.

“What’s wrong? Weren’t you going to change my dressing?”

“R-right away!”

Hedi watched Selina, then glanced down at the loose robe and understood the tension like a coin dropping. As Selina bent her knees, Hedi lifted her right foot on purpose and smiled, the expression sweet and sly as a crescent peach. “Would it be better if I stood? Don’t want your legs going numb.”

“Don’t do that out of nowhere!” Selina half-squatted, hands covering her face like fluttering fans, but her eyes still strayed like a moth to a lamp.

“If you prefer squatting—”

“You’re doing it on purpose!”

“What!” Hedi set her foot down. Her heart beat like a drum in a summer festival, and a visible blush rushed up to her brows like dawn. “I was just… thinking of you…”

“Really?”

Hedi fell quiet and watched Selina work. A bold thought flickered, hot as a spark: do something more daring. With that, she shifted her left leg the tiniest bit, like a shell parting to show its soft heart.

“Professor… your…”

“Mm? What?”

“I saw it.”

“I don’t quite get you. What did you see?”

Selina shot her a glance and caught the hidden smile playing at Hedi’s lips. She straightened, then moved with clinical focus, like a scientist running a collider. She brought Hedi’s knees together; knee met knee with a knock, and Hedi yelped like a cat stepped on.

“Tss…” Hedi clutched her knee. “Not so hard!”

“You did it on purpose!”

“I didn’t. What did I even do?”

“You showed me—”

“You showed me—” Hedi echoed, sing-song and wicked.

“I was just trying—”

“Trying what?” Hedi raised her right foot again; the herbal scent unfurled like a field after rain.

“Apply—”

“Apply what?”

“D-don’t!” Selina stamped twice, cheeks burning like ripe apples. “Stop cutting me off!”

“Don’t— cut— me— off—”

“If you keep being naughty, there’ll be serious consequences!”

“I’m not scared of you.” Light sparked in Hedi’s eyes like flint. “You… you little…” She shrugged, careless as wind. “Brat.”

Somewhere, rain began to fall, a soft patter on stone—yet the sky outside stayed clear as glass. With the doors and windows shut, the air thickened with a tart-sweet sweat, a damp animal of scent and heat ready to swallow a life whole.

Ring ring ring.

Selina tilted her head back, as if catching a note out of tune in the air.

Ring ring ring.

“Where did you put your personal info, exactly?” Selina tapped Hedi’s head like a drumstick. “This is the third call today.”

“Ha… ha…”

“Back with me?”

“I… can… uh— wrong, I’m so sorry!”

Something clicked in Selina’s mind. She froze mid-motion, then scooped Hedi up in one smooth tide and hugged her. Hedi struggled like a fish, but her body was soft and weak; Selina carried her to the phone table with ease.

“Don’t make a sound. The sales rep will hear.”

“No. No! I’ll die— socially, I’ll die—”

“You were the one who tempted me.”

“I really can’t!”

Selina pouted, then answered the phone anyway.