The living room is connected to the kitchen counter area of the open kitchen, and a small area is illuminated by relatively clear neon light and shadow coming from the window. There, stood a person.
A man.
Tall, erect, wearing only a... Um, bath towel around his lower body? No. Rong Ning's confused brain struggled to identify.
That doesn't seem to be a bath towel. The texture seemed to be some kind of... Soft, light gray cotton fabric with faint, thin stripes. There is also a familiar embroidered logo on it that she hand-picked. That length, that color...
That's her limited edition boyfriend shirt! Last month, she saw it at a low-key designer store in Milan. The price was so heartbreaking that she was reluctant to wear it a second time. It has been hanging in the back of the master bedroom closet!
And now, this expensive shirt was wrapped around a strange man's body in an extremely ill-fitting, yet not weird, ugly manner. The fabric was tight on his broad shoulders and chest, and the hem just passed the middle of his thighs. The top three buttons were stubbornly fastened, barely maintaining a shaky dignity, while the lower part was empty, revealing a pair of straight, slender legs with clear texture that could be photographed in a bodybuilding magazine.
The man had his back to her, as if he had just gotten some water from somewhere. He was raising his head slightly and wiping his wet short hair with a... Well, a dark blue cotton cloth that looked like her kitchen hand towel. The water droplets rolled down the smooth lines on the back of his neck, slid over the vaguely undulating outline of the shoulder blades under the shirt, and sank into the area of the lower back that was barely covered by the fabric.
The movements are casual, even with a kind of homely laziness. It's as if he is the owner of this space.
Rong Ning's gaze moved up the legs mechanically and slowly, passing over the thin waist, the tight fabric of the shirt, and the wet black hair, and finally settled on the smooth black surface of the cooking table.
There, through the neon light outside the window, she saw a few things lying quietly:
An open, half-eaten transparent box of Japanese soufflé cheesecake that she had hoarded in the refrigerator and was reluctant to eat, next to her collection of bone china spoons.
Purpose: About courage and hope