The One Next Door Is Mine

[Leave a rating after reading, please! Please add my next books, New Boy and Can I Please Stop Missing You, to your reading lists~]

Blurb:

[1]

Cai Wan's greatest hobby is admiring handsome men. If a guy is her type, she never holds back on the compliments.

But when she realizes she's fallen for the facially gifted guy next door, everything changes.

She can't bring herself to confess. She keeps blushing, and even telling him "You're so handsome" becomes incredibly difficult.

Then one day, while swooning over a few photos, she sums up the kind of handsome guys she likes:

"Fair skin."

"Mm."

"Pretty eyes."

"Mm."

"A high nose bridge."

"Mm."

"A nice mouth..."

Cai Wan trails off and looks at the laid-back man beside her, who's been humming in agreement the whole time.

"Obviously, you don't fit the bill," she says, trying to cover herself.

Xu Baicheng doesn't argue. He gives another low "Mm."

In the blink of an eye,

his handsome face is right in front of hers. The man crooks a finger and smiles, his gentle voice coaxing her: "Then come a little closer and take another look?"

[2]

After they get together, Xu Baicheng doesn't complain or show any concern about Cai Wan's obsession with romance simulation games.

But one day, while browsing Zhihu, she comes across an unanonymous answer.

Zhihu: What's it like when your girlfriend loves playing romance games?

Xu Baicheng: "Thanks for the invite. It's not bad at all. It's just like having three thousand beauties in my harem..."

"All three thousand of your favor in one person?"

[Hopeless fangirl x sweet-on-the-outside, scheming-on-the-inside handsome genius]

New Boy blurb:

[1]

When Tan Ji was ten, she got a long scar on her left arm. It hadn't faded even after several years, so she went to a newly opened tattoo shop in town to improve its appearance.

The shop owner asked what she wanted tattooed.

Tan Ji thought for a moment, then traced a line over the scar. "A straight line."

The shop owner said nobody got tattoos like that, and it would look ugly.

Song Cheng, who had come with Tan Ji, immediately handed over several red bills and said just one word: "Do it."

Only later did Tan Ji learn that Song Cheng had gotten the same ugly thing tattooed on the inside of his own arm.

-

Tan Ji and Song Cheng had known each other for ages.

They'd grown up together, practically naked, gone to the same elementary, middle, and high schools. They were more than childhood friends: they were friends who'd go through hell for each other.

When they were kids and Song Cheng got into a fight, Tan Ji would charge in and bite the other guy. Once they were in school, if a teacher wrongly punished Tan Ji by making her stand, Song Cheng would kick his chair aside and stand with her outside the classroom.

Tan Ji had always thought of Song Cheng as a rock-solid buddy.

Until one day, the so-called buddy in her eyes, a cigarette from the supermarket counter between his lips, the bitterest, harshest, and most expensive one there, spoke to her through the lingering haze.

"I've been thinking I might want to give it a try."

"See what it's like to take the girl I've spoiled since childhood home with me."

[2]

After they get together, Tan Ji gets a sudden urge to go to the tattoo shop alone and extend the straight line on her arm to eighteen centimeters.

When she gets home, she points to the line and grins, asking him to guess its length.

Song Cheng glances at it and says nothing.

Then one day, much later,

Song Cheng writes an unbearably sappy song with Tan Ji's name as its subject.

Tan Ji can't stand him.

So Song Cheng takes the opportunity to say, "Then I won't sing it anymore."

"?"

He points to the inside of his left arm, where the straight-line tattoo sits in the same place as hers, and smiles with even less shame than when she asked him to guess its length.

"I'll turn it into a musical staff and tattoo the chorus here."

*A stubborn, cool girl with an eighteen-centimeter line tattooed on her arm x a cocky rock guy with a romantic streak who has spoiled only her since they were kids

*Also known as: What Do I Do When My Childhood Friend, Who Was Just a Friend, Suddenly Says He Likes Me? and A Hundred Ways to Pursue Someone After Your Childhood Friend Finally Gets a Clue

Theme: Love and warmth.