【Me · The Younger Man】
My name is Chen Yu, and that year I was twenty-four, two years out of college, only just transferred into this project team. They called me a working adult, but honestly, apart from being able to write a bit of code and nod along with clients, I knew nothing—least of all about women. I’d had one girlfriend back in college, and from holding hands to breaking up we never made it to that last step. In this department I was practically a blank sheet, so blank I was ashamed of myself. So on my first day, when I sat down at my desk and looked up to see the face directly across from me, I instinctively nudged my monitor up a little higher, as if trying to find myself some cover.
Across from me sat the archivist, surname Shen; everyone on the team called her Chen-jie. Twenty-eight, four years older than me. She wasn’t the kind of stunning that hits you at first glance—she was the kind that grows on you: a soft, round face, eyes that turned down slightly at the corners, eyes that curved before her smile did, a slow way of speaking with soft, trailing endings. She wore a beige knit sweater, the cuffs rolled up to her forearms, baring a stretch of wrist so pale it seemed to glow, her wrist dipping and rising as she typed. Our two desks were pushed together face to face, with two monitors between us, but no matter how high the monitors were they couldn’t block the scent—that shampoo she switched to with the season, a cool soapbark note mixed with a hint of white flowers. Every morning, the moment she sat down, my whole side was steeped in it first.
【Chen-jie · Her】
That new boy—at first glance I didn’t think much of him, only that he was clean. His collar pressed flat, he’d blush when he spoke, and when he came to ask me for files those two words—“Shen… Chen-jie”—caught for half a second before they came out smoothly, and the tips of his ears flushed a ring of red right then. I’d been at this company four years and had seen too many oily, pushy men who wanted to take advantage of you over a meal. Suddenly, across from me, there was one who hadn’t been worn down yet—like a little pot of freshly planted greenery had been set inside the room.
I had a boyfriend; we’d been together three years, in another city, doing engineering work, so we couldn’t see each other more than a few times a year. On video calls he always said just hang on two more years and he’d get transferred back. I believed him, and I got used to it. Used to it to what degree? Used to eating alone, spending holidays alone, waking up alone at midnight staring at the ceiling, having practiced those three words—“I’m fine”—until I said them better than anyone. So that day, when I saw that boy’s red ears, that faint, forbidden little itch in my heart—I pretended not to see it. Really, I pretended not to see it.
【Me · The Younger Man】
What brought us closer was a video. That month the team was buried under a big release; we worked overtime every day and everyone was on edge. One afternoon the system crashed, and the tester guy got so frantic he slapped the desk. I don’t know what wicked impulse came over me—I whipped out my phone, secretly filmed him yanking at his hair in his flustered state, set it to some cheesy background music, and dropped it into the group chat. The whole team cracked up. Chen-jie laughed the hardest, laughing until she collapsed onto the desk, shoulders shaking. When she looked up there was still a bit of wetness at the corner of her eyes, and she reached across the monitors and tapped the back of my hand with her fingertip: “You—you’re bad.”
Just that one touch. Her fingertip was cool, resting on the back of my hand for less than a second before she pulled it back, but that little patch of skin tingled for a long time, as if something very light had scalded it. I stared at the code on my screen and couldn’t take in a single letter; I just felt my heart pounding so loud the whole office could hear it.
【Chen-jie · Her】
Tapping the back of his hand—that was from laughing too hard, not catching myself in time. The instant I pulled my hand back I knew I shouldn’t have—his whole body went stiff, even his breathing went faint. I pretended to look down at my files, but out of the corner of my eye I was watching him entirely: his ears had gone red again, the kind of red that burns up all the way from the base of the neck, impossible to hide. Suddenly I wanted to laugh a little, and I also felt a flutter of panic. Three years—I’d long forgotten what it felt like to be cared about by someone like this—cared about by a boy younger than me, one who wore everything on his face. The feeling wasn’t heavy, but it was like a very thin thread that hooked me, just once.
【Me · The Younger Man】
After that, little nameless gestures crept in between us. When she handed me files, she’d deliberately set the paper at a corner of the desk farther from me, watching me reach for it; and when I reached it, sometimes her fingers hadn’t fully let go, the pad of her finger brushing mine, and we both pretended nothing had happened. Once my earphone cord got tangled, and she leaned over to help me sort it out, her breath almost against the side of my ear, saying “Hold still,” and I really didn’t dare move an inch. After she’d fixed it she needlessly flicked the rim of my ear too: “Why are your ears always red?”—Could I have said it was because of you?
【Chen-jie · Her】
I knew I was playing with fire. Every extra half-second I lingered, every extra bit of idle chatter I asked—I knew perfectly well I was crossing a line. At night on the video call, my boyfriend rambled on about things at the construction site, said he’d gotten more sunburned again today, said he missed me, and I answered “mm,” “mm,” while in my head was that boy in the office earlier that day, after I’d flicked his ear—those eyes that didn’t dare look at me and yet couldn’t help looking at me. After I hung up I pressed the phone to my chest and told myself: Shen Chen, you’re twenty-eight, don’t be a fool. But the next day, the moment I sat down at that desk and met his eyes, that “don’t be a fool” went soft again, so soft it had no backbone left.
【Me · The Younger Man】
The overtime nights grew more and more frequent, and fewer and fewer people were left in the office. One day it got past nine, and the whole floor was down to just the two of us; every other workstation was dark, only our little patch was still lit. She got up to fetch water, and coming back she didn’t circle around to her own seat but came around to my side, standing behind my chair looking at my screen, one hand resting lightly on the chair back. She was very close, close enough that I could feel the warmth off her body, could hear the rhythm of her breathing. She said: “Chen Yu, are you… a little afraid of me?” My throat tightened; I shook my head. She let out a low little laugh, and that laugh fell against the back of my neck. Neither of us said anything more; the office was so quiet you could hear the hum of the air conditioner’s vents, and I knew that something had already changed—there was no going back to those two prim, proper desks facing each other.