Chapter 223: Why I Wanted To Come

Qinghe moved the chair closer, lifting it so the legs wouldn’t scrape across the floor.

When he sat down again, his knee nearly touched the bed, and Zhiyi’s open hand lay beside him on the blanket.

He had held that hand many times.

He knew how her fingers tightened when something hurt and how readily she withdrew them once an examination was finished. This morning, she had offered it without needing anything from him, and he found himself looking at her face before he reached for it.

Zhiyi let her fingers settle between his. Her hand was warm, smaller than his by enough that he could fold his palm around it without trying. He rested their joined hands on the mattress, leaving her arm where she had placed it.

"You’re quieter than usual," she observed. "Is this uncomfortable for you?"

"No," Qinghe replied, looking up. "I’m trying to get used to being here without deciding what I should do next."

Her gaze moved toward the chair he had brought closer, then returned to him.

"You wanted to stay," she said. "This is what staying looks like."

Qinghe smiled. He had spent so much time imagining a reason to linger that he hadn’t considered what would happen if she simply invited him to.

There was no examination to finish, no answer to write down. He could feel her thumb resting against the side of his finger, and the smallest movement of it held his attention.

The room was cooler than the corridor.

A corner of the blanket had fallen beside the bed, and the water glass on her table left a damp ring beneath it. He noticed these things gradually, once he stopped watching her face for signs that she wanted him to leave.

Zhiyi looked toward the doorway when footsteps passed outside. Qinghe recognized Zeyu’s voice, followed by Shichen telling him to wait. Something brushed the wall, and Zeyu apologized to it before the footsteps continued.

Her mouth softened. Qinghe caught himself watching, pleased by an expression he hadn’t put there.

"He does that when he’s tired," Qinghe told her. "Apologizes to whatever he walks into. He once spent several seconds explaining himself to a coat stand."

Zhiyi turned back to him, her interest immediate. "Did he believe someone was standing there?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"He’d come out of a meeting and was still looking at his phone," Qinghe explained. "By the time he realized what he’d hit, Jingwei had heard him. None of us were allowed to forget it."

He remembered Zeyu attempting to recover his dignity while the others watched from the office doorway.

At the time, there had been another meeting to attend and dinner reservations someone had already changed twice. Qinghe hadn’t thought about that afternoon in months.

Zhiyi shifted her fingers against his. "Tell me something about you," she requested. "You keep choosing the others."

The question left him searching through memories that suddenly seemed either too ordinary or too carefully selected.

He could have told her about school or the hospital, but she already knew what he did when someone needed him.

"When I was little, I used to hide books inside my textbooks," Qinghe said. "I thought I was very good at it until a teacher asked me why I’d been reading the same page for twenty minutes."

"What were you reading?" Zhiyi asked.

"Detective stories. I wanted to reach the end before anyone told me who had done it." He rubbed his thumb lightly over her fingers. "Unfortunately, I usually read late enough that I fell asleep in class the next morning."

She glanced at the bedside table, where there was room for a book beside her water.

"Do you still have any?"

"Some," Qinghe replied. "I brought them here. I haven’t opened one since we moved in."

Saying it made him realize how often he passed his own shelf without looking.

The books had become part of a room he used mostly for sleeping and changing clothes. He had prepared for years of living there, then spent each day behaving as though he could only afford the next necessary task.

"Bring one when you visit again," Zhiyi said. "You can read it here."

The assumption that there would be another visit pleased him more than he was ready to admit.

He looked at their hands to hide it, but her fingers closed slightly around his before he could turn the conversation elsewhere.

"You don’t have to read aloud," she added. "Unless you want to."

"I think I’d like that," Qinghe said. "Although I’ll have to find one whose ending I’ve forgotten."

He could picture it too easily: a book open in his lap, her listening against the pillows, an afternoon passing without either of them waiting for him to finish and leave.

Zhiyi watched his thumb move over her hand. He stopped when he noticed her attention, and she lifted her eyes.

"You can keep doing that," she told him.

Warmth spread beneath his collar. He had been touching her without thinking, enjoying the softness of her skin beneath his thumb.

With her permission, the movement became deliberate, and he found it harder to pretend it meant no more than the touch he offered anyone he wanted to comfort.

"I like holding your hand," Qinghe admitted.

Zhiyi looked down at their fingers, considering the statement with the same care she had given his invitation the night before.

"I like it too," she said. "Your hands are usually moving when you touch me."

He knew what she meant. Adjusting a support, checking a dressing, helping her sit. He had been close to her for weeks, but always with a reason that ended as soon as the task was done.

Qinghe let his hand remain still around hers. The silence that followed no longer felt like something he needed to fill.

When Zhiyi reached toward him with her other hand, he leaned closer before realizing she was touching his collar.

She smoothed a folded edge with her fingertips, then left them resting briefly against the fabric. "You changed your shirt," she observed.

"I did," Qinghe replied. He could have said the other one needed washing, but her eyes were on his, and he didn’t want to give her an excuse in place of an answer. "I wanted to look nice when I came to see you."

Her fingers paused against his collar. Then her gaze moved over his face slowly enough that he felt the attention all the way down to their joined hands.

"You do," Zhiyi told him.

Qinghe stayed close, aware of her fingertips near his throat and the quiet space between them.

"Zhiyi," he said gently, "I don’t think I’ve been clear enough about why I wanted to come."