Hui Jie's POV:
Her warmth still lingered on my shoulder; my heart leapt slightly. Grabbing my bag, I walked out behind Lilith.
"Hey," I said, holding onto her shoulder.
"What?" she replied without looking back, her tone dense with annoyance.
Geez.
"I just wanted to apologise for snapping at you earlier, but if you won't hear me out, then have it your way," I groused.
"Yeah yeah, whatever," she hissed, popping her headphones on.
Upon returning to our room, Lilith sprung into the shower immediately, leaving her phone and bag on the bed. She didn't even ask if I wanted to shower first. Sighing, I sat down at the edge of the bed.
Suddenly, a loud, shrill peal ripped through the silence, scaring the life out of me. Turning my head in the direction of the sound, I saw Lilith's phone light up as a second notification pinged. Then I watch a third, then a fourth, show up on the screen. My heart was palpitating, as the gears in my mind turned: should I open the notifications? Gosh, the curiosity was killing me. Finally, I caved in.
Seizing the phone, I clicked on the notification. I grinned seeing it bring me to her chats. Hah, the idiot forgot to lock her phone. My excitement was short-lived as what I saw next doused my spirit completely.
How's it going with lover girl? Then a winking emoji.
Huh? I didn't know she was...
My breath hitched as I saw the previous texts. They were talking about me. Not in a "gossip" kind of way, but... My eyes widened.
When are you going to ask HJ out? This has been going on long enough.
She likes me? I flung the phone down back onto the bed and stood up. My mind raced as I searched through the past few days for any possible innuendos of her feelings. But this couldn't be, I thought she hated me. Then, I heard the bathroom door open.
"Did you just see a ghost?" Lilith looked me up and down judgmentally.
I opened and then closed my mouth like a goldfish.
"You're being weird," she pointed out, "weirder than usual."
I goggled at her as I tried to string words together to form a comprehensible sentence.
"I-I," I gulped, "huh?"
"Tsk, quit wasting my time, just go in and shower," she groaned.
I scurried into the bathroom, a million thoughts racing through my mind, so fast I couldn't even decipher what each one meant. I buried my head in my hands. Maybe "HJ" wasn't supposed to refer to me, maybe it was someone else. After all, Lilith was quite literally the epitome of a "straight white girl", she wouldn't be infatuated with another girl anyway. I exhaled shakily. Yeah, there was no way she would like me.
Unbeknownst to me, that last thought felt like a thousand prickly needles being injected into my heart.
