those years between us

[8] LITTLE SECRETS

I DIDN'T SEE him after that night. Which seemed impossible, since we were neighbours, but it could actually be done. For a whole week straight, I avoided the usual times I knew he left the house. He didn't text me either.

Maybe things were better off this way. Him and me, separate lives.

He had to have suspected something. What, I wasn't sure. But how many reasons were there for a girl to keep a hoodie a boy gave her years ago and wear it so regularly? Maybe if we'd always remained close friends it could still be somewhat explained. But with our kind of relationship?

He didn't seek me out. That was an answer of some kind.

So I didn't bother him either.

Instead, I thrust myself headfirst into schoolwork. I spent my days in the library instead of my own apartment, lowering chances of running into Orion at all. The few times I did see him, I merely gave him a nod before turning away.

Life went on.

"Look at this guy," Eileen gushed, shoving her phone into my face. We'd just left the library after a gruelling study session, and were now walking to a nearby restaurant. It was Douyin on her screen, the Chinese version of Tiktok. And it seemed like she was the doing the classical thing of looking at shuai ge videos on there—edits of handsome guys that the app was known for.

I let out a snort. "Get out of my face, girl." And when she did pull the phone a little further away, I studied the guy in the video, one brow raised. "I don't like his hair."

"But he looks so good."

"Eh, not my type."

Eileen grumbled. "No one is your type. I swear to god. Who is your type anyways? Jeremiah?"

"He's a bit too... yao. If you get what I mean? Doesn't he feel like a hulijing to you?" Camille might not get what I was getting at, since she didn't use much mainland media and wasn't familiar with the terms and memes, but Eileen certainly was.

She wrinkled her nose. "I kind of get that. It's not my type either. He's cute, though. So what is your type?"

"I like the clean type. Like, si wen, you know? Proper and careful and clean."

"Name like, some celebrities that really fit your beauty standard, then."

"Yang Yang," I said without hesitation. "That kind of face, you know?"

"If you're looking at boys and comparing them to Yang Yang, I hate to break this to you, but no one is ever going to meet your expectations. Yang Yang is one of the most handsome faces in the bloody Chinese film industry. Like, he can star in the most ridiculous show and half of us would still watch it just for his face."

I snickered. "That is the truth. But he's the kind of style I like."

Eileen tilted her head. "I kind of get that. Let me think, who fits that kind of vibe here? Do you like white guys? Or just Asians?"

"I don't discriminate."

"Okay. Some of the white guys fit that type, honestly, but I don't really know their names. There's this one guy in one of my classes... Never mind. Okay. Who else that we both know?"

I waited patiently for her answer.

"Oh! I know! Orion! He fits that vibe, doesn't he? The first time I met him I thought he looked like Yang Yang too. Like, not as handsome, but he's still handsome. Yang Yang is just a god that can never be beaten in terms of look."