When Ranhua woke up, Ruoqing's shoulder had gone completely numb.
She shifted her neck, and there was a small crack, then she slowly opened her eyes. Ruoqing was staring straight ahead, expression the same as always—unreadable.
"Did I fall asleep again?"
"Yeah."
"How long?"
"Don't know. Over an hour, maybe."
Ranhua sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was flat on one side and sticking up on the other. She glanced at the empty beer cans on the coffee table, then at the window—the sunlight had shifted from the center of the wall to the corner. Afternoon.
She didn't say anything right away. She just hugged her knees and sat quietly for a moment.
That wasn't like her.
Ruoqing noticed, but didn't ask.
About two minutes passed. Then Ranhua spoke, her voice soft.
"Ruoqing. I just had a dream."
"Yeah."
"About middle school." Ranhua rested her chin on her knees, eyes on the floor. "About the first day I walked up and slapped your desk."
Ruoqing turned to look at her.
"Your face was so funny," Ranhua said, a small smile crossing her lips—shallow, barely there. "You were completely startled, eyes huge, but you didn't dare tell me to go away."
"I wasn't startled."
"You were."
Ruoqing didn't argue.
Ranhua buried her face in her knees and said, muffled, "I was thinking about middle school too. Right before I fell asleep."
"Thinking what."
"How simple everything was back then." There was a faint thickness in her voice. "I'd drag you everywhere, and even though you always looked annoyed, you always came. The school store, the art club, that little park behind the building… nothing to worry about. Biggest problem was midterms."
She paused.
"The things I worry about now—I couldn't have even imagined them back then."
The room went quiet. The refrigerator hummed. Wind moved past the window, and the clothes on the drying rack swayed once, gently.
Ranhua lifted her head and turned to look at Ruoqing.
Her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying.
"Ruoqing."
"Yeah."
"What do you think I should do?"
The question came out light, but Ruoqing heard the weight in it. Ranhua wasn't asking for advice. She was asking—will you catch me if I fall.
Ruoqing didn't answer right away.
She looked at Ranhua's eyes—the same eyes they'd been since middle school, unchanged. They went red when she cried, crinkled when she laughed, went wide and round when she was angry. Right now those eyes held something complicated: exhaustion, unease, a flicker of hope, and underneath it all a fragility that said if you tell me to go back too, I genuinely don't know what I'll do.
Ruoqing set her empty beer can down on the coffee table. The metal touched the surface with a quiet sound.
She turned to face Ranhua. Her expression was the same as always—flat, giving nothing away. But her voice was steady, each word like it had been considered for a long time before being said.
"Ranhua."
"Yeah."
"If you want out of that life, you can leave whenever you're ready."
Ranhua's lips moved, but no sound came out.
"You don't have to hold it together alone." Ruoqing's gaze didn't shift. "I have space here. I can take care of myself, and I can take care of one more person eating. You can stay as long as you need."
She paused, like she was weighing whether to say the next part.
Then she said it.
"I'm here. Whatever you decide, I'm here."
Ranhua stared at her for a long moment.
Ruoqing's expression didn't change, but Ranhua had known her for eleven years. She could see it—the tips of Ruoqing's ears had gone faintly pink, the same way they had that time in ninth grade when Ranhua had hugged her in the hallway.
When this person said things like that, she meant every word more than anything.
Ranhua's tears finally fell.
Not sobbing—just quiet, one drop at a time, sliding down her cheeks, landing on her knees, darkening a small patch of her pajama pants.
"You really…" She sniffled, voice shaking. "You really are terrible at talking, you know that."
"I know."
"You're so bad at it, and then every time you open your mouth you—" She couldn't finish. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and the tears kept coming.
Ruoqing didn't hug her. Didn't pat her back. Just sat there, quiet, and waited for her to finish.
A long time passed. Ranhua's tears slowed. She took a deep breath, let it out, took another, like she was putting herself back together piece by piece.
Then she picked up her phone.
Ruoqing watched her unlock the screen, scroll through her contacts, find the name—Chen Boyu, with the little house emoji still next to it.
Ranhua's finger hovered over the call button. She hesitated for three seconds.
She glanced at Ruoqing.
Ruoqing didn't nod. Didn't shake her head. Just looked at her.
Ranhua pressed call.
It rang twice before he picked up. He'd probably been waiting.
"…Boyu."
Ranhua's voice was much calmer than before, but still carried a faint rasp from crying.
"I've thought about it."
The other end said something. Ranhua didn't interrupt. She listened, then spoke.
"I'm not saying I want a divorce."
A pause.
"But I don't want to come home right now."
The voice on the other end got louder. Ranhua moved the phone a little away from her ear.
"Let me finish." Her tone shifted—firm in a way Ruoqing rarely heard from her. "I need to figure things out for myself. Not in a day or two. Really figure them out. Until I do, I'm not coming back."
"Xiao Yu is at your parents'. He'll be fine until summer break ends."
"I'm going to find a job. I'm not going to stay like this."
"But right now I need some time, on my own—" She paused, glanced at Ruoqing, and corrected herself. "Not on my own. I have a place to stay. You don't need to worry."
Silence on the other end for a long moment.
Then Chen Boyu said something. Ranhua closed her eyes. Her brow creased slightly, but she didn't waver.
"That's it. Think about it on your end too."
She hung up.
The moment the screen went dark, something seemed to go out of Ranhua all at once. She dropped back against the couch, phone sliding onto her stomach, and covered her eyes with her forearm.
"God," she said.
Ruoqing looked at her.
"Was I just incredibly cool." Ranhua's voice was muffled under her arm, trembling a little.
"It was okay."
"Liar. I was so cool just now."
Ruoqing said nothing, but the corner of her mouth moved.
A tiny shift. Maybe a few millimeters.
But for Lin Ruoqing, that was as big as a smile got.
She stood up, walked to the refrigerator, and took out the last two beers.
She set one down next to Ranhua's side and opened the other for herself.
"What are we celebrating?" Ranhua moved her arm away, revealing red-rimmed eyes.
"Nothing." Ruoqing took a sip. "Just drinking."
Ranhua looked at her, then laughed.
Not a big laugh—something light, a little nasal, the corners of her eyes still damp.
She sat up, grabbed her beer, and tapped it against Ruoqing's can.
"Lin Ruoqing."
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
Ruoqing took a sip and looked out the window.
The afternoon light had turned orange, falling warm against the wall of the apartment building across the way. Somewhere below, a kid was riding a bike; the sound of wheels rolling through a puddle drifted up, distant.
"Don't mention it," she said.
Then, very quietly—so quietly Ranhua almost missed it:
"You were always allowed to be here."
Ranhua didn't answer. She just leaned in, shoulder to shoulder.
The two of them sat on the couch, drinking their beers, watching the sky outside slowly go dark.
Neither of them spoke, but the quiet in the room was different from the quiet when Ruoqing lived here alone.
It was the kind of quiet that meant someone was there.
She thought: maybe this is enough.