Chapter 74
“...It shouldn’t be.”
“What happened that night was an accident. It never should have happened; it was my fault. Maybe I was too exhausted from staying up night after night, too out of it to think clearly, so I made a mistake while I wasn’t fully conscious.”
A mistake.
Yu Min’s back stiffened at once. Now it was her turn to be stunned. Even though she had steeled herself before coming here, the force of those words was still overwhelming, like a sharp blade driving straight into tender flesh.
“It isn’t fair to you, but I never meant to keep running from it. I just didn’t know what to do,” Lin Baixin said slowly. “The first few times, I wanted to sit down and talk to you. I thought there might be a way to fix it, to keep things as calm as possible, at least not make it so awkward and hurt you, but it looks like I only made it worse and hurt you even more.”
“How could there possibly be some calm way to fix this now? How is that even possible?” Yu Min’s throat worked. “Was your ‘out of it’ just a little too late?”
“It’s been more than half a year.” Lin Baixin was counting the days too. “From the day you moved out until now, it’s been that long.”
“Every time I came over, I was hoping you’d speak up and ask me to stay. But you never did. You didn’t even come to my place once. If I hadn’t waited for you today, was that it? Was I just supposed to move out, like you never planned for me to come back at all?”
“No, that wasn’t what I meant. I wasn’t trying to push you out.”
“You didn’t even call me once.”
There was no denying it. Lin Baixin had no answer, and she fell silent again.
“Those times Sister Lin Qi and the others came to see me—some of them were because you asked them to, weren’t they?” Yu Min had already seen through it all. “Since you couldn’t make up your mind, why did you still give me hope? Were you doing all that because you were still wavering, still trying to calm yourself down and hesitate, or because you couldn’t bear it and felt sorry for me?”
Still no denial. She couldn’t hide it from Yu Min, and she couldn’t lie to her.
“Taking me in back then was because you pitied me. I’m a lot like you; you saw your old shadow in me,” Yu Min said. “You’ve stayed so calm for so long and still don’t have an answer. Your feelings toward me have always been like this. Is your reluctance because of me as a person, or because of your past? Can you even tell the difference anymore?”
Lin Baixin fell even more silent. After a moment, she only shook her head and said softly, “It’s not the same thing.”
“But I think it is.” Yu Min said, “You said you’re not a lesbian. Then I can take that to mean you don’t have those kinds of feelings for me, that kind of emotion. If that’s the case, why aren’t you like this with Song Chu? I’m no different from her. We’re the same kind of person. Anyway, you’re not, and you can’t accept people like us. We’d only bring you trouble. Shouldn’t you have cut ties with me already? Why are you still caring about me, still indulging me? That’ll only make me misunderstand even more. I’ll think you can’t bear to let me go.”
“You and Song Chu are different.”
“In the end, you still pushed her away. There’s no difference.”
“Minmin.”
“They were right. You really are a very good person. I was the one who misunderstood how good you were to me; I got it wrong,” Yu Min said deliberately, with a mocking edge. “You’re not a lesbian. I was the one who misled you. You didn’t want to; it was just a moment of confusion, a mistake.”
Unwilling to argue, Lin Baixin lowered her voice even further. “Can we talk properly? Don’t do this. Please, okay?”
Yu Min, still holding on to her anger, stubbornly pressed forward one step at a time. “The ‘solution’ you’re talking about is really just fixing the mistake and forcing everything back onto the path you think is right, isn’t it?”
“It’s not your fault. That’s not what I meant.”
“Why didn’t you shut down my hope sooner?”
“...”
“What were you doing all this time? Realizing it only now—isn’t that a little too late?” Yu Min said in a low voice, her throat slightly hoarse. “You clearly noticed it long ago, but you never stopped it.”
Her questioning was too relentless. Lin Baixin turned away again and no longer met her head-on. After a while, she said, “This is my fault.”
“I don’t want you admitting fault. That’s useless. It’s too late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We can’t go back to how things were before. I can’t do that,” Yu Min said bluntly. “You’re not a lesbian, but I am. I can’t change that. If I’m still like this in the future, and I won’t change, then what are you planning to do?”
Lin Baixin’s thoughts were in complete chaos. She answered honestly, “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Then think about it now. Decide now.”
She couldn’t give an answer, let alone make a decision.
Yu Min wouldn’t give up. “Will you still let me stay? Can I move back in?”
“I...”
“Can I, or can’t I?”
The answer was the silence and desolation of the whole room; the dark, suffocating space was terrifyingly quiet.
Lin Baixin was caught in conflict. Usually so decisive and crisp, she couldn’t even make a clear choice this time, still vague and uncertain. “I need some time to think.”
“But I don’t want to give you any more time,” Yu Min said at once. “Last time, I thought you’d make up your mind quickly. I was willing to give you time to calm down. I could wait, as long as you thought it through; no matter how long it took, I didn’t mind. But all you did was avoid me and keep drifting farther away.”
Lin Baixin froze. This time, she didn’t argue.
Yu Min said, “I came over tonight for a definite answer. If you can’t decide, then I will.”
Lu Dagun somehow ran into the living room. Perhaps sensing the oppressive atmosphere, the little thing stayed far away and didn’t come over to disturb them. It obediently hopped onto the tall cabinet beside the projector and crouched there, its tail wrapped around its two front paws, staring fixedly at them.
“Right now, you can’t accept it and you need time to adjust. I can stay with you and help you get through this little by little. That night, you didn’t reject me at first. All this time, I’ve never felt you rejecting me. You said you shouldn’t be a lesbian; I don’t know whether you’re doubting that on a cognitive level or whether there’s some other reason you’ve come to that conclusion,” Yu Min said gently. “Is it because of Song Chu? Because you’ve never had contact with this kind of thing before, so back then you thought you weren’t, and now you still think you shouldn’t be?”
“It has nothing to do with Song Chu,” Lin Baixin said.
“Then it’s a cognitive belief.” Yu Min nodded, then fell silent too. She didn’t speak for a long time; only after a while did she open her mouth again. “Have you ever liked men? Do you have stronger feelings toward men?”
Lin Baixin instinctively wanted to deny it. She had even less contact with men. She had only ever had contact with Yu Min. All these years, she had been alone; in truth, she had never been involved in any of this at all. She had no special feelings toward men or women; it wasn’t a matter of gender.
But the explanation simply wouldn’t come. After holding it in for a long time, as if it took all her strength to flip that switch, she shook her head and said, “Neither.”
“What about me?”
“...”
“Is that the same?”
“I can’t tell.”
“So I’m not an exception either.”
“...”
Yu Min understood. Her denial was genuine; so was her hesitation and inability to tell.
It was fine if she couldn’t tell. Yu Min didn’t care about any of that. That wasn’t the point. Those things could be worked out slowly. As long as there was still a chance, the premise was that Lin Baixin was willing to give her that chance.
Returning to the original question, Yu Min still said the same thing, firmly: “I want to stay; I want to come back here. I don’t care what you think, whether you’re not a lesbian or whatever else; that doesn’t matter. But you can’t treat me the way you treated Song Chu. You’re not without feelings for me. I don’t believe it.”
Lin Baixin still hesitated. Looking at the person in front of her through the dim night, a wave of panic and helplessness surged through her all at once. Reflexively, she curled her fingers; her hand trembled twice out of control.
“If I leave this time, I won’t come back.” Yu Min’s face was expressionless. She meant every word. “As for what happens between us after this... you can decide that later. Decide it yourself. I’ll listen to you. As long as you decide, anything is fine.” She paused, then fixed her gaze on Lin Baixin’s profile and set a deadline outright. “I’ll give you ten seconds. Give me a straight answer, and I won’t leave.”
“Ten, nine, eight...”
Seven... six...
“Sorry.” Lin Baixin never gave her a straight answer; before the ten seconds were up, she gave her reply instead.
Yu Min froze. Half her body was swallowed by the darkness; for a moment, she almost thought she’d misheard. She looked at her in disbelief, dazed and motionless, completely stunned.