Kāi Mén Jiàn Shān - 开门见山
katocchi
The floodgates were open but only by a crack, enough for one or two questions a day. I tried my best to keep it that way, and it wasn't hard: Erxi seemed happy to be on speaking terms, no longer pushing for my attention. I thought she'd be a "give her an inch, she'll take a mile" type of person, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself wrong.
We learned a few things about each other. Before test days, she used to sleep with lucky socks on to avoid nightmares about failing, a superstition she carried over for presentation days, too. I became pescatarian after a particularly scarring argument with my grandparents. She wanted to work with video game designing one day, but she was more interested in creative brainstorming than programming. I watched children's cartoons to destress. She hated revealing her connection to Zhiyi Tech, even though she was immensely proud of her friends.
"I don't want people to think I'm riding on their coattails," Erxi said. I stopped wishing she'd exploit their friendship to work somewhere else after that.
Two or three weeks later, a few things became a lot of things, and at times, I swore I regretted my decision to open up to her, especially when she'd be reminded of something I'd said and winked conspiratorially across the paperwork. But the companionship was nice, I had to admit, and I strayed from admitting things personal enough to become weapons.
Our co-workers, like children at the zoo, watched our interactions with wide-eyed fascination until the novelty went away and our conversations no longer had a distant audience. Erxi was still mind-numbingly loud when she got excited, but it no longer grated my nerves; in fact, watching from the other side of the invisible Zhao Erxi approval wall, the office-wide winces were amusing.
a/n.
alrighty, friends, it's been three months. we're pushing this story forward.
katocchi