no. { ` his answer is slightly too curt for his taste when he didn’t mean for it to be, and he quickly tries to smooth out the wrinkles within his tone. } i bought air fresheners. { ` her palm’s beginning to burn into his, he thinks, and he’s not sure if it’s just the sensation of being able to hold her hand — much more, someone’s hand — or the fact that their last touch was her hand to his forehead during the said sick day, or a combination of both, but it’s a good burn. it makes him feel human again; it makes him fall in love again, and at this point, yifan realizes how absurdly cheesy he’s sounding in his thoughts but they keep coming to him and he bites back the urge to say something too soon — even if it had been uttered from his lips a hundred times before. } … i never thought this would happen again. { ` he utters, and while it only spilled past is lips to fill in the silence as they walked down the hall, he let’s out a sigh of relief because that’s a fraction of what he’s wanting to tell her and he’s glad that at least a part of that is relieved — the rest, he thinks, is to be stored for later when they’re comfortable around each other once more. } … { ` he halts his steps in front of his bedroom, his fingers pressing the code into the keypad and he fumbles with it a moment, inputting the four-number combination wrong [and to note, it’s custom — tiffany’s birth year, 1992, and he prays that she doesn’t notice when he finally puts it in correctly] the first time, but upon the second he hears the door click unlocked and he pushes on the handle for it to open, welcomed by the scent of vanilla and angelcake — two scents that the lady at the market told him went good together. after a while, the angelcake smell would overwhelm his senses and cause his head to stir uncomfortably, but it’s better than the normal room smell [laundry detergent and spoiled food], he thinks. }
