Junhui's refrigerator smells like onions and leftovers that've been sitting for a few days too long. Jieqiong crinkles her nose at it when she reaches for the water filter and takes a swig straight from the nozzle before putting it back in its place.

"Your fridge stinks," she reports back to Junhui. He doesn't look up from his stats homework, so she says it again, refraining from poking him in the arm. Her fingers still itch with the need to prod his shoulder.

"It's Wonwoo," he sighs. Reaches for the eraser. "He keeps bringing home food and never finishes it, and I keep falling asleep before I remember to clean it out."

Jieqiong shakes her head. "Well, it's gross," she laughs right into his ear. Junhui retraces a smudged five before putting his pencil down and looking at her, eyes sharp and dark and tired. Jieqiong can't bring herself to look away.

"It's late," he says. It's barely even midnight. He doesn't mention that Jieqiong showed up on his doorstep three hours ago without prior notice and proceeded to hum songs instead of write her term paper, or that Jieqiong shouldn't have come over here in the first place. "I'll walk you home."

Jieqiong blinks and moves to flop onto his couch in response. "I'm glued to your sofa," she mumbles into the armrest. Junhui laughs, but it's empty, small. Unintentional.

"C'mon." When she looks up, he's already pulling his jacket over his shoulders. "I'll walk you home," he repeats.

"You don't need to," Jieqiong says quietly. Junhui's walking over to put on his shoes, and the air conditioning starts up again, and Jieqiong shivers from how little she's moved over the last few hours.

He looks over his shoulder at her before pushing himself up and dusting off his jeans. "I'll walk you home," Junhui says for the third time.

This time, Jieqiong gets up.

Jieqiong usually doesn't like boys like Wen Junhui.

Jieqiong usually likes boys like Xu Minghao: boys who go to the gym in between classes and end up in lectures in muscle tanks that show off their wiry arms, boys who don't know how to kiss but Jieqiong doesn't know how to either, so they giggle through the awkward fumbling of tongues and teeth and hitting their noses together. Boys who offer up their sweaters when Jieqiong's hand is cold in theirs, boys who start to forget to answer her texts once the busy part of the semester begins.

Boy who, when he finally remembers to reply, sends a cryptic but all-telling we need to talk. They break up two days before Jieqiong flies home to Shanghai for winter break, and she spends three weeks pretending to her family that they haven't.

Junhui's Minghao's mentor in one of those campus clubs related to their major. He smiles at her for the first time when Minghao introduces them at some party, and even though Jieqiong's slightly tipsy, she remembers how his teeth are a little crooked up until the next time he smiles at her again.

Junhui's Chinese is soft where Minghao's is harsh. "Jieqiong!" he says when they see each other a week after the party, and she likes the way her name sounds on his lips. Minghao's friends usually just call her Minghao's girlfriend.

Junhui doesn't excommunicate her after he learns that they've broken up and badly. "I'm sorry," he tells her even though she laughs talking about it. He hands her a chocolate bar that he's supposed to sell for fundraising for free, and it makes Jieqiong want to cry over everything all over again.

Jieqiong usually knows when she's overstaying her welcome, but she finds herself on the floor of Junhui's apartment again a few days after he walks her home.

Wonwoo narrows his eyes at her, toothbrush caught in his mouth as he combs his hands through his bedhead. It's two in the afternoon.

"Hi," she says before turning back to her screen, where two promising paragraphs of her term paper sit.

Wonwoo makes this ugly sound that reminds her of Minghao's flatmate's cat coughing up a hairball. "Amazing," he jokes. "It's like you live here."

Jieqiong frowns but doesn't let him see. "When will Junhui be back?" she asks, pretending to be engrossed in something on her phone. Wonwoo's rinsing his mouth in the kitchen sink when she risks a glance up.

"Does it look like I have a GPS tracker on the guy?" Wonwoo says. Jieqiong, eyes still trained on her phone, just shrugs. A pause. "He has work today. Maybe seven?"

Dammit. Jieqiong closes her laptop. "Oh," she says, starting to pack her things into her bag. "Thanks, I guess."

Wonwoo laughs, more abrasive than anything else. It's a bad look on him – his nose scrunches up like he's in pain and he looks more smug than happy. When it passes, a grimace takes its place. "You know, Junhui – "

Jieqiong holds up a hand in between slipping on her Converse. "Yeah," she says too loud, too fast. Tucks her hair behind her ear. "I know."

She pulls open the door. Wonwoo's still leaning against the wall where she pushed past him, watching her cautiously.

Door slams closed.

It might be weird, but Jieqiong never talks to Junhui about China.

She never really talked to Minghao about China either, and the closest they got to it was when they’d mention how badly they wanted to eat something every once in a while. Maybe it was because China was too close to the heart and they were too engrossed in trying to find a home away from it, and Jieqiong had too much pride to cry over a call to her parents, so she never called in the first place.

But the smell of Junhui’s cooking reminds her of her mother’s – garlic in everything, ginger to cut down the bitterness of dark leafy greens. The soup steaming on the stove. The scent wraps around her like her Hello Kitty comforter back in Shanghai, reminds Jieqiong of chasing her sister down the hall to the kitchen table once dinner was ready and fighting over who’d lay out the utensils.

“Junhui!” she calls once she’s toed off her shoes. Maybe she should call home tomorrow. “Wen Junhui!”

Junhui used to have hair long enough to pool past his shoulders. He'd cut it sometime between the time she and Minghao had been together and after they'd broken up. Now, Jieqiong couldn't recall quite what he'd looked like with the long hair.

“Jieqiong?” he says, walking out of his room and leaving the door ajar behind him. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and oh. It’s getting long again. “What are you – ”

Jieqiong’s smile falters. The soup’s starting to boil on the stove. “I was just – ”

Junhui’s door opens again. It’s Minghao. He leans against Junhui’s door frame like he has a right to be there, but he really doesn’t. If Jieqiong really thinks about it, she doesn’t either.

She bangs her knee against the shoe rack in her rush to pull on her shoes again. . “Jieqiong,” Junhui says, starting towards her, and it, she’ll just slip the ends over her heels later.

“You should watch the soup,” she says, already half out the door. Junhui looks concerned. Minghao looks like he’s frowning at her from behind him.

Jieqiong runs all the way home.

They don’t talk about what happened.

Junhui says hi to her when they catch each other in the math and sciences building on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Jieqiong says hi back. Junhui doesn’t send her a cryptic but all-telling we need to talk, and Jieqiong pretends that nothing’s changed between them, except for the fact that she has to stop herself from dropping by his apartment now on the way back from class.

This is all until Xiening drags her to Junhui’s for their Chinese club social that Jieqiong was trying to pointedly avoid.

“So,” Minghao says. They’re both sitting on Junhui’s couch watching Xiening fail at beer pong. Yanan looks visibly distressed. “Wen Junhui, huh?”

Jieqiong the roof of . It’s dry from the beer she’s been sipping on. “None of your business,” she dismisses, re-adjusting her skirt. Minghao doesn’t look down at her legs and Jieqiong tries to pretend he doesn’t exist.

Minghao scoffs. “He’s too nice for his own good,” he says, trying to meet her eyes. She doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

“A step up from you,” Jieqiong grumbles. She hasn’t seen Junhui since she and Xiening first got here, and her heart thumps heavy and hard in her chest as she scans the room for a glimpse of him.

Dingxin starts fiddling with the playlist. “Nice people can hurt you too, you know,” Minghao replies, surprisingly serious. She shuffles through three songs before settling on something bass-heavy, and Jieqiong feels it through her bones.

Jieqiong turns to look at him at that. His gaze is earnest in the dim lighting, he’s styled his hair back, and his ears still stick out in that funny way that she always told him reminded her of a monkey and like this, Jieqiong can remember how it felt to be in love with him.

feels stuck between tears and a residual you from everything he’d put her through. When she looks away, Jieqiong finds that she feels nothing at all. “I don’t care.”

Minghao laughs, and it’s a hollow sound. “You’re crazy, Jieqiong,” he shakes his head, handing her another beer. It’s only then that she realizes she’s finished hers.

“I know.” Jieqiong cracks it open.

She’s still looking for Junhui.

It’s almost two in the morning and Jieqiong is terrifyingly sober when she finds Junhui picking up empty beer cans.

“Hey,” she says by means of greeting. It’s three hours too late to say hi, and everyone who didn’t pass out on Junhui’s couch starting leaving half an hour ago, so it’s just her and Junhui and an unconscious Yibo.

Junhui looks at her, tired. He pauses from where he’s lifting a cup to the trash bag in his other hand. “Hey,” he replies after a moment of thought.

Jieqiong kneels beside him and pries the cup from his hands. “Let me,” she says, reaching for the trash bag too. Junhui frowns and doesn’t let go.

“Shouldn’t you go home?” Junhui asks. It’s more gentle than accusing.

“You can just walk me home after we clean up,” Jieqiong smiles, lips pressing together. Junhui relinquishes his control of the trash bag while he considers that. “Right?”

Junhui bites his lip. His hair’s falling into his eyes again and all Jieqiong wants to do is brush it back. Instead, she stacks three beer cans on top of each other and stuffs them into the bag. “Listen,” Junhui says. “Jieqiong.”

She pulls her skirt down, self-conscious. Somewhere down the hall, Wonwoo’s laughing at something behind his closed door. Jieqiong can’t help but feel like she’s the one he’s laughing at instead.

Junhui twines his fingers together and wrangles them. Jieqiong wishes he’d twist those fingers through hers. She still itches with the need to push back his hair, lean closer until she can feel his shaky breaths against , until their lips meet. “I – ”

“I like you,” Jieqiong says. When she turns, Junhui looks unsurprised. Jieqiong finally feels her legs burning from where she’s been kneeling.

She smiles, tight-lipped and brave like the way she never cries about how far she is from home, brave like the way she hates Minghao for how he ended things. Brave like the way she fell in love with Junhui in the first place. “That’s all,” she chokes out, downing the half-finished beer can in her hand before standing up and heading for the door.

Junhui lets her go. Jieqiong hugs herself the entire way home, the wind hitting her bare legs uncovered by her damn skirt, and pretends she’s crying from the cold.

The thing is, Jieqiong’s known how this story would end before it even started.

It’s not hard cutting Junhui out of her life.

Jieqiong stops taking the long way back from campus to walk by his apartment. She throws the skirt she wore that night somewhere in the back of her closet, where even the light can’t touch it, starts hanging out with Eunwoo – who’s even more dedicated to bleaching Junhui out of Jieqiong’s life than she is herself – and looks down at the ground on her way to class instead of searching for a certain face in the crowd. It’s not hard, but one day she gets an overwhelming sense of déjà vu and realizes she’s been through all this before, back when she and Minghao had just broken up.

It’s not hard, and it’s the night before her term paper is due that Jieqiong lies awake in bed, remembering the silence and dark of the times Junhui walked her home from his apartment, his hands in his pockets while hers itched to reach for his.

It’s not hard, but people always tell Jieqiong that she’s brave when she types out I’m a coward, I’m a coward, I’m a coward on her phone and realizes the contact she’s pulled up on the screen is Junhui.

It’s not hard, but Jieqiong has always fallen in love too hard and too easily over too little and by the time she reminds herself how much it hurts in the end, she’s already in love again.

It’s not hard, but one evening, Jieqiong blinks awake from a nap to Eunwoo’s no ing way, she doesn’t want to see you and her heart leaps until it lodges in as she scrambles to the door.

“Jieqiong,” Junhui says once he sees her. Eunwoo turns toward her, exasperated, but leaves as soon as she sees the look on Jieqiong’s face with her hands thrown up in surrender.

Jieqiong leans with one hand still on the doorknob. Her heart beats like it’s committing espionage on everything she’s been trying to do for the past two weeks, and there’s so much to say that there’s no words to say it in.

Junhui’s not Minghao. His hair doesn’t fall into his eyes anymore, and he doesn’t wear muscle tanks to class, and they never talk about China. But Junhui’s here, standing on her doorstep, and Jieqiong wonders if that’s really what makes all the difference.

“I,” he starts. in a breath. “I,” and goes nowhere with it. He wrings his fingers. Jieqiong realizes that she still wants to twist her fingers with his.

So she reaches for her flip flops. Junhui looks confused when she opens the door for him again. “C’mon,” she laughs, like she’s over-eager to get to the punchline of the joke she’s telling. Unintentional. “I’ll walk you home.”

Junhui laughs, too, at that. It crinkles his eyes and she’s struck with the fact that she’s still very much in love with him.

This time, Jieqiong doesn’t know how the story ends.