Chapter 4

By unspoken agreement, we never brought that incident up again. Jiang Suiye and I remained good classmates and good roommates.

After a few months together, we’d grown closer and closer.

Who wouldn’t like having a roommate who could do everything?

Ever since we’d started sharing a room, he’d taken care of everything in my life, big or small.

Bringing me breakfast was just the bare minimum.

Besides getting my meals, he’d taken over every dorm-room chore that had anything to do with me.

Whenever I finally remembered to check on the clothes I’d washed, they would already be folded neatly on my bed.

My desk was always spotless. At some point, without my noticing, he’d tidy it for me.

But what happened that afternoon shocked me most.

I’d come back from class and was planning to put several days’ worth of dirty clothes in the washing machine.

When I went out to the balcony, though, everything was already hanging neatly on the line. Even my socks were clipped up in matching pairs.

“Who washed my clothes?” I turned to ask my lovely roommates.

“Probably Suiye,” our chubby roommate replied, still playing his game. “Saw him carrying your washbasin just now.”

My basin?

Something suddenly occurred to me.

My underwear was still in it!

I hurried to the bathroom in a few long strides and pushed the door open.

Jiang Suiye stood at the sink, scrubbing something in his hands.

I looked closer.

My underwear.

The pair I’d taken off yesterday, no less.

“You—why are you washing my underwear?”

I was mortified. I rushed over and tried to snatch it from him.

He was a little less than half a head taller than me. Before I could reach him, he held it high above my head.

“We’re roommates. I was washing things anyway. Don’t get so worked up.”

He was so unbothered that I seemed like the one overreacting.

But washing your roommate’s underwear was weird, however you looked at it.

“But…”

“No buts.” He put my underwear in the basin and said without batting an eyelid, “You can wash mine next time I take it off. Fair enough?”

He sounded so serious that, for a moment, I wondered whether this could possibly be the same aloof star student.

He’d talked me in circles. I was too stunned to get a word out.

While I stood there dazed, he went back to scrubbing my underwear in the basin.

“Or…” He suddenly leaned closer. The agarwood scent hit me full in the face, and I didn’t dare move. I felt rooted to the spot, with only one thought in my head.

Throw myself at him.

Aaaaaah.

“I can take mine off right now and let you wash it.”

He was so close that his breath brushed my ear.

At those words, though, I took a sharp step back.

What on earth was he saying?

He seemed to notice my panic and laughed. “All right, all right. I’m kidding.”

“But I’m still washing yours.”

The upshot was that, from then on, he washed practically all my underwear.

I resisted at first. Then I discovered that whenever I secretly washed it myself, he’d get upset.

He’d wear a long face and barely speak all day.

And I’d have to coax him out of it.

“Fine, fine. You wash it. You can wash all of it from now on.”

Only then would he come around.

I had no idea what sort of strange fixation this was.

Still, to be fair, the underwear he washed did smell nicer.

I’d even watched to see what he used.

It was the same detergent as mine, which only left me more puzzled.

Was his cologne so strong that it could leave its scent on my clothes?

It wasn’t exactly something I could bring up with him, though.

What was I supposed to say? That my underwear smelled of him? That would be far too weird.

I thought he might be spoiling me past the point of no return.

I hadn’t even graduated yet, and a roommate was already taking care of my entire daily life. At this rate, I’d become completely useless.