Next One Is a Babe

To Cindy, it was particularly refreshing to read tabloid news of herself.

When Ian turned around a while later, Cindy was keeping her head down and staring at her cell phone with a frown; no one knew what sort of news report she was reading about. As Ian’s eyes fell on her face, he recalled how she had coaxed Aurora into sleep yesterday. Even a good-tempered person like him nearly lashed out at Aurora in the end after she had pestered him all the way home, but Cindy managed to pacify her with just a few words.

He stared at her for a long time until he realized that he had fixed his eyes on her for too long. He immediately withdrew his gaze as if he had scalded himself, but he felt somewhat restless at the same time since he couldn’t put his feelings into words. Probably because she had been so gentle toward Aurora last night, his opinion of her had changed somewhat. However, he couldn’t describe in which direction his opinion of her had changed, nor did he have a good grasp of it.

About five minutes later, he left the room with his cell phone in his hand as he pretended to make a phone call. However, as soon as he walked out, he found that Aurora wasn’t in the living room. After looking around for her in the common area, he finally went to the door of Cindy’s room. When he opened it slightly, he saw Aurora sleeping on the bed again. This made him feel somewhat helpless, and he turned around and went back to the sofa.

For over an hour, no sound could be heard from either room. Since he was unable to restrain himself, Ian got up and went to his room before he quietly cracked open the door slightly.

Cindy was sleeping on the edge of the bed while curling herself into a ball. She was obviously somewhat reserved, for she lay huddled up in bed without covering herself with a quilt.

Ian closed the door, went back to the sofa, and lay down. Instead of falling asleep, he stared at the ceiling with his eyes wide open.

His life had been simple at first, for he never had to think about anything other than his work every single day. But now, his life seemed to be overwhelmed with many complicated relationships at once. He wanted to sort everything out, but when he delved deep into it, he found that his life didn’t seem to be any different from before. Even so, he knew deep down inside that many things had changed.

At last, he turned over, took out his cell phone, and read the tabloid news online. Naturally, the news reports he read were about himself. After what happened to Sena and Linda, many acknowledged him and Cindy as a couple. Furthermore, someone had sneaked photographs of him and Cindy at the basketball court earlier, and many commented that they matched each other well.

Ian couldn’t tell whether he and Cindy were well matched, but the photos looked pretty nice indeed. After casually glancing through a few news reports, he saw the photographs taken at the basketball court, which showed him and Cindy standing side by side in the dark night under the streetlamp. Their outlines were slightly blurred in the photos, for it had been softened to make them look like characters in some idol drama.

Cindy was looking up at him in the photo. Even though her expression wasn’t clearly visible, Ian knew that she was smiling at him when this photo was taken.

He enlarged the photo, though he didn’t know why exactly he did so. He took a closer look at Cindy, but the photo was underexposed and had a low degree of resolution, so he couldn’t see the woman’s face clearly even after the photo was enlarged. He breathed out, quit the browser, and slowly put down his cell phone.

He had been waiting for a while when Aurora came out of the room first. She had set an alarm, and it was about time for her to go downstairs to look for a house to rent.