First Steps To Taking Over The World (3/3)

[apple_of_my]

< Part 2



The next morning when she wakes up he’s already left and Victoria spends the rest of the week shrieking that she should have slipped into his bed, you moron!

“Just because you and Ruffled Chicken spend your time fucking doesn’t mean I should too. It’s not like that.”

Victoria pouts.

“How is it then? Anyway - we’re spending Christmas together, right? You and I? My place?”

Victoria’s parents don’t celebrate Christmas, but their daughter has promptly adopted all the good aspects of the tradition: eating, drinking, giving out presents. She gleefully skips the hour-long, awkward family dinner, to instead bake cakes and cookies all afternoon long on the twenty-fourth, and then eat them during the night while Amber gets drunk on Tiger Beer.

They’re attacking the second bûche de Noël - and pronouncing the name made them giggle more than was necessary - when the door of the apartment slams open and they both squeal in terror.

Zhou Mi’s pimpled pepper comes in, barely holding up his very, very passed out zhongwen laoshi.

“Sorry,” he mumbles awkwardly. “We were drinking, and uh-”

“No problem,” Victoria says, waving her hand, “just drop him in his room.” She leers. “I assume you know where it is.”

So she must be far more drunk then she seems.

‘Kui Xian,’ because Amber is starting to run out of nicknames, comes back, wringing his hands like her geeky friends used to do in high school when people talked to them.

“Have some cake with us?” Victoria trills happily. “There’s chocolate, and strawberry, and-”

“We got booze too,” Amber interjects in Korean.

Farther off into the night, she has a vague feeling of leaving drunken messages on Henry’s voicemail, but it could only be an illusion.

On the next morning, it’s painfully obvious it wasn’t.

“Hey, Amber, uh, let’s cut the chase - you said really embarrassing stuff last night and I wanted to make sure you knew that I have three saved files of your message, just in case. So you’re probably still sleeping, since you were completely shitfaced from what I could hear, but, yeah. Merry Christmas. And, fine, I’ll stop walking around shirtless.”

Amber vomits painfully, several times, in Victoria and Zhou Mi’s toilets. There are tiny ducks on the seat and their wide blue eyes are freakishly judgmental as they seem to be staring right at her.

They all seem to be nursing hangovers of doom and the sound of Zhou Mi popping pain meds in a row of four glasses filled with sparkling water is obnoxious enough to make them cringe.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “Cheers.”

Kui Xian groans and Victoria pats his shoulder, before declaring she’s going back to bed and she doesn’t want to be disturbed. Amber flops down on the couch, which smells disturbingly clean and not like hers and Henry’s, back in their apartment - there must be old pieces of food hiding in that thing. Which makes her suddenly, ravenously hungry, enough that she wolfs down half a plate of Christmas cookies - the other half she hands to Zhou Mi who comes to cuddle next to her.

Kui Xian calls his parents in Korea and although she does try not to listen, she can’t help but pay attention, and she knows that Zhou Mi is doing the same.

He frowns at Kui Xian after he hangs up.

“What? Don’t look at me like that.”

“Are you going to keep lying to them forever?”

Amber burrows into the couch because couple’s talk this early in the morning, sober, makes her uncomfortable.

“Have you told your parents? No, didn’t think so. So, you know. Same thing.”

“’m gonna head back home,” Amber mutters.

Kui Xian stares at her, unblinking, for a while, and then he says:

“I’ll walk you back. I need some air.”

“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi says, “don’t-”

“What?”

“Just- come back afterwards, yes?”

Amber makes awkward small-talk in Korean while Kui Xian takes big steps that have her scurrying along behind.

“Thanks,” she says once they’re standing at the bottom of the stairs. “It was nice of you to walk me back!”

Kui Xian stares at her, expression blank, and Amber squirms. “Do you, huh, want to drink something hot before going back?”

“No,” he says eventually. “Your Korean is good.”

“Thanks? I try. I really want to go to Seoul in March, so...”

“You’ll get in,” Kui Xian tells her. “Even Hankyung-hyung got his file accepted.”

Amber finds herself chatting with him, almost, and it’s weird because he’s Zhou Mi’s awkward boyfriend Kui Xian, the one with greasy skin and his hands buried in his pockets, and he’s really, really weird.

“I really should go, now,” Amber laughs. “My toes are freezing. Sure you don’t want tea? It’s one of the things we do have, alongside with three different kinds of games consoles and an extensive collection of crappy movies.”

Kui Xian’s mouth twitches.

He makes her bite the dust, several times, and Amber chokes on nothing at the way his thumbs seem to fly over the buttons.

“How are you doing this?”

“Muscle-memory,” he explains curtly, making her LP points bar plummet to the red, “and I developed calluses that help me grip the controller more firmly.”

He demonstrates after Amber’s character collapses, a bright red and unforgiving ‘K.O’ flashing on the screen. It kicks up Amber’s competitive streak and she hits replay, fingers tense and ready.

At five, though, Kui Xian’s mobile goes off and he pales a bit.

“Shit,” he says. “Zhou Mi.”

Amber watches him hurry out with an odd feeling. It’s like she’s sorry for him and yet she wants to dunk his head in a bucket of water - and not only so his hair would come out clean. It’s just, she wonders how a guy like him could swoon someone like Zhou Mi.

But clearly, Amber Liu is a weird girl, so maybe there’s something she’s not seeing.

She plays a few more solo rounds on her own but it’s not the same when she doesn’t have anyone to elbow or kick and when her phone goes off she’s glad for the distraction.

“Hey. Merry Christmas.”

“Are you calling me all the way from Canada?”

“Yes. It’s snowing outside.”

“Really?”

“No. How are you?”

“I- fine, I just spent the afternoon, err, gaming with Kui Xian, and, yeah. I’ll have Christmas dumplings for dinner?”

“You suck,” Henry chuckles. “I’m going out to do Jell-O shots with friends tonight.”

“That sucks harder, actually,” Amber retorts. “At least I’m not getting smashed.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it after last night, you know.”

“Fuck you. Go be stupid with your friends, whatever. I’ll just spend the evening with my fleece blankets and some weird Chinese TV show, just how I like them.”

“Sparkly and sociologically inexplicable?”

“Yeah. Merry Christmas.”

Victoria invades her flat one morning, way too early, to tell her that they’re going shopping because Geng is taking her to meet his family and obviously, this calls for the renewing of her entire wardrobe. Amber tries her best to look convinced.

“Come on!” Victoria trills brightly. “Here you go!”

She shoves a hanger in Amber’s hands, and Amber blinks at the weightless dark blue fabric that flows down from it.

“What is that?”

Victoria rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Your dress for New Year’s Eve’s party? Student body? Rings any bells?”

“Yes. Why are you picking my dress for me, though?”

“Because I won’t be there then, so I’m planning ahead. Come on, go and try it on!”

Which is how Amber finds herself strapped in that blue dress that must look nice but makes her feel like the world’s most awkward cookie. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with her tiny purse that’s more like a wallet than anything - courtesy of Zhou Mi.

“You keep holding it all night long,” Fei Fei says gravely.

“You’ll lose it, eventually,” Jia adds.

“So if you’ve got anything you want to keep, just store it right there,” said with a knowing look.

“There?”

“Cleavage,” Jia hisses. “Girl, you gotta learn the tricks.”

The sad thing is, Amber did, actually, learn some tricks, since Zhou Mi insisted to make her pretty - “prettier,” he said with a charming smile - and stuck tiny pins into her hair, making it look less boyish and more, well, girly.

Fuck, Amber thought when she caught her reflection in the mirror. I look-

“Sexy,” Zhou Mi supplied. “What a shame Henli isn’t here tonight…”

She shot him a murderous glare and slipped on her flats - she had picked those herself, thanks very much, because she didn’t trust the dance plus alcohol plus heels plus her combination.

And then Amber had hit the party.

Her cell rings during a slightly tribal group-dance, everyone is putting their arms up in the air and chanting, and there’s a sudden buzz in between her breasts, which is the weirdest feeling ever.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

And it’s a little bit stupid that she knows right away who ‘me’ is.

“Hey.”

“Yeah…”

“I’m dancing to Rihanna.”

Henry laughs. “That’s hot.”

“Well,” Amber licks her lips, “people have been saying I looked good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah-”

And then the crowd goes: “TEN! NINE!” and Amber hears Henry take a breath at the other end of the line, at the other end of the world, so she says, dumbly:

“It’s the countdown.”

“SIX! FIVE! FOUR!”

and Amber says: “I think I like you” at the same time everybody yells “THREE! TWO! ONE!” and then there’s a beep and the line is cut.

When Fei Fei hugs her she says: “Oh honey!” and it’s the moment when Amber realizes there are tears rolling down her cheeks, ruining her makeup.

Victoria comes back from the countryside with three extra kilos that, of course, look amazing on her, and spends her first afternoon back in Beijing with Amber, sprawled on the unsanitary couch. She has a list of regrets, as always, of things she should have done or said, but mostly, for once she’s happy.

“You don’t deserve to complain anyway,” Amber tells her. “Geng likes you, and he’s not going to crush your heart under the sole of his Timberland like Henry will crush mine when he comes back.”

“I’ll punch any boy who crushes your heart,” Victoria tells her very seriously. “That guy is one of the luckiest bastards on Earth.”

“You’re nice, but it changes nothing,” Amber moans. “I’m such a moron.”

She receives a thick envelope, classy yellow paper, watermark and everything, and she has to wipe her trembling hands on her jeans before she opens it, sitting down on Victoria’s bed for moral support.

Amber hears her squeal a little cry but she can’t guess if it’s happy or disappointed because her eyes are busy re-deciphering the hangul signs over and over again-

“Shit, I’m in,” she breathes.

Victoria whoops in victory and they chase each other around the apartment throwing pillows and dish clothes; Zhou Mi looks a bit frightened.

Then he hugs them both against him, stabbing Amber with his hipbone.

“D’you think there are guys willing to adopt an Amber Liu in Korea?”

“I think Korea as a whole is willing to adopt Amber Liu,” Victoria says. “Guys included. You’ll get to pick amongst hoards of fanboys.”

Amber cackles. She likes the idea. Victoria points her chopsticks at her.

“What if Henry goes too, though?”

“I’ll- avoid him? Seoul is a huge city. I’m sure there’s a way I can go to class everyday without ever crossing paths with him.”

“He hasn’t rejected you yet,” Victoria points out. “Until he comes back, we don’t have to Google itineraries to go to Seoul University.”

That’s the thing, though, Henry hasn’t come back yet, but he hasn’t called either since New Year’s Eve and Amber kind of dreads the day when his plane lands. She asked to stay on Victoria’s couch for a while, but Zhou Mi said it was contrary to his principles - something about the blossoming of true love - and Victoria said she was messy.

So Amber is stranded in her own apartment like a tiger in its cage, only less messier, and her dreams get weirder as the days on the calendar get closer to that Sunday when she gets out at nine in the morning to get a cinnamon roll and a green tea latte at the nearest Starbucks because she forgot to buy breakfast food again, and when she comes back the door isn’t double-locked and that’s when she realizes, crap, it’s today.

Amber briefly considers turning on her heels and spending the day away, anywhere, walking in the city, except it’s freezing outside and she’s in sweatpants and anyway that is not really the way Amber Liu behaves.

(She doesn’t really have a clue about how Amber Liu behaves in such situations, because Amber Liu never confessed to a boy before - that’s how deeply in trouble she feels.)

“Are you gonna come in or what?”

And he’s standing in the doorway, with his hair ruffled and greasy and huge bags under his red-rimmed, puffy eyes, and Amber realizes she mustn’t look any better, and damn this is so embarrassing.

“I heard the keys in the lock,” Henry explains to her.

“Oh,” Amber says flatly. “Okay, well.”

She tries to walk past him, looking for the safety of her bedroom - so okay, Amber Liu is a coward, so what - but he catches her wrist.

“Wait.”

“I need to, uh, change. My clothes. You know. Brush my hair. That.”

“Don’t you wanna know if I brought you something back?”

Henry’s trying to grin, a bit sheepish and a bit awkward - and the whole thing is monstrously awkward anyway, and Amber feels so humiliated she’s actively wishing for some kind of deity to crack open the floor so it can swallow her whole.

She squirms on the spot until he lets go of her wrist to scratch at his neck, looking away.

“I think we should talk,” Henry says.

“I- Really? I mean, it’s not- I don’t-”

He stares at her and it’s a bit desperate:

“C’m’on, Amber, I’ve never done this before, I don’t know how…”

Oh god, that’s it, that’s the moment when he rejects her. Amber tries to sigh and swallow, and she looks at her feet which suddenly look like they’re fish swimming in some kind of shimmering puddle.

“Wait, are you- are you crying?”

Henry puts a hand on her shoulder that’s probably meant to be comforting and- and- pitying, and Amber doesn’t want that. She sniffles miserably and tries to push him away, only she’s crying, actually crying too hard so she just kind of hobbles to a side but Henry’s hand stays there, warm on her arm, like he doesn’t know where else to put it.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, sounding helpless. “Hey, wait- Amber, wait.”

Amber sees his feet, clad in faded grey socks, and the bottom of his trousers, and all of it is kind of blurred, and his fingers of her arm flex and squeeze and climb up to her shoulders.

And then she gets a whiff of his deodorant than can’t really cover the faint smell of sweat, and something underneath that must be one hundred percent Henry Lau, because he’s hugging her in an sort of awkward embrace.

At first her free arm, the one that’s still clutching the paper bag from Starbucks, stays folded between them at a weird angle, then Amber shifts, catches a fistful of his teeshirt and that’s the point where it gets- well, not exactly perfect, but their own version of it anyhow. Henry is breathing deeply and he nuzzles a bit into her neck, and she finally gets it.

“I’m sorry I made you cry,” he murmurs. “I thought you knew.”

Amber laughs a bit, and he rocks her slowly back and forth, nose still buried in her shoulder. Her hand crumples the paper bag and drops it when Henry pulls back from the hug to kiss the corner of her mouth, once, softly.

They look at each other and Henry’s eyes are all sparkly and warm, and Amber blushes and they laugh, a bit embarrassed.

“So…” she says. “Huh…”

“I want to give it a try,” he tells her, tangling their fingers together. “’cause, I don’t know. You’re awesome.”

Oh gosh, Amber thinks, she understands what Victoria meant when she spoke about butterflies. Amber’s got an entire insectarium in her stomach at the moment.

“I’ve been thinking about you all the time,” Henry continues. “And then I called and you said that, and I couldn’t wait to come back here,” he finishes with an embarrassed grin.

Amber feels herself grin back, and she takes a tiny step closer to him until their toes touch. She feels like a chick flick actress as she wraps her arms around his neck and tilts her neck to kiss him properly - but still chastely, just some nice lip-on-lip contact, a bit dry.

They end up cuddling on the couch and although it’s weird to be lying down whispering mushy stuff right where they used to play Street Fighter and bellow at each other’s characters, well. It’s nice.

Very boyfriend-and-girlfriendish.

Henry says he’s tired and wraps his arms around Amber, inhaling in her hair like he doesn’t mind that it’s greasy and uncombed.

“I thought you had a present for me,” she murmurs to him, playing with his fingers. He has large palms and round-shaped nails.

“In my suitcase. I put a lot of thought into it.”

Henry yawns and burrows closer to her, squeezing her like she’s a plushie toy and rubbing his nose in her neck.

The present is a hideous maple leaf keychain that sings something that must be Canada’s national hymn when you press a tiny button. Amber loves it but she makes the face of the person who ate a sour lemon, just to see Henry panic and stutter. She bursts out laughing.

“Man, dating you is going to be so much fun!” Amber says, punching his shoulder like in the old times, except now it’s ten times more awesome because when he chases her around the apartment, then there’s subsequent kissing and it’s really, really nice, and Henry grumbles something about excuses for further bullying and the unfairness of it all.

As promised, Henry brought back new movies so they sprawl against each other to watch some kind of teenager movie with, uh, deep psychological issues: what if there was something else to life than boning a cheerleader? Why is it impossible to make a mutant movie that beats the X-Men series?

They both make a running commentary of the movie and something Henry will play with her hair, just above her neck (she ended up taking a shower, some time around four in the afternoon) and, yeah. Amber thinks this is nothing short of perfect, as far as very first days of very first relationships go.

“OH MY GOD!” Victoria shrieks. “Okay- okay, hold on, I’ve gotta take you to my OBGYN.”

Amber stares at her. Victoria blinks. Once. Twice.

“Err,” Amber says. “Are babies made differently here? Because I’m pretty sure that in America, you have to swap more than saliva in order to procreate, you know?”

This time, Victoria stares and Amber blinks.

“You mean you two didn’t fuck?”

Sometimes, Victoria forgets that she’s supposed to be well-educated and she talks in Beijing slang like her parents haven’t sent her in this fancy private school. Most of the time, Amber likes this Song Qian. Right now? Not so much.

“Well, no.” Amber answers, cringing (somewhere deep down, she doesn’t like where this conversation is going). “What kind of girl do you think I am? I’ve never- I mean, this is the first-” she makes a lame circle-circle gesture with her hands.

Okay, scratch that, Amber hates where this is going.

Victoria looks at her and it’s at the same time pitying and proud, like Amber’s her spiritual daughter of some sorts, and it’s also really creepy.

“Okay, I didn’t know that,” she says. “Well, you’re still going to the OBGYN. ‘cause, you know. There is a chance that it might happen, and when it does… You’ll want to be prepared, trust me.”

She smiles at Amber, and it’s not so creepy anymore, now it’s the warm soft ten-out-of-ten Victoria smile that makes Amber feel like she’s in Girl Team too.

“Thanks,” Amber says; it feels silly not to hug her then.

“Aw,” Zhou Mi coos as he walks in. “Can I be part of the group snuggle too?”

He leaves, though, when Victoria tunes him in on the topic at hand and suggest they swap first time stories, ‘for Amber’s enlightenment or something’.

Amber leaves too.

The thing is- they haven’t talked about it with Henry, of course they haven’t because it would have been premature and stuff. And last night Amber went to sleep in her bed, after some totally chaste kissing on the couch, and, and that was it.

Should have been it.

She just couldn’t help the tingle of awareness, when she retreated back into her room, because she knew Henry must be thinking about it too, and he’s probably expecting her to. Well, put out, as gross as it sounds.

Amber doesn’t think she’s entirely ready for it.

They don’t exactly have time to do much either, as it turns out, because after a semester of slacking off, playing violin and gorging on cheap movies, they discover they actually have mid-terms to take and boy aren’t they late on their studying schedule.

Henry and Amber’s relationship narrows down to cheesy smiles through cup-ramen mist, playing footsie under the desk and flopping down on the couch when the Korean alphabet is trickling out of their heads.

Amber is surprised to find herself comfortable in this thing. She had expected it to be awkward at first, because Amber Liu’s an awkward cookie who blushes during sex scenes in movies. It must be Henry, she reflects sappily, only Henry, while she’s watching him scratch his nose when he finds a question tricky.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

Henry raises his eyes from his notes and grins at her, a big owlishly.

“I like you,” Amber whispers - damn, she’s blushing again, she can feel it.

Henry bites his lip and turns an interesting shade of red himself, before getting up from his chair and circling the table up to her. His hands come up to her chin and then he’s kissing her, sweetly, like he wants to say it back but he can’t yet.

On the eve of their midterms, they both find themselves too stressed out to work anymore; Henry drags her outside in the freezing cold under the dubious pretext to get muffins from the Starbucks. He holds her hand on the way, though, and the warmth of his fingers seeps through the layers of their gloves, so Amber figures it’s okay.

They eat the muffins, sitting cross-legged, face to face, on their couch, greasy-fingered, sugar-slick smiles, and when they cuddle and make out, Amber tastes the caramel on Henry’s lips.

Victoria walks in big steps, her hands covering her ears, singing loudly about not wanting to hear about exams anymore, she’s on holidays, godammit. Amber and Zhou Mi laugh when they see Han Geng rushing to catch up with her.

“So that’s it,” Zhou Mi sighs. “You only have two weeks left in Beijing.”

“Are you gonna miss us?” Amber asks.

Zhou Mi nods earnestly. “Definitely. I’ll miss the daily gossip.” He grins smugly at Henry who shrugs and bumps his shoulder into Amber’s.

“You’re going to the party, though?” Henry checks.

It’s the party they’ve all been waiting for, the one that marks the end of midterms. It’s gonna be a blast, Han Geng told them very seriously. He didn’t get why Henry and Amber were laughing at him.

So Zhou Mi is definitely going too, dragging Kui Xian along, as it seems - a very unhappy-faced Kui Xian who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than trapped on the dance floor by some pretty, flirty girls who rub themselves all over him.

Zhou Mi cackles.

“Aren’t you supposed to be jealous?” Amber asks amusedly.

“No,” he answers with a blinding grin. “It’s way more fun to watch Kui Xian trying not to touch their chests.”

“Speaking of which,” Fei Fei pops in. “Amber, come shake your sexy butt to the beat with us.”

Amber shakes and shakes - she’s glad she wore the flats again because her feet are already hurting as it is. Victoria comes to join them and wraps her arms around Amber’s neck:

“So,” she says over the music. “We’re going to Seoul!”

“We are,” Amber beams. “Still my roommate?”

“Still your roommate,” Vic agrees. “What about Henry?”

Henry’s got himself a room in a collocation dorm with ten guys or so - a tip of Han Geng’s. He’s ridiculously excited too because he talked to the dudes via Skype, and they all seemed really enthusiastic to have him there with them.

Victoria laughs when she hears. “You should keep an eye on him, then. I’ve heard about Han Geng’s friends, believe me.”

“Keep an eye on whom?”

Henry smiles smugly at Victoria before snatching Amber away and wrapping his arms around her waist:

“Shall we dance?” he says.

Amber sways slightly in the circle of his arms in answer, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging until he kisses her.

They dance, and when they’re too hot they drink, and then they dance again, until the universe is reduced to twirling lights around them and the microcosm that’s made of the two of them only.

“Let’s go home,” Amber murmurs into Henry’s ear.

He pulls back briefly to look at her, hard, kisses her, hard, and whispers: “Okay.”

They walk back to their tiny apartment in the cold night and the fresh air makes Amber amazingly aware of Henry at her side and of their hands clasped together. She knows what she wants and she’s going to get it. The walk is silent save for their footsteps in mostly empty streets.

The only light inside the flat comes from the street. As it is, Amber can make out Henry’s shape, but it’s not like she needs to see anything when he leads her carefully by her hand, avoiding any potential obstacle, to the threshold of his room. Henry kisses her again then, deeply and slowly, and as she presses herself closer to him it occurs to Amber they haven’t even taken their coats off yet, so she tugs Henry’s off and ushers him into his room, where they fall on his bed and it seems like they can’t stop kissing.

“Hey Amber,” Henry whispers while he’s shrugging his shirt off, “I love you.”

Amber hears herself moan - a sound she didn’t know she could make, and works on the buttons of his jeans while he struggles with the clasp of her bra.

“Love you too,” she murmurs when they take their underwear off, she puts a hand on his shoulder and sits up to kiss him. “I love you.”

There’s that breathtaking pause where she’s just tracing the lines of his face with her thumb and Henry’s hand finds hers.

“Alright?” he asks, voice all deep and rough.

Amber breathes and laughs, just as shakily: “Pretty awesome,” she answers.

It’s weird and it’s that usual combination of ‘just as she was told’ and ‘totally different in a great way’, and Amber realizes with a sudden jolt that it’s Henry, with her, inside her, that she’s making love with Henry, and the realization has gasping and breathless.

She holds him closer and kisses his neck, his ear, everywhere she can reach.

Afterwards, Henry gathers her in his arms and kisses her deeply again, like the burning urge has been soothed but there are still so many things ahead of them.

Thinking back on the past six months, Amber thinks she’s ready to take over the world.

“Korea first,” Henry whispers back. “Korea first, then the world. You and I, baby.”