"You're sure this is okay?" Yibo mumbles now, curling his knees beneath his chin on the toilet seat. "You don't have to check in with me every time," Xiao Zhan says, sounding warm over the fuzzy connection. His face is clear and his eyes are bright. Yibo feels himself relaxing. "Just tell me all about it later, yeah?"

“It’s Friday night,” Yanli says, a warm teasing note in her voice. “Shouldn’t you be doing something more fun than studying chemistry?” “What are you doing?” Wen Qing asks, stung. “You’re just hanging out in your dorm, right?” “Mm,” Yanli says, the warmth still in her voice. Wen Qing can almost imagine her stretching like a cat as she says it, one of those long dancer’s legs lifting high. It’s a hot night; maybe she’s wearing those tiny grey stretch shorts she wears when she comes right from dance class to the dining hall, barely peeking out under a long t-shirt. Wen Qing has thought about those shorts a lot.

The single faceless, anonymous photograph on the profile that catches his eye is shot in elegant black-and-white, and there’s something about the crispness of the focus and the markedly off-center composition that says art, for once, rather than mugshot. The caption below is equally sparse: “5’6. Demanding.” (Or: Meng Yao gets wrecked by that Good Lan Dick. Lan Xichen gets wrecked by Meng Yao's Whole Deal.)