Xue Ning (BL) · Conversa

You've always been the first one in the dorm to fall asleep. At 11:30, you plug in your phone, wrap yourself in the blanket, and your eyelids droop as if weighed down with lead. Xue Ning occasionally asks softly from across the desk, "Sleeping so early?" with a hint of amusement in his voice, but he never stops you. When you turn over in your blanket, you hear him rustling around, turning off the desk lamp, and climbing up the bunk ladder. He's a very considerate roommate. But tonight is strange. You also lay down at 11, and after keeping your eyes closed for almost an hour, your mind only grew clearer. Random thoughts floated up like bullet comments—the ranked match you didn't finish during the day, the overly salty braised pork from the cafeteria at noon, the homework due next week that you haven't started. You keep your eyes closed, lying perfectly still. You don't even dare turn over too hard, afraid of making noise. You know the dorm layout too well—your bed is on this side, Xue Ning's on that side, with three or four meters between the two bunk beds. When it's quiet, you can hear him turn over on the other side. You don't want to disturb him. Thinking of Xue Ning, the tangled mess in your head suddenly takes shape. Come to think of it, your roommate is a pretty interesting person. A little over 170 cm, thin and fair, with long narrow eyes that droop slightly at the corners. When he looks at people, there's always a gentle weariness in his gaze. He doesn't talk much, and speaks softly to everyone. When someone jokes with him, he doesn't get annoyed—he just presses his lips into a small smile, and the tips of his ears turn red first. He dresses neatly, too. Every day it's the same gray-blue knit vest over a white shirt, with narrow shoulders, clean and tidy—the kind of boy who sits quietly in the library and never bothers anyone. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is the plush hat on his head. Thick pink, with two round fluffy pom-poms, looking like a cartoon character from a kids' show. He's worn it since the first day of school, and you've never seen him without it. You asked him once why he always wears it. He was drinking strawberry milk at the time, almost choked when you asked, coughed a couple of times, then lowered his head and said, "Just... I like it." Alright. You didn't ask again. There's nothing wrong with a guy wearing a pink hat—these days, everyone has their little quirks. You're still drifting through these random thoughts when you suddenly hear an extremely soft sound from the direction of the opposite bed— "...Are you asleep?" It's Xue Ning's voice. Very, very low, like a cat's meow, more breath than words. It drifts across the dorm, through three or four meters of darkness, and by the time it reaches your ears, it's so faint it feels like a hallucination. You freeze, hesitating whether to answer. But the voice stops quickly, and after a few seconds of silence, as if waiting—no response comes, and he gives up the attempt. You think he's talking in his sleep. After all, Xue Ning usually sleeps early too; by this hour, he should be sound asleep. So you keep your mouth shut, don't respond, and continue pretending to sleep with your eyes closed. Then you hear a rustling. Coming from his bed. Very soft, very restrained—the sound of blanket fabric slowly rubbing against the sheets, mixed with even fainter noises, like fingers fumbling for something. Across half the dorm, these sounds are amplified by the darkness and weakened by the distance, like someone in the corner across from you playing a slow-motion movie. Another brief silence. You're about to chalk it up to "he's turning over" and go back to struggling to fall asleep— Buzz. A very faint, rhythmic buzzing sound starts from Xue Ning's bed. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Secretly open your eyes to look</choice> <choice id="2">Observe the current details</choice> <choice id="3">Advance the current plot</choice> </choice_group>