Why Are You This Pretty

Hair—or something like it—was plastered across a forehead and both cheeks in thick seaweed clumps, a wild, unkempt mess.

What the fuck. That ghost looks disgusting.

The enormous TV dead ahead made Jian startle and yank her gaze away in horror. Only when she realized the face on the screen was her own did she whip around, turning her body from Dou.

In the movies, actresses looked nothing but lovely when they were damp and glistening. Reality, as ever, refused to match the footage. She lifted a hand, desperate to salvage whatever she could.

She raked her fingers up through her hair, trying to sweep it back, but the sweat-soaked strands clung with vicious persistence and showed no intention of letting go. Why won't this work?

"You'll hurt yourself doing that."

Dou, who had been gulping down what was left of the bottled water, shot a hand out toward her.

"You really shouldn't look at me right now…"

"Huh?"

She tried to turn away from him, only to meet her own face in the TV again, and her expression crumpled hard.

A tender hand smoothed down her face, brushing the strands aside one by one.

Damn it. She was about to give up and squeeze her eyes shut when a soft peck landed on her lips.

As if he couldn't hold himself back, Dou caught her face and kissed her lightly once more.

"Why are you this pretty?"

"…What?"

Is his eyesight that bad? She shot him a dazed glance, and Dou caught her face again, pressing kisses all over it. Every time his lips landed he told her she was pretty, and then—absurdly—something slid down from one of her eyes.

She wiped it away with the back of her hand before he could notice. The trace was gone. The disbelief was not.

Why tears, of all things?

At the sight of her scrubbing at her eyes, Dou drew his mouth away and studied her, worry written plain across his face.

"What's wrong?"

"My eyes just itch a little."

He gazed quietly at the flushed skin around them, then kissed each eyelid once.

Jian's chest fluttered all over again. She reached up, wound her arms around his neck, and took his mouth in a deep kiss.

Dou stilled for a beat, then drew her in with easy familiarity and carried the kiss deeper.

"Nn…"

Someone's heat against her. Hands that wanted her. Skin pressed flush to skin. The sex was good, yes—but what Jian had missed most was this.

Even if, for him, the movements were only a way to spend his desire. Even if the emptiness and the loneliness would only cut deeper once it ended. Even so, she could not give sex up.

She had heard as much from an ex.

He used to welcome her gladly whenever they met and she asked for sex, until one day he began saying he was tired, throwing out cruel lines like that, and avoiding her. Before they were together he had been endlessly tender, as if he would give her everything. The moment she opened her body and her heart and drew close, he turned into someone else.

He was hardly the only one. Every man she had dated was a different person before the relationship and after.

The tenderness vanished. Meeting her became an unavoidable chore. Even when they were together he spent the whole day lost in his phone, or had sex without a scrap of affection and turned away.

Each time, Jian broke it off without hesitation. But being alone from the start, and becoming alone after having been two, was harder than she had thought.

It wasn't that she missed them, or that she was desperate to be in love. She only needed someone's warmth, and affection aimed at her that was pure.

Only after those endings did Jian understand. She was severely starved for love.

A mother gone so early that neither her face nor her warmth remained in memory. A father who worked manual labor and drove other people's cars from morning until night, just to keep her fed.

And so, for the most part, Jian was alone. From early on she cooked her own meals, made her own snacks, and studied on her own. Even when the school held events her father could never come, and she never resented him for it.

She simply accepted it as the way things were. People always called her independent, and she herself had believed she was more comfortable alone. Only then did she realize how terribly lonely she had been—and how desperately she wanted someone's love.

That was why she liked sex. Those brief moments of sinking wholly into each other, of craving no one else.

"You're so pretty, Jian."

Maybe that was why. Even knowing it was an act, Dou's whisper felt devastatingly good. The stamina with which he reached for her again and again, the touch of those hands—those were maddeningly dear.

And so Jian could not sleep. If not today, she had no idea when another chance would come, and she could not make herself stop. They kept at it until the sun had sunk fully into the earth and risen again.

Of course there were moments when drowsiness won and she drifted off. His soft kisses and equally gentle hands snapped her eyes open once more.

"Mmm. Aren't you sleepy, oppa? You don't seem to have slept at all."

When she said it through eyes heavy with sleep, Dou—lying face to face with her—pecked her lips and whispered back.

"How could I sleep, with you this pretty right beside me?"

Those deep eyes on her, that low voice, and her hands reached for him before she could think. A light kiss deepened. Then, naturally, they were touching each other and joining again. They repeated it until, somehow, bright light was pushing in through the window.

So all-night sex really was possible.

Strangely, Jian wasn't tired. Her body had little strength left in it, true, but her mind felt clearer than it ever had.

This'll be the last, then. As morning drew near, regret rose first—the particular ache of having been at each other all night and still not having had enough.

Jian held him tighter and savored what she told herself was the final time.

If I'd known, I would've said let's do it on the weekend. That today was a weekday felt bitterly, infuriatingly unfair.

"The sun's already up."

After coming for a time he'd lost count of, Dou pushed himself up and murmured at the bright light spilling in from outside.

"You tired? I didn't even let you sleep."

He whispered it with a guilty face as he wiped her down with a towel warmed and damp. And yet—why was his hand drifting lower?

Words and actions refusing to match, Jian couldn't help a soft laugh.

"It felt so good I forgot I was even tired."

It was the truth. She hadn't lived all that long, but she doubted she would ever have sex this satisfying again, not even later. She was genuinely grateful to Dou for accepting the bet.

"Your class is at two today, right?"

"Yes. You don't have class before that, do you, oppa?"

"Nah. Shower, head out, grab lunch together, get to campus—the timing'll be perfect."

Lunch together, and all the way to school? No matter how good his manners were, did anyone really go this far for a one-night partner?

In truth, Jian had planned to slip out coolly while Dou was asleep. Scrawl a note—that was good—and leave it on the nightstand.

Otherwise the regret might turn her clingy, and she might beg him for just one more time. If Dou then pushed her away coldly, looking fed up, even she would feel awful.

But Dou never slept, and the whole plan fell apart. She had never imagined she would still be naked in his arms come morning.

So he means to stay sweet until we get to school?

"We can just grab something simple once we're on campus, so let's do it one last time."

She caught him as he tried to sit up. Dou's brow lifted slightly, as if surprised, but he didn't refuse her.

Jian closed her eyes again as his lips drew near.