Chapter 1 Chanel #2
“Chanel Cao . . .” the receptionist says again, this time with recognition, her eyes widening.
“Oh!” Her smile springs back into place with such speed even my actress friends would be impressed.
“Please do forgive me for the inconvenience here, Ms. Chanel Cao. Hotel policy, you understand. The restaurant is on the seventy-third floor. Turn around the corner and take the lift on the farthest left to go straight up. Would you like me to show you there myself? I’ll ask them to prepare some drinks for you—a mocktail, perhaps?
Or something warmer, like our brown sugar and ginger tea? ”
“That’s fine, we can head over ourselves,” I say graciously, then turn to the two girls. “Thank you so much—”
“No, no, it’s our pleasure,” Ballgown Girl says. “I’m just so glad we got to meet you in person—”
“I’m glad I got to meet you guys too,” I say, and this goes on for about as long as I would expect from past experience, more
compliments passed back and forth, three different attempts to say “We’ll let you go, we know you’re busy,” a quick selfie of us together after finding the best lighting, a promise to tag me once they post it. It’s all very flattering,
no matter how many times it happens.
Then I wave goodbye to them and grab Haili’s wrist, pulling her along with me inside the lift, which is better equipped than
most actual hotel rooms are. There’s a plush velvet sofa sitting in the corner, a wooden stand offering scented tissues and
alcohol wipes and cotton swabs, and a bamboo basket of complimentary tea bags to take to your room. There’s even a gold-framed
vanity mirror I’d put to good use under happier circumstances.
“Welcome to QiXing Luxury Hotels,” a lilting, questionably seductive female voice plays overhead as the lift ascends. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”
“Oh god. I was so scared we were going to get kicked out of the hotel,” Haili says.
“The only person who might get kicked out today is Yaozu,” I assure Haili. “Though for your sake, I hope it doesn’t come to
that.”
She swallows. “You think there is still hope? That it might all be okay? That maybe I’m just overthinking it?”
I don’t want to lie to her, so instead I hold out my hand. “Show me the last thing you sent him?”
She fishes out her phone and passes it carefully over to me like it’s a DNA sample from a crime scene. Her WeChat is already
open to her old conversations with him. I’ve seen most of the messages before, sent in screenshots from her over the past
few weeks, alongside key details about their relationship.
It’s a familiar tragedy. In the beginning, he’s the one who’s more interested. He adds her on WeChat, asks for her alias, shamelessly comments on how nice her figure looks
in her latest posts, invites her out to parties. She humors him with one-word responses, or sometimes straight up ignores
him, but that doesn’t stop him from texting again an hour later, with an entirely new conversation starter.
There’s a brief moment in time where they’re both equally into each other, affection almost dripping off the screen, “I like
you” exchanged as easily and naturally as breathing.
But of course it doesn’t last, because he senses it. The instant she’s hooked, he starts to pull back. The exclamation marks
disappear, and the “good morning” texts taper off, and there’s a vague note of annoyance to his responses when they do eventually come in, eighteen hours later.
And then I land on her most recent messages. They’re hard to miss, because the text basically takes up the entire screen.
can u please call me when u get the chance??
i really want to talk to u
idk if it’s just me and i’m overthinking like i usually do but it feels like you’ve been kinda distant these days?
again idk i could be overthinking. it’s just unfair bc you’re on my mind 24/7 and u make me so sad and angry and confused sometimes and i’ve put in all this effort to keep u and open up to u in a way i haven’t with anyone else before but you never let me in.
and then you’ll say something that makes me think u actually like
me. but do u actually like me? i don’t even know where this is going or why i’m this upset and i’m sorry if i’m being super annoying rn but i need u to tell me what you’re thinking bc it’s literally driving me insane. . . .
“I know I sound pathetic,” Haili mumbles. “I tried to control myself, but I couldn’t.”
“You’re not pathetic. You’re just . . . in love,” I tell her, suppressing a shudder at the very thought of it. Love. By far the worst idea humans have ever come up with, even worse than mesh ballet flats. “Happens to everyone.”
“It doesn’t happen to you, though,” she says quietly.
And thank god for that, I think to myself. Watching yet another one of my beautiful, smart, talented friends fall apart because of some random douchebag
just reaffirms my personal motto: You can cry over a stained dress, but you should never cry over a boy. “I just don’t think
romance is really my thing,” I tell Haili as the lift doors part with a soft ding.
The Sky Restaurant has been effectively designed to feel like you’re really dining in the sky.
You can see the entirety of the hotel sprawled out below in all its gorgeous, glistening luxury: the traditional gardens and pagodas, the canopied sunbeds, the curved man-made lake that transitions seamlessly into a swimming pool.
Lanterns float over the dark waters, their yellow flames clarifying the shapes of canoes strung to the decks and the lily pads dotting the edges.
The rest of the city waits just behind it, the Beijing skyline glowing against the night.
It doesn’t rank anywhere near the top ten restaurants I’ve been to—maybe not even the top fifty—but I suppose it does make for a pretty nice venue. Before our school wisely opened up its wallet to hold our annual prom at Rivera Restaurant,
making it the most extravagant, buzzed-about international school event of the season, they used to rent out this place.
It’s also the perfect spot for a romantic dinner—peaceful, scenic, and most important of all, private. Rather than having
the tables spread out across the floor, there’s a single narrow corridor that forks off into individual sets of steps, leading
down into what are essentially glamorous pits, encircled by ferns and white marble. Each table occupies its own corner, with
a sectional sofa and a balcony to lean over; spacious enough to move around and take pretty photos before the appetizers come
in, but cozy enough to make out against the satin cushions after dessert.
Most of the diners here are couples, their heads close together in the intimate candlelight, but as I search the area, my
eyes land on a tall figure standing alone by the railings. He’s holding an empty glass, his expression alert, as if he’s waiting
for something to happen.
I blink in surprise.
Ares Yin.
The new boy at Airington International Boarding School. Dropped like a bomb into our classes at the start of this semester, no warnings given, no further information provided.
From the second he walked in, his shirt collar rumpled, his blazer conspicuously missing and his black hair left to grow out
to a length the teachers would deem “distracting” or “unruly,” he’d become the Number One Trending Topic on campus. Most of
my classmates are as scared of him as they are fascinated by him.
Even now, standing in the restaurant, he appears not just intimidating, but actually dangerous—something about the severe
cut of his jaw, the hollowed-out look to his cheekbones, the dark brows angled over his pitch-black eyes. In the weeks since
school started, I haven’t seen him smile once, not even when people are speaking to him. Everything about him is sharp and
unyielding, like he’s prepared to enter a knife fight.
For a moment, his gaze swings to me.
I deliberately hold it and lift my hand in a casual wave, waiting for him to acknowledge me. It’s not as if we’ve ever really
spoken to each other before, but it’s what any guy from school would do: wave back, grin, invite me over. They’d be eager
to make our acquaintance known, to come closer. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind coming closer to Ares. He’s more than attractive
enough, even by my standards, and I still haven’t finalized my prom date. Based on all the buzz around him, he could be a
very valuable asset in my campaign—I simply need him to make a move.
But Ares stays right where he is, expression unchanged, and turns his head away, as if my presence is of zero importance to
him.
I blink again, this time in disbelief, heat rushing to my cheeks. There’s no way he just chose to ignore me—
“He’s over there,” Haili says on a shaky breath, yanking my attention to the table at the back.
I force myself to focus, forget Ares, and crane my neck for a better view. I only know her guy through photos, all preselected
by Haili and shown to me while she explained sheepishly and insistently that he looked way better in person.
As expected, he does not look better in person.
He looks like the kind of guy I’d go out of my way to avoid at a club. The overwaxed hair—so shiny I can see it glinting like
a beetle shell even before I start marching my way over—isn’t helping, but it could be forgiven, if he didn’t have his arm
around the girl beside him. They’re laughing together, practically falling into each other’s laps, and just when I didn’t
think the evidence could be any more damning, he plucks the cherry off one of the mini cupcakes on his plate and feeds it
to her.
Bile threatens to creep its way back up my throat. This feels far too familiar.
“Okay, I’m going to kill him,” I decide, my stomach twisting with outrage on my friend’s behalf. “That asshole.”
“I . . . can’t believe it,” Haili whispers. “I—I can’t believe he’s actually . . .”
“Unfortunately, I very much can believe it,” I say darkly. “Look, you stay here—I’ll handle it for you.”