Li Nuxie, when travelling around, preferred to wear jeans paired with white shirt and sneakers. That way, she can move freely without the need to worry on how to be a proper lady.
Inside the cabin, she was sprawled in her seat, sketch pad on her lap. Her eyes were too focused on the papers that she barely heard the cabin door opened.
She wrinkled her nose as a woody scent permeated in the air. She raised her head to face the intruder. Before she chose that cabin, she saw a lot of empty ones along the way. So, why this person would share hers? Okay, it's not as if she paid for the whole cabin but still.
Her eyes caught sight of a man seated near the cabin door. He was leaning on his back, with arms crossed. His legs were spread across the middle. The man's sneakers almost touched the opposite seat which Li Nuxie was occupying at the moment. In that position, the man looked like an arrogant lazy demigod from Mount Olympus.
She inhaled, taking delight in the woody scent that she actually found sweet. Damn, he smelled good, she realized. Holding the pencil tightly, she gave the man a sideway glance.
He was wearing a gray hoodie jacket which covered his black bull cap. On his side was a gray backpack. Because the bull cap was hanging low, the upper part of his face was covered. Only the lower part was visible.
Li Nuxie gulped unconsciously as she stared at the man's full lips. She felt like crying. Why the man's lips looked plump than hers? She asked inwardly as her fingers flew over her own lips. Should she ask him his beauty routine?
In the end, she shook her head. It would be weird if a random woman on a train asked a man about his beauty routine. She glanced at him again. His chest was heaving slowly. Li Nuxie shrugged. As long as the man doesn't snore, then all is good. Her gaze went back to her sketch pad.
Unknown to Li Nuxie, the man was awake. He can feel her stare since the time that she stopped paying attention at her sketch pad. He just willed himself to stop moving so as not to scare her.
Xu Wei just came from Town G for a potential business venture. His grandma told him that amid the lush forests of Town G was an underdeveloped hot spring. Actually, he doesn't care about the business venture. He was just there for his sister, Chang Lianna.
His sister's doctor told them that the hot spring was good for Chang Lianna's recovery. So, he was there. No one knew that he was in Town G though. The people of Town G were not updated of the news connected to City S. That's why no one knew the face of Xu Wei, the First Young Master Xu.
But that's what he liked about this ocular inspection. He got to travel without the entourage. He moved his right hand. Using his forefinger, he pushed his bull cap a little bit higher, then gave her a sideway glance. Just like what she did to him earlier.
He was on his way to his cabin when he accidentally saw the woman. She was wearing a white loose shirt and washed jeans that seemed to suffer a worse fate from the barbed wire. He cannot get it why women loved to wear jeans in tatter. Like, he badly wanted to get scissors right now and just cut it.
The woman's hair was tucked behind her ears, with some stubborn strands that wanted to stand out. Her eyes were almond-shaped that hide behind her oversized black-rimmed glasses.
To tell the truth, the woman was like fire, suffocating him. He liked the seriousness that enveloped her. The eyes full of concentration and her lips that shared the color of cherry.
The corner of his mouth rose. This is the first time that a woman did not make the first move. Regardless of whether the women know Xu Wei's real identity or not, women approached him first.
But this woman in front of him? She merely looked at him. No smile. No hi. He sniffed his armpits secretly. He wrinkled his forehead. Does he smell?
Xu Wei exhaled. The woman didn't glance at him even when he moved his legs. She continued sketching on her pad. From his place, he could see her sketching bikinis. Bikinis? She's a bikini designer?
He remembered his sister. She also loved to wear bikinis. Even when she's at home, she would wear a bikini and coerce him and Xu Ming to be her unwilling photographers. And their ears would be bruised if the pictures did not turn out well.
But since that accident, his sister became quiet. They didn't dare talk about the bikinis. A woman currently experiencing a bikini withdrawal was dangerous.
He continued staring at her. He didn't know if she was the master of pretensions. Does she not feel the intensity of his gaze? Xu Wei has been out of the dating scene for the last two years so he somehow forgot how to make the first move.
Instead of wracking his brains on how to approach the woman, he opened his backpack, pulled out a book and started flipping it.
Li Nuxie wanted to wipe the beads of sweat on her neck that were having a showdown on which would be the fastest to fall. But she cannot do that lest the man will realize that she was aware all this time.
She was not used on people, particularly men staring at her for a long period of time. This was the first time and it was a stranger. Inside a train. What's the probability that she can meet a serial killer while en-route to City S?
She shook her head. Too much reading of thriller books and watching of murder documentaries.
Time has passed inside the cabin room. Nothing can be heard except the breathing of the two strangers caught up in their own worlds.
Li Nuxie rubbed her neck, straightening her back as she put finishing touches at the last design she did. This would be used for the third launching of NU C in Country P. Without thinking, she turned her head towards the man.
What her eye caught made her dropped her jaw.
Oh no. She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. It was really there at the hands of the man before her.
It was the sequel of her favorite book!