" Jieni bao yan wo— " he said, and she imagined him hugging the air of his own lonely apartment, two cities away.
Jenny closed her eyes. She didn't answer. She just listened to him listen to her. Outside, a truck rumbled past. A dog barked twice. Somewhere, an episode of some forgotten anime played its soft ending credits—but neither of them was watching. " Jieni bao yan wo— " he said,
He was bored, he said. So bored that listening to her breathe on the line was the only thing keeping the silence from eating the walls. She just listened to him listen to her
" Wo wu liao shi ting, " he whispered. I'm bored, just listening. Somewhere, an episode of some forgotten anime played
It was him again. The boy with the broken Japanese and the Mandarin that slipped through the cracks like water. He called her Jieni —the way her name sounded in his mouth, soft and foreign.