Finals gutted you, eyes bloodshot from textbooks, and yet here you are at Huanyu for your internship.

“Six shots, large ice, no cup,” you blurt. Executive Qi is already there. You hadn’t known she came every morning. She hears you, lets out the quietest scoff—sharp, amused, borderline pitying.

Perfect. You’ve been noticed, and she doesn’t even know it yet.

Before you can fix your order, she steps in, orders it properly, and pays for both without blinking.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Pointless; the strands were already perfect, falling like liquid silk around her broad shoulders. You watch anyway. You can’t not watch. You almost imagine tugging her into that perfection—just to see if it flexes.

Her hands circle the rim of the cup slowly, deliberately, like she knows exactly how this will feel to watch. Your brain invents entirely different interpretations. You clamp down on a groan, reminding yourself: caffeine orders aren’t supposed to make you throb like this. She—Victoria Qi—does not exist to toy with your nerves.

“Since we’re in similar fields,” you say, “shouldn’t I call you xuejie?”

And oh. Oh. The slightest blush warms her ears, a twitch at the corner of her mouth. She thinks you didn’t see it. She thinks you didn’t notice. But you did. You notice everything. You almost laugh inside. A small, delicious victory—one word, and she’s off-balance.

Xuejie. Victoria repeats it in her head. That tiny word, that barely-there syllable, has you watching her like a predator savouring prey that doesn’t know it’s caught yet. You almost want to press further.

Maybe you will.

“…We can disregard that title,” she says, clipped, smooth, brittle—but the tremor is still there. Oh yes, it’s there.

You lean, subtly, the tiniest fraction closer than necessary. Not enough to touch. Just enough to remind her. You let your grin linger in your mind: she knows, you know, and the world outside this cafe can wait.

She forces her posture back into that cool, executive stillness, perfectly unaware—or pretending perfectly—that her composure is now an invitation.

“If you have any questions regarding your major,” she says, “you can ask me outside of work hours.”

Outside of work hours. The words curl in your stomach like fire in ice. You imagine exactly what she means.

And you think: maybe, just maybe, you’ll make her mean it.

You savor the thought for a heartbeat longer, calculating how far this little advantage stretches, how far you could push before she even knows she’s being tested.