To be honest, interacting with Lina felt awful.
Lin Nan had always thought women were just bundles of trouble. Though he hadn't been entirely sure of this view before, now he could confidently tell anyone: "Women are nothing but trouble!"
Setting aside the grievances between Lina and Lilith, Lin Nan couldn't understand why she, as a Holy Maiden, still hadn't realized that Lin Nan wasn't actually Lilith's reincarnation.
Fortunately, all worries about Lilith were pushed to the back of his mind while feeding the kitten.
"Cola~ Cola come drink your milk~"
Chen Yao shuddered, looking with discomfort at Lin Nan who was crouching on the ground coaxing the cat with a milk bottle. But seeing Lin Nan's eyes full of maternal care, he suddenly felt the scene was quite beautiful.
The problem was that Lin Nan's masculine voice saying those repeated syllables sounded incredibly incongruous.
So men could have maternal instincts too?
He stopped playing his game and turned sideways, propping his chin with one hand, watching Lin Nan feed the cat not far away.
At this moment, Lin Nan seemed to be radiating intense maternal love. Though his face was still distinctly masculine, under the halo of motherly love it seemed more enchant... ugh, this is a man.
Chen Yao was very conflicted. Lin Nan might have really fried his brain last time. The cross-dressing incident had been shocking but manageable - that kind of thing could be forgotten in a few days. The problem was that Lin Nan's behavior seemed to be becoming more and more feminine.
Combined with having seen Lin Nan's most beautiful side, Chen Yao couldn't help but start treating Lin Nan the way he would treat a girl.
He turned to look at Tu Junhui and Xiong Da. These two were surprisingly calm, seeming to have quickly accepted Lin Nan becoming feminine.
Maybe it was because they weren't close enough to be best friends, so they were just being polite? Like how if you saw an incredibly ugly person on the street, you wouldn't write "disgust" openly on your face.
After feeding the cat, Lin Nan put it back in the shoebox, but kittens this age were at their most curious, and it kept trying to escape from the box.
He had no choice but to put the shoebox with the cat into a cleared-out drawer, leaving a small gap for air.
With such a small cat, if they let it run around freely, it might get stepped on by a roommate or fall through the gaps in the balcony railing. Though the chances were low, Lin Nan didn't want to worry about watching the cat constantly.
After solving the cat situation, Lin Nan's mind wandered. He glanced at his roommates, but unfortunately all three were at their computers, leaving him no chance to use one.
Tu Junhui's new computer was still in transit. Once it arrived, Lin Nan would have his own computer to use.
As for paying him back... he'd have to scrimp and save to scrape it together. If he really couldn't pay it back, he could always sell the computer second-hand.
With nothing to do, Lin Nan could only bring his chair next to Chen Yao, staring intently at his computer screen. Chen Yao glanced at Lin Nan beside him, sniffed the gradually spreading milk scent in the air, and felt completely uncomfortable.
"Want to play?" He closed the webpage. "Dong An just invited me to play basketball anyway."
"Yes!" Lin Nan didn't think too deeply about why Chen Yao would so easily give up his computer, nodding his little head rapidly.
Chen Yao stood up to make room, looking down at Lin Nan who quickly scurried to the computer. With a resigned expression, he opened the wardrobe to change into his basketball uniform.
He was on the department basketball team, so he had his own dedicated uniform.
"By the way, starting next week there's basketball games every Tuesday, want to come cheer for me?" Chen Yao asked as he took off his shirt, bare-chested.
For some reason, he had the strange feeling of undressing in front of a girl.
Lin Nan looked up at him, slightly furrowing his brows: "But I don't understand basketball."
"Just boo when the other team scores, and cheer when we score, can't you do that?"
"Won't I get beaten up?"
His attention suddenly shifted to an odd detail, curiously looking at Chen Yao: "Why do you have hair on your chest? I never noticed before."
Chen Yao looked down at the sparse hair on his chest, then at those big dark eyes, and quickly put on his basketball uniform, explaining: "Doesn't everyone? Look at Junhui's leg hair, his body must be even hairier."
He had a strange feeling of... being taken advantage of by a girl's gaze.
"Really?"
Tu Junhui was unhappy and looked up: "What's wrong with men having body hair? You think everyone's smooth like a girl like you?"
Although Tu Junhui always walked around the dorm shirtless in boxers, Lin Nan had never noticed this point before. After all, he only had thin hair on his arms and legs, though that was in the past now.
Speaking of body hair, Chen Yao couldn't help but look at Lin Nan's hands. Sure enough, this guy didn't even have hand hair, just smooth and fair skin. Though Tu Junhui was stating facts, he still argued back: "I never noticed, why are you observing so carefully? Do you like my Nan Nan?"
"Nan-nan belongs to the dorm!" Tu Junhui shamelessly shouted, "What do you mean yours?"
"He duos with me every day as my support, isn't he mine?"
"I use his shower gel every day."
Lin Nan watched the two of them inexplicably argue over him with their war of words, completely bewildered.
"Wait, no wonder my shower gel runs out so fast!" Lin Nan suddenly interrupted, looking at Tu Junhui in disbelief. "You can afford a computer worth tens of thousands, what's wrong with buying shower gel? It's all gone just after the semester started?"
"I'm fat!" Tu Junhui declared righteously. "Fat people have more skin surface area, so we use more shower gel. It's normal to use it up."
"He buys the small bottles," Xiong Da chimed in. "Uses them up in less than a week. And if I haven't been smelling wrong, he uses my shampoo."
Chen Yao crossed his arms, looking contemptuous: "You must have used my facial cleanser too, no wonder its position is different every time. How shameless."
"Last time I saw him take Lin Nan's laundry detergent," Xiong Da continued to expressionlessly twist the knife, clearly having been unhappy about Tu Junhui using others' things for a long time. Being introverted, he hadn't wanted to say anything, but now that someone brought it up, he was eagerly fanning the flames. "And he often takes my basin to wash his clothes too."
It had to be said that Xiong Da was quite good at stirring up trouble, successfully igniting Chen Yao and Lin Nan's anger.
However, under the three-person siege, Tu Junhui still maintained a completely calm expression as he defended himself: "We're all roommates, what's wrong with borrowing things? I was just too lazy to buy more after running out."
Having lived together for a year, Lin Nan knew how thick his skin could be, but seeing him remain so calm under the three-person denouncement, he suddenly gained new respect for Tu Junhui's shamelessness.
Perhaps it wasn't that his skin was thick - he simply had no shame at all.