Apartment 4F

13: How to plan a surprise

A few days later on campus, when Yue came out of a toilet cubicle, she suddenly found herself face to face with most of the female cheerleaders, minus Jia Qi who was away at camp.

As casually as possible, she proceeded to the sink area to wash her hands. But when she turned, they had not moved, forming an unsmiling blockade between her and the exit.

What is this situation? She wondered, apprehensive. From the shows she had watched, when a group of (tall and popular) girls cornered another (smaller) girl in the toilet, it usually didn't end well.

After an uneasy silence, Cheng Xiao, their de-facto leader, finally spoke. "Shen Yue, we have a favour to ask you..."

Were they going to ask her to stay away from Dylan, or try to flush her head in the toilet bowl? She held her breath in trepidation.

"... Will you sing for us for our upcoming dance item?"

Huh?

They were all looking at her expectantly, while she stared back at them, nonplussed.

"It's a surprise item for the upcoming basketball game," Cheng Xiao explained. Usually before a game, the cheerleaders would put up a short performance to rev up the crowd. "We always just use music over the sound system, but well, have you ever watched this American teen comedy film called 'Easy A'? Where a girl starts a rumour that she had sex with a guy so that people won't think he's gay?"

Yue shook her head, not missing the irony of the situation.

"Anyway, there's a scene where she sings and dances before a basketball game, and we thought, why don't we have live singing instead of our usual music?"

"But why... me?"

There were so many other people they could have asked instead - any of the soloists from the university chorus, or the other singers who usually performed at campus events. How did they even know whether she could sing?

Cheng Xiao hesitated before admitting, "I hope you don't mind, Yue, but... we saw the video of you singing."

Oh, right. After the recent incident between her, Dylan and Yi Tian, her past confession video and that other video which had sparked the "sex scandal" had begun circulating again.

"Sorry Yue... but we're not sorry we watched it and found out you can sing. We really do think you have the right voice for the song we chose, and you're the right person to sing it. Think of it as you're not only doing us a favour, but also supporting the basketballers, and... you know, Dylan..."

She didn't know what possessed her to say yes to the borderline absurd request. Cheng Xiao even gave her a brief, grateful hug after she agreed.

"I thought you all didn't like me," she murmured to the auburn-haired girl, who rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Not all of us are in love with Dylan Wang," Cheng Xiao shot Sun Qian a pointed look.

"Yeah, some of us are in love with other Wangs," Sun Qian retorted, but Cheng Xiao ignored her quip about the vice cheer captain.

They made arrangements to meet up for practice sessions and before she left, the cheer captain once again reminded her not to tell anyone. "Not even Caesar," Cheng Xiao stressed. It was a secret girls-only item that even the male cheerleaders did not know about.

Yue gave them her word. She was keeping so many secrets these days it was getting hard to keep track.

As some of the cheerleaders started to file out of the enclosed space, she noticed Sun Qian approaching her and braced herself. Jia Qi had apprised her before of Sun Qian's widely-known crush on Dylan since freshman year. And naturally, any female who had the hots for Dylan would not think too kindly of his girl best friend whom he had allegedly slept with.