As it was still early into the semester and their enthusiasm for learning Chinese had not yet waned, the two diligent students sputtered their conversation to life in very basic Mandarin. Even though each had English as their native language, they would feel guilty taking the easy way out. “You study at the Chinese centre.” It was the safest entrance he could make.

“Yes. I know you from there.” She felt both gratified and relieved that he actually recognised her, but if he didn't then he would have to have been blind or just a pompous jerk.

He bashfully averted her gaze as he turned his head to the right and inspected the rust-dotted shutter door up and down. “I wanted to buy fruit this morning, but it's closed.” He said with an exaggerated frown.

“Really? I also wanted to buy fruit! But why is it closed?” Almost immediately a howling gale caught them both by surprise, his sleeves flapped around and felt like they were inflating and almost floating him off his feet. With her hair so short and face exposed she shrivelled up her face as it was uncomfortably buffeted by the air. Through her narrow vision in front of her she could see fans of his long black hair blowing all about his pretty face which she found startlingly exciting.

“颱風! Taifeng! (The typhoon)!” They both exclaimed. Repeated warnings at the school and public notices seemed to have escaped their attention until now, with it beginning to bear down upon them. And as if on cue, just as suddenly the accompanying downpour began. The noise of the sheer mass of water was so disorientating that they noticed it more than the feeling of the equivalent of several buckets of water being doused over them.

He scrambled to open his little pop-up umbrella around his wrist whilst her hand frantically delved into her carry bag to search for her own. “Oh no!” Why forget it at a time like this?!

Seeing her obvious distress at her bag coming up empty for any umbrella, he waved his around in front of her just before pressing the open-release button. “I have an umbrella!” He yelled above the crashing sound of the downpour. In a robotic process the squat maroon umbrella extended forward like a punch before its thin spidery metal stretchers spread and held the cover over them, giving them all of two seconds of respite from the spray before it was violently snapped backwards on itself by the powerful wind and ripped right off the shaft.

“Fuck!” He swore as he helplessly watched the top of his umbrella bounding down Taishun Jie and disappear from view before he yanked what was left of it off his wrist and threw it down on the flooded road. “Sorry!” He turned back to her, feeling that he had let her down, blowing a chance to be her saviour.

Instead of any distress, what he saw on her face was a quivering smile breaking into uncontrolled laughter. “Sorry.” She managed back, in between chuckles. He responded to her warmly with his own laughter, but his mind quickly shifted to matters at hand as he really did want to get out of this rain! In emergency situations such as this he figured it was entirely justifiable to drop the Chinese act and speak in English so that she could understand him enough to get out of this typhoon.

“My place is just up there!” He motioned frantically over to Lane 16 from which he had just come. “We can run back now and stay in the lobby until it settles down if you want!”

“Okay!” She nodded emphatically, the rain splashing down her hair and face like watery beads.

“Okay! Follow me!” He turned to glance at her only once to say this before darting up the lane like a sprite, his speed and running motion incredibly swift and so light that he hardly made a splash that was distinguishable from the wider torrent. She hurried off after him with more of a splash, but it didn't matter, she was already drenched.

She was surprised at how close the place actually was, such that she almost kept running past him when he stopped to open the gate. The key to the security gate was annoyingly slippery as he fiddled to align it with the keyhole. By the time she had caught up to him she heard the click of the lock before he shoulder-barged the thick steel door open. They both rushed inside to the shelter of the outdoor lobby – a sort of patio between the foyer and security gate, with a flat roof that extended out from the main building to the wall which housed the security gate. There were several bicycles parked in racks just outside the foyer door, and also a large tropical tree with evergreen maple-like leaves planted in the corner not covered by the roof and closest to the road.

Panting from the sprint and dripping sizeable puddles onto the reddish sun-coloured tiled ground wherever they stepped, they shook the excess water off their clothes and bodies as best they could. But the typhoon rain was still so strong that a fine spray of it still bounced inside between the gap of the roof and the wall. Without another word he unlocked the front door to the foyer and held it open for her, waving her inside before following.

After stepping inside, Angie spent a moment to survey the foyer. She thought it quite impressive for a fellow student's apartment block. It was clean and modern with white stone floors and an unattended black polished stone front counter at the other end of the room. To her right just beside the front door was a black leather lounge and a low rectangular glass table. There was another glass door and window straight ahead which seemed to open to another outdoor space. And to her left past a small corner was a shiny lift.

The only not so good thing was the particularly dim lighting provided by the weak glow of a single yellow oyster light in the centre of the ceiling which may have lost some of its luminance, or else it seemed so dim because it was just a particularly dark day. But in her time in Taiwan she had observed that low lighting seemed to be commonplace because of a strong attitude toward saving electricity.

She turned her attention back to him, wanting to resume their conversation, no, their introduction, before they were caught by the storm. He was patiently standing there as if awaiting her whim, his clothes were heavy and saturated. The moist, soft Asian skin of his face looked especially luscious coated with raindrops. She resumed in her level one Chinese. “Zhe li hen hao (This place is really good).”

“Xie xie. Wo ye xihuan (Thank you. I also like it here).” He replied in clear Chinese. “Ni jiao shenme (What is your name)?”

“Wo jiao An-ji (My name is An-ji). Because my English name is Angie.” As is customary of new Chinese students, she rather took a shine to having a Chinese name, even if it was just a direct translation of her Western name.

“Ah.” He nodded in understanding.

“Ni ne? (And you)?”

“Wo jiao Yu-hong.” He enunciated to the Chinese beginner as clearly as possible with exaggerated lip movements, forming one that even looked like a kiss. She found it both cute and sexy, but didn't give him any clue. “Can you write your name in Chinese?”

“En.” She nodded. She stood blankly for a moment, thinking that he wanted her to write it for him but she obviously had no pen or paper.

“Uh, you can write it on there.” He pointed behind her to the low glass table before briskly moving over there himself to demonstrate and painted his own name down with his wet finger on the glass. With glass for paper, water for ink and a finger for a paintbrush it definitely wasn't beautiful or clear, but it was just legible - 雨鴻 Yu Hong (Rain Swan).

As her eyes followed his finger dancing lithely upon the tabletop, it caught her attention that he had the most beautiful hands she thought possible – they were of a considerable size with long fingers, delicate and almost feminine but not too thin, with the most exquisitely formed fingernails cut short and neat but with more depth than usual on a male and natural light pink half moons formed at their base. The bone structure was very defined but at the same time fleshed out enough to have a muscular masculinity about them.

“Yu – Rain. Hong – Swan.” He pointed out to her and translated, knowing that she was probably still unfamiliar with those characters.

“Wow! Such a pretty name!” She exclaimed, thinking it so fitting for the beautiful man beside her. “I will write mine.” In the same way, she used her wet finger to paint on the tabletop, the raindrops were still dripping down her wrist and hand and accelerated as she tilted it to draw. As she concentrated on writing, he leaned down close to her, his eyes half tracing her hand over the table but irresistibly pulled to her face and shoulder. Raindrops that were so clear and fresh still clung to her shimmering black skin that it impressed on him a natural purity about her. Now so close to her, he was momentarily overwhelmed by the radiating sensual heat and aroma from the pure rain vaporising off of her hot skin. He didn't want to perv, but just couldn't help noticing her thin damp clothes soaked through and sticking to her body like a colourful translucent skin, tantalisingly revealing the side of her large breast and pronounced nipple.

Her movements were stilted as she still had to think about and recall in between strokes how to complete the character, which resulted in a thick and out of proportioned puddle of her Chinese name. “Dui bu qi (Sorry).” She giggled out of embarrassment at how bad it looked, even next to his.

Though it was hardly legible, he could still piece it together since she had already told him the sounding of her name. It took him a few seconds before he nodded at her writing in acknowledgement – 安 an (peace) å�‰ ji (lucky). “Peace, lucky. Yours is also pretty. Just like you.” He turned his face towards hers, they were both surprised at the proximity which sneaked up on them as well as the intensity that each saw in the other's eyes.

Angie's heart was racing irregularly at what she had just heard, as well as his beautiful face being so close and his exquisite fengyan staring intently at hers. “Kiss me! Kiss me!” She willed so loudly in her mind that she thought he might hear it. She couldn't hold onto herself any longer and slightly opened her mouth to a petite 'o' shape to move in and kiss him.

Unfortunately, in his modest sense of Asian gentlemanliness he had turned away and stood up before he saw her advance, and also before he succumbed to his own romantic urges. He looked outside, the typhoon deluge was still teeming and showing no signs of abating, if anything it seemed to be getting louder and heavier. The front patio that was once their shelter was covered in a sleet of water and the rain was even reaching the glass front door and window to the foyer. “Hmmm.” He hummed in awkward contemplation before looking over to Angie, who was secretly very disappointed and feeling even a little bitchy towards him.

He noticed the watery mess that they had already made on the slippery white stone floor and that her clothes now had no chance of drying and would soon become very uncomfortable, as were his own. “I don't think this is going to stop any time soon. You can dry off and borrow some of my clothes if you want. I'm gonna go up,” He pointed up with his finger towards the lift, “and change. My clothes are too soaked.” He let out a feint laugh as he stated the obvious.

She just stood there watching him walk over to the lift, unsure if he was inviting her to follow him up to his apartment or if he was expecting her to remain here in the foyer while he brought her back a change of clothes and maybe a towel. He pressed the up arrow button which lit up with a pleasant neon red. The lift doors opened immediately, accompanied with the ding noise of the alerting bell. He turned his head back towards her. “So do you wanna come up and dry and get changed or...?”

“Yes! Thank you.” She hurried towards him, more than glad at his definite invitation, and slightly embarrassed at her own slowness. He smiled warmly back at her and stepped aside to make room for her to enter first, after which he followed and the lift doors slid shut behind him.

She saw that there were six floors, he pressed number five and they were soon in upward motion. The large clear mirror which took up the whole back wall of the lift from the waist-up made an already awkward moment even awkwarder. Individually they were already brimming with sexual tension at the presence of the other, yet critically unaware of the extreme mutual attraction. The reflection of themselves together, were of a steamy couple, their hair sodden and wet, their skin moist and supple, their clothes heavy and saturated, wrapped about their heaving bodies.

It was torture for them not to look, yet looking would be equally uncomfortable, for in the brightly-lit confines of the lift with the glaring mirror, it would be impossible to hide the direction of their eyes, nor the lust behind them. They were barely able to contain themselves, trapped inside each other's personal space, their eyes were constantly shifting everywhere, their bodies fidgeting. Each felt a giddy hot flush engulf their body which made them feel as if the lift was steaming up from the abundant moisture absorbed by their person.

After the longest, most palpitating twenty seconds of their life the lift shuddered to a stop, the ding of the alert bell sounded again and the doors opened, a relief to them like a deep breath of air after almost drowning. Yuhong quickly shuffled out, this time without waiting for Angie to egress first.

Without a word he fidgeted in his pocket and got out his key to open the plain wooden door in front and to the left. Angie stepped out slowly, taking in her surroundings for the second time. There were two doors in front of her, Yuhong was at the left one. To the right of her body was an open passageway to the staircase where a window framed the blur of rain and black clouds. Again, the darkness of the hallway caught her attention, this time there was no light on at all as it was usually only switched on at night.

Yuhong unlocked the door and pushed it open, daintily removing his soggy shoes and trying not to create any mess inside his little living space. He placed them inside a dark brown plywood cupboard just to the left of the door and took out two pairs of flimsy hotel slippers and put on one pair before walking further inside, allowing room for Angie to follow. Once inside she instinctively did the same before closing the door behind her.

She was very impressed with the place – neat and modern, a very nice place for a student. But at the same time she was taken aback by how small it was, definitely a one-person pad. It was a single square shaped room with the door she had just entered in one corner. Much of the space was taken up by the tall white wooden wardrobe ahead of her against the back wall in the right hand corner, next to which in the centre of the back wall was a tiny study desk and wooden chair, and next to that in the left hand corner a single bed.

It was a much brighter and welcoming place than the hallway outside, owing to the large window stretching all the way across the left side wall, which despite the wild storm outside reflected adequate light against the white painted walls and ceiling. Outside of the window was a grated covered area from where one could hang their clothes to dry or place things outside, but it would be of no use today.

To her left along the front wall was the small cupboard where they had placed their shoes, next to it a stove with a cupboard above it, next to that a front-loading washing machine and then finally a television facing the foot of the bed. The floor felt very hard, comprised of a smooth and shiny cream coloured stone or tile.

Directly in front of the door, where she stood, along the right side of the apartment was a corner of wall only about a metre in width, behind which was the compact rectangular bathroom. Between the bathroom door further up, in the middle of the right side, and the bed opposite it there were only about three or four square metres of open space.

“Wow. Nice place.” She voiced her approval while her eyes still scanned around.

“Thanks.” Feeling confident in his own domain, Yuhong carried on towards the wardrobe opposite them and slid open the door to reveal an abundance of jam-packed clothing on hangers. “I'm not sure what will fit you, but let's see.” He ruffled about to find the most appropriate temporary garments for her. “Give these a try. Sorry, it's the best I can do.” He smiled with a shrug as he tossed her the dry clothing, with which she received with an equally gracious smile. “You can get changed in there.” He waved his hand over to the bathroom door and sprung over to the light switch just outside it to turn it on for her.

“Thanks.” She smiled and shot him a friendly look as she entered before sliding the door closed.

He figured that he might as well quickly get changed too while she was in there. In a fluster he took off his top clothing with some difficulty as the damp fabric wouldn't give and stuck to his skin. With his upper body now bare to the air he realised how wet his body still was and that he had forgotten to give her a towel. But before he could even get one for himself he heard the bathroom door jolting open, sliding not so smoothly along the tracks. “Um. Sorry, but could you please give me...” She peeked her head out of the bathroom to politely ask for a towel but instead she was hit with a candid view of his half-naked body.

So far he was already the ideal to her and her imagination had filled in the gaps to make him perfect, but now there he was in the flesh, more perfect and sexy than she had even imagined. His unveiled body had a defined and naturally balanced muscular form. It was clear that he did é�›ç…‰ duanlian (strengthening of the body) through consistent training of some sort.

His pectorals were strong and bold while not overt or heavy as to draw attention away from other parts of his body, his shoulders were broad with smoothly raised trapezius muscles contrasting with the shallow valleys formed along the top of his collar bone and well proportioned neck, while his deltoids rippled. He also had brimming six-pack abdominals where the top corner of his ribs were discernible such that it blended into an eight-pack. Even though his body had a definite muscular weightiness about it, it still retained a semblance of that uniquely lithe and slim Asian physique.

The skin of his torso was of a classical Chinese pale yellow colour, as if he was a being born out of the 黃河 Huang He (The Yellow River). Originally already of a silky smooth texture, his rain-drenched skin looked even slipperier and glistened like yellow morning sunlight, highlighting every bump and crevice of definition across his ripped Asian body.

A few tassels of his wet, jet black hair had been shaken over to the front of his body from behind, stickily draped over his firm and shapely chest and collar bone. The faji on the top of his head had absorbed much rain, with drops now steadily continuing to roll onto his face. A few shorter strands of hair in the front had come loose and had flopped down to curl above his forehead. All of this combined to give him a slightly wild and dishevelled look.

She could no longer hide her attraction from him. She couldn't finish her sentence, only stare. He was startled. Was it because she had caught him changing or because he could clearly see on her face and in her eyes the hypnotic effect his body was having on her? He briskly walked up to her head still peeping out of the bathroom door, his face maintaining the same startled look. “I...I...I...” She was panicking.

Breathlessly, he extended his right hand to her. She bowed her head down to shift her gaze to his open palm, bewildered she looked back up at his face. His expression softened to one of rawest vulnerability, he beckoned his hand and fingers to her once more in a gentle, sincere yet seductive motion as if rolled by an undersea current. She took his hand. She felt softness in the delicate grip meant for her, but could still sense the latent strength and power behind it that his hands and fingers possessed. With his left hand he motioned a slow, tai chi-like outward stroke against the edge of the sliding door to open it wider, revealing her whole trembling body and to make enough room to forcefully pull her out of the bathroom towards himself. This time she felt the true strength of his sinewy arm as she was jolted forward, almost colliding against his moist, half-naked body.