I’ll Wait for You Until You’re Seventy

Her secret longing flowed like a river. Love came with selfish desires and restraint, while her obsession concealed both clear-eyed awareness and private torment. This is a story about a long, quiet unrequited love that never intrudes on anyone else. People always say that a secret crush is a grand and gentle flutter of the heart, but only those submerged in that river understand that from the moment this love was born, it was burdened with heavy selfish desires, then bound tightly in layer upon layer of restraint. She wanted her gaze to be met, hoped a chance exchange of looks wasn’t a figment of her imagination, wished the other person would look at her a little longer, and wanted those short messages she agonized over before sending to receive an equally heartfelt reply. But restraint always followed close behind, reminding her every moment not to cross the line, not to disturb the other person, and not to lay bare the feelings surging inside her and turn them into a burden. So she swallowed every emotion, turning them into a private torment. She replayed brief encounters over and over, dissected casual greetings, and imagined countless ways to get closer, only to reject every one of them in the end. Though her heart was already raging like a storm, whenever they met face-to-face, she could only act as if everything were perfectly ordinary, offer a simple greeting, and quickly look away. This obsession lasted a long time, This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.