Blooming Together Between Mountains and Seas

Big Sis is an idiot.

Little A-Cuo is such a baby.

Darkness is like this: when you look up at it, it sits on your shoulders. The more you look up, the more it tries to swallow you whole.

When you curl up in darkness for too long, life often becomes twisted.

Some people become folded letters, pressed far too soon into the shadowy corners of fate.

But others are born as the wind, destined to pass through every desolate crease and blow those letters open, shaking out the springtime inside.

Shen Cuo belonged to the former, while Gu Jinyu was the latter.

Before she met Gu Jinyu, Shen Cuo’s life was a letter folded into darkness.

She curled up in the shadows, almost sitting herself into a rusty lock.

She couldn’t see the light, shrouded as she was in shadow.

Then Gu Jinyu came, bringing a few soft rays of sunlight cupped in her palm and a pocketful of dandelions.

She said, “If it’s sunny tomorrow, I want to take you outside to bask in the sun and see the dandelions beneath it.”

That was the first time light shone into the locked room of her childhood.

Later, they watched golden wattle flowers by the sea. When they bloomed, they spread in a wild blaze, burning half the cliff in golden yellow.

When the wind came, the petals leaped into the sea as if fleeing for their lives, tumbling down one after another.

“Forever sounds like a lie.”

“Flowers fall, but their roots are still alive. You and I, ”

“Have grown into each other’s bones. The wind can’t carry us away, and the waves can’t wash us apart.”