After signing the divorce agreement, he stared at my name with red eyes.
I printed the divorce agreement, and the terms were clearly listed. Even the pot of pothos he had raised for five years at home belonged to him - after all, he had spoken more to the pothos than to me in the past three years.
On the bench in the corridor of the Civil Affairs Bureau, I handed the pen over to him without my fingertips touching his hand, just like I had done for more than a thousand days and nights in the past. He didn't speak when he took it. The sound of the pen tip scratching on the paper was very soft, but it was more tense than the silence during the Cold War.
I stared at the watch on his wrist, calculating how long it would take to get the divorce certificate, and didn't notice when he stopped writing. Until his voice drifted over, as dumb as a layer of sandpaper: "Su Wan..."
This was the first time in three years that he called me by my full name.
I raised my head and bumped into his red eyes. He didn't cry, but the redness at the end of his eyes was very red. His fingertips repeatedly rubbed the strokes of my name on the agreement with such gentle force that he seemed afraid of breaking something. "Do you really want to leave?" He asked, with a panic I had never heard in his voice.
I tightened my grip on the strap of my bag and didn't answer. It was obviously me who proposed the divorce first, because I had endured enough of the cold war, but when I saw his appearance, my heart suddenly seemed to be gripped by something, and even my breathing slowed down for half a beat.
He didn't speak anymore, but just stared at those three words for a long time before his Adam's apple rolled and he whispered: "I regret it."
