Buttons and Stars

A single button bore witness to every time they came together and parted.

When Lin Xu was six, he pulled the star-shaped button off his shirt and clumsily mended the torn hem of Su Wanxing's dress. He didn't know that this warm gesture would write the prologue to the fated bond between them. From then on, every time the button was given and returned, it was accompanied by a parting they had no choice but to endure.

From childhood sweethearts forced to live worlds apart, to joining hands against the world, then falling out over their beliefs, they spent twenty years pulling each other back and forth between profound familiarity and profound longing. When the two, battered and bruised, finally learned not to hurt each other in the name of love, could the button that had passed between them for half a lifetime still find its home?

This is a story about protection and misunderstanding, growth and sacrifice. It tells how, over the long years, we can lose the people dearest to us with our own hands, and how, amid the ruins, we can learn to forge our wounds into a foundation for protecting each other.