The Snow Had Yet to Come in the Fifteenth Year

(Maybe you need a good cry.)

Lin Yuanqing kept a secret.

Zhou Kuang was the only light in his youth, while he himself was a silent shadow trailing behind.

Everyone thought they were best friends, Zhou Kuang included.

Only Lin Yuanqing knew that all those walks across the school field side by side, the glances he secretly hid in their graduation photos, and the bitter wine he swallowed alone at Zhou Kuang’s wedding… were all part of his own private turmoil.

Later, Lin Yuanqing fell ill, gravely ill.

At last, Zhou Kuang came to his bedside, but Lin Yuanqing could only drive him away with the sharpest words.

Only when his strength was nearly spent did he dare to say the words that were more than a decade overdue:

“Zhou Kuang, I love you.”

Zhou Kuang’s eyes reddened as he held him tight.

But they both knew it was too late.

Lin Yuanqing sank into eternal night with his secret, believing their story had come to an end.

He never knew that Zhou Kuang had seen through his feelings long ago.

It was only the cowardice of youth and his yearning for a “normal” life that made him turn away.

That single turn of his back became a lifetime of missed chances.

“Find me sooner in our next life.” Those were Lin Yuanqing’s last words.

“All right. In our next life, wait for me to love you.” That was Zhou Kuang’s reply, spoken in the endless night of a life where Lin Yuanqing could no longer hear him.

It turns out that the greatest pain is not loving someone you can never have.

It is when two people are clearly heading toward each other, yet each walks a long, lonely road in the opposite direction, until death parts them.

The sun hanging in the sky will eventually set, and love will be buried in silence.