Winter Night Sea

When Su Chi was five, she pulled Lin Yu’s braid loose.

Lin Yu cried. Su Chi was made to stand as punishment and said, “Your hair looks pretty down.” Lin Yu stopped crying.

From that day on, Lin Yu never let anyone else touch her hair. Su Chi never knew.

For the next fifteen years, they went to school and grew up together. Su Chi walked on the left, Lin Yu on the right. Su Chi said, “There are cars on the left.” Lin Yu said, “Are you worried I’ll get hit by one?” Su Chi’s ears turned red.

One winter when they were nine, Su Chi had no gloves on and shoved her hands inside Lin Yu’s collar. Grumbling, Lin Yu stuffed Su Chi’s hands into her own pockets. Their fingers intertwined. Neither said a word.

In middle school, Su Chi ran from the third floor to the first during every break, passing by Lin Yu’s classroom. Lin Yu’s classmates called her “that girl who’s always running up and down.”

In high school, people pursued Su Chi, and people liked Lin Yu. Su Chi began to avoid her. Lin Yu began to wait.

One winter when they were seventeen, Su Chi shoved her hands inside Lin Yu’s collar. Lin Yu put them in her pocket, but didn’t clasp their fingers together.

Lin Yu asked, “Are you like this with everyone?”

Su Chi opened her mouth, but couldn’t say a thing.

The winter night was long. The sea was deep.

Later came a four-hour train ride, a figure running through the rain, and the words, “I gave you fifteen years.” There was a slammed door, a door left unlocked, and “I’m back.” There was “She’s mine” and “Mm, she is.”

But that wasn’t all.

There was also the answer that had been waiting far, far too long.

And those hands, at last, clasped tight in the depths of a winter night, at the end of the sea, inside a pocket.