During the summer solstice in my senior year of high school, there were always two bottles of orange soda placed side by side on the window sill of the back door of the classroom. The worries that Xu Shan had hidden for two years were the silver bells and red ropes unconsciously drawn on the edge of the draft paper, the sneak glances when she paused for two seconds when finishing her homework, and the joy of buying the same soda with Fang He every time she "happened" to buy it. She didn't know that the boy diagonally in front of her always secretly clutched his pen when she was giving a lecture. Her name was written all over the back of the draft paper. Even when buying soda, he deliberately waited for her to go to the canteen first.
After the college entrance examination, the unspoken "I like you" was separated into regrets by the admission notices from the north and the south. In the next ten years, Xu Shan would open a bottle of orange soda every summer solstice. The faded red string in the drawer and the silver bell never waited to be matched.
In the reception room of the office building, behind the document bag handed over by the partner, there was Fang He with the same red rope tied around his wrist, and two bottles of ice-cold orange soda on his hand. "Didn't you see the volunteer note I left back then?" His fingertips traced the soda label, like tracing the wrinkles of his youth.
The chirping of cicadas seemed to fill my ears again, and the unexpressed feelings of that year finally fell to the ground gently with the sweet smell of orange soda on the summer solstice when they reunited.
Purpose: Based on the two-way unspoken secret love in youth, and using the imagery of orange soda and red rope, it tells the story of a love that was missed due to misunderstanding but reunited ten years later. In the end, regret is fulfilled in the echo of time, and the interpretation of the deep love of "some heartbeats, across mountains, seas and years, will eventually find echoes".