The Ninth Spring

The Ninth Spring by Changqing Huai Suweis

Suggested BGM: “Leave My Dependence” while reading =w=

“Two extreme households raised two extreme children;

only one learned to love himself, while the other learned to love someone else.”

Chen Jiuyu: “It took my dad nine years to win my mom over, but only nine minutes to leave her.”

“Nine means nine years, and forever. Yu means the right time, and too late.”

Ling Chun: “Chen Jiuyu, once we’ve made it through this spring together, stop liking me, okay? I’m not worth it.”

“But if you find a girl you like, you have to tell me, because you’re so bad at loving people.”

Synopsis:

Chen Jiuyu thinks of himself as cold, withdrawn, and prone to overthinking.

Then he meets Ling Chun, who smiles and tells him he’s just slow to warm up.

He deserves to be loved.

So he gathers his courage and confesses to her.

They’re both at the age when love is just beginning. As expected, they get together.

But Ling Chun is the one who takes the lead.

As for Chen Jiuyu... he rarely makes the first move.

Ling Chun comes to believe that he doesn’t love her, and that his confession was a joke from beginning to end.

She develops depression.

Ling Chun keeps telling herself that “she doesn’t love him at all,” that she’s just a good actress,

pleased with her own performance.

But this act goes on for nine years.

Except you can’t fake the physical symptoms of depression.

When they first got together, she asked him, “How many years does it take for someone to truly enter your heart?”

“Probably a lot of years,” Chen Jiuyu said.

But the words he never got to say were: But you only need one glance.

Sadly, he never got another chance to say them.

The ninth spring they spend together is the spring before spring, the arrival of spring,

and the spring that will never come again.

“But Ling Chun, did you really not realize that for all these nine years...”

“I’ve only ever liked you.”

He was just slow to warm up, slower than anyone else.

[Lin Chun * Chen Jiuyu]

[Passionate fire-sign girl * Slow-to-warm earth-sign boy]

A sister story to Delusion of Capgras, though not quite a sister story

Theme: Two cowards, two liars