1.
Min En, who usually never watched TV, spent the whole night crying over a supposedly pure-love drama.
A friend asked her: What if she suddenly found out that she and her boyfriend were siblings?
Min En replied:
First, she didn't have a boyfriend.
Second, she didn't have an older brother registered in the same household.
Her friend asked, "What about Xiang Shiwen?"
Siblings...
That was what everyone thought Min En and Xiang Shiwen were.
No one knew that, at first, they had been nothing like siblings.
When they first met, she was just a stranger living next door, a nuisance he had no choice but to look after.
He found her incredibly annoying.
A pair of eyes that turned especially indifferent when he wasn't smiling flashed through her mind. Min En answered, "Don't be ridiculous. We're better off as siblings. I'm going to marry someone else someday."
Outside the door, someone stood leaning against the wall, without a word.
One night, the street lost power.
Min En lit a candle and rummaged around for a flashlight.
The flame flared, revealing Xiang Shiwen leaning against the doorframe.
The little flame flickered, casting shadows over his dark features.
Min En patted her chest. "Why did you come in without saying anything?"
He gazed at her intently and answered a different question. "Do you really have to get married?"
She joked, "Big brother, who'll support me if I don't get married?"
The window wasn't shut all the way. A gust of wind blew in and snuffed out the candle.
The room plunged into darkness.
As she turned around, a body pressed against her from behind.
She couldn't ignore the breath brushing against her ear.
It was so warm she wanted to run.
Xiang Shiwen's voice was low and somber, far less composed than usual:
"I will."
2.
On the day his best friend got married, Xiang Shiwen was a groomsman for the first time.
After the reception, his friend grabbed him and asked when he would get to celebrate Xiang Shiwen's wedding.
Xiang Shiwen looked at Min En chatting with someone in the distance and exhaled a puff of smoke. "You'd better look forward to someone else's wedding."
Following his gaze, his friend sighed. "Are you really going to keep dragging this out? You're not even related by blood."
In that brief exchange of glances, Xiang Shiwen knew his only friend who understood him had seen through his secret.
He stubbed out his cigarette, his expression calm.
"You think blood ties are what's stopping me?"
[Slow to Catch On x Restrained, Long-Suffering, and Crazy]
Reading Tips:
1. A slice-of-life story set sometime after the turn of the millennium, around 2000 to 2008.
2. Both leads are virgins. If you have a lot of triggers, this may not be for you.
Theme: In this world, there is such a thing as waiting forever, and choosing only one person.
