"He has one wish."
Aloof, mixed-race, devoted painter 1 (Motesen) x kind, sickly, self-loathing writer 0 (Huaizhu)
[Romance Synopsis]:
At seventeen, Huaizhu asked himself what he wanted. He did everything he could to seize all that was within reach, both in body and mind.
At twenty-three, in the city psychiatric hospital, the red fruits on the koelreuteria trees outside his window seemed to wither day by day in his eyes. He stopped asking himself what he wanted.
He thought he would keep drifting through life in a daze, barely clinging on, until his soul was snapped in two. But he never expected to encounter his muse, as if from a book. He and Motesen fell in love at first sight.
Seven years ago, Motesen was abruptly dumped by his first boyfriend, who was seventeen at the time. Both he and his belongings vanished without a trace.
Seven years later, he met his boyfriend Huaizhu again, with countless questions he wanted to ask.
After a chance drinking party, Huaizhu held him and kissed his cheek, wearing the bashful smile of someone experiencing love for the first time.
His heart pounded like a drum, and he could not brush away the hand resting on him.
Facing the person he liked, Huaizhu took the initiative and asked, "Let's go see a movie together!"
Motesen's expression was cold. "I'm not going."
But Huaizhu ran into him at the cinema entrance, where he steadied Huaizhu's cup of milk tea as it was about to slip from his hand.
Later, Motesen kissed him fiercely into the sofa, one hand gripping the back of his head, his eyes full of desire fixed intently on him.
Motesen said, "Huaizhu, will you fall in love with me?"
[Plot Synopsis]:
Huaizhu started reading books when he was ten. Only when hiding in books did he feel safe. Later, in his teens, he encountered a pair of eyes that watched him, calm as a lake, and wanted to hide inside them too.
To him, the world was a precarious, tilted tower, its sands running out. He never felt safe for a single moment.
Just before he completely broke, he briefly wanted to hold on to those eyes.
But...
It was all, all too late.
More than ten years ago, Motesen did not know the truth behind his mother's self-destruction. More than ten years later, he still could not fathom the truth behind Huaizhu's self-harm.
Fate drew two light strokes across his life, and he had no one to confide in about his pain.
If there really was a way to save Huaizhu,
he slowly realized,
it all had to begin with the unsolved case from the year they parted, seven or eight years ago.
Fate falls upon us like unending rain, taking root inside our bodies.
The rain image on the cover is from @BiBiBiAnHua. Thank you.
[Reader Advisory]:
In chronological order, lovers reunite after a breakup | School days to adulthood | Old unsolved case
One-on-one, happy ending, mutual love, no switching or reversing pairings
Slight age gap. Slow burn
Bittersweet
Theme: Even the weakest life will see the sun
