As Radiant as Summer

It seems like beautiful stories always begin this way, as if they toss you into a sea of happiness and leave you blowing bubbles of joy. But humans are land-dwelling creatures, after all. When the sea closes around us, we can't help feeling uneasy. The ocean floor is bottomless, and it always seems like something unexpected is stirring beneath the surface.

I spotted Lin Xia at once. She and Jiang Mo were seated at a table on the left side of the stage. She wore a black strapless top and a deep purple jacket with a fish-scale cutout pattern. Sequins and pearls glittered under the lights, impossible to look away from, as though she had draped the billions of stars across her shoulders.

Lin Xia had put on makeup that day and taken off her glasses. Her round earrings swayed gently with her movements, making her look like a goddess from Greek mythology.

I didn't have the courage to go up to her. I just found a seat against the wall and stared at her. As I watched her smile, ringing surged in my ears. The sounds around me faded away, as if I were soaking in ink, turning black and dissolving into the darkness.

In that moment, it felt as though I were trapped in the vacuum of space, unable to breathe, staring at the sun from afar with millions of light-years between us, an impossible distance to cross.

Time is a strange thing. You can't feel it passing with any precision, yet it can make the distance between two people unmistakable.

I'd been away from myself for too long. Lin Xia wasn't there anymore, either. I felt ridiculous. I'd been carving a mark into a boat to find a lost sword, endlessly picking a point out of the river of time, stretching it, analyzing it, believing in it. But what river stays the same forever? What broken mirror can ever be made whole again?

Like a rat in a gutter, ashamed even when the sunlight finds it.

Chen Chen stood onstage under Lin Xia's gaze. I was so jealous. It was as if someone had grabbed me with chopsticks and swished me through ink again and again, turning my heart black.

I don't know when it happened, but Lin Xia turned and looked in my direction. I didn't look away. I knew no one could see me. I was just a black hole, giving off no light, collapsing endlessly inward, or perhaps a small planet being pulled toward the sun until it warped spacetime.

How close can two hearts get?

The moment our eyes met, the lights flickered. Everything before me fluttered past like butterflies, yet settled in Lin Xia's eyes. It was as if someone were clutching my heart and churning my stomach. Sorrow flowed through my veins. I knew you understood how I felt. Maybe a broken mirror doesn't need to be whole again. Maybe one shard is enough to let me see my own heart.

But Lin Xia lowered her head anyway, as if she had stolen the thought of running away from my mind and made it her own.

Theme: Any wavering means the heart has yet to make up its mind