Every Saturday at 5:30 in the evening, I rush to the rehearsal hall across half of Changzhou and meet Fei Ziyu in the back row of percussion instruments. We played rock, paper, scissors during the boring rehearsal breaks, chatted several meters apart, and gradually became familiar with each other. He loves to write articles and will read 8,000-word stories to me and recommend poetry collections by the Misty School. He is smart and quiet.
The two weeks he was in the hospital for recuperation were the time when we talked the most. There were no perfunctory questions, and we responded seriously every word. We slowly started to chat, and I secretly felt full of love.
I prepared a ninety-six-page book as his birthday gift. I engraved his initials and birthday on the side, stroke by stroke, to hide all my unspoken thoughts. I planned to hand it over to him at the rehearsal class after his birthday, but what I was waiting for was the news that he had quit the group.
The seats in the rehearsal hall were empty. This book can no longer be delivered to him. I plan to fill it with words, copy his name five hundred and twenty times, and record all the memories of Saturday evenings.
However,
But I found that when I reached the last page, page ninety-six, I couldn't write anything.
No confession, no goodbye. The young man's thoughts stopped in September and remained in this book that could never be sent.
It's the orchestra, drumbeats and twilight, a secret love that ends in vain.
Purpose: Love must be achieved through hard work