Mercury Retrograde

"An early practice piece. The styles of the first and second halves are very different, so proceed with caution."

After a gathering during her sophomore year of college, Shui Li catches up to Qi Yizhou. "Let's have a meal together again sometime."

The dim streetlights illuminate his features. His dark eyes are sharp and haughty, his arrogance impossible to miss. Without even looking up, he turns her down. "I'm not hungry."

A chosen one like him could never fall from his lofty heights.

Yet in the hot, humid rainy season at summer's end, time and again, he is the one who catches her and gives her somewhere to lean.

"With me, you can always be as willful as you like."

The day she asks to break up, a torrential downpour is about to begin.

Qi Yizhou's bangs cover his eyes, his jaw clenched tight. He is like a silent film frozen in time, rain-soaked and still. After a long while, he speaks hoarsely, lying to himself. "I'll pretend I didn't hear what you just said."

The world seems submerged in water, the rain slicing the mottled light into fragments. Shui Li's expression is calm. "Then I'll say it again..."

"Qi Yizhou, let's break up."

In the end, she walks away unscathed, while he is left covered in scars.

Years later, they meet again.

Qi Yizhou is still surrounded by admirers, his expression indifferent and languid amid the crowd.

Shui Li rises instinctively, her chair scraping the floor with an earsplitting sound.

He looks over.

Half a second later, he loses interest and looks away, as if she's a stranger.

During that rainy season, they loved holding hands, never letting go even when their palms grew sticky.

But the rains eventually clear, and people grow distant.

In the end, there is nothing between them anymore.

And then, that very night.

At the bar, only Qi Yizhou's closest friend sees him curl his lip in self-mockery.

"She never wants me."

*This isn't a pure fluff story. There are angsty parts.

Theme: Love and being loved.