Keeping the Lamps Burning Through the Day [Broken Up and Reunited]

That summer, Zhou Jinghuan frequently visited the mobile dorms at the construction site.

A broken fan whirred and squeaked. A curtain hung from a wire, its corner lifted to reveal a messy bedsheet in the dusky evening light.

“When will this be over?” Zhou Jinghuan asked weakly.

Zhou Zhu leaned against the headboard. Sweat slid from his short, bristly hair down his jaw, then disappeared beneath the sun-bronzed skin of his hard, straight shoulders. He turned aside to light a cigarette. “When summer's over.”

When summer was over, it would end.

/

They'd agreed to indulge in this madness for just one hot summer. When vacation ended, Zhou Jinghuan packed her things. She crouched on the concrete floor to fold her clothes, and when she leaned forward, a stretch of her pale lower back showed.

Clang. The suitcase beside her was suddenly kicked.

Zhou Zhu leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, looking down at her. “School starts next week?”

“Yeah.” Zhou Jinghuan didn't look up. “I'm going early to sort out the dorm and take care of the paperwork.”

“It's more relaxed here than at school, but I might not be around tomorrow,” Zhou Zhu said.

Zhou Jinghuan said nothing.

/

Years after they parted, Zhou Jinghuan was looking rather down on the day they met again.

A blind date had been harassing her, and she'd been bottling up her feelings for days. She didn't notice the person in front of her.

By the time she came to her senses, Zhou Zhu had already cornered her against the wall.

For a moment, she was back in that midsummer: the broken fan, beads of sweat, hot breath bursting against the tip of her nose.

“Who is it? Who's treating you this badly?” he said.

“You never cried like this in front of me before.”

But that night, Zhou Zhu got drunk for the first time in his life.

An aspiring actress playing at the game of life x a construction foreman stuck in the mud

Theme: Be a free and fearless lover