During the summer vacation between his second and third years of high school, the family Yu Lin-He was staying with moved out overnight on a midsummer night of rain, so quiet that even the cicadas fell silent. In a single night, he was left with no family, no support, and nowhere to turn.
Yu Lin-He had to stretch every yuan as far as it would go. He drew on the front of each sheet of sketch paper, made quick sketches on the back, then erased those sketches and used the paper for color studies.
He struggled through it, telling himself to hold on. Once he got into art school, he could apply for a student loan and work while he studied.
Not long after the start of his final year of high school, he noticed that his class monitor, whom he barely knew, seemed a little slow and was always buying the wrong things.
The class monitor spoke with a slight stammer, but earnestly explained that he'd meant to buy scratch paper but had accidentally bought sketch paper, and that he'd meant to buy 2B pencils but had accidentally bought charcoal pencils. He had no use for them, so Yu Lin-He could have them.
Until one day, the class monitor showed up with two bottles of titanium white.
Yu Lin-He laughed. "What were you trying to buy this time, only to accidentally end up with white paint?"
Qin Zhou-Huan said, "No. I bought it for you." Then he brought out a big box of paints and brushes, too.
The paint bottles Qin Zhou-Huan gave him that day had a sticky note on them. It read:
A butterfly can cross the vast sea. You, too, can cross a thousand rivers.
That day's sunset was orange-yellow. Light poured through the glass window and fell across Qin Zhou-Huan's white T-shirt. Yu Lin-He saw an orange universe.
Science-track seme / art student uke
·Archived 2024-04-05
·High school campus setting. No romance while underage.
Theme: A butterfly can cross the vast sea. You, too, can cross a thousand rivers.
