Children's Day and Christmas Eve

[There's an advance notice for another story in the same series, The Childhood Friends' Orbital Revolution, in my neighboring collection. It's Shangshang and Yezhi's story. If you're interested, please add it to your favorites. Thanks to everyone who clicked in! ^-^]

On a rainy day, Lin Suian met someone in a café.

When he saw the book in the other person's hand, the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Sleeping Beauty?”

Then, after the classes were rearranged, he and Sleeping Beauty became deskmates.

His new deskmate: “I feel like I've seen you before.”

Lin Suian: “…”

What a cliché opening line.

Lin Suian hates people who try to get chummy with him, but this Sleeping Beauty just won't leave him alone.

One minute it's buy-one-get-one pan-fried buns, the next it's buy-one-get-one water. Where do all these promotions come from? Are the shopkeepers idiots?

Until one day, Lin Suian can't take it anymore. He grabs him and says, word by word, “Xu Younan, we've never met before.”

The other guy, wearing a handsome, expressionless face, replies casually, “Then let's get to know each other now.”

Lin Suian's breath catches.

What a weirdo.

Lin Suian turns around, buys two bottles of water from the vending machine right in front of him, and tosses him one. “Buy one, get one.”

It's not like he's the only one who can do that.

Everyone has a few moments of heartbreak in their lives that become fixed in their memories, never to fade, only to replay over and over.

Countless moments like these make up memories unique to us, stored away forever in a secret little room in our hearts. Then one day, they wake up and wash over us like a tide.

For instance, there are two special days Lin Suian will never forget: Children's Day and Christmas.

On Children's Day, he lost a beloved family member. On Christmas Eve, he lost the person he loved most.

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

Emotion settles into the heart, drop by drop, gathering into a sea. Along the shore, a stretch of shallow water forms a buffer zone. Most of the time, Lin Suian stands there, with pain on one side and acceptance on the other.

One step forward means crashing waves; one step back, soft sand. It seems an easy choice, but some people choose to give up and stay in that in-between place.

There used to be a book in that café, but it only had a first volume, never a second.

Years later, Lin Suian opens a café of his own.

He finds the second volume of that book and puts it in his shop, where it watches the daily bustle of traffic with him, waiting for the day the other person might walk in.

One day, a staff member makes a new drink and asks Lin Suian to taste it.

It's slightly bitter, but a little sweetness follows.

Lin Suian asks what she wants to call it.

She says, “Reunion? Encounter? Meeting again? Any of those would work.”

But Lin Suian finds it strange. Shouldn't a reunion or an encounter be a happy thing?

The staff member says reunions are usually bittersweet, a process of getting through bitterness before reaching sweetness.

Just then, the wind chime by the door sways.

Lin Suian turns to look, his heart pounding.

So this is what bittersweet really means.

You can linger over the past, but you mustn't cling to it.

Embracing the past is also a kind of courage.

Outwardly cool but warm inside, openly drawing you in × Seemingly indifferent, but sensitive at heart, his coldness just a shield

Xu Younan (gong) × Lin Suian (shou)

* (Currently revising the story slowly.)

Everything is fictional, with no real-life basis.

A quiet story about the past, back when they were boys.

There are no major upheavals; the focus is on their relationship.

Thanks to everyone who clicked in and chose to read!

Theme: The past cannot be chased, but the days ahead can still be remembered.