Sunflowers Facing East

At eighteen, Xiang Dong was the sun to eighteen-year-old Hua Zhaoyang, warming Hua Zhaoyang as he languished in darkness.

"Hey, classmate, I'm Xiang Dong. What's your name?"

"..."

At twenty-eight, Xiang Dong was the man Hua Zhaoyang loved but could never have. Hua Zhaoyang loved him so much it hurt, yet he couldn't bear to let go.

"Xiang Dong, do you love me?"

"I never noticed! Hua Zhaoyang, you're already twenty-eight. Why are you acting like a little girl, still fantasizing about love and romance?"

Hua Zhaoyang gazed for a long time at Xiang Dong's indifferent face, his heart bitter. He blinked away the tears in his eyes. "I understand."

At twenty-nine, Hua Zhaoyang and his sun finally got together. He felt like the happiest person in the world.

"Dong-ge, Dong-ge, Dong-ge..." Hua Zhaoyang could never say it enough. Every day after work, he would stand downstairs and count the windows above. When he reached the window of his own home and saw the dim light shining through it, he felt utterly content. Finally, finally, there was a light that belonged to him.

At thirty, Xiang Dong drove a sharp thorn deep into Hua Zhaoyang's heart.

"Xiang Dong, you knew he was a thorn in my heart. It took me so many years to pull him out, and today, just now, you drove him right back in."

"Xiang Dong, I don't want to love you anymore." Exhausted, Hua Zhaoyang turned away in despair.

With that turn, Hua Zhaoyang's time stopped forever at thirty.

The sunflower blooming around the sun stopped in its tracks forever.

(Sunflower literally means 'facing the sun flower.')

The sun that lost its sunflower lost its own light forever.

Theme: No matter how much you love someone else, always remember to love yourself a little more.