As Winter Nights Grow Warm

Written in my second year of high school in 2024. It's immature, but it's a memory.

One of four stories in The Story Isn't Over

Original title: Ex-Boyfriend

[The whole story is already written. I'll update according to the rankings before publication; if there's no ranking, I'll update every other day.]

Content warnings:

1. Told from the male lead's perspective, but it's not a male-oriented story (emphasis added). Both the male and female leads are devoted to each other.

2. All couples in this story are male-female (saying it three times).

Brooding, sensitive interior designer × cheerful, sunny oil-painting teacher

Mutual pining | Second chance romance | Road trip | Purehearted puppy wins his wife back

"He built a city of steel and concrete, while she was the wind that blew through its walls."

A faded sticky note was tucked into Chen Xiuzhu's journal.

It was a message he had written when he was twenty-eight, in a hospital room thick with the smell of disinfectant.

As a young interior designer in his field, he was used to measuring the distance between people with a ruler. Chen Xiuzhu didn't believe in love at first sight.

He even thought all romantic feelings were castles in the air, detached from reality.

That is, until he met Lin Suchun at the end of 2012.

From then on, his emotions glimpsed a ray of light amid the strange and the warm.

Chen Xiuzhu finally believed in love at first sight.

*

On an autumn night, he brought a relative's child to an art studio for a painting lesson.

The weather had been growing colder, yet with Lin Suchun's arrival, the warmth returned once more.

Chen Xiuzhu's heart galloped like a wild horse as he pondered alone.

When he lowered his eyes and turned back, so much had changed. The world had turned upside down.

They both knew they couldn't pretend they were strangers, but they couldn't deny how familiar they were to each other, either.

After a long while, Chen Xiuzhu finally spoke in a hoarse, bitter voice. "How is your recovery going?"

Lin Suchun smiled faintly. "I'm fully recovered."

So what was he to call himself when he faced Lin Suchun again?

Lin Qingyuan's friend?

The uncle of his relative's child?

Or her ex-boyfriend...

*

At first, Chen Xiuzhu traveled alone along Kenting's long coastline, using a wide-angle lens to capture the clouds drifting over Taipei 101.

Later, they walked together through the thin mist atop Mount Taiping, wandered amid the bustle of Central, and looked up at the New Year's fireworks over Victoria Harbour.

In the end, after many twists and turns, they returned to Beijing.

The roads beneath their feet stretched as far as their love had traveled.

Many years later, Lin Suchun asked him, "Chen Xiuzhu, what do you love most about me?"

Chen Xiuzhu said, "Lin Suchun, that's a very long answer. I want to spend my whole life answering it."

[Reading notes]

1. Told from the male lead's perspective, with a detailed account of the days leading up to their reconciliation.

2. Inspired by Stefanie Sun's song When Winter Nights Grow Warm.

3. The whole story is already written!

4. 1v1, both virgins, happy ending!

Theme: Strive toward a better life