Tangerine Pith

On Chen Jin's eighteenth birthday, Song Ju peeled eleven tangerines for him, removing every last thread of white pith from each segment. She had peeled tangerines for him for eighteen years. He complained that she peeled them too cleanly, leaving them no fun to eat. Later, a transfer student who was "easier to talk to" entered his life. During two weeks of intensive training, he didn't send her a single message. When her grandmother was hospitalized, he didn't reply until noon the next day. Sitting in the hospital corridor, she came up with the last excuse for him, then stood up and stopped making excuses. The diagnosis came 317 days before the college entrance exam. Song Ju didn't cry. She folded the hospital bill into a tiny square and tucked it into the deepest part of her schoolbag. She gave up the house in Tangerine Alley, canceled her phone number, and quietly slipped out of his life. Chen Jin searched for her like a madman, finally finding her in the hospice ward. He asked why she hadn't told him. She smiled. "Chen Jin, I told you my grandmother was in the hospital. You didn't reply until noon the next day." On the day he got into university, he found a bag of dried tangerines in his schoolbag's inner pocket. A hospital bill fell out. The date was written on the bag in ballpoint pen. The last bag had been made the day before she was hospitalized. He could have. Those four words would hurt him for the rest of his life.