En Hiver [ZhouWen/ZheJun]

Chapter 1

There is a difference between 'lonely' and 'alone'. That, not many people know.

Lonely is a feeling, intangible and abstract, it lives in your heart. You can sense it even when surrounded by thousands of people.

Alone is a state, might be solitude or isolation, but it doesn't always mean you're lonely.

You can be alone, but not lonely. And You can sense loneliness even when you're not alone.

However, what if you're both? Lonely and alone?

Do you click your wine against another empty glass or drink directly from the bottle? Do you take care of yourself when you're sick or try your best not to get sick at all? Do you laugh with yourself? Or at yourself? Do you cry by yourself or to yourself?

Do you say your name out loud to reminisce how it sounds when others call you, or forget yourself just like others have forgotten you?

Do you befriend the butterflies at day and the fireflies at night? Or do you reach out to the universe or plead to the moon?

Do you talk to your shadow? Or do you imagine a presence?

Or do you start seeing ghosts?

Ghosts...

They don't exist, do they?

But what if you start hearing their voice? Sense them in your dreams? Feel them behind you? Around you? All over you and inside you?

Gong Jun wondered to himself. Is this all loneliness or is it because he's just alone? Or it something else mixed with both?

Either way, that was it. Just a feeling, an unproven feeling, that he, himself, didn't understand.

Is his mind playing games with him? Or is he ill? Is it reality or a hallucination or something beyond the laws of nature?

Should he tell someone? But tell whom?

What if they say it's all in his head and send him back home? What if they declare him insane and bring him back to be cured?

Gong Jun never denied his unstable mind, but also never claimed himself to be mad.

He was just unfortunate. Disasters and tragedies followed him wherever he went. His best friend died before his eyes, his family passed one after the other leaving him money he never wanted; and society saw him as an outcast ever since he revealed his sexuality.

It seemed like whoever lived around him and whatever he managed to fulfil, all get taken away, in one way or another. He considered himself a bad omen, unworthy of love, happiness, and company. So, he gathered his belongings and flew somewhere far, bought a big mansion with the money he never spent and decided to reside away from the crowd.

The mansion was too big to live by himself but he never wanted anyone else. The first few days were calm, lonelier than usual, but he didn't hate the feeling; he was rather relieved that like this, away and alone, he will sooner or later be completely forgotten.

The landlord claimed that this vintage mansion belonged to a wealthy young man who disappeared and was never found again. Gong Jun was intrigued but not enough to investigate, until one day he accidentally found a photograph hidden back in one of the drawers. It was of a handsome man, dusty and old sepia, stained with the traces of time. He'd squinted closer at the picture and the man's soft features took his breath right away; his eyes were familiar, strangely familiar. He'd caressed the man's face with his fingertips and got a weird feeling of joy mixed with deep sorrow, but he didn't know why. It felt so real, as if he truly touched him.