[Completed]
As choices, rules, timeless deeds, and beginnings attract then push Zhan away between two peaks of bliss, he learns: It's easy to fall, but harder to love. It's one thing to spend a star-aligned winter, but something else to bear the war...
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WATCHING QING take another long drag from the cigarette between her fingers, I ask her a question which I knew the answer for. "Can I have one?"
"No." When Qing blows out, she had her gaze settled somewhere far on the afterglow. "This shit never stops with one, kid. Trust me."
"Stop calling me kid," I mutter.
Partly because I was aware. The way bitter temptations become sweet upon the taste; even if it is for the fleet of a moment. Qing said something similar when I commented on this habit she's picked up about a year ago. And I thought, what a stupid thing to say. Guess I didn't know better.
That was around the time she returned back to the town after moving out. She left with a guy and returned with a pack of cigarettes and a bunch of stories she didn't tell anyone but herself. This house finally feels like a house without the drunkard, she said that day after her dad's funeral, watching the same sunset, like she held some kind of insight no one else had. Over the year I've realized that she does indeed, and that's what keeps her at peace.
"Zhan, idiot, why are you still here?" Qing demands. "Go back home before your mom loses it."
My eyes involuntarily avert to her; I force them back to the sky.
"Forget it," Qing sighs. "Stay for dinner. Just ramen though."
"I can't. I have to drop by the city."
"Rehearsals?"
"Sort of. Helping out with pieces for the next concert."
Qing stretches out, leaning back to get comfortable. "Aren't your exams coming by? You've gotta glue yourself to your books, you know. What a carefree ass for a senior."
"Violin is important too," I shrug, as a matter of fact.
"You're still gonna keep learning that?"
I nod.
Her smile softens, the usual snarky one turning to something honest. "Well, good for you." She wraps her thick cardigan around her hands—the evening was growing colder. "Who else is coming?"
"Yibo."
It was supposed to be a harmless reply, but Qing raises an eyebrow. "Wow. A name. And I thought the only name you knew to say is Feng."
I blink. "I've told you names before."
"As if. All you say is, that friend, this classmate, the pale girl. It's like the only one that matters is Feng and no one else."
I open my mouth and close it back, trying to recall someone whom I usually talk about—I find nothing, feeling the heat of a blush. "You're exaggerating." Qing always had these scary observations. Had she gone out of her house more often, she would've learned my whole life just by paying attention.
