Evanescent Dreams

15. The end of our fate

Chen Siyun stood a few feet apart from her giggling classmates and nibbled her fingernails. It was the summer of the last year of middle school, and she was forced to spend three nights in a X Village for the school trip.

It was the last day of the trip, and people were playing so-called "team building" activities on the fields. They were really just activities for presenter students to widen their social influence.

Chen Siyun sat down on a bench nearby and gazed at the light turquoise skies. She found moths instead of butterflies.

She didn't dislike being alone before she got to know Lin Xingren. She was the happiest being "alone" in a place where no one was nearby. However, she disguised being a loner. She despised the feelings of self-consciousness and inferiority that gained hold of her introvert self whenever she was "alone" in a place where people were all grouped together.

Cicadas were shrieking.

Someone far away on the field tripped over while climbing up a human pyramid. People around all ran over to see the scene.

Chen Siyun felt sweat beads coming down her forehead. The mountains on the horizon seemed to be bobbing up and down, and the bird flock seemed to have a shadow of its own.

"When can I go home..."

Her body started swaying and she closed her eyes.

---

When she opened her eyes again, she was lying on a bed with smooth white sheets. Light from the open windows above shone through the translucent white curtains that were drawn around the patient bed.

I must have dozed off on that bench, she sighed to herself. She hadn't slept well for the past three nights at the hotel because she was overwhelmed by the unfamiliar setting and her roommates that partied till midnight. She must have been found by a teacher and brought to the nurse.

She turned to lay on her side and rested her head on her closed palms.

"Yo, someone there?" a boisterous voice from outside the curtains broke the silence.

Chen Siyun blinked at the silhouette of a guy who lay on the bed next to hers. He was restlessly changing his posture even though his foot was bandaged.

She assumed the voice was calling someone else, and blinked at the figure in silence.

"Hey, you ignoring me? Hey, bob hair!" the guy continued calling.

Chen Siyun grew tense.

Is he calling me? Why is he calling me?

"Can you, like, give me a cup of water over there? ", he added, "I can't stand up and I'm so god thirsty."

Slowly and awkwardly, Chen Siyun stepped out of her curtains and filled a paper cup on the water dispenser nearby with cool water.

Linen curtains were also drawn around the guy's bed. Chen Siyun trotted over to the side of his bed and, from outside the curtains, stretched out the cup to him.

A breeze came from the open window and the curtains swayed briskly along with it. His features simultaneously appeared, disappeared, and reappeared like the linen in between them, making up a close to illusional image.

Zhao Zihai had fair, glowing skin, bushy brows and sharp facial features. His bright green lettered sports headband was overhung by loose fringe bangs and he was wearing a white T-shirt with the words "Fake Smile".

But what attracted her was not his looks, but his aura that was exemplar of the sense of youth, energy, and ambition portrayed in dramas she watched since young. He seemed to have the strength and confidence to do anything in the world. He was opposite of her. He was a kdrama male lead.