You... Keep Your Distance | Renheng

Chapter III

Dan Heng stayed at the library until the sky swirled with vibrant colors of the late evening. He watched as children were dragged out of the library by their respective adults, weeping and shouting about "their devices". One child in particular with her hair in two large braids sobbed as she parted from a tablet.

"We need to go, Bailu," a woman with light blue hair spoke softly despite the annoyed expression painted across her features. Her eyebrows knitted together tightly, forcing a smile as the librarian stared at her from across the room.

Dan Heng watched from the distance, it almost reminded him of when he was a child.

"I didn't finish my video!" The child shouted, throwing her arms around as fake tears threatened to spill down her eyes. "Help! Help! This lady is kidnapping me!"

"Don't say that," the lady in blue shushes Bailu. She lifts the child into her arms with ease and ignores the relentless hitting of small hands against her back. "We need to go back, you might get adopted soon if you behave."

That seems to shut the little girl up. Within the next second, she's throwing her arms into the air and cheering about possible parents as the woman walks out of the library.

Dan Heng recognizes her, the woman in blue. Another one of Dan Feng's friends. From what Dan Heng remembers of her when he was a kid himself, that woman– Jingliu– Always stood side-by-side with another woman with a long braid. Whenever they came to visit Dan Feng while their mother was at work, Baiheng would always play cute, romantic music on the speakers as she laid her head down against Jingliu's lap.

"Aw, is Dan Feng getting jealous?" Baiheng teased as Jingliu played with the hair tie holding Baiheng's hair together. "You're always studying and studying for hours on end, you don't get out to talk to people."

"I don't see the need," Dan Feng spat as he walked towards the speaker and paused the music blasting in the background. He sat himself down on the couch beside the two women, his short black hair tickling his neck.

"Come on, you're nineteen, you can date now–" Dan Heng remembers how Baiheng cut herself off as she made eye contact with twelve-year-old Dan Heng entering the living room. Her eyes sparkled, and she cupped her hands over her mouth as she jolted up from the couch and ran towards him.

Baiheng practically jumped from where she stood as she ran her hands through Dan Heng's long black hair.

"–Dan Feng! You never told us you had a little sibling!" Baiheng smiled as she kneeled in front of him. Her lavender knitted sweater brushed against her chin as she narrowed her eyes and scanned Dan Heng's features. "He looks exactly like you."

"Uhm..." Dan Heng took a step back.

"And he's shy too! What's your name, little one?" Before Dan Heng could even reply, Baiheng opened her mouth and continued rambling on. "He reminds me of the picture this man showed me," Baiheng ruffled Dan Heng's black hair and stood up only to be met with Dan Feng staring at her.

"Who?" Jingliu finally spoke from the couch.

"Right, right you guys don't know him. I'll introduce him, he's lovely." Baiheng grinned, her teeth poking out from her lips.

Out of everything Dan Heng remembers, only bits and pieces of his childhood can he truly reconnect with. Such as his mother, Dan Feng, March, and parts of high school. He only met Caelus and Stelle later on in his life, a couple of weeks after he graduated high school. His first impression of the twins was Caelus arguing with someone in the parking lot of a restaurant while Stelle played some sort of game on her phone.