Finding You / ZYX

x. clues

x. clues
      "is that a photo on her window?"

xxx

     a day passed since cheng xiu left. it was now back to normal for yixing; back to the lonely times where cheng xiu wasn't with him anymore. but unusually enough, cheng xiu would've been back by now, this worried yixing a lot.

     yixing set cheng xiu's packet of homework on his desk. he had stopped by the li's household just a couple minutes ago, but cheng xiu wasn't home yet. would she ever come back?

     he sat at his desk, which was in front of the ever so famous window, instead of doing his own work he stared straight back at the house in front of him. he seemed so engulfed in staring at her house and thinking about her completely distracted him.

     thinking about it more and more, he went over what had happened that night of their adventures. he then remembers that they had two arguments that night, and both of them hit right to home. instant regret washed over him again. maybe that's what yixing had always went wrong, he was always the killjoy that didn't believe in spontaneous things or dreams. like the dream of being a dancer or anything like that. maybe he should think differently this time, he should think much more adventurous and open to many different things.

     he smiled to himself, maybe this was his chance to change and become better. cheng xiu was always a role model to him as a child, so this was time to be better.

     "maybe i should try to find her." he whispers to himself. looking up at her house again, he failed to notice a photo in front of cheng xiu's window.

     "is that a photo on her window? how did i not notice that before?" scratching the back of his head, he inches closer to his window to get a closer look.

     the photo was a big poster that covered most of her window. it was a foreign man with a guitar in hand and a cigarette in his mouth. there was also text on the poster where he could barely make out.

     This Machine Kills Fascists

     "is this a clue?" it probably was, every time yixing looked over at cheng xiu's window it never had anything besides her blinds pulled down.

     he takes out his phone and zooms in the photo, quickly taking a snap of it, he gets a closer look at it. he still didn't know who it was, but he looked like a singer to him. an idea popped in his mind. his father used to listen to lots of songs by foreigners when he was younger.

     "dad!" the boy called out, racing down the stairs he finds his dad watching tv on the couch.

     "what is it son?" he asks halfheartedly as he watched the tv.

     "i just need to know who this was." yixing answered, showing the picture to him.

      yixing's father took a second, sipping his tea. "that's woody guthrie, he's a folksinger. i didn't really listen to much of his music though."

     the boy smiled, "thank you so much dad."

     yixing now knew who it was, he quickly raced out of the house and towards the li's house. he knocked on the door, waiting patiently for someone to open the door.

     "hello." a small voice was heard, it was cheng xiu's sister li cheng hui. yixing didn't expect cheng hui to open the door.

     the sassy fifteen year old rolled her eyes, "are you just going to stand there?"

     yixing shakes his head, "ah no, where are your parents?"

     "they're at the police station, annoying them about cheng xiu. seriously that girl is so problematic." cheng hui rolled her eyes again, motioning for yixing to come in. "why did you need to come here for?"

      "can i go to cheng xiu room real quick?" he asks the younger girl, trying not to sound like a creep going into a girl's room.

      "yeah whatever, i could care less." cheng hui crossed her arms before walking to the kitchen.

     taking that as a 'yes'. yixing walks up the stairs, he remembered which room cheng xiu was in. at the very front of the house, he entered the cheng xiu's room.

     his eyes widened to how much it had changed. looking for her record and cd collections he had remembered her starting as a kid, he tried his best to look for the name 'woody guthrie'.

     cheng xiu had around five crates of records and none of them had anything to do with the guy. but in the last crate he notices a record laying flat in it's case with other records over it.

     as curious as he was, he takes it out and looks for the name woody guthrie, fortunately he finds a picture of him once again on the back.

     "billy bragg's mermaid avenue?" yixing said the title of the record in a thick accent. not knowing much english, he did not know what the title meant.

     continuing to inspect the cover of the record, the first song of the album was circled with a white sharpie. immediately knowing it was cheng xiu, he thought of it as a clue.

     "walt whitman's niece?" he said out loud again. "who's walt whitman?"

     yixing whips out his phone and quickly searches up walt whitman. the information on his phone stated that he was a poet, he wrote a book called leaves of grass.

     "maybe she has this book if she knows who he is." he points out, walking to the other side of her room, which is where cheng xiu's bookcase was.

     yixing stares that the wall of books in awe, was he really going to look through all of that to find one book? sighing to himself, he starts with the lowest level, skimming through the book titles.

     after what had seemed to be more than fifteen minutes, he finds the book. the book was old, the spine of it was in the worst shape, the pages were almost falling off, and the text was pretty faded to gray instead of black.

     he starts to leave cheng xiu's room, but was interrupted by cheng hui. "um, hey." he awkwardly greets the girl.

     her arms crossed, "visit cheng xiu's room real quick you say. well it's been longer than real quick. i feel like you know much more than you're saying, are you hiding something? do you know where cheng xiu actually is? are you two dating?" cheng hui bombarded yixing with questions.

     "i-i don't what you're talking about, and i should be leaving too." he smiles, passing by the girl and taking leave.

     "maybe this was harder than i thought." he says to himself as he looks at the book that was written in a foreign language.

xxx

this was
rushed