For You

Tract 3: Memory Pieces

Disclaimer: The title of the fic and each chapter's title are all credited to the Jerry For You producers and of course to Jerry himself.

For you, who are falling in love for the first time, this chapter is dedicated to you.

..........

I remember it well; remember it as if it was just yesterday.

On that early autumn afternoon, I had been playing tag with some of the boys from our neighborhood in the vacant lot near my house. Not ten minutes into the game, those silly boys made me cry. They had complained my legs were too slow, that I acted just like a girl.

Glaring menacingly at them, I had retorted, "Well that's because I am a girl!"

That earned a loud burst of laughter from them. Xiao De had even snickered and said he never thought of me as a girl before.

My eyes darkened threateningly and I had wanted to clobber his head but someone stopped me just in time.

It was my next-door neighbor. He was on his way home from school when he probably saw those boys bullying me. He walked over to us, smiled at kindly those boys and told them boys shouldn't make girls cry.

Surprisingly, those stubborn boys listened to him at once. They apologized to me and promised him that they'll never do it again. At that moment, I began suspecting that those boys looked up at him as an idol male figure. Wouldn't blame them though, my mother rants everyday how she wished she had a son as sweet and as caring as our neighbor, Liao Yang Zhen; I wouldn't have been surprised if those boys mother all say the same thing.

Gratefully turning to my neighbor, I whispered a soft thanks. He only smiled and lightly patted my head.

I had only been seven, while he had only been fourteen then.

Smiling at the present, I slowed my pace as I neared the vacant lot where it had all begun. I remember after that fateful afternoon, I found a 'big brother' in my neighbor. Though he had an older one, he told me he didn't mind having a younger sister. That is if I liked, he added. I had of course enthusiastically agreed.

To where I was standing now, I could almost see the vacant lot where many more memories were made. A few years after that incident when my 'da ge' helped me, in the very same lot he taught me to play basketball. I had never been good at it but I had always looked forward to playing with him for it was very nice watching him play. He seemed to always enjoy it a lot; he even once admitted to me that of all sports, he liked basketball best.

Returning to the present, I stopped suddenly on my tracks as I saw a man standing alone by the lot. The sight of him somehow reminded me of the afternoon exactly two years and four days ago when my da ge told me his news.

Apparently, he had to leave for some mandatory military service. He told me he'd be gone for two years. When he told me that, I only nodded in understanding; but in the darkness of my room that night, I cried until my eyes felt sore.

Then one morning a week after, from the window of my room, I silently watched my secret crush bid his mother and sister farewell. After, I cried again as I watched him he walked away.

Then suddenly I was startled back from my memories as the man I was staring at began walking away. The set of his shoulders. . . his walk. . . they were all too familiar. . .

"Da ge," my lips suddenly called out before I even realized it.

The man stopped and I felt a sudden lack of air. Slowly the man turned around and if there was even a doubt in my mind that it was my da ge, the way my heart skipped a beat confirmed that it really was him.