Short Story

Translator: tarararawr

01.

I never thought I was someone who would get tangled up with my ex. I take things as they come, and I consider myself confident and efficient.

But the belief I had about myself fell apart the moment I received the gift—

“Miss Yan, please sign for it.”

I looked at the sender’s address, and I suddenly fell silent. Because of the mailman’s impatient reminder, I took the pen from his hand and scribbled down my name.

The box was not big, but holding it felt like a thousand pounds.

At that moment, it seemed like an out of body experience. I opened the box numbly. It all came back to me when I breathed in that faint fragrance.

In the middle of the box was a book wrapped in pink gift wrapping paper.

I stared at it for a long time. But I had finally reached for it and picked it up. I slowly removed the wrapping paper.

The book cover was exposed inch by inch each time my hand moved, like a beach after low tide—

I don’t like the world, I only like you.

02.

Truthfully, I didn’t like you that much at first.

In the eyes of others, you were charming and humorous. It made me feel like I could watch you from a distance, but couldn’t touch you. In terms of age and experience, I was very different from you.

Yes, we were so far apart.

I warned myself again and again in my heart: I shouldn’t fall into your trap.

But some things were unstoppable.

With determination to go out of town alone, when you were so depressed in a hotel that you didn’t have the courage to talk to your family, you could only talk to your friends and suddenly made a phone call—

“Youtong, are you in C City?”

I hesitated and refused to answer.

On the other side of the phone, you chuckled and said, “I sent you something, open the door.”

I lowered my head for a moment and slowly got up and walked to the door with skepticism.

It was like slow motion. The first thing my eyes landed on was your extremely high-quality suit. My eyes slowly moved upward, and finally froze on your smiling eyes.

You had a panoramic view of my disbelief and chuckled softly, “What is it? Do you want me to go back?”

At that moment, what came to my mind was the sentence that I had despised the most before—

The first time I saw the universe was when our eyes met.

I thought I was hypocritical and ridiculous. I quietly raised my hands to cover my face. I smiled and said, “I’m so embarrassed.”

I learned later that when you learned that I was in City C, you immediately bought a plane ticket and flew to me. Then, you asked my friend where I was at the hotel and booked a room next to me.

“Did you really leave that contract to come and find me?”

I joked.

When you raised your eyebrows, your smirk grew. “Why else?”

It seemed easy and natural.

I choked up and never said a word again. I concentrated on you as you sat by the tall window. Those inevitable emotions seemed to have taken root and sprouted, and all those feelings had a place to settle down.

“Actually…” I smiled and shook my head. I put my hand out and pressed my index finger and thumb together. I said, “I’m a little touched.”

03.

My deepest memory from back then was when you took me to your home in Shanghai.

In your late twenties, you pushed me into a room like a child and excitedly put my hand on the doorknob. You pretended to be mysterious and said, “See for yourself.”

Soon, I was shocked by the sight in front of me.

Pink bed, pink wallpaper, and as far as the eye could see, pretty much everything there was colored with the core of a young girl’s heart: pink.

It was my favorite color.

I could not control how much my eyes widened as I stared at everything in front of me. I looked at you, the shock in my heart was unparalleled.

“You like pink, so I wanted to decorate a room in a way that you would like.” You patted my head. Then, you lifted the blanket on the bed, and dozens of gifts came into view.

“Would you like to open your first gift now that you’re eighteen years old?”

Your voice seemed to have suddenly faded away. I took a deep breath, my chest rose from being so inexplicably moved.

You gave me a love that no one else could give me. It was to the point where after many years, I would compare others to you. I knew that no one would love me as much as you again.

You always worked late at night. I would lie down on the couch and pretend to play games with my phone, but I was secretly glancing at your concentrating face.

Even when you found out, you just smiled and asked, “You’re not sleeping yet?”

I shook my head and replied, “I don’t want to.”

This was something that had to happen every night. I thought, this is precisely what they called “the times are calm and the world is stable”. But it all ended one night, when you were taking care of me when I was tipsy, and you answered a phone call.

The distinct female voice coming from your cell phone got on my nerves—

“Zhengyu, I’m drunk. Will you come and get me?”

I was very clear about who this voice belonged to. She was your green plum 1 you’ve known for many years.

I closed my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep. I heard you agree and say okay. Then, you immediately tucked me in and tiptoed out the door.

I stared at the ceiling and burst into tears.

Afterwards, I couldn’t endure having to fight with you for the first time. Instead of coaxing me like you used to, you slammed the door.

I thought, we might really break up like this.

However, a few days later, you asked me to meet you at a coffee shop.

I naively put on my makeup and kept you waiting for me in the coffee shop for two hours. I thought you would get angry, but you did not.

You ordered my favorite food: strawberry cake. There were so many kinds, and you ordered one of each while I stayed silent. I felt wronged in so many ways that I couldn’t describe. I just kept eating cake and my nose was tingling.

When I looked up at you, I saw your affectionate eyes.

You said, eat slowly, like a little child.

I was surprised for a moment, then lowered my head and ate another piece of cake, pretending to be casual as I asked, “Will you still wait for me?”

Your eyes curved and you replied, “Youtong, I don’t know.”

You don’t know.

What an honest man.

You didn’t seem to notice what was wrong with me. You watched me finish all the cakes and waved for the waiter to come over.

I ignored the envious look she gave me. A feeling of inferiority suddenly rose from the deepest part of my heart, and I was completely sunk into oblivion.

“Let’s forget about us.”

I wanted to say a lot of things, but the thousands of words that finally reached my lips only formed this one sentence.

You ended our unpleasant conversation with a gentle sigh and sent me home as usual.

We had mutual understanding. No one said goodbye when we parted.

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04.

Yao Zhengyu silently watched her get out of the car. She turned around and went upstairs. Her smooth movements always seemed to give him the impression of confidence.

She always pretended to be confident.

He laughed and touched the cigarette in his pocket. He didn’t know why, but his hands were shaking a lot today.

Suddenly, his green plum’s arrogant words were heard through his ears—

“You will always come back to me. There are some things I don’t have to fight about.”

It’s true. She didn’t have to fight because he was dumped.

05.

“Later, he called me the day before he got married and wanted to see me.”

Miss Yan took an elegant sip of the coffee in her hand. The slightly bitter taste spread slowly.

I stopped writing. I looked up and asked her, “What happened then?”

“We agreed to meet at a coffee shop that day. I waited for him for a long time. He called me and said he was sorry. Something happened to his fiancee.”

Her tone didn’t have the slightest reluctance. It was more like an open-minded one that accepted fate.

“He said he wanted to meet me again, but I knew too well that we would never see each other again.”

The tip of the pen came to a pause for a long time, and I came to a realization. I lowered my head and saw that the ink had already seeped through the paper.

“At first, I thought he was taking advantage of me while I was vulnerable. But if your heart doesn’t have any room for him, then why would you keep in touch?”

Miss Yan softly smiled and drank the coffee in her hand with one gulp.

There was an attraction and she tried to be rational so that it would not show. Once it’s love, she thought to herself that she should not let him know it, which only added to her stress.

I thought they would have exchanged a few words through Wechat in the future. Finally, on a random day a month later, I received Miss Yan’s Wechat message.

It was very short, just three words—

He deleted me.

I looked up and thought, this is the end.

Footnotes

comes from the idiom “bamboo horse and green plum”, meaning childhood lovers