Song Qingchun could picture the scene in her mind. At the time, she had been really p.i.s.sed, but now, in retrospect, it had become such a cute memory. With tears glistening in her eyes, she mock-pouted and grumbled, "He"s right; I could feel my bones breaking then."
The group of friends who sat quietly listening to their story were tickled into laughter by this little complaint. Kay Tze"s song continued amid the laughter. "Time is a roadside thief. That sleeve under the umbrella and that face that is awaiting for an answer. How much happiness has turned into loneliness in the end?"
Song Qingchun stopped joking, blinked twice, and spoke into the microphone. "However, in spite of that initial hiccup, our relations.h.i.+p continued to improve. Even though his mood fluctuated like the weather, when I was stuck at the airport that one night and had no way of going home, it was he who rushed to fetch me.
"Even though he had an obsession with cleanliness and had warned me many times not to eat in his room and mess up his bed, he did not once kick me out of his room despite the many mug rings I left on his table and the chips that fell into his bed."
That was the first year they had spent together after ten years of not meeting each other.
The memories she remembered were fresh on his mind as well. After she stopped, he continued. "We spent the day playing games or reviewing schoolwork; I accompanied her when she went shopping, and she came to watch my games. It became natural for her to jump on the back of bike as I rode to school, and I was willing to do all those things for her unprompted… but…"
"Things didn"t go as planned." Song Qingchun continued when Su Zhinian paused. "Perhaps if this was allowed to continue, we would have ended up together sooner, but it didn"t; we didn"t get closer, but instead, at the third year of high school, we went our separate ways…"
That was when pain entered their story. A faded hue of sadness entered Song Qingchun"s voice. "After that huge fight, we promised we wouldn"t have anything to do with each other anymore, but he reneged on his words. In the following five years, just like those ten years he spent looking for me, he was watching over me silently. I wasn"t aware of his presence until tragedy struck Song Empire, and as if destined, G.o.d once again pulled us together."
"When we were sharing that lukewarm relations.h.i.+p, she gave me many nicknames—Maniac Su, Cold-Blooded Su, Sanitary Su, Diary Su, Big-headed Su, Liar Su, Technician Su, Omnipotent Su, One Dollar Su, Loyal Su…"
"During this period, he was good and bad. He was so good that he rushed through the city to fetch me when I was stranded in the northern countryside; he was so good that he organized a lucky-draw at Golden Corner as a pretext to gift me a present. However, he was so bad that just as I thought we could be friends again, he left his role at Song Empire and drew a clear line between us cruelly; he was so bad that even though he was on the brink of death for three months because of me, he refused to let me know about it."