Chapter 10: Practice of Not Loving three
In the last week of May, I finally fell ill. Perhaps when people are sick, they will take off all their disguises and become vulnerable. I thought of my distant hometown and wanted to go back to where my parents were.
Xiaoyuan insisted on escorting me. I knew that she might have another purpose for this trip, so I nodded in agreement.
I fell asleep on the train, and Xiaoyuan took great care of me. In my daze, I mistook Xiaoyuan for Hexue several times, holding her hand tightly and calling Hexue's name over and over again.
She looked at me distressedly, patted my face gently with a towel soaked in cold water, and said, "Tsuruxue, Tsuruxue, I'm Xiaoyuan."
I suddenly realized that Xiaoyuan was as beautiful as Crane Snow to me.
When the train arrived, I felt better. After I took a taxi to send Xiaoyuan to the hotel next to Baisha School, I decided to walk home.
The sun at the end of May has gradually become scorching. I walked slowly through the school gate holding an umbrella. Nothing has changed. The green leaves of the ivy still cover the white wall of the school, and at the end of the wall is a small coffee shop with a unique style.
Because it was class time, there was no one in the store. I walked in involuntarily and chose the seat I often sat in the past, the seat I had chosen when Hexue and I came here together.
I can't remember the exact time, I just remember that one evening after school, He Xue dragged me here, but she didn't say anything, just sat here and looked out the window, with a look of happiness and satisfaction on her face. That's the expression you have when you like someone.
I pressed her to tell me the name of that person, and she stared out the window, hesitating for a long time. After a long time, her eyes lit up, and she pointed at a passerby outside the window and said to me: "Look, look, that's the eternal number one in our school."
Who else but Hanako Yin would always be the top student in the grade?
The scenes and conversations that seemed unintentional at the time are all the answers when I think about them carefully now.
But, Hexue, no matter who you like, you don't have to lie to me.
I looked out the window at the empty street, lost in thought.
After a while, a very soft voice sounded behind him: "Xihe, welcome back."
Almost as soon as he uttered the first syllable, I knew who he was.
Hanako Yin.
As if it was a conditioned reflex, the pores all over my body suddenly opened up at that moment, and then fresh branches and leaves slowly emerged from them, and happy flowers bloomed.
However, in a flash, all the past memories and cruel reality came rushing in like a flood, drowning the flowers in an instant.
I didn't dare look back or move. I didn't know what expression I should have when facing him.
Happy? Sad? Or angry?
Perhaps all stories that are destined to have a sad ending should never begin.
When I thought about this, I tried to smile, then turned around and said coldly and ruthlessly: "Yes, I'm back to seek revenge on you."
"Then, Xihe, you are welcome to come back and seek revenge on me." He also smiled.
"Aren't you afraid?" I lowered my head and didn't dare to look him in the eye.
"Why should I be afraid?" He sat down opposite me , was silent for a long time, and suddenly murmured, "Why should I be afraid of the person I like?"
I seemed to hear a soft "click", and the defense line that I had tried so hard to build in my heart collapsed in an instant.
"What's so strange about that, Xihe? Whether I followed you to City C or I finally chose to come back here, I did all this just because I liked you." He laughed at himself as he spoke, "You probably don't remember that I wrote you a love letter."
When he said this, his eyes were full of sadness. That sadness was like a sharp knife that easily cut my heart. I almost couldn't breathe.
It turns out that the sad ending destined for him and me was not that I could not love him; nor that I loved him but he did not love me; but that I loved him and he loved me, but we were destined not to be together.
Rather than letting him know such a cruel ending, it is better to let him think that this is a story of "the flower has feelings, but the water is ruthless". At least in this way, he does not have to live in the entanglement and pain of wanting to love but not being able to love like me; at least in this way, maybe one day, he can meet a girl who is better than me, hold her hand, and grow old together.
"Unfortunately, I'm sorry, the person I like is not you." I heard myself say in a cold voice. I raised my head slightly and saw Hua Ziyin across from me, as if she was afraid of the cold, and her body trembled slightly.
But in the blink of an eye, he smiled: "I know, I know, Xihe. I know that the person you like is not me, so I will tell you that I love you."
As if something suddenly hit my heart, I was in so much pain that tears suddenly fell. I quickly lowered my head, picked up the cup in front of me and pretended to drink coffee, so that he wouldn't see my sudden tears.
"I know that the person you like is not me, so I will tell you that I love you."
I naturally understood the subtext of his words: If I knew you loved me, I would never tell you that I loved you. Because only in this way can you avoid falling into the pain of "loving each other but not being able to love". It turned out that he, like me, just wanted to keep all the pain to himself.
Because I understand, because we are in sync, my tears well up again.
I tried to open my mouth and laugh exaggeratedly, so that he would think that the tears were just forced out by my exaggerated smile. Then I calmly raised my head, wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, and said cruelly with a smile: "Hana Ziyin, it turns out that this day will come to you, it turns out that you wrote that ridiculous love letter, it turns out that there will be a day when you will completely understand He Xue's feelings at that time."
He didn't seem sad at all. He just looked at me and smiled gently, but there was pain in his eyes that he couldn't hide. "Yes, you are right. This is all retribution. It's so ridiculous. It was just a shirt you pointed at in the mall. It was a gift from Hexue to me, but I ridiculously treated it as a gift from you. From then on, I changed all my shirts to navy blue cotton and linen ones."
I couldn't bear to listen any longer: "You took great pains to secretly read Xiaoyuan's Weibo, and based on the content of her Weibo posts on the train, you guessed that I would come back, and then you waited at the train station and secretly followed me here, just to say these boring and ridiculous things to me?"
I tried hard to smile and not let my tears fall, and I gritted my teeth to say the heartless words cruelly and resolutely.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this." He laughed to himself, "Maybe I just want to fulfill a wish for myself."
The sadness in his eyes and eyebrows was shocking.
I didn't dare look directly into his eyes, I didn't dare stay for a moment, I was afraid that my tears would flow uncontrollably; I was afraid that I would not be able to help telling him that I liked him, too; I was afraid that I would desperately drag him into that destined to be a tragic story.
I stood up and walked quickly to the door, but I heard him whisper behind me: "Thank you, Xihe, my wish in this life has been fulfilled, and we will never meet again."
I was stunned, and my hand on the door handle couldn't help but tremble slightly. Is this the end of my relationship with the person I love?
I blinked my eyes, but no tears fell. However, the sadness in my heart had already surged like an ocean.
Are we going to never see each other again like this?
I didn't have time to find out when and why he fell in love with me, I didn't know what he liked to eat or what colors he loved, I didn't even have time to carefully describe and store his smiling face in my mind!
Life is so long, are we going to never see each other again?
I don't know where I got the courage from, but I turned around and walked back to him step by step, smiling with my chin slightly raised, trying my best to look like the cold-blooded Song Xihe.
"Since I have wasted my precious time and patiently listened to your wish, shouldn't you also reciprocate and help me fulfill a wish?"
He looked up and saw that it was me. His dim eyes suddenly lit up and he answered without hesitation, "Okay."
I lowered my head, avoiding his gaze. "You answered so straightforwardly, aren't you afraid that I might make excessive demands?"
"No matter what your wish is, I won't think it's excessive." He looked at me, his gentle eyes seemed to be dotted with stars in the sky.
I couldn't bear to watch any more, so I deliberately made my tone sound cold: "I'll be Song Hexue, and you'll be Hua Ziyin who likes Hexue. We...we'll just be a couple for three hours, which can be considered...it can be considered as fulfilling one of Hexue's wishes."
Perhaps only in this way can I give up completely; perhaps only in this way can I convince myself to accept this reality; perhaps only in this way can I comfort myself in the long life ahead that we once loved each other; perhaps only in this way can I truly fulfill his wish, not the wish of "he loves me, but I don't love him", but the wish of "he loves me, and I love him too".
Although it was only three hours, it was enough for us to remember it for a lifetime.
I'm sorry, Hexue, please forgive me for being selfish and using your name to fulfill my selfish wishes.
