Waiting for You in a City

The subway was moving forward at a high speed, Xu Qin held her phone with both hands, and stood still.

Song Yan didn’t move either.

People around didn’t care, maybe they thought they were a couple, Xu Qin thought.

She glanced at the black car window, the glass reflected her and Song Yan’s figures, the two of them looked good standing together, just as she was thinking, she met Song Yan’s eyes on the glass window.

Her heart skipped a beat, she slowly turned her eyes away, thought about it, then slowly took a step away, walked out from his envelopment, held the vertical rail, and stood face to face with him.

Her eyes naturally fell on his neck which was at the same level, and she stopped looking further up.

Standing side by side they were speechless,

Song Yan broke the silence and asked: “What was said at the commendation meeting?”

Xu Qin said: “I seem to have screwed up the meeting.”

Song Yan raised his eyebrows slightly: “How so?”

Xu Qin described the situation in full detail, and said that she mentioned him in her speech.

After Song Yan finished listening, he smiled noncommittally, without commenting, and looked up at the station list above the subway door.

Xu Qin said: “About that baby, I haven’t had time to tell you, I want to thank you.”

Song Yan listened idly, like he was not paying attention, and said casually: “Thank me how? Treat me to dinner again?”

“Okay.” Xu Qin replied, after answering, she suddenly felt that he was teasing her, but when she looked up, he looked elsewhere, seemingly unintentionally. But this reminded her that every time she “treated him to dinner” before, they parted on bad terms, so she changed her answer and said: “Change it to something else, thank you in another way.”

Song Yan paid attention this time, and turned his eyes back to her face, very seriously, asked: “Thank me how?”

Xu Qin had also spoken in a nonchalant way without thinking about it at all, and she couldn’t answer when he asked her suddenly: “I’ll think about it, and I’ll tell you when I decide.”

He looked away again, with a faint smile on his lips. That smile obviously didn’t expect her to give thanks, he saw right through her.

Xu Qin: “……”

She was also ashamed, and thought about it seriously for tens of seconds, but to no avail, she simply started another topic: “How is your injury?”

“I recovered pretty quickly.” Song Yan said, someone was about to get out of the car and moved towards the door. He held Xu Qin’s shoulders and shifted her towards the inside.

Xu Qin followed his hand and moved inside, then asked: “Can you rest for a long while?”

He looked at her again: “No.”

“When do you go back to work?”

“Next week.”

Xu Qin frowned slightly: “You need at least two months for this injury.”

The corner of Song Yan’s mouth twitched: “In my situation, going to work means playing the role of an instructor, managing the members, playing with the dogs, not training, and not entering the scene when on duty.”

Xu Qin nodded: “That’s okay then.” After she finished speaking, she found that there was no topic to talk about, so she asked again, “Have you been resting at home these few days since you came back?”

“No. Receiving psychological counseling with the team members.”

This earthquake, Xu Qin and the others were far from the front lines, and they saw a lot of life and death in their usual day-to-day work. But Song Yan and the others were different. Faced with a large number of corpses on the front line, it was more or less unbearable for them psychologically.

Xu Qin: “Are you okay?”

Song Yan: “I don’t look like I’m okay?”

Xu Qin looked at him seriously for a while, then shook her head.

“There are young kids in the unit who came back crying and had nightmares. I’m fine, I’ve seen worse when I was in the army.”

As soon as Song Yan’s words left his mouth, he realized that he spoke too fast.

Xu Qin asked: “Weren’t you an armed policeman?”

Song Yan stared at her silently for two seconds, and said: “It’s this stop.”

“Oh.” Xu Qin consciously moved towards the door, and he stood behind her with his hands in his pockets. He was behind her, but his figure was reflected on the glass door in front of her.

When the door opened, it was gone.

……

At the end of December, Christmas was approaching, and the streets were full of festive atmosphere.

What was more appropriate was that when they got out of the subway station, snow began to fall from the sky, a little bit, a little bit, a mild sprinkling.

“It seems to be the first snow.” Xu Qin said.

Song Yan looked up at the sky. It was still clear in the morning, but now it was full of white clouds: “When we come out after watching the movie later, it should be heavier then.”

“That year when we were in high school, it also snowed during Christmas time,” Xu Qin said.

It snowed heavily that year, and they ran on the street late at night. Playfully, Xu Qin grabbed a small layer of snow from the treetops, rolled them into balls, and stuffed them down Song Yan’s back. The stimulation made his whole body tremble, she still giggled, grabbed the snow again, and stuffed her little hands into his clothes.

Song Yan warned: “Stop making trouble, if you make trouble again, your clothes will be stripped off!”

Xu Qin was still bouncing around, reaching for the back of his neck.

He grabbed her immediately, unzipped her down jacket, lifted the clothes around her waist, and slipped his hand in.

She was prodded by his icy hands, screaming and jumping, but she couldn’t break free. He reached in with both hands and rubbed them up and down:

“Are you still making trouble? Are you?”

At this moment, as soon as Xu Qin’s words fell, the two of them fell silent, both remembering old times. Looking around for road signs, they couldn’t look at each other anymore.

There were still a few days until Christmas, but the atmosphere was already strong.

When they entered the mall, they could see a huge Christmas tree under the skylight, covered with red, gold, and silver ball lights, with colorful gift boxes piled up under the tree, it was very beautifully decorated. Many people took pictures under the tree.

Song Yan and Xu Qin passed by, and a couple handed over their mobile phone: “Excuse me, can you take a photo for us?”

Xu Qin took the phone.

The couple ran under the Christmas tree, hugged each other, and smiled sweetly.

After Xu Qin took the picture, she returned the phone to them: “Two photos were taken.”

“Thank you.” The girl asked, “Do you want me to take a picture for you too?”

Xu Qin was taken aback for a moment, before she could speak, Song Yan handed over his phone: “Thank you.”

When taking the pictures, he moved a little closer to her, but he didn’t hold her hand, nor put his arms around her shoulders. After taking back the phone, he looked down at the photo for a while, but when Xu Qin went to see it, he had already turned off the screen and put it back in his pocket.

Xu Qin followed him: “Send me the photo.”

“Okay.” He said, but didn’t move his hands.

“Send it to me.” There was an escalator in front of her, and she walked in front of him.

He said: “I’ll send it when I get back. ……Pay attention to the escalators.”

“Oh.” She shifted her attention, walked up the escalator, and looked back at him habitually. As the steps rose slowly, her eyes slowly rose to level with him.

It felt very subtle, like the slow motion often seen in movies.

The lighting in the shopping mall was unusually bright, shining on his face.

She saw his eyes up close, very dark, very bright, very quiet, unlike the him in her memories.

Song Yan in her memories was arrogant and unruly, recklessly out in the open.

Song Yan also looked directly at her, the person in front of him was also very different from the young girl many years ago. Xu Qin looked thin and quiet when she was a young girl, but she had a stubborn ruthlessness and the courage to break through anything.

He was wondering whether the ten years of missing each other could be bridged.

Their gazes met, perhaps for a moment, there was a sense of familiarity but also an unexpectedly unfamiliar feeling of stagnation.

After staring at each other for less than three seconds, Xu Qin’s heartbeat was unstable and she couldn’t hold it anymore. She quickly looked away and looked at the different kinds of people in the mall.

Song Yan looked at her side profile, not knowing what she was feeling at the moment, but that was it.

He had made up his mind.

……

Although today was a work day, there were still quite a few people in the cinema, couples in pairs, and friend groups. The air was filled with the sweet smell of popcorn.

After getting the movie tickets, they passed by a place selling popcorn,

Song Yan lowered his head and asked Xu Qin: “Want to eat popcorn?”

Xu Qin nodded. She didn’t want to eat it that badly, but she felt that popcorn should be served with a movie.

Song Yan took out the money and handed it to the worker, then asked: “What do you want to drink?”

Xu Qin: “Water.”

Song Yan said to the worker: “Two bottles of water.”

While the worker was packing the popcorn, Song Yan glanced at the other snacks and asked: “Anything else you want to eat?”

Xu Qin shook her head. These years, she didn’t like to eat snacks much.

Song Yan saw a bar of chocolate, picked it up and asked her: “What about this one?”

Xu Qin: “I don’t like eating chocolate anymore.”

Song Yan put the chocolate back.

But when Xu Qin walked towards the screening hall with the popcorn bucket in her arms, she suddenly realized that that chocolate was her favorite in high school.

This belated recognition made Xu Qin feel a little worried, but looking at Song Yan, he didn’t seem to take this matter to heart.

After checking the ticket and entering the theater, before sitting down, Song Yan unscrewed a bottle of water first, put it in her hand, then unscrewed another bottle of water, and took a few sips with his head leaning back.

The movie was about to start, Xu Qin handed him the popcorn bucket and asked: “Do you want to eat?”

“No.” He said, without looking at her, looking in the direction of the exit.

For some reason, he frowned, and after a while, he said in a low voice, “You watch first, I have something to do.” After speaking, he got up and left.

Xu Qin watched Song Yan leave. He went to the emergency exit and pushed the door, but it couldn’t be opened. After that, he disappeared at the entrance stairs into the theater.

Xu Qin could probably guess.

Sure enough, not long after, Song Yan entered the theater again, followed by a staff member who took the key to unlock the chain on the door, and bowed to Song Yan regretfully.

Song Yan walked back, sat next to Xu Qin, and laughed at himself: “Occupational disease.”

Xu Qin: “The emergency passageway was sealed?”

“En.” Song Yan leaned slightly towards her, and asked in a low voice: “What happened in the movie at the beginning?”

Xu Qin: “……” She didn’t know.

She looked at him, and suddenly found that their faces were unusually close, and his eyes were extraordinarily bright in the darkness.

He looked at her seriously, waiting for her answer.

Her long silence made the atmosphere unspeakable. He looked at her for a few seconds, perhaps realizing that this kind of staring was getting dangerous. He decisively moved his eyes to the screen, and sat back.

Xu Qin also sat down slowly, the feeling in her heart could be described as a mess, which was hard to put into words.

……

Song Yan and Xu Qin didn’t look at each other any more, they each looked at the screen. Fortunately, the movie was exciting enough that the two watched it without any communication.

After leaving the theater, Song Yan saw all the girls going to the bathroom, and asked Xu Qin, “Do you need to go?”

“En.”

The indoor heating was sufficient, she had taken off her coat and held it in her hands. It was inconvenient to bring it in at the moment, so she asked, “What about you? Are you going?”

“I’ll hold it for you.” Song Yan said, taking the coat from her hand.

Xu Qin handed him her jacket and bag and went to the bathroom.

Song Yan leaned against the wall, took out a cigarette, and inadvertently glanced at her back. He didn’t notice when she was wearing her long coat, but just now he saw that she was wearing a dress underneath.

With an unburned cigarette hanging in his mouth, he suddenly smiled.

When they left the mall, it was already dark.

The snow really did fall heavily, when you looked up, you could see large flakes of snow reflected in the black sky, profusely, like goose feather catkins.

Many passersby were running in the snow, cheering and laughing.

Snow was always something that made people happy.

“It’s only two stops, let’s just walk back.” Xu Qin said.

“Okay.”

The two put their hands in their pockets and walked into the snow.

There was no wind, only snowflakes fluttering.

“Was the movie good?” Song Yan asked, lighting the cigarette.

“It was good.” Xu Qin nodded.

“Then I have to thank the director.” Song Yan smiled lightly and took a puff of smoke.

“Why?” Xu Qin raised his head and saw snowflakes falling on his black hair, there was an indescribable beauty in it.

“In retrospect, it’ll be a good memory.” Song Yan said, “And not, I watched a bad movie with Song Yan that day.”

Xu Qin pursed her lips and smiled, and asked casually: “Did you choose it on purpose?”

“En,” he said.

She was slightly startled, and looked up again, seeing snowflakes lingering in the smoke he exhaled, inexplicably, a warm feeling rose in her heart. It didn’t feel cold walking in the snowy night, and the cold air felt extraordinarily refreshing when she inhaled it into her body.

“It was really good.” Xu Qin said again.

Passersby happily ran past, and the two walked slowly, looking down at the road. Snowflakes fell and instantly melted on the wet ground, leaving no trace.

Perhaps, it would be nice if it could go on like this forever. There was nothing else in this world, only snow.

But the distance between the two stops turned out to be so close, and they arrived in a short while.

He walked her to the gate of the community, under the banyan tree.

The street lamps illuminate the dry tree branches, projecting on the ground, drawing irregular lines.

Xu Qin stopped under the streetlamp and looked at him through the flying snow: “Here we are.”

“En.” Song Yan stood still, and quickly scanned her body with his eyes, as if checking that she was as intact as when he came, and said: “Go in.”

The soles of Xu Qin’s shoes rubbed slightly on the ground, but she didn’t move: “You go first, I’m already home.”

“En.” Song Yan nodded, “Going.”

She watched him turn around, suddenly reluctant to give him up, and suddenly wanted to call him, but she hadn’t spoken his name yet. He paused slightly, took a step back, and returned again.

His tall figure blocked the light of the street lamp, covering her in the shadow under him.

Panting slightly, she looked at him,

He pursed his thin lips and looked at her.

Suddenly, he leaned over and approached her lips very slowly.

Xu Qin’s heart suddenly rose in her throat, almost stopped beating, and she couldn’t move.

But he stopped just a few feet away from her, and his black eyes looked into hers from a close distance.

She smelled the pleasant scent on his face, and the cold smell of snowflakes, which made her thoughts confused.

It would be a lie to say she had no expectations.

She was tense all over, thinking about what he would do next, but he straightened up and said, “Go in.”