Waiting for You in a City

The street lights were dim, the snowflakes were dancing lightly,

Xu Qin looked at Song Yan, and asked softly: “Do you want to go up and sit for a while?” Seemingly afraid that he would refuse, she quickly added, “We haven’t had dinner yet, go after having dinner.”

Song Yan suddenly felt that it was a little funny: “Do you know how to cook?”

Xu Qin: “……”

Song Yan asked again: “Do you have ingredients to cook at home? ……Except the rice from the hospital.”

This time Xu Qin reacted quickly, turned around and pointed to the street corner: “There is a supermarket over there. It’s quite big, and it has everything.”

Song Yan: “……”

“We can go buy it now.” Xu Qin suggested.

Song Yan raised his chin towards the street corner: “Let’s go.”

Christmas was coming, and there was even a Christmas tree standing in front of the supermarket, with a few strings of colored lights hanging on it, standing alone in the transition zone between the heater and the air vent. Every time a customer came in and pushed the door, the tree trembled for a while.

Song Yan walked into the entrance of the supermarket, casually pushed a cart, first looked up at the safety exit sign on the ceiling, and judged the nearest escape route.

Seeing him, Xu Qin said: “Your occupational disease is quite serious.”

Song Yan pulled the cart and asked: “What about you?”

“Ah?”

“Your occupational disease.”

“A bit of a clean freak.”

“Because of your obsession with cleanliness, that’s why you don’t have anything in your house, so it looks clean?”

“……”

Xu Qin said: “I just like to wash my hands. Also, sometimes I feel that……” Looking at the fresh meats in the freezer, the slices of mutton and beef were neatly stacked, “Some chefs don’t have very good knifework.”

Song Yan glanced at it: “That should be cut by a machine.”

Xu Qin was surprised: “There is also a machine for cutting meat? Why invent this kind of machine?”

Song Yan: “To cut meat.”

Xu Qin: “……”

Song Yan stood by the freezer and asked: “What kind of meat do you want to eat? Pork belly?”

Xu Qin was a second late, nodded: “En.”

Song Yan put the plate of pork belly back and looked at her sideways: “What do you actually want to eat?”

“……Beef.”

“Snowflake?”

“En.”

Song Yan put two plates of beef into the cart and said: “Your taste has changed a lot.”

Ten years ago, pork belly was her favorite food, and time and time again he took her to the restaurant. She could eat more than half of a plate of stir fried pork belly with green peppers. Going back time and time again, ordering time and time again, as if she would never get tired of eating it.

Xu Qin followed next to him, hooked her finger on the cart, and said: “Abroad, except for beef, other meats are not tasty. You get used to it after a while.” Thinking of the chocolate in the movie theater, she followed up with an explanation, “Chocolate too. There are too many sweets abroad, so I got tired of them.”

Song Yan laughed noncommittally: “If you have too much, you will get bored, if you have too little, you will want it, you are not easy to serve.”

When Xu Qin heard this, the back of her head tightened, as if someone had knocked her. She always felt that what he said referred to something else, as if he was secretly teasing her about her attitude towards feelings.

But he continued calmly, and said: “Then it’s good timing today, let’s see what else you still like, what you don’t like, what has changed and what hasn’t, we can figure it out all at once.”

Xu Qin’s heart turned cloudy again, she took a step forward and followed him closely.

Her taste had indeed changed, and she can no longer eat spicy food. She said that it was a kind of degeneration, and asked him: “How about you, what is different from before?”

He said: “I can eat spicy food now.”

“Oh.” Xu Qin didn’t ask anymore, and found that she was always stepping on mines. After walking halfway around the supermarket, seeing a figurine, she couldn’t help asking, “Do you still like playing games?”

“I don’t.” Song Yan said, “The main reason is that I don’t have time……you still remember that I played games?”

“I remember, I even remember the names of the games you played.”

“Oh?”

“Warcraft, and Crossfire.”

He smiled, glanced at the groceries in the cart, and asked: “Is there also no oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar at home?”

“……Nope.”

They ended up buying a whole cart. When paying the bill, Xu Qin wanted to take out her money, but saw that Song Yan had already pulled out his wallet, so she stopped.

She leaned against the counter and whispered: “Keep all the seasonings in my house. If you want to cook, you can come again. Anyway, you paid for it, it’s all yours.”

Song Yan was lowering his head to take out his wallet. After hearing this, he glanced over at her. She pursed her lips, looking calm and composed. At this moment, he suddenly felt that the way she was secretly playing tricks was the same as before.

While the cashier was scanning the items, Xu Qin stuck to the counter and looked at the snacks on the shelf, and accidentally saw a long vertical thing. She didn’t know what it was, so she stared at it.

In the next second, in her line of sight, Song Yan pulled out the strange long vertical bar with his hand and asked the cashier: “What is this?”

“Candy. But it’s different from the candy you usually eat. It’s sweet and sour, and the taste is very refreshing.”

Song Yan looked at Xu Qin: “Do you want this?”

Xu Qin nodded: “I haven’t eaten it before.”

Song Yan was about to pass the sugar to the cashier to scan, and found that the packaging said strawberry flavor, looking again, there were orange, purple, and green flavors on the shelf, which were orange flavor, grape flavor, and apple flavor.

Song Yan asked: “Do you like strawberry flavor?”

Xu Qin: “I like it.”

Song Yan: “Do you want this one?” Looking at the shelf, “What about the other flavors?”

Xu Qin stretched her neck to take a look, and was about to choose one, but Song Yan took one of each flavor from the shelf, four in total, and gave them to the cashier.

There were three big bags, he carried two bags, she carried one bag, and followed behind him with her mouth slightly pursed and the corners of her mouth raised slightly.

They were faced with snowflakes all the way home.

Once home, Xu Qin took off her coat, Song Yan took another look at her dress, and also took off his coat.

He put the plastic bag on the counter, took out the vegetables and meat, and while running the sink, unsealed the seasoning bottles one by one, and stacked them neatly by the stove. At this time, the water in the sink was full, he rolled up his sleeves to clean.

Xu Qin glanced at the neatly arranged bottles and cans, looking pleasing to the eye, and said: “You have changed too, you were not so neat before.”

“It was trained in the army.” Song Yan said, as he was washing vegetables, one sleeve slipped down slightly onto his forearm. Xu Qin looked at that sleeve that was in a bind, and felt that her heart was also inexplicably in a bind. She walked over and gently rolled up the sleeve for him.

He paused for a second, waited for her to finish, and continued to wash the vegetables.

The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of rushing water.

The lights were also milky white, ambiguous and gentle.

He said, “Two dishes and one soup?”

“Sure.”

Song Yan lowered his head and stood beside the cabinet, cutting the meat into shreds. The knife was banging on the chopping board. When he finished cutting the shredded meat and picked up the green pepper, he turned around and saw Xu Qin standing beside him eating the long stick of gummy candy. He asked, “Is it good?”

“It’s good.” Xu Qin said, and handed it to him, “Do you want to eat some?”

He shook his head and continued chopping vegetables.

Suddenly, she remembered that in the past, no matter what she was holding in her hand, if she asked him: “Do you want to eat some?” he would lower his head and take a bite.

Once he was playing a game, and she was being held in his arms. When she was bored, she came up with another idea. She stretched out her finger and asked, “Do you want to eat some?”

With his eyes fixed on the screen, he lowered his head and bit her finger lightly, finally engulfing her finger.

She laughed.

He threw away his cellphone, stopped playing his game, and took off her clothes: “Come here, I’ll eat somewhere else.”

She twisted and evaded: “Go play your game!”

“Don’t want to play games anymore, want to play with you.”

Xu Qin chewed on the candy in her hand and suddenly realized that she was cuter when she was a teenager than she was now. Or, the version of her that was with Song Yan before was cuter than her current self.

Her current self was boring, dull, like a person living in a bubble. Her current self was always covered with an invisible bubble, covered like plastic wrap. It seemed that only when she was close to Song Yan, that airtight bubble would be steamed and evaporate away. But in these years, that bubble had condensed again, getting thicker and thicker, leaving her oppressed and unable to breathe.

She slowly ate a stick of gummy candy, Song Yan had already done everything, and the food was served.

Green pepper beef, stir-fried broccoli, mushroom soup. Matched her current tastes.

Xu Qin took a sip, the taste was surprisingly good: “Do you often cook?”

“Sometimes my uncle used to travel far away and I needed to cook for Zhai Miao. Many years ago now.”

“I thought you cooked for your girlfriend before.” Xu Qin picked up her rice bowl and tentatively probed.

Song Yan glanced at her.

Xu Qin simply asked: “Have you had girlfriends?”

“No time, too busy.” He answered briefly, without asking her back.

Xu Qin ate for a while, then said: “Actually, you have also changed from before.”

“How so?”

“The feeling……” She pondered for a long time, trying to find a suitable word, but she couldn’t find it in the end, so she could only shake her head.

There was little else to say after that.

Maybe they had nothing to say, maybe they were concerned, maybe it was both. In the past few years, neither of them had anything to do with each other, and there were no common topics. Bringing up questions in the moment, they were hard to explain in a few words, dispiriting. Even more, they were afraid of accidentally stepping on unknown sensitive areas, which would make the situation worse.

After the meal was finished without incident, Song Yan washed the dishes and stacked them back in the cupboard.

Subconsciously, Xu Qin became aware she wanted to detain him, so she found the kettle, water glasses, and tea leaves, and said: “Let’s have a cup of tea.”

It seemed like the night was going to be endless.

She had just turned on the faucet and filled the kettle with water when her cellphone rang. It was the community security who said that Xu Qin’s car was parked in a temporary parking space on the property and told her to move underground.

This call seemed to end the night on purpose.

If it was said that there was an atmosphere of ambiguity between Song Yan and her throughout the whole evening today, the fact that she went down to move the car but left him alone at home would break through that layer of ambiguity. Leaving this next half of the evening to become frank and difficult to face.

With his character, he wouldn’t stay.

But she has always had a premonition that Song Yan seemed to have made some kind of decision, whether it was good or bad was hard to fathom. And she might not even have the right to know.

Xu Qin stood beside the counter at the boundary between the kitchen and the living room with her cellphone in hand. Before she could speak, Song Yan got up, picked up his coat, and said: “I’ll go down with you.”

“En.” Xu Qin took the car keys, feeling a little disappointed. She knew once he went down, it would be difficult for him to come up again.

When they went downstairs, they found that the snow was heavier, the ground was white, and there was already a thin layer of snow on the flower beds.

The temperature was also lower.

Song Yan was not needed in order to move the car. It seemed that it was time to say goodbye, and the security guard had called to urge him. Xu Qin said: “You wait here for a while, I will move the car and come to look for you.”

“Okay.”

“Wait for me.” She said again.

“En.”

After Xu Qin ran a short distance away, she looked back. Song Yan was standing under the street light beside the flower bed, snowflakes were falling, he lowered his head, as if he had taken out a cigarette.

She quickly moved the car underground, for some reason, faintly worried that he might have left. She ran fast through the underground garage, running all the way back.

He was still there, a tall figure, smoking a cigarette standing under the street light with fluttering snow.

Her heart felt like it had fallen from high up in the air, and anxiously returned to her chest. As she walked towards him, she gradually felt troubled again.

What should she say, want to go up for a cup of tea?

When she went in front of him, she was gasping for breath from her sprinting, and a large cloud of mist dispersed in the cold wind: “The car has been moved.”

“En.”

He lowered his head and threw the cigarette, his gaze fell into her eyes, and then he didn’t look away.

Xu Qin looked up at him, maybe because of the snowy night, Song Yan’s eyes became darker, staring at her, as if trying to pierce something.

She accidentally walked under his shadow just now, his tall figure covered the light of the street lamp, snowflakes were flying wantonly above his head.

He looked at her very quietly, but she couldn’t move her eyes away, as she felt something important was about to happen. She had felt this way all night —he had secretly made a decision, but as far as she was concerned,

Disaster or good fortune was unknown.

She trembled slightly.

“Xu Qin.” His tone was solemn, as was his eyes, as if making a major decision.

“En?” She took a deep breath.

“Do you still like me?” He asked, direct and frank.

Xu Qin was stunned, her heartbeat suddenly lost control; as for him, he looked at her quietly and calmly, waiting for the answer.

She nodded: “I like you.”

Perhaps this was expected by him, so his face remained unchanged.

He looked at her for a long time with a deep gaze, and said: “I regret it. Xu Qin.”

Her breath froze: “En?”

“Let’s be together.”

Song Yan said,

“I don’t need you to do anything for me, and I don’t need you to promise to stand by my side in the future. If one day you want to separate, then let’s separate. But right now, let’s be together.”

The snow drifted silently,

“If tomorrow you are tired, regretful, and feel aggrieved, then we will separate. But today, we will be together. Regardless of the wind and rain tomorrow, let them be, today, we will be together.”

Xu Qin froze in place, couldn’t believe what she heard, and never thought that the deadlock between the two would be broken by this method. Everything seemed to be in accordance with her heart and her wishes, but she didn’t know why, her eyes were slightly wet: “This doesn’t sound like something you would say at all.”

“I know it doesn’t.”

She shivered slightly in the cold night, and her voice trembled: “You……do you like me that much?”

“Yes. I still like you, like you very much.” Song Yan said calmly,

“Even if it’s been ten years, even if you have already changed, your personality, preferences, tastes…… maybe if we date, we’ll have had enough after one week. But right now, if you still want to love, I will accompany you.”

Accompany you to love.

She stared at him blankly.

He paused for a second, no longer waiting,

“Once you’ve thought it through, come find me.” He turned and left.

He moved away, the street lights spilled down. At that moment, she saw snowflakes flying under the light, and saw the breath she exhaled was white and scattered in the cold wind.

The street light shone into her clear eyes, and the watery light flickered. Her vision became blurred, the sky was dark. Only his side profile when he turned around, calm and silent, hurt her gaze.

She woke up suddenly, chased after him with big strides, and hugged him tightly from behind.

His steps stopped.

“Okay, let’s be together.”

That night, under the street light, the snowflakes rolled like crazy.

A note from m a e m: Pumping it up to 3 chapters a week starting this month!