(1)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010.
Children’s Day had already become a distant holiday for the middle school seniors who had long since graduated from elementary school. These kids, eager to prove they’d grown up, wouldn’t even joke about still being children. In contrast, it was the older adults online who always laughed and called themselves kids on this day.
Maybe people were always so contradictory—those who hadn’t grown up wished they would hurry up and become adults, while those who already had longed for their carefree childhood. Even if their childhood hadn’t really been carefree, under the filter of memory it was certainly joyful and unrestrained.
On just such a morning, An Jing arrived at the intersection where she usually met Zhu Ying as usual. The cool morning breeze brushed her face, and the short hair that now covered her earlobes fluttered slightly. The aroma of breakfast from the small eatery drifted through the air—but An Jing didn’t feel tempted at all, because she had eaten far too much before leaving home.
Her stomach was warm and full of the plain rice porridge she’d just drunk. But maybe she’d eaten too much, because now she felt drowsy, and yawns came one after another, unstoppable.
“Xiao Jing~!” As usual, she didn’t have to wait long before she heard Zhu Ying’s light voice calling out. “Morning!”
“Morning… haaah…” An Jing yawned again.
“That sleepy? Didn’t sleep well last night?”
“No, I just ate too much breakfast. Sometimes after a big meal I get really drowsy…” As she spoke, she let out another yawn and lazily leaned her body a little, resting her cheek on Zhu Ying’s shoulder. “Hey… Xiao Ying smells really nice today…”
“You noticed?”
“Did you put on perfume?”
“Where would I get perfume!” Zhu Ying grabbed An Jing’s arm. “Actually, I got up really early, so I decided to take a shower before I left. Used the new body wash I just bought—lemon mint.”
“I can’t smell the mint, but the lemon scent is pretty strong…” An Jing gently rubbed her forehead against Zhu Ying’s cheek. “Ugh—so sleepy.”
“Xiao Jing right now is like a cat begging for affection~”
“Huh… am I? I just find it easier to walk while leaning on you…”
“Pfft, then how about I carry you on my back?”
“Sure—oh, by the way, where’s your bicycle?”
“Didn’t ride it.”
“You haven’t ridden it in a long time. Waste of money buying it.”
“Then—how about I ride it out tomorrow?”
“Okay, ride it again tomorrow… haaah…”
“You haven’t stopped yawning. Want to take a nap in the classroom?”
“Maybe I’ll take a nap…”
(2)
They passed through the school entrance, walked past the security guard’s office where Uncle Security Guard himself looked drowsy, and entered the teaching building they knew so well that it couldn’t be more familiar.
Suddenly, An Jing heard some noisy voices. She tilted her head toward the source of the sound and saw some girls who weren’t very tall but looked noticeably more mature than middle school students walking together in the stairwell, chattering about something.
“The school’s been renovated, huh? It doesn’t feel the same as I remember.”
“It’s still the same, really. They just repainted a bit.”
“I used to think I knew this place so well I could find my classroom with my eyes closed. Now it feels so unfamiliar.”
“Yeah, I even feel like middle school life was something I experienced in a dream.”
“Oh—that office. Remember it? That was Lao Cao’s office. Back then, guys were always getting dragged in there for a scolding!”
“Girls got dragged in too.”
“Wasn’t that because you had a crush back then?”
“That’s right! Speaking of which, that kind of love was so childish.”
“I know, right?”
An Jing slowed her pace a little, putting some distance between herself and those girls. “Xiao Ying? Those people look like high school students?”
“Sounds like they’re seniors, or maybe college students already?”
Just as the two of them were curiously eyeing the girls, some of the girls in front noticed them too.
“There are two cute girls behind us~”
“They’re schoolmates!”
“Ninth graders?”
“They look like seventh graders!”
“Ooh~ baby-fat faces, I want to pinch them—”
Finally, the most outgoing girl among them was the first to greet them. “Schoolmates! What grade are you in?”
“Ninth grade…” An Jing answered blankly.
“You’re about to take the Zhong Kao!” The girls exchanged smiles, as if remembering their own past.
“We… what’s up?”
“Good luck on your Zhong Kao! Get into the school you want!”
“Ah…” An Jing was momentarily at a loss. “Th-thank you…”
“Thank you, senior.” Zhu Ying nodded slightly and smiled politely. “Are you seniors already in college?”
“Not yet!”
“We’re about to take the Gao Kao too.”
“Who’s ‘we’? I got early admission~!”
“Psh—!”
The girls all seemed to get along well, and even An Jing’s reserved little face gained a trace of a smile. “If the Gao Kao is so soon, aren’t you going to school?”
“Nope, these few days are free time. It’s not like a few more days of studying will make a difference. We plan to relax and unwind. Today we wanted to come see our old middle school.”
“That’s right~”
“By the way, when was the vending machine installed?”
“Uh… it was already there when I was in seventh grade…”
“Dammit, another thing they put in right after we graduated.”
“Same with high school. They only installed air conditioning this summer, but we’re about to graduate!”
“Why not just repeat a year and enjoy the air conditioning?”
“Pfft, forget it!”
Faced with the enthusiastic seniors she didn’t know, An Jing didn’t know what to say. She looked to Zhu Ying for help, who tugged on her arm and pulled her closer. “Seniors, we need to get to our classroom. Which floor are you going to?”
“Oh oh, you go ahead. We’re just taking a slow walk.”
“Thank you~”
“When you’re about to graduate high school, you can come back and look around too. It’ll feel different!”
“We will!”
(3)
On the classroom desks, all kinds of test papers and textbooks were piled up like small mountains. With just a slight breeze, something from someone’s desk would fly off and land on the floor.
An Jing and Zhu Ying had arrived early as usual. The classroom was empty, not a single person.
They took their seats and, like every day, started pulling their homework out of their backpacks one by one.
Both the desk storage and the desktop were full of stuff, so their backpacks could only barely hang on the backs of their chairs. This inevitably made them look much dirtier than at the start of the semester. Even Zhu Ying, who was particular about cleanliness, couldn’t avoid it—because there was always some accident that would drag the backpack to the floor…
“Xiao Jing!”
“Hmm?”
“Happy Children’s Day!” Zhu Ying suddenly held up something like a picture frame in front of An Jing and shook it vigorously. “Ta-da! A Children’s Day gift!”
“Huh? Wh-what… I’m not a kid anymore…”
“You’re still a middle school student, of course you’re still a child—at least that’s what adults always say about us.”
“Who says that? Don’t they often say things like ‘You’re in ninth grade now, not a child anymore, you’re a little adult’ and stuff?”
“But if you want to do something on your own, then they’ll say you’re still a kid?”
“Uh… I guess so…”
“Adults sure have flexible standards~”
“Yeah… uh, well, I didn’t prepare a Children’s Day gift for you.”
“It’s fine. I’m giving you a gift just because I want to. It doesn’t matter if it’s Children’s Day or not. Actually, I finished it two days ago, but I thought since Children’s Day is soon, I might as well give it to you on the holiday~”
“Ah… um… well…”
“Quick, see if you like it!” Zhu Ying interrupted An Jing’s stammering. “Turn it to the front.”
“Okay, I’ll take a look…” An Jing took the picture frame and slowly turned it over. It was a painting. The colors weren’t very rich. In fact, because it used only a few colors, it seemed a bit plain.
However, it wasn’t painted with a brush. It was made by sticking very fine, colored sand onto the surface.
“Ah… is this… shell powder painting?”
“That’s right! All made with crushed shell powder!”
“Ahh—! Last time you collected a lot of seashells at the seaside!”
“Remember now?”
“Um… so it took that long?”
“It was a little troublesome. Blue shells were available ready-made, and gold-white ones too. The purple and yellow ones I dyed myself. Dyeing, drying, cleaning—it took quite a bit of time.”
An Jing gently stroked the transparent plastic cover of the picture frame and pointed at a purple cartoon figure. “This is… Xiao Ying, right?”
“Right!”
The person in the painting was just a silhouette, a rough outline with no specific details, but you could still tell who it was by the decorative details added.
Behind the figure was a golden beach and a red morning sun—An Jing thought it was the morning sun because the color seemed brighter than an evening glow.
“The blue one is me… and the yellow one is Wangwang? Are these… hey, A Qiang, Sun Wei, and Zhou Chao?”
“Exactly! Even though it’s a bit rough, you recognized them.”
“I don’t think it’s rough. I think it’s quite delicate.” An Jing gently scratched her cheek. “It sparkles…”
“Shell powder does that. I didn’t add anything else. Oh, by the way, I made this together with Xiao Ru.”
“Huh? You made it together?”
“Yeah! It was fun making it. Too bad we didn’t have enough materials, so we could only make one. I thought that big bag of shells would be enough.”
An Jing studied the shell painting, unable to stop herself from grinning foolishly. She held it up high, then slowly lowered it onto the table, her smile reaching from ear to ear.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah, I do! Tha—”
“Don’t say thank you. I gave it to you just because I wanted to. And I didn’t make it alone. Also—the closer we are, the less we should say ‘thank you’!”
“Why?”
“It makes things feel distant.”
“But won’t it make me look like I take it for granted…”
“You should take it for granted. This isn’t the last gift I’ll give you. There will be plenty more!”
“Wow, so much pressure. Now I have to prepare lots of gifts too—”
“You don’t have to prepare anything special. Just share your happiness with me when you’re having fun.”
“Mm, Xiao Ying… thank you.”
“I told you not to say ‘thank you’!”
“It just slipped out…”