After finishing writing on the wish papers, I handed them to Gu Fan to apply the glue. As expected, he noticed the few holes I’d poked too hard and torn.
When he cast me an inquisitive look, I quickly jumped in with an explanation.
“Hmm, the pen ran out of ink, so I pressed a little too hard when writing. It’s fine though, let’s hurry and stick these up so we can go buy clothes together.”
“…Alright.”
After pulling on his arm and launching a cute little plea, Gu Fan resignedly reached out and poked my cat ears. I let out a soft squeal, and the cat ears on my head twitched like springs, bouncing up and down several times with a “puff puff” sound.
The glue provided by the vendor selling the wish papers was very poor quality. To be safe, Gu Fan carefully coated more than half of the back of the paper strips with thick glue. Only then could our two wish strips barely hang on the branches, while others with thinner glue already dangled precariously, as if a strong gust would blow them away.
Given that we’d paid for them, I certainly didn’t want my heartfelt wishes to fall to the ground and be trampled by passersby.
Standing shoulder to shoulder under the tree, we looked up at the two wish strips the staff had hung on the New Year tree. A gentle breeze caused their long paper ends to overlap, intertwining like fish huddled together on a reef.
“Hmph hmph.”
I unexpectedly let out a triumphant little grunt, sounding like a piglet.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I stared at the wish strips hanging side by side on the tree, then secretly glanced sideways at my childhood friend beside me, who was holding up his mini camera to capture this beautiful moment.
My heart felt warm, and I foolishly imagined that even nature itself must approve of us as the perfect couple.
After taking the photos, we headed back up to the second-floor clothing mall. Gu Fan kept his head down, flipping through the photos on his camera.
The mall was crowded, and with Gu Fan so focused, he could easily bump into someone. I didn’t have time to daydream and quickly grabbed the hem of his shirt, guiding him through the dense crowd.
“Zhī Nián…” Gu Fan’s sudden voice startled me so much my hand twitched.
“What’s wrong?”
He stared intently ahead at the oncoming flow of people, as if preparing for battle against an enemy army.
Maybe it was my serious expression that caught his attention, because I faintly heard a light laugh from above.
Before I could react, Gu Fan flipped the hand holding his shirt around and led me to a nearby open-air tea shop with empty seats, where we settled into a two-person booth.
Well, more precisely, Gu Fan’s large hand gently enclosed my wrist, which is probably why I didn’t faint on the spot. My cheeks flushed slightly, and the cat tail behind me flicked nervously a few times against the roadside support pillar.
A busy waiter hurried over with the menu. Gu Fan glanced briefly and ordered the shop’s signature hot drink—something like matcha?
He originally wanted me to choose, but since I rarely ate at these kinds of cafes—most of the time I just went downstairs to the dumpling or noodle shop and ordered my usual—I was afraid of picking something unpleasant.
So I left it entirely to Gu Fan to decide. After all, whether it was matcha, black tea, or even bitter melon juice, as long as Gu Fan ordered it, I could drink it with a smile.
While waiting for the drinks to arrive, Gu Fan shifted the milky white plastic chair to sit beside me, then propped the camera on the table.
“Say cheese.”
His tone was so flat I almost thought I’d misheard him. Just as I was about to ask him again, he suddenly pulled me into a hug around my shoulders, making my heart skip a beat and my body tense up.
“Click~”
The cheap mini camera clicked crisply. Only then did I realize Gu Fan wanted to take a photo of us together.
“Ugh! Gu Fan, you’re impossible! If you want to take a photo, why not tell me beforehand? I’m not even ready yet…”
I pounded lightly on his chest, of course not using much strength—I couldn’t bear to hurt Gu Fan.
Gu Fan smiled apologetically. “Want to take another? This time I’ll wait for you to get into position first. Or do you need to touch up your makeup?”
“I don’t wear makeup… Let’s just keep this one, okay? If you think it looks bad, we can take another. I didn’t even pay attention to my expression just now, so I don’t know if I looked scary or something…”
Mentioning makeup made me blush and lower my head in shame. If there were a test on being a girl in this area, I would definitely fail—usually scoring close to zero.
I had watched countless makeup tutorials online but still couldn’t learn how to apply it properly. On rare days off when I didn’t work part-time, I’d try to do a pretty makeup look in front of the mirror.
But in the end, I’d either smear lipstick so badly that I looked like a red-mouthed cat, or my eyeshadow would turn into panda eyes. I just couldn’t master this highly specialized skill.
At one point, I even wondered if my face was simply not meant for makeup.
Yet, having been put in makeup a few times by the maid café manager during holiday events, I knew I really needed the right makeup to bring my looks to a higher level of perfection.
Lost in self-criticism, I didn’t notice that Gu Fan had quietly left my side.
“Eh… where did he go?”
Snapping back to reality, I quickly scanned around but found the plastic chair beside me empty. Gu Fan’s figure had vanished like a small stone thrown into a lake, disappearing without a trace while I was oblivious.
Could it be that Gu Fan was finally planning to abandon me?
The thought popped up without reason but was quickly pushed aside.
Gu Fan was nothing like me—he wasn’t a moody lunatic. Maybe I would act disrespectfully sometimes, but Gu Fan would never do that.
My mind raced to come up with reasons to soothe my heart. If only I’d been as focused when writing the wishes earlier as I was now.
Though I understood Gu Fan must have something to do and didn’t want to disturb me while I was deep in thought, being alone without him in such a crowded open-air tea shop filled me with an indescribable unease.
It was really uncomfortable…
Clenching my fists tightly, I turned to face the table. Gu Fan’s mini camera still sat there, the screen frozen on the photo of me tense and staring nervously at the lens.
So ugly.
Suddenly overwhelmed by anger, I grabbed the camera, ready to delete the photo.
But before I could figure out how to use the buttons, a soft “click” sounded nearby.
On the round table with the pale blue checkered tablecloth, a small plate of strawberry cake had suddenly appeared.
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