A sheet of paper fell from a notebook in my hand whose cover had already split completely open.
This already yellowed paper was so thin.
Repeated folding had left deep creases on it, yet she had kept it for a long, long time.
Whenever I opened it I would always remember Lingyin’s gentle words… that warm atmosphere… indeed.
Although it was crooked and twisted, the lines far from neat, rough and messy.
Pencil marks the eraser had not cleaned away had, under the erosion of time, left patches of gray, hazy stains on the drawing.
But it was indeed very warm.
Although… it was so ugly.
No…
Actually it was not ugly.
Mm… it really was ugly.
But… not that ugly either.
At least you could still tell, just a tiny bit, that it was Lingyin.
Well.
Ugh…
When I looked at it there was a feeling that you were right beside me.
But only when I came back to myself did I realize how much time had already passed.
How I wanted to dial your number this very moment, but I was also very, very afraid, afraid that the only answer would be that icy [powered off] voice.
Whenever I woke from that fear and realized I was only wiping away tears I could not stop with my hand, how I wanted to cry in your arms.
Ding-dong—
The doorbell startled me so badly I jumped, and in an instant the sour feeling in my nose scattered.
I opened the door.
A girl with short black hair stood at my doorway, hair still dripping wet, hands tightly pinching the hem of her clothes.
Hearing the door open, she looked up at me with those pitch-black eyes. “Jie, I’m here.”
“Aihua… why did you come?” While fully opening the door, I searched the shoe cabinet by the entrance for her slippers.
Although looking at the schoolbag on her back I already knew she must have fought with Uncle and Auntie at home, I still asked anyway.
“Nothing.”
My cousin was already so familiar with my house she could not be more familiar.
She walked straight in, shut the door, changed into slippers, then flung her schoolbag aside and headed into the bathroom. “I didn’t bring pajamas. Find a set I can wear and lend it to me.”
“Oh… mm.”
Actually I did not mind.
After all, in high school I had lived at their place for a long time too.
I no longer had an older sister, but after so much time together she was already almost like a little sister to me—just, her personality was not that cute.
Rebellious phase, you know.
I understood.
I understood, mm.
I was also not someone good at persuading or lecturing.
I myself did not think I had any qualification to lecture others.
I was not some outstanding student with especially good grades either.
Probably it was precisely because I would not lecture that Aihua especially liked running over to my place alone.
But I thought…
Sure enough, I had only just hung up Aihua’s soaked jacket when the familiar ringtone came from the phone on the coffee table.
On the other end of the line was Auntie’s voice.
Looks like this time the fight had been with Uncle.
Uncle actually hoped Aihua would study hard and get into a good university, or even, like me, take the arts exam and have a skill that would keep her from worrying about making a living.
But Aihua rarely put her mind on studying.
She was a high schooler now too.
Actually it was time to leave the rebellious phase behind and properly consider her own path.
Back then I had met Lingyin and so walked onto the path of the arts exam, but Aihua… still seemed rather lost.
“Hello? Yulin, did Aihua go to your place? This child never listens, ran off to trouble you again, didn’t she?…”
“Mm… no trouble, no trouble at all…” It really was no trouble.
Here she was like she was in her own home.
I actually neither needed to look after her nor keep her company doing anything.
“Listen to me, I don’t know what’s gotten into this child lately, fooling around in class every day. The homeroom teacher has called her dad several times already.
“And that XXX in their class, he’s not even a decent person! Our Aihua is still a child. What love? What boyfriend? All she does is learn bad things, and her grades are bad too…”
You’re mixing two people together. I don’t even know who you’re talking about…
Yet it was not over.
Before I could speak, Auntie continued: “I really don’t know what to do. Her dad is busy with work as usual, you know that. And me, there’s plenty to do at the shop too. Lately hasn’t everyone started stocking up again? I’m busy every day over here too.
“Still, still.
“It was still better when you lived here. You at least knew to help.
“This child, every week she comes home she just sleeps, or else she’s glued to her phone. Why can’t she be like you, like your sister…
“You two were so good… your sister’s grades were so good, and you, back then you were so serious about the arts exam, and you did so well too…”
“Th-that… actually I think…”
Rather than always saying Aihua was bad here and bad there, wouldn’t it be better to communicate more, understand each other more…
But before I finished speaking the phone was snatched from my hand, and then came Aihua’s roaring voice at the phone: “Yes! I’m just not as good as my jie, and not as good as Big Jie either!
“You like my jie so much, why don’t you just raise her as your own daughter!
“Why didn’t you just adopt her as your daughter from the start?!”
Then the phone hung up.
***
I could not get a single word in.
I only watched Aihua, still wrapped in a bath towel, run barefoot into my room and slam the door with a bang.
That sound of the door closing shook the window glass until it gave a clack-clack rattle.
This kind of scene was actually not the first time I had seen it.
Since Aihua started high school their conflicts had kept escalating.
In most cases they simply fizzled out when Aihua went back to school.
But as an outsider, what was I supposed to say at a time like this…
I myself actually had a whole pile of “problems.”
If we were talking about ties that bind, well, those existed too.
After the door slammed, the whole house became especially quiet.
Perhaps that description was not quite fitting, but it really was like a volcano that had just finished erupting.
When the dust settled, everything returned to calm.
Luckily the time was not too late yet, or the neighbors would probably have come knocking to complain already.
After a long calm, I steadied my own breathing, then picked my phone up from the sofa, boiled a kettle of water, and mixed a cup of hot milk.
My world was full of contradictions.
On one side a quiet and solitary life, on the other a little sister whose volcano erupted on a regular basis.
Perhaps… I was actually not lonely at all.
With light, slow steps I crossed the hallway and gently pushed open my own bedroom door.
Aihua, already changed into a black hoodie, was lying on my bed looking at her phone.
When she saw me come in she only took off her earphones, glanced at me, then put her eyes back on the phone.
“Mom didn’t call you again?”
“Mm, she didn’t…”
I silently let out a breath, set the milk on her bedside, then pulled out the chair and sat back down at my computer desk.
I looked up at Lingyin on the whiteboard.
The room was still so quiet, with only the soft clicks of the mouse and the tapping of the keyboard from me looking at the screen.