The night is very good, the early summer wind caressing the garden of the district balsam camphor trees, the moon is bright, street lamps are dim, square dance aunt has also retreated, all around is very quiet, only the shadow of the trees in the dark light to show off the hula body.
Arjun extinguished the cigarettes that have been burned to the filter, got up and left some cold marble stools, and threw the body that was sitting a little numb into the dark shadow of the trees. He wanted to walk through the grove of neighborhood gardens to the street.
The street and the neighborhood is completely different, flashing neon competing to show off the charm of the eyes, or pedestrians in a hurry, or walking hand in hand with the old couple, or intimate small couple, have and Arjun sassafras, everyone has their own matters of the heart, no one noticed the presence of Arjun.
Arjun stopped his feet on the overpass, the speeding traffic from the feet through the left side of the blinding yellow, the right side of the dazzling red. Arjun took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up, the red tip flickering in and out of the river of lights, the pale blue smoke confusing his mind.
"At that time we have, not polluted over the morning, drip drip drip drip of the second hand, but can not stay a dusk ......", is a wandering singer playing the guitar.
Fuck! Who the fuck sings this song? Arjun cursed in his heart, but his body was not listening to the voice of the song to move.
At the south end of the flyover, a young man in his mid-twenties, a white culture shirt, jeans, an acoustic guitar in his arms, and a pair of tightly closed eyes under his slightly curled hair, showed a look of intoxication. Arjun stopped three meters away from the young man and watched the intoxication of the young man.
He is young, knows what nostalgia is, and sings with such deep emotion! Arjun looked down on the lad's age, but couldn't resist the impact of the hoarse song.
For Arjun, this song is poison.
Tonight is the day of the twenty-year reunion of his classmates, and Arjun was originally very excited, but when he heard that Fang, who is far away in the south, also came to the party, he hesitated.
Ah Fang, a buried in the bottom of the heart for twenty years, not forgotten for a moment, but never dare to mention the name, that is Arjun's youth, beautiful and somewhat sour nostalgia ......
Two
"Arjun! Someone is looking! It's a pretty girl yeah!" Arjun was coming down from the stage of the Campus Singers Competition when Ah Qing told him that Arjun Ah Fong had come to see him.
"Who is it? What's the fuss about a beautiful woman, look at the flowers in my hand, all of them are from a fucking beautiful woman, and with my voice, is there a shortage of beautiful women?" Arjun was full of concern and threw the bunch of flowers in his hand in the corner of the backstage.
"Arjun!"
"Why you, aren't you in C city, why are you in my school?" Ah Fong's arrival surprised Arjun a lot, even though, they were the best classmates in high school.
"Why, can't you come?" Ah Fang stood in front of Arjun, dressed in a white down jacket, her round face beaming with a playful smile.
"Come ...... can ...... how can't I?" Arjun because of the accident, some slurred, he indeed did not expect Ah Fang will come to the school to find her, C city to X city, a few hundred kilometers of road.
"said that the fall waiting for you to come to C City to see the maple leaves, and now it is winter, you refused to come to see me, but also do not allow me to come to see you?"
Yes, Ah Fang once told Arjun in a letter that the maple leaves in C city are extraordinarily beautiful in the fall, roaming the mountains, brilliant as a red haze.
"I ...... alas ...... I am not good, this is not busy, the school campus singer competition, I am busy scheduling the program?" In fact, Arjun also want to go to see the maple leaves, only, C city is far away, for Arjun such as a child from a working family, traveling to the mountains during college can only be a luxury. Arjun knew that he was in the wrong, so he had to put off with the matter at hand.
"Hypocrisy! A fall, so much time, are all lining up a show?"
"Oh ...... rehearsal program ...... alas ...... do not say these, here too many people, let's go to the campus to walk! " Arjun knew that he couldn't speak to Fang, so he digressed.
"Listen to you, to you, what else?"
The campus is extraordinarily quiet at night, with only the faint sound of music and cheering coming from the amphitheater in the distance, where most of the students have gone to watch the Campus Singers Competition.
The restaurants on campus are still open, and the barbecue stalls are still smoky, but Arjun doesn't want to give half a month's living expenses to the bosses.
Arjun and Fang walked lap after lap on the coal-chip track in the campus playground. The moon was good, and the white moonlight sprinkled on the playground, laying a light white frost on the yellow soccer field with no grass and the brown coal-chip track.
"You sang beautifully, so many girls gave you flowers, you must be very beautiful inside, right?" Fang said quietly as she looked at the pair of shadows stretched by the moonlight.
"Not really, those girls, ugh! Only know how to scream, how do they know what I'm singing?" Arjun kicked a stone under his feet far away as he walked.
"Hmph! Stinky! Hypocritical!"
"No way! Just those girls, I don't really care!"
"Then you were so happy when you sang, and you hugged the girls when they gave you flowers?"
"Hugging ...... that's not a necessity for stage performances, did they offer flowers and I threw them on the ground just to show my disgust?"
"That's not necessary, it's just that your enraptured look is showing your inner satisfaction!"
"Am I intoxicated? Maybe, I'm intoxicated, that's me singing remembering that rainy afternoon, I'm remembering the sound of the rain rustling on the leaves outside the classroom, that's me remembering your blushing face when you passed me the lyrics and found out by math when it came and ......"
Arjun remembered back in high school. He and Ah Fong both loved to sing, and together they collected a lot of RTHK singer decal paper and copied the lyrics of so many RTHK songs in their notebooks. Later, they also both tried to write some of their own lyrics, and today, what Ah Jun sang, was the song they **** wrote together at that time.
"Well, you don't say ......"
"Why, today, I sing this song 'Rainy Season Youth' is not that is we **** with the same writing? " Arjun stopped and grabbed Fang's hand, a little excited in his heart.
"Let go!" Ah Fong wanted to try to break free, but Arjun held on tightly and wouldn't let go.
"I've come all this way to see you and you're still so hard, you want to hurt me!" Ah Fong snapped.
"Oh, no, no! I'm sorry!" Arjun quickly released his hand and said, "You are also tired, let's not go, go sit on the bleachers for a while!"
"I've been tired for a long time, and I'm just saying it now, what an elm!" Ah Fong turned around and walked quickly towards the bleachers.
"Wait for me, and you say you're tired, walking so fast!" Arjun muttered as he chased after Avon from behind.
The bleachers of the playground were cold and there were no with individuals around.
"Arjun, I'm a bit cold!" Fang tightened the down jacket on her body.
"Here, put my cotton jacket on!" Arjun took off his own cotton jacket and draped it over Avon.
"What about you, aren't you cold?"
"Me, I have thick skin, I am not afraid of the cold, you are a big lady, you can't freeze you!"
"Why don't we join together!" Ah Fang moved her body towards Arjun's side and put half of her cotton jacket on Arjun's body, leaning close to him.
Arjun moved his body outward.
Fang hugged Arjun and leaned her face against his shoulder.
Arjun tried to avoid it, but Fang held him tighter. Arjun stared at the round face in the moonlight, and his heart jumped.
......
Three
Jiangnan in June, into the rainy season, the sky seems to have broken a hole, the rain has been dripping down non-stop.
After coming back from school, Arjun has been sitting in front of the window looking at the banana leaves that have been washed by the rain. For several days in a row, it was a gray sky, bright white rain, green banana leaves, and time seemed to have stopped in the rain.
Arjun does not regret that he chose to return to his hometown L city, because it is his home, here are his parents, as the only son of the family, his parents in order for him to go to college to save money, suffered a lot, and now that he graduated, he feels that it is right to return to his parents, he found a relatively stable job, he feels that this is very good, even though many of his classmates have gone to the south of the S city.
"Arjun, Fang is here!"
When Arjun heard his mother's shout outside the door, he jumped up from his chair in a single bound and rushed to the door. Avon in a flowery dress was already standing at the door of his room.
"Arjun na, the rain has stopped and opened outside, you and Ah Fong go for a walk outside!" His mother was familiar with Avon and knew what Arjun had in mind.
"Arjun, let's go for a walk!" Ah Fong also felt that some things might not be easy to say in Arjun's house, in front of Arjun's mother.
......
The streets were very clean after the rain, the black tarmac shining brightly, reflecting the gray sky and Ah Fong's floral dress.
"Arjun, aren't you going south?"
"I'm not going, the south is too far, I'm afraid to go to the home no one to take care of!" Arjun didn't dare to look up at Fang's face, he knew that Fang had already found a copywriting job with a multinational company in the south and was leaving tomorrow.
"If you don't go, what about me?" Ah Fang's voice was a bit mournful.
"You go, your father had a hard time asking someone to find you this good job, you don't want to let down his hard work!" Arjun's words were tinged with some bitterness and resentment.
"Then I'll ask my dad to find you a job in the south too, and we'll be together!" Ah Fong stopped and grabbed Arjun's hand.
Arjun broke away from Fang and said indignantly, "No, that's your dad, I don't need it!"
"But ......"
"No buts! You put is a big boss, the south has business, many friends, the road is wide, but that's your father, my parents are ordinary workers, I'd better stay in the old home!" Ah Jun do not want to hear Ah Fang again mention their feelings, for this relationship, although he is also very cherished, but he knows, on the basis of his current ability, can not be grasped.
"But there is no future in staying in your hometown, don't look at the job you are looking for is quite stable, but just a little bit of dead wages, you may still be poor for the rest of your life!"
"Poor is poor, I was poor, and you are not the same, we were not all the way!" Poverty, is the most unwilling to mention the topic of Arjun, since childhood, he never spends money lavishly, he knows that every penny in the family is the parents with sweat in exchange for, although he also envied those rich classmates, but he knows that envy does not change anything. His parents have exhausted their efforts in this life for him to study, he will never leave his parents for money.
"How are you ...... like this?" Fang did not expect Arjun to actually say this, and bright tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.
"I am like this, you go, let's break up, I will not go to the south!" Arjun didn't dare to look at Fang's face and turned his head away, yelling loudly.
I don't know when, the rain started to fall again, the drizzle dampened Ah Fang's face, and also dampened Arjun's heart.
Arjun did not wait for Ah Fang to say anything else, and quickly ran away, leaving Ah Fang alone in the rain.