Vol 1 Chapter 8.1 (1/2)
Chapter 8: Parting is in front of our eyes.
1. Feelings have always run deep.
Hard work doesn’t count for much, waiting for long doesn’t count for much either. As long as the cras.h.i.+ng waves can settle down, everything will go as one desires. However, life is always a tragicomedy, the amount you put in isn’t the same as what you get.
It was once again time for the yearly arts festival. The two shows our cla.s.s would present was a skit from Song Cheng and Guan He’s erhu performance. Guan He invited me to perform with her. I laughed in surprise, “That’s not possible, I have no arty cells in me.”
Guan He laughed, “You only need to sing along with the music. It’s the same as singing karaoke.”
I still shook my head so she gave me a deep explanation for why she wanted me to perform, “Our high school entrance exams are coming soon, afterwards, we won’t know if we can enter the same school. Even if we do go to the same school, the chances of us being in the same cla.s.s is very small. Perhaps with time, you and I will naturally drift apart. I only want to leave a memory for our year as desk mates. Perhaps one day, when you see your daughter performing on stage, you’ll suddenly remember me, remember that there was a girl who once sang along with you. After we enter high school, I’ll focus on studying and stop partic.i.p.ating in these cultural activities. This is probably the last performance of my middle school life so I want it to be special. This is my graduation present for myself, and also for you.”
Her words were so pa.s.sionate. What was worse though was that I was actually moved by her words. I said, “When the time comes, don’t blame me if we’re an embarra.s.sment.”
Guan He understood it as me agreeing and laughed, “It’s fine, I didn’t plan to get the award.”
Zhang Jun seemed to be let out but he would still miss cla.s.ses from time to time. The teachers all knew that it was because he was taken to the police station to be interrogated so he didn’t even need to provide an excuse note.
When Zhang Jun was at school, he always wore a solemn expression as if he was pondering a question. I suspected that even when he wasn’t in the police station, he would still be thinking of how to answer their questions. The questions he was faced with now wasn’t any easier to the ones earlier on. Perhaps he didn’t do much but he knew quite a lot, personal loyalty didn’t make it an easy decision.
Zhang Jun was still Zhang Jun, still as listless as before. However, the way those few devils from Cla.s.s(7) looked at Zhang Jun was now different. They were very quiet in cla.s.s and listened attentively. Anyhow, all of a sudden, Zhang Jun grew a lot of deterrent force.
Hao Lian still didn’t come to school. Although even the most gossipy students weren’t clear on his news, everyone could tell that his crime was definitely more serious than Zhang Jun’s.
Tong Yun Zhu often went to find Zhang Jun. When Zhang Jun wasn’t deep in thought, he would definitely be accompanying her.
Everyone saw Zhang Jun and Tong Yun Zhu often but they never saw him with his girlfriend, Chen Su Nan. I had a feeling that Zhang Jun was probably going to get dumped again. And as expected, not long after, news spread from the high school department that Chen Su Nan and Zhang Jun broke up. Her way of breaking up was, compared to his previous two girlfriends, ten times more artistic, it really suited the expectations of teenage girls.
That day, Song Cheng and the others were discussing scripts for their skit and Guan He and I were discussing what we should sing when the hubbub in the corridors suddenly quietened. A few girls ran in and apologetically asked, “Can we listen to the radio?”
We all nodded in confusion, thinking that something had happened in school and the head wanted to speak.
They opened the radio and the radio host’s voice ran out in the cla.s.sroom, charged with emotion, “The next song is chosen by our station’s previous president, Chen Su Nan, to her good friend, Zhang Jun. She wants to say three words to him, first is ‘thank you’, second, ‘goodbye’ and third, ‘sorry’. Let us all enjoy the Taiwanese singer, Chen Shu Hua’s ‘Red Dust’.
I hung out at the karaoke bar often but this was my first time hearing this song. The song was really good but thinking that, “The heart that should have been yours, it is still protected in my chest” is Chen Su Nan and “Thus the you who didn’t want to go, must bid farewell to me who is no longer here” is Zhang Jun- made me hear happiness from a song filled with sadness. I couldn’t help stopping laughing and Guan He also started to laugh.
A girl in the corridor shouted, “Zhang Jun is downstairs, he’s also heard it.”
Everyone in the cla.s.sroom rushed out to the corridors and leaned by the windows looking down. Guan He also dragged me out.
In the courts, Zhang Jun and Tong Yun Zhu were walking side by side. The school’s loudspeakers were playing the song and the speakers in every cla.s.sroom were also playing it like a big choir.
I couldn’t see what kind of expression Zhang Jun had, I only say him and Tong Yun Zhu stand there for a bit and then walk in the opposite direction of the school building, he probably predicted that there will be a group of people waiting to see him in the middle school department’s corridors.
The girls were all very touched after hearing the song. The talked in whispers and actually in a moment, derived that Zhang Jun, Chen Su Nan and Tong Yun Zhu were in a love triangle. Oh, there’s also an extra person, Hao Lian, it’s a love square.
Guan He rested her face on my shoulder as her whole body shook with laughter. Originally, I also laughed but as I laughed, I suddenly remembered that actually, there is an outside lead- Guan He, and a pa.s.serby- Luo Qi Qi.
Although I was still laughing, anguish slowly spread around my body. The girl iwho is able to wave goodbye to Zhang Jun is so lucky, how come I can’t do the same?
The feelings at this age are unpredictable, in a split second, you’ll like someone, in a split second, you’ll also stop liking someone. You’ll like him because of his silhouette in the window, you’ll also stop liking because of something immature that he said; you’ll like him because of a certain expression in his eyes, you’ll also stop liking him because of his certain actions……
The cla.s.smates around me were really like this, this term, they’ll like person A, next term, perhaps they’ll start liking person B. They’ll be falling in and out of love at the same time but why can’t I be like that? So many years have gone by and on one side, I’d decide to drift away from Zhang Jun but on the other side, I’d always be caring for him, feeling heartache for him, feeling bad for him.
“Next, we’ll be appreciating poetry. Today, the poetry we are playing for everyone is……”
I walked into the cla.s.sroom and pulled the cord, closing the radio. I said to Guan He, “How about we choose this song, the tune isn’t very high.”
“When the entire audience is laughing, Zhang Jun will come looking for us.”
“Scared of him? Isn’t he just here to amuse everyone? This year he’s even more entertaining than entertainers. One moment, he’s playing a Hong Kong gangster film, next, he’s playing a Taiwanese Qiong Yao drama, I feel like we should award him with a ‘best entertainer of the year’ award.”
Chen Song , Li Shan and the others around us all started laughing.
Guan He also laughed, “No wonder you’re a pro at debating! Luckily you don’t like to fight or else who would be able to argue and win against you?”
“Then should we just sing this song? Even if we can’t win an award, we can borrow Zhang Jun’s thunder and be awarded with the audience’s laughter.”
Guan He laughed until she couldn’t breathe, “It’s not possible, as soon as we get screened by the headmaster, our act will be dropped. Our headmaster hates students copying Taiwanese and Hong Kong things the most. Luckily the No. 1 princ.i.p.al isn’t him or else it’ll be like a concentration camp here.”
I said to her seriously, “don’t choose a revolutionary song, I can’t sing those; also don’t choose an ethnic song, I can’t sing those either.”
Guan He shook her head worriedly.
I went back to read my novels and left her to think of a solution. Hopefully she won’t be able to think of one and give up on me.
Xiao Bo was in the sprint for the gaokao and was studying very strenuously. Guan He and I were also busy preparing for the arts festival so I didn’t go to find Xiao Bo for a very long time.
Every Monday, the school would have a formal flag raising ceremony. The high school department stood on the left side of the courts and the middle school department stood on the right. After the flag raising, each department will sum up the week.
However, today, it was very unusual, the school convened the high school and middle school students together and the princ.i.p.al started speaking.