Confession in round characters/Qi Jin Nian (Pink Years)

I liked someone when I was a teenager. The tall young man with a face as pure as snow looks clear and clear, like a silent green poplar tree beside the playground track.

That year, from autumn to the spring of the next year, he walked home every day, and I followed him from a distance, so that I was familiar with every step he made. Knows the courtyard where he lives. He was known to make occasional stops at art supply stores and bookstores. It is well known that he never looks back or looks left or right when walking. It is well known that he wears his backpack on his left shoulder. I am familiar with his elegant and smooth regular script because he has learned calligraphy since childhood. It is known that he likes reading very much.

He is such a dignified young man. I knew he was different from everyone else. He can write beautiful handwriting with both hands. The wrist is tied with a thin black thread and there is a button on it. I once took advantage of him to leave his seat and opened a book he had placed on his desk. It's "Snow Country" by Yasunari Kawabata.

There are not many young boys who like to read books like this.

When my aunt came back from England, she gave me a quill pen bought from a souvenir shop near the Shakespeare Exhibition Hall. It has a golden nib and a light brown quill barrel that is nearly a foot long. There is a poetic feeling of flying when you hold the pen and write. I opened the simple and concise packaging, and at the moment of joy, the first person I thought of was him.

That afternoon I rode across half of the city, went to a bookstore and bought a thin English copybook, and began to practice writing beautiful round calligraphy.

Because once when the teacher was showing a movie to the class, and a beautiful letter in round letters flashed across the camera, I overheard him exclaiming, it was so beautiful.

I know that he is a man of few words and has never been happy. He must really like round fonts.

At the end of the spring of that year, I began to write ink on gray thin paper under the desk lamp every night. Even the nib of the quill pen is polished smooth and round, making it smooth and comfortable to use. The stack of paper used to repeatedly copy Latin letters has become a thick stack. It looks like a love that never ends.

It took me almost two years to write that letter. Facing the letter every night, I practice obsessive-compulsive disorder on how to write each letter like a poem. I vaguely imagined how to hand it to him like a movie scene, and then get the warmth of his palm, and the green love like moss under the shade of flowers.

When I was about to graduate, I finally decided to go find him.

It was on his birthday. I followed him home for the last time with the letter I had been writing for two years. That road is all too familiar to me. I walked behind him under the setting sun, staring at his back. Over the past two years, those innocent and humble moments because of him emerged with great force and clarity, crumbling deep in my heart, and my heartbeat became rough and intense.

I think I must give him the letter, otherwise I think I will die if this continues.

The moment I caught up with him, I almost took a deep breath. Called his name and handed him the letter. He nodded with slight surprise. He took the letter, then turned around and continued walking forward.

I also turned around, but actually covered my face with my hands, unable to help crying immediately.

At that moment, I wondered, could this be the scrawled result that I spent two years and more than 700 days and nights on? How could he know that those English words as complex and beautiful as patterns on the white paper were the confessions I had practiced stroke by stroke under the lamp every night for two years while feeling sad and inexplicable.

That day I felt infinitely humble for the first time. All the beautiful ways that I naively fantasized about when I was alone only realized the most hastily scrawled reality. I covered my face, tears almost flowing out from between my fingers. That feeling seems to be more unforgettable to me than my future contact with him.

I remember that he took the initiative to contact me before and after graduation.

In his home, I saw exactly the same scene as I imagined. A meticulously tidy room with navy blue curtains and sheets. White tabletop and floor. It's so clean that it's almost paranoid.

The bookshelves are filled with books. Most of them are Japanese masterpieces. He especially likes Kawabata Yasunari and ancient Japanese writers such as Seishonagon, Yoshida Kaneyoshi, and Matsuo Basho.

His gloomy temperament really matches his reading preference.

He took down a copy of "Pillow" and said, "This is an essay by Qing Shao Nayan. I like it very much and give it to you."

After I got home, I opened the book and saw a letter inside. The handwriting is quite beautiful, as I have long known. I glanced at it hastily, because I was worried about the ominous ending, but I couldn't help but hold on to the joyful expectation, so I mustered up the courage to immediately turn to the last page of the letter. Sure enough, at the end, it said "I'm very sorry."

At that moment, my mind went blank. Just like in those vulgar martial arts movies, the sharpest knife will always leave a wound for a short period of time before the person falls down, and it will take a long time before the blood can be seen flowing.

That summer just faded out of life and became just a part of memory.

We met again at the class reunion many years later. We would all drink beer and sing together, and when we finally parted, we all hugged each other.

When it was his turn, the boy who once occupied all my mood hugged me tightly. His clear and hot heartbeat beat against the eardrums of my ears, making me suddenly feel sad and tears welling up in my eyes. What flashed in my mind were those two lonely and humble teenage years. I am now buried in the arms that I have been waiting for. But because he embraced the waiting again, he finally understood the meaning of growth. The luxury of youth lies in being able to have a clear enough mood to spend more than 700 nights writing an insincere letter to a person who does not belong to the future.

In the rest of my life, I may no longer spend two years practicing writing a letter for one person.

I will no longer follow him, watch him go home, look at his back, full of sentimental joy.

No longer will we secretly pray to meet each other in the most beautiful way, but in fact weep heartily when we turn around hastily.

A few years later, by mistake, I majored in English. Many people praised my neat and beautiful English calligraphy. I smiled slightly, and I always suddenly thought of him at that time.

At that time, I was copying round characters on white paper over and over again under the lamp, and my mind was gnawed by a blurry afterimage of a young man. I will never have it again.

Thank you for adopting.