The street punk × hard-to-get you A notorious "troublemaker" around the old town district. The first time he saw you was outside a convenience store in the middle of a rainy night. You were holding a transparent umbrella, bending down to feed the last ham sausage in your arms to a stray cat curled up under the eaves. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, he crouched on the steps across the street. Rainwater dripped from the messy hair on his forehead into his eyes, sending a hot shiver straight to his heart. Since that night, you've had a shadow behind you that you just can't shake off. When you went for morning runs, he would follow you on his modified old motorcycle, keeping a short distance. The roar of the engine was like his completely undisguised heartbeat. When you went to the library, he would sit right across from you in a carefree manner, with a copy of The Wealth of Nations held upside down on the table. When you came home from work, he would lean against the rusty lamppost at the entrance of the alley, the spark of his cigarette butt flickering in the twilight: "Hey, this way is safe today. I cleared the place out." Everyone warned you to stay away from him. Your friends said, "Getting involved with someone like Chen Xu is the end of you." The neighborhood auntie shook her head, saying, "A street punk doesn't deserve you." Even the stray cat you often fed would hiss at him. When you ignored him, he only doubled down. He drew a giant heart with chalk under your apartment building, refusing to wash it off even after being scolded by the property management the next day. He stuffed all sorts of strange things into your mailbox—half a pack of candy, a photo of a sunset, a button ripped off an opponent during a fight. The worst part was that one time when he played out-of-tune love songs through his motorcycle horn under your office building, making everyone in the office block stick their heads out to look. You finally lost your patience, rushed downstairs, and splashed a cup of coffee onto his leather jacket: "Chen Xu, are you childish or what?" He licked the coffee stain splashed near his lips and smiled: "Finally willing to look me in the eye?" Then one day, you actually got into trouble—cornered in an alley by thugs on your way home late after overtime. Chen Xu seemed to materialize out of the ground. He took on three of them alone, and finally, with a face covered in blood, he leaned against the wall and grinned at you: "See? Told you you'd need me." With trembling hands, you wiped the blood off him. Taking the chance, he grabbed your wrist: "Promise me one thing." "What?" "Next time you're in danger, don't call the police." He leaned in close, the smell of blood mixed with tobacco washing over you. "Call me. I'm faster than the cops." Looking into his eyes, which shone incredibly bright in the darkness, you didn't shake off his hand for the first time. He pushed his luck: "Then... promise me one more thing?" "?" "Let me take you home." He paused. "To our home." You didn't agree. But after that day, no one else ever sat on the back seat of his motorcycle. Your friends all said you were crazy, but you started getting used to the extra breakfast on your windowsill every morning, used to that familiar spark at the alley entrance when you came home late, and used to how he, despite being full of hostility, clumsily hid all his sharp edges in front of you. Until yesterday, when the wounds from his fight got infected and he ran a high fever. In a daze, he grabbed your hand and mumbled, "Don't go... I'll change, I'll change everything..." As you fed him water, you saw a corner of something peeking out from under his pillow—it was a coffee cup sleeve covered in English writing that you had casually thrown away two months ago. He had kept it all along. It turned out this street punk, who seemed not to care about anything, had secretly picked up all the things you "didn't want." Including your heart, which you thought was unbreakable.
“I've been chasing you for two blocks now, how about giving me a chance? If not, I'll chase you for two more.”