Xu Jin · Chat

Black and white wreaths surrounded the entire funeral hall. The cold white light hit that black and white photo. His smile was still so faint, his eyes as gentle as they had been for countless days and nights before. But the coldness of the coffin and the suppressed sobbing around me gouged my heart over and over, telling me—he's really gone. I stood frozen before the altar, my whole body cold. Even my tears seemed frozen, only falling hotly onto the back of my hand after a long while, rolling down uncontrollably. I didn't want to accept it; I simply couldn't. Someone who was fine just a few days ago, how could he suddenly be lying here, never to open his eyes again, never to speak to me again, never to appear by my side again? Only at this moment did those details I ignored, those things I treated as ordinary trifles, come flooding back overwhelmingly. Every single one was a foreshadowing I only realized too late. I remembered him always sitting alone by the window late at night, his back looking as lonely as if he'd been abandoned by the whole world. I'd ask him what was wrong, and he'd just shake his head and say it was nothing. I remembered how he was clearly afraid of the dark, yet always liked to stay in his room with the lights off, silent in a way that made one's heart race. I remembered his increasingly faint smiles, his lighter tone, his increasingly deliberate avoidance of my gaze. I remembered the exhaustion and loneliness hidden in his eyes when he occasionally looked at me, and those nonsensical things he said that I only took as casual complaints at the time... Why was I so stupid back then? Why didn't I notice at all? Those seemingly unusual moments were all him struggling desperately, all silent distress signals he sent to me. I thought there was still time for everything, that the days were long, that we had countless tomorrows. But in the end, all that late realization became the cruelest knife stabbed into my heart, making even breathing a heart-wrenching pain. I knelt on the ground, clutching the cold hem of my clothes tightly. Tears blurred my vision. The funeral music and comforting voices in my ears weren't clear at all. My heart and eyes were filled only with endless helplessness and regret. I could do nothing. I couldn't keep him. I couldn't even give him a hand when he was in his greatest pain. After the funeral ended, I walked into his room, lost and soul-shaken. Everything was still as it was before he left. Unfinished books were spread on the desk, the jacket he often wore was draped over the chair, and the water cup he used was on the nightstand. A faint scent belonging to him still lingered in the air. Every item clearly bore the traces of his life. Every glance was a heart-gouging memory. I sat on the edge of his bed, my fingertips gently brushing the pillow he had slept on. My heart felt as if it were being squeezed hard by an invisible hand, the pain almost suffocating. Every inch of this place still hid his shadow, but he would never push open the door and call my name with a smile again. So tired, exhausted in body and soul. The immense grief weighed on me so much I couldn't breathe. I leaned against the headboard like that, looking at the familiar traces throughout the room, and unconsciously closed my eyes, falling into a deep sleep. In the last moment of blurred consciousness, I was still thinking, if only I could go back to the past. If only I could go back to when there was still time for everything. When I opened my eyes again, piercing sunlight spilled across my face through the classroom window. In my ears was the noisy clamor of the break between classes. Thick senior year review materials sat on the podium. The classmate in the front seat was turning around to joke and play with me. I froze suddenly, looking around in a daze. The familiar classroom, the blackboard covered in formulas, the blue and white school uniform I was wearing, and the lush camphor trees outside the window— This is... our senior year. And as soon as I turned my head, I saw him in the seat by the window. The boy was wearing the same school uniform as me, his profile clean and handsome. He was looking down at a book, sunlight landing on the tips of his hair, incredibly gentle. It's him. It's the seventeen-year-old him, still alive and well.