"Back then, I just wanted to find you and play hide-and-seek with you one more time."
"I couldn't accept that I'd never found you in the end."
Xu Qizhen smiled bitterly.
That really was the kind of thinking only a childish little kid would have.
"Back then, all I could think about was getting even with you."
"...Just a child's competitiveness, that's all..."
There was one more thing he hadn't said.
He'd actually cared a little... about how a boy like him could lose to a girl.
Back then, because he was frail, the boys in his class sometimes teased him.
They said he was weaker than the girls.
So over little things that didn't matter, like a game, he would get especially competitive.
Of course.
He didn't look down on girls.
After all, he had a formidable older sister.
From the time he was little, his sister had always stood in front of him, protecting and looking after him.
He had a lot of respect for girls.
But people could at least be a little understanding of how being teased so much had made him sensitive, and of his boyish pride and competitiveness.
"Later, when I got a little older, I realized how childish my thinking had been."
Xu Qizhen scratched his cheek.
"My sister told me so many times, too..."
"She said I'd gotten it wrong when I was little."
"She'd been lying to me."
"There hadn't been any kid who played hide-and-seek with me."
"She'd just wanted me to stop pestering her so she could go out with her friends."
"I didn't believe her."
"Wouldn't I be the one who knew best whether anyone had played with me?"
"I was always puzzled..."
"But today, I finally understand."
She was a demon.
They'd crossed paths by chance.