21
Night had long since deepened. Rainy nights always made loneliness especially keen, and that wandering heart always yearned for a little gentle comfort. After a busy day, it was already nearly ten at night. Fine rain still drifted through the sky. Traveling through the quiet streets, weariness spread with the turning wheels, and the heart gradually grew empty, submerged in the kaleidoscope of neon lights. The wind blew softly, the crowds quietly thinned, and the traffic flowed in a faint stream. Everything seemed like the night sky, hazy yet still. In the illusory world online, that heart was nowhere to be found, and all the weariness and loneliness froze in an instant, cold.
In a single moment, exhaustion wrapped the entire empty body in a thick layer. There was nothing to dissolve the weariness that filled it, or the heart's loss and emptiness. Perhaps loneliness had always been mine to bear. Only, all of a sudden, the surface of that iron shell had melted, making me feel that its thick armor had dissolved in the warmth of passion. Only when I abruptly looked back did I realize that the melting had been merely on the surface; the heart still could not find a soul to lean on. The lover was far away, the night was cold, and a heart full of passion reached out only to grasp nothing. The internet was unreal, love elusive, and poor youth so endlessly beautiful... So often, feelings arrived as an unexpected surprise beyond anyone's grasp. When the passing years left only memories behind, that once-fervent heart gradually grew cold as well.
Even if, after years of searching, "I suddenly turned back, and there that person stood, where the lantern light grew dim," even if we met, our feelings mingled, and our hearts longed