Lin Xiaolu's Memories

That night, the gray-black sky looked as though it had been smeared with ink. The moon was hazy, and the starlight dim.

Lin Xiaolu lay on her side by the window, curled up as she quietly gazed at the boundless night sky.

At some point, Moko had already fallen asleep at the head of the bed. Her crystalline wings draped over her shoulders, and her pink fur trembled slightly without making a sound.

From the floor beside the bed came the occasional faint rustle of fabric, clearly indicating that someone was tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

"Xiao Lu, are you asleep?"

Suddenly, Xia Liang's voice rang out in the dark room.

She received no answer. Lin Xiaolu remained silent, pretending not to hear.

"I'm saying, these clothes are a little too tight. They feel restrictive when I sleep."

But Xia Liang had never cared about such things. With no one answering, she continued on her own. "So, can I sleep naked?"

"...No."

Her quiet nighttime melancholy thoroughly disrupted by those words, Lin Xiaolu drooped her eyelids and rejected Xia Liang's suggestion.

She had initially refused offhand, but then she realized what Xia Liang meant by "the clothes are tight," making her even more annoyed. "You're wearing my clothes and sleeping in my room. Where do you get all these demands? Want me to make you sleep on the sofa in the living room?"

"Sleep naked?" Xia Liang blinked, her cheeks flushing.

"I mean sleep with your clothes on!" Lin Xiaolu gritted her teeth.

"I was joking. Besides, it wouldn't be good if your family saw."

"You know this is my house, then?"

Their joking came to an abrupt stop, and the two fell silent.

After a while, Xia Liang tightened her arms around the blanket in her hands and closed her eyes.

"I'm saying, Xiao Lu."

"What now?" Since she had already spoken, Lin Xiaolu could no longer pretend to be silent. She could only ask irritably.

"Do you not get along with your father?"

Xia Liang's question froze Lin Xiaolu's expression.

Facing away from Xia Liang, Lin Xiaolu pressed her face a little deeper into the pillow, lowering her voice. "You could tell?"

"Mm. I got that feeling."

"I see. But that has nothing to do with you, does it?"

Whenever this subject came up, Lin Xiaolu's voice became somewhat hoarse. "Or are you going to lecture me too?"

"No."

Xia Liang spoke softly in the night. "I'm just a little curious."

"Curious about what?"

"Your father should care about you. He's actually pretty good to you."

"...How could you tell? From the few sentences you exchanged?"

"Not from his words, but from his attitude and expression."

At this point, Xia Liang's tone became more serious. "You can tell whether parents truly care about their child from those details."

After those words, there was another long silence.

Lin Xiaolu said nothing, seemingly lost in thought, while Xia Liang did not speak further either.

After a long while, as if she had made up her mind, Lin Xiaolu spoke. "That's what he seems like now?"

Xia Liang sounded confused. "Now? Wasn't he like that before?"

"Of course not."

Lin Xiaolu's expression was impossible to see in the darkness, but her voice seemed to be forced out of her throat, carrying an indescribable resentment.

"If you haven't seen it, you can't understand just how unreasonable he really was. That cold-blooded face of his made people's hearts go cold."

"He had been like that since I was little. Work, work, work. Either overtime or business dinners. Whenever he was home, he kept a straight face, like nothing made him happy and he cared about nothing. He was the same with me. All he did was enroll me in tutoring classes, buy practice books, and tell me to study hard."

"Back then, Mom always told me to understand him and forgive him. Even if she prepared a whole table of food for a holiday and he called to say he wasn't coming home to eat, she never complained."

"Then one day, she died."

"She had been perfectly fine the day before, but the next day he suddenly told me Mom was dead. From then on, it was just him and me. He gave no reason, and there was no explanation afterward. I asked him to let me see Mom one last time. Can you guess what he said?"

Apparently not expecting Lin Xiaolu to throw a question at her then, Xia Liang took a moment to react. "Um... your father didn't agree?"

"Hmph. He said, 'Forget about her.'"

Lin Xiaolu gave a cold laugh, though there was not the slightest hint of a smile on her face. "He casually packed up her things, casually invited a few people over, casually held a funeral, as if that was the end of everything.

"Then, halfway through the memorial service, he disappeared and wrapped his arms around some young woman who came from who knew where."

"Was he really working outside? Did he truly spare even a little thought for Mom? I don't know, but I was worried, and I was scared. I asked him why, and he avoided the subject. Even when I cried in front of him, he had no reaction. All he said was bullshit like how he was sad too."

"In the end, I fought with him. I can't even remember what either of us said, only that I really told him all my anger and confusion, and then he slapped me."

"What did he say? 'Who do you think I did all this for?' I think that was it?"

"For who? Anyway, it wasn't for me, and it definitely wasn't for Mom, right? Otherwise, why was he already holding other women in his arms at home again just a few days later?"

"They had seemed so loving every day, yet the moment she truly died, he immediately showed another face. Was that what Mom meant when she told me to understand him?"

"Then I ran away from home."

Those words made Xia Liang's eyes widen slightly.

As if she had suddenly realized something, she looked toward where Lin Xiaolu was, but in the pitch-black room, Lin Xiaolu was still facing away from her.

"So I won't ask why you ran away from home. I know the kind of circumstances that make someone want to run away."

Her voice was muffled. That nameless anger had already receded at some point, though it was unclear whether it had vanished or merely sunk deeper inside her.

"I stayed at a classmate's house for many days. During that time, I didn't go to school. I just stayed there quietly by myself."

She continued recounting the past. "Then one day, I don't know which day it was, it seemed my classmate's parents contacted the school, and the school told him where I was. Then he came looking for me."

"That was probably the first time I had ever seen him so disheveled. The dark circles around his eyes were ghostly, he hadn't shaved, he hadn't combed his hair, and he wasn't wearing the suit he wore all year round. He just threw on a tacky old jacket and came over."

"He said, 'Come home.' I thought, we've already fallen out this badly. What reason did I have to go back with you?"

"But seeing him like that, I don't know why, but my heart softened anyway. Pity? Feeling wronged? By the time I came to my senses, I had taken his hand as if possessed."

"Ever since then, things have been like they are now. I don't pay much attention to him, while he seems to have turned into a 'good father' as if trying to make up for something. But that's all."

Having finally said what she wanted to say, Lin Xiaolu seemed to have released some emotion as well. She let out a long breath, and her speech slowed.

"That's it. That's where it ends."

Lin Xiaolu closed her eyes. "Does that boring story satisfy you?"

Xia Liang did not answer right away. At some point, she had loosened her grip on the blanket. As though she had remembered something, she looked a little dazed.

After a while, she lowered her eyelids and softly replied, "Mm."

"That's good."

Lin Xiaolu pulled the blanket higher, covering half her face. "I'm going to sleep."

The room was silent. After a long while, steady breathing came from Lin Xiaolu's bed, leaving Xia Liang as the only one still awake on the bedding spread across the floor.

She no longer fussed over the slightly tight clothes she wore, nor did she pay attention to the makeshift bed beneath her, which she and Lin Xiaolu had worked together to make but which had turned out rather poorly.

She seemed to say something, but only she herself could hear it.

In the end, in the dim midnight, Xia Liang slowly fell asleep as well.

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