“An Xin, don’t you think this is… too tight?” Ling Cheng felt like he could barely breathe, since An Xin had wrapped the scarf tightly around both of them.
“Is it?” An Xin looked at Ling Cheng, who was so close, and thought it still wasn’t tight enough. The best would be to press their faces together.
Only by clinging tightly to Ling Cheng’s side and feeling A Chen’s warmth did she feel alive.
After all, A Chen was her everything. An Xin stared at Ling Cheng’s face, recalling the day they first met a few months ago.
It had been an utterly ordinary day. An Xin, who had taken a leave of absence from school, curled up in her blanket, checking the comments on her manga.
“The plot is so boring…”
“Did the heroine just die like that? This author is a real piece of work.”
…
There were only a handful of comments, and they were all negative. An Xin didn’t even have the strength to pick up her pen.
Before college, she hadn’t had many chances to draw.
After entering college and being diagnosed with an illness that forced her to take a break, she finally had the time and space to draw.
But at this moment, An Xin was lost. In the first eighteen years of her life, everything she did had been arranged by her parents.
Now that she had obtained “freedom,” she couldn’t find her own desires. Even when it came to drawing, she couldn’t find a subject she wanted to depict.
An Xin turned off her phone and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, trying not to think about the harsh comments.
Her graphics tablet and stylus had been gathering dust for a long time. It seemed An Xin had lost all desire to draw.
“Emi o idaite risou o saken da, ikiba no nai gusha no melody~”
Just as An Xin was about to sleep through another day, her phone rang—it was her father.
“What are you doing?” His voice was as authoritative as ever, making An Xin’s body tremble violently.
“N-nothing.” An Xin put the phone next to her pillow and hugged her knees.
“Are you still in bed at this hour? It’s already nine o’clock and you haven’t gotten up!” Hearing An Xin’s weak, timid voice, the tone on the other end grew sharper.
“Don’t think that just because you’ve got some mental illness or whatever, you can laze around in bed all day. These kinds of diseases are just you spoiling yourself.”
An Xin listened to her father’s voice, not daring to argue. She could only hug her knees tighter and reply softly.
“Enough. Uncle Ling’s son got into the same college as you. I asked him to come check on you.” After displaying his paternal authority, An’s father finally got to the point.
“Behave yourself at home. Ask him what he’s studying at college. Don’t stop learning just because you’re at home.”
Although An Xin wanted to tell her father that their majors were different and asking those questions was useless, she never spoke up. She simply agreed silently.
After hanging up, An Xin looked at the bottle of pills she had prepared long ago.
‘Whatever. Nothing matters anymore.’
Maybe it was because even after falling ill, she still couldn’t catch a single moment’s respite. Or maybe it was because her attempt at drawing a manga had failed. Completely exhausted, An Xin finally decided to take the last step.
‘I heard that when many people leave, they give away their important things to friends. But I don’t have anything important, and I don’t have any friends either.’ An Xin laughed bitterly and twisted open the pill bottle.
“Hello, is An Xin home?” Suddenly, a knock came from outside the door. The voice was so warm. “I’m Ling Cheng. Your parents asked me to come.”
Ling Cheng’s arrival forced An Xin to temporarily abandon her suicide plan.
She remembered her father’s words. Sighing, she put the pills away.
An Xin thought helplessly: ‘Even if I’m ready to give up on living, I still can’t defy my father?’
When she opened the door, An Xin saw a tall, handsome boy holding a laptop bag.
The smile on his face was as warm as his voice. It was so dazzling that An Xin couldn’t help but lower her head.
After entering An Xin’s home, Ling Cheng couldn’t help but frown slightly. It was really messy!
“I’m sorry, I… I…”
Just being alone with a boy made An Xin embarrassed, let alone having him see her messy living situation.
An Xin apologized quietly, not daring to look up at Ling Cheng. She was afraid of seeing reproach or contempt in his eyes.
“Looks like today’s task is quite tough!” Ling Cheng was only surprised for a moment before he started looking for an apron. “Operation begins! Please wait a bit, An Xin.”
Ling Cheng’s voice hadn’t changed at all. It was still just as warm. An Xin nodded and hid in a corner of the room, silently watching him.
Seeing Ling Cheng so active, An Xin couldn’t help but think…
‘I really hate this!’
‘People like him, you can tell at a glance that they live happily.’
‘Why did I have to see someone so dazzling right before I died? I hate it. I hate it.’
…
“Alright, time to eat!” With his top-notch cooking skills, Ling Cheng had prepared dinner and even served An Xin a bowl of rice.
“No, I’m not hungry.” An Xin wanted to refuse, but the growling of her stomach betrayed her.
Ever since she got sick, she had lost much of her appetite. The last time she ate had been yesterday at noon.
“Please, just have a little. I also want to know if my cooking skills have improved.”
Finding it hard to refuse, An Xin picked up her chopsticks, took a piece of egg, and put it into her mouth.
The moment the food crumbled in her mouth, An Xin felt as if a breeze had brushed past her face, awakening her sense of taste.
That was the most An Xin had eaten since she got sick. She thought it was probably because she wanted to die as a well-fed ghost.
“How does it taste?” Even though An Xin rarely responded, Ling Cheng still took the initiative to talk to her. “I’m pretty confident in my cooking. I almost got into Totsuki Academy back then.”
An Xin still didn’t reply. She just focused on eating. But inside, she didn’t hate this social butterfly as much anymore—after all, his food was pretty good.
“Oh no, it’s already eight o’clock. I need to release the new version of my game before ten.” Ling Cheng glanced at the time and quickly opened his computer.
Seeing Ling Cheng’s anxious expression, An Xin grew curious. She stood behind him and watched the screen.
“What’s this?”
“This is a fan game I made. No, actually, it’s more accurate to say it’s developed on a specific platform using an editor…” Ling Cheng replied while uploading the update log.
As he worked on the game, a unique sparkle lit up his eyes, as if everything was brilliant.
An Xin had never seen such a look before. She couldn’t understand it, so she could only guess: ‘His game must be really popular, with lots of people liking it. That’s why he’s so motivated.’
But the reality was the opposite. The game’s comment section only had about ten comments—even worse than An Xin’s manga—and nearly half were criticisms and nitpicks.
“How… how long have you been making this game? Is making games fun?”
“Almost two years now. Fun… I think as long as you’re creating something you love, it’s super fun.” Ling Cheng finished the last step of the upload and turned around to look at An Xin.
“Creating something I love? I love…” An Xin stared into Ling Cheng’s eyes, a strong urge rising in her heart—she wanted to paint the brilliant gleam she saw in that boy’s eyes.
The thought bubbled up from deep inside her, like water rising from a dry well. It was sudden, yet also completely natural.
For now, An Xin no longer wanted to die. She wanted to pick up her paintbrush again.