Crossing the Clouds and Sky to Fall in Love with You - Chapter 26

We met at a very famous Brown Sugar Boba Fresh Milk shop near the school. As soon as she saw me, she presented me with a cup and offered to treat me, but I apologized and told her “it had come” referring to her period. She was startled for a moment, but still put the drink into my hand. “Then just wait until it’s not cold to drink it!”

There are many second-hand bookstores nearby. We stepped into a small alley, embracing a touch of peaceful atmosphere. We saw a small yellow stray cat by the roadside. The senior squatted down, trying to tease it, but it ran away, unappreciative.

“Oh dear, how frustrating… Even a cat dislikes me.”

I offered a slight smile. “Cats are cautious.”

She casually pulled out a cigarette and placed it between her lips. The tip quickly ignited an orange flame. “I’m sorry,” she said to me, and at the same time, reached out to hold my hand. I shook my head slightly. “Actually, I’ve wanted to apologize to you in person for a long time, but the timing was sensitive a while ago… I thought you might not have gotten over it yet. Plus, your neighbor said you were very sad and even your health was affected, and told me not to look for you… so it dragged on until now.”

“Sister Tao?” They had met? When?

“I don’t know her name… just the tall girl with short hair.”

“Oh! Her surname is Tao, and I call her Sister Tao.”

She said “Oh,” “What a coincidence? The same surname as that handsome guy in the wheelchair.”

My heart jumped. How could I have not expected the senior to link these two people together so quickly! “Uh, um! Yes, it’s a coincidence.”

The senior exhaled white smoke and took a mouthful of brown sugar boba, instantly showing a sweet and blissful expression. “Ah, this is delicious! I haven’t had it in ages…” Chewing the boba, she asked how my exam preparations were going, and I gave a brief account.

“Sorry for disturbing your studies, but I just wanted to find someone to talk to, and for a moment, I didn’t know who to turn to; in a moment of desperation, the only person I could think of as the most suitable was you.”

“Do you have something urgent, Senior?”

She smiled with a pout, “Not urgent, really! Just… I want to find someone to complain to.”

I was full of questions, “Senior, if you want to complain, you can talk to Jack! You guys…”

“Argh! He’s the last person I should talk to!” My sentence seemed to have inexplicably hit a sore spot. She angrily took a drag of her cigarette, and under my expectant gaze, gave me the answer. “We’re kind of in the same boat now… Jack and I broke up again.”

I suddenly felt breathless, “‘Again’ broke up?” Their on-again, off-again relationship wasn’t news, but I thought… with Senior Saya’s return before, didn’t that mean their relationship had stabilized again?

I didn’t expect it to be “short-lived.”

“Yes, we broke up again.” Her smile contained a few traces of loneliness. I bit my lip and silently held the senior’s hand tighter. “That idiot… he’s the one who mixes work and private life! He always brings his work frustrations into his personal life… That’s the drawback of being in the same band, spending a lot of time together means a lot of friction!”

For about the next half hour, I obediently acted as a child with ears but no mouth, listening to the senior complain about Jack’s shortcomings, from band management to carelessly leaving his socks and underwear everywhere in his private life. It left me thoroughly speechless…

“Honestly, I never would have thought Jack was that kind of person…” I could only offer a forced smile in response.

“There’s a lot you don’t know, like when he’s sleeping…”

I quickly raised my hand to stop her from revealing any more secrets about her ex-boyfriend! “If you keep talking, my image of Jack will be completely ruined! Senior, I can understand your difficulties, truly… Being with someone for a long time is really a test of patience.” Take Sister Tao, for example; even just as a roommate, living together for a long time will naturally reveal some of her flaws; no one is perfect.

She rubbed her nose apologetically, “You’re right… Sorry, I’ve been talking about myself the whole time… Don’t let me talk about Jack like this, even though this breakup wasn’t as painful as the first time, I still feel very sad.”

“I understand.” Even compared to being betrayed and cruelly abandoned, their peaceful ending was already quite good, at least I hadn’t heard that she was leaving the band.

The cigarette was finished, and the drink was gone. We had walked back and forth along the old bookstore street.

“Xiao Xiao, what about you?” she asked in a slightly nasal voice.

“Me?”

“You and Lu used to be so close. I know you’ve always liked him… Who knew a person’s heart could change so quickly? Even I didn’t expect him to turn out like this… I thought you could stop him from going too far. I also thought I could use my status as a senior to control him, but I didn’t expect…”

I shook my head, sensing the self-reproach in the senior’s words. “It’s not your fault, Senior… I admit that I did complain in my heart about all of you for a while, that you must have known about him and Ivy’s secret interactions but never told me; however, a relationship is fundamentally a private matter, and if he was determined to cheat and decided to abandon me, whatever you said would have been useless…”

I took a deep breath. The evening’s cold wind was refreshing. “I’ve accepted it! Even if I haven’t completely moved on, I’m working on it; he doesn’t belong to me, and I no longer consider him my life partner; he’s just a passing stranger… It’s just a pity about our child that couldn’t be…” I looked away sadly, my voice so soft it was barely a whisper.

“Child?” Her eyes widened immediately, staring straight at my belly. “You had a child?” The last part was almost a hysterical high-pitched cry.

I admit I deliberately let it slip. I wanted to test whether she knew about the pregnancy. It seemed she didn’t.

“I aborted it.” I wanted to smile, but for some reason, my heart twisted. It still hurts… the emotional wound still hurts.

“Damn it… F*ck! He got you pregnant and still…” Senior Saya grabbed me tightly, cursing every foul word she could think of under her breath. “How’s your health now? Are you okay? Is anyone taking care of you? Does your family know? Who else knows besides me?”

“My health has recovered, I’m fine now; Sister Tao is taking care of me. I dare not let my family know, especially my parents… I originally thought you knew about my pregnancy, but it seems he was determined to keep this a secret!” I scoffed. Should I say it was not unexpected?

“Damn it! That beast… I have to teach him a lesson, I’m going to make sure he can never hold his head up again! How could he do this to you!”

I finally saw how much the senior cared for me. A warmth filled my heart, and I squeezed her hand back. “Don’t be like that, Senior. I don’t want to make a big fuss for revenge… Don’t worry! Ivy isn’t like me. If Lu Hanzheng uses the same methods on Ivy that he used on me, he’ll be in big trouble.”

She sneered, with a hint of schadenfreude. “Hmph! Their group is certainly lively! I didn’t intend to tell you because I was afraid you would be upset.”

I shook my head. “I really don’t want to know anyway.”

The senior immediately stopped talking and nodded slightly; we linked arms and walked back to the place where we first bought the brown sugar boba. The cup in my hand was no longer cold, but I still wasn’t in the mood to drink it.

“Should I walk you home?”

“Sure.” The senior smiled at me, and we turned into the alley.

“Earlier you mentioned that handsome guy with the surname Tao. Xiao Xiao, are you… very close to him?”

The probing tone was too obvious. I shrugged. “Very close, yes. We meet for reports, class, and so on… He said he’s recently become obsessed with the man-faced fish.”

“Yeah, he shows up quite often; I haven’t had much chance to run into you recently, so I chat with him about you sometimes.” As soon as she mentioned “my business,” I inexplicably felt a sense of anxiety.

“Please keep my pregnancy a secret, Senior.”

“Of course! I won’t tell anyone.” She sighed, “Xiao Xiao… What do you think of this handsome guy, surnamed Tao?”

Hmm? Is the senior trying to set me up with Tao Yian?

“He’s very talented, and a nice person, too.” I tried not to look at the senior and answered with as neutral a tone as possible.

“It’s a shame about his legs, otherwise he’d be hundreds of times better than Lu.” She looked up, “From the first time you two appeared together, his eyes were always on you, so I started guessing back then whether he might really admire you…”

I pouted, really too lazy to continue the probing. “He… he confessed to me.”

The senior’s eyes lit up. “Wow! I didn’t expect this kid to be so direct!” He’s actually the same age as you. “So, what did you say?”

I curled my lips, “Just letting things happen naturally.”

“You turned him down?” The senior was always so direct. “Was it because he has mobility issues? Or another reason?”

“No! It’s just that I feel it’s not quite right for me to accept someone else’s pursuit right now, after all, I’ve only just ended a relationship… and he’s genuinely a good person. I feel like…” I shook my head. The senior probably saw my small gesture of pressing my hand to my stomach clearly, didn’t she?

She linked her arm through mine. “Xiao Xiao, don’t let the old wounds of the past become a burden to your pursuit of happiness.” The senior’s words struck deep into my heart.

We walked and arrived at the entrance to my alley. “It’s a bit early, why don’t we grab dinner together?” she suggested.

“Sounds good!” It had been a long time since I’d talked to the senior for so long; it felt a bit nostalgic… I didn’t want it to end so soon!

We walked a few steps further, and I finally returned to the earlier topic. “I’ll remember what you said, Senior.”

She looked at me intently and smiled faintly, “Good!”