Inertial Dependence - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Unable to Grasp Her

The end of the first semester of tenth grade.

An Chixu held her report card, the stark upward and downward arrows piercing her heart. Her mothers were in the middle of a messy divorce, and no one cared about her feelings; the two adults spent every day hurling the chaotic trivia of their “chicken-flying-dog-jumping” lives into her brain.

An Chixu crumpled the report card into a ball, shredding it. Aside from her, no one else would ever see it. She stuffed the scraps into her pocket and wandered aimlessly around the campus. By chance, she met a pair of eyes; the other person was also alone.

“An Chixu.” Yan Ciwei spoke, jogging a couple of steps toward her.

At that time, they weren’t close, having only spent half a semester in the same study group. There were six people in the group; most of the time, An Chixu only spoke to her best friend, while the other three revolved around Yan Ciwei.

“Where are your parents?” Yan Ciwei was wearing the most ordinary school uniform. Perspiration glistened from her run. Or perhaps it was her stray hairs. Under the sunlight, the light shimmered across her face; from a distance, An Chixu’s eyes stung, unable to see clearly through the dazzling reflection.

“They’re coming.” An Chixu didn’t tell anyone about her family situation. How was she supposed to say it? The two people closest to her didn’t even acknowledge her.

“It’s about to start. Going upstairs?” Yan Ciwei naturally and intimately took her arm. Her casual manner made An Chixu’s nervousness feel exposed, as if she were a balloon about to burst, only to be flattened by Yan Ciwei’s light words.

“Okay.” An Chixu followed Yan Ciwei’s pace, the hooked arm quietly shifting into a hand-hold. Yan Ciwei had likely just exercised with friends, and her palm carried a thin layer of sweat. It felt damp and uncomfortable to squeeze, and the joined hands slowly loosened.

An Chixu grabbed the corner of Yan Ciwei’s sleeve instead, as if holding onto an inch of jasmine fragrance.

When the parent-teacher meeting began, An Chixu was the only student whose parents had not arrived. Some students even had two or three family members present—mothers or sisters of mothers coming to attend their child’s first high school meeting. An Chixu sat in her seat in isolation, her head bowed to avoid the teacher’s gaze.

She was eventually caught by the teacher anyway. Her worst subject was Physics, and the Physics teacher was notoriously fierce; the whole class feared her.

“Look at you.” The teacher held a stack of grade books containing scores from every large and small exam, as well as classroom exercises. An Chixu’s row was consistently marked in red. “Your grades have dropped so much this semester. And your parents didn’t come. You’re afraid of them seeing this, right? You know you did terribly. Quite impressive, thinking you can avoid a scolding just by not bringing your parents?” The Physics teacher’s words were always harsh.

An Chixu’s head was buried so low her neck felt like it might snap. Her loosely tied ponytail fell to the side, annoying stray hairs obscuring her vision. She stared at her own feet; they seemed to expand and contract in her dizzy spell as she fought to ignore the stinging in her nose. She knew that even if she told them, her parents wouldn’t come. Those two had long stopped seeing her as a child; they only used her as a fuse for their constant arguing. It wasn’t that she wanted to fail; she just…

The Physics teacher’s reprimands drifted over her like scattered debris. An Chixu felt as if a century passed in that daze. Until a breeze brushed the stray hairs from her ear. A hand squeezed An Chixu’s shoulder.

That hand was soft, carrying a bit of sweat-induced stickiness and even the residual body heat from their previous hand-holding, smelling of light white jasmine. It rested on An Chixu’s thin shoulder, squeezing until her bones felt loose.

“Teacher, aren’t you being a bit excessive? An Chixu wanted to do well, too.” Yan Ciwei stood before her, turning slightly to shield An Chixu behind her. “I’m her group leader. I see her studying physics every day; she’s very serious.” A single sentence lifted An Chixu’s heavy head. “What if her family has an emergency and can’t make it? You could at least ask about the situation before you start lecturing.”

An Chixu raised her head frame by frame, seeing Yan Ciwei’s floating stray hairs. Those hairs were drenched in the setting sun, shining even brighter than that glimpse on the playground.

That was the jasmine scent An Chixu had smelled back then. It was the original scent of Yan Ciwei’s shampoo. Very light—you couldn’t smell it unless you were close. In that close proximity during high school, the jasmine layered with the scent of the sun, warm and stinging.

Right here, right now, Yan Ciwei walked out from the shadows. Only a single, sickly white hallway light hit the tips of her hair, reducing the jasmine fragrance to nothingness. She didn’t reach out. Ten years had passed; she no longer needed extra movements. Simply shrouding An Chixu in her shadow—even just taking a step forward and saying a name—was enough to demonstrate her attitude.

“The subway has stopped running, too.” Yan Ciwei’s words were almost a sigh. She was pleading for An Chixu to accept her invitation.

An Chixu froze in her shadow, her breathing lightening along with the plea. She didn’t meet Yan Ciwei’s eyes. Her gaze passed over Yan Ciwei’s shoulder, through her hair, and landed on Pei Luochen.

Pei Luochen’s pine-green hair was frozen. Clearly, she hadn’t expected her “backer” to ignore her own bloodshot eyes and instead shield the subordinate she was about to attack. Her lips trembled; she wanted to speak but stopped, her pupils shrinking. Her breath stalled, unable to pass through Yan Ciwei to reach An Chixu.

An Chixu didn’t look at Pei Luochen again, even though the girl had her favorite pair of eyes and the perfect shade of pine-green hair. She turned to the still-shocked Shen Jibai.

“It’s okay, Jibai.” An Chixu raised her hand and patted the younger girl’s head. Shen Jibai looked up at her, the blatant emotions in her eyes feeling so familiar. “It has nothing to do with me. I’ll come find you for your next schedule in a couple of days. Prepare well in the meantime.” An Chixu hoped Shen Jibai would seize the opportunity. Shen Jibai’s appearance wasn’t bad, she was a great performer, and her persona was crafted by An Chixu herself—she had confidence in it. It was just that she was usually suppressed by Pei Luochen and lacked resources to stand out.

“Sister An…” Shen Jibai watched An Chixu take a step forward, completely merging into Yan Ciwei’s shadow, and felt an inexplicable urge to hold her back. It was as if An Chixu was being swallowed by some terrifying monster. Her wrist was squeezed by An Chixu, forcing her to make way.

Yan Ciwei watched their interaction with cold eyes, a complex and subtle mix of emotions swirling beneath the frost.

An Chixu walked forward. Yan Ciwei didn’t even have time to try and take her hand; she couldn’t even catch a corner of her clothes and could only follow quickly.

The lights in the corridor flickered. For the first time, Yan Ciwei realized how far it was from her office to the elevator. She had to walk very fast to keep up with An Chixu. She didn’t know when that timid little thing who used to follow behind her had developed such a fast pace.

This was the third time this week they had taken this elevator alone. Every time was different. Right now, An Chixu stood beside her, neither humble nor arrogant, looking slightly upward at the changing numbers. She wasn’t excessively distant, but she wasn’t submissively following behind either. They were neither strangers nor friends.

An Chixu was her ex-girlfriend.

Yan Ciwei turned a single sentence over in her mind a thousand times, yet it was still hard to say. Her teeth felt like they were fighting; her lips, once touched, wouldn’t part. She bit her lip in pain, pretending to be relaxed, and took a step closer to An Chixu.

An Chixu raised her almond eyes to look at her.

“Did you come looking for me?” Yan Ciwei’s smile was a bit strange. It looked deliberate yet filled with genuine emotion—as if her facial muscles had lost control and couldn’t produce the intended expression. She stood at An Chixu’s side, leaning down slightly to look at her from a slightly upward angle. An Chixu’s gaze flickered along with a fallen strand of her hair.

“To thank you.” She didn’t move an inch. She didn’t belittle Yan Ciwei’s cautious, awkward acting. She was even very direct. “Tonight’s events… moving the chairs, or the one-month suspension. Weren’t they all for me?” There was no emotion on An Chixu’s face as she spoke. Her eyes looking at Yan Ciwei were full of calm—like a clear sky after rain.

Yan Ciwei’s eyelashes fluttered slowly. Then, she curled her lip and stood up straight. An Chixu didn’t even realize she was imitating Yan Ciwei. By abruptly exposing the essence of the confrontation, An Chixu had become the Yan Ciwei of thirty minutes ago.

“Tuantuan.” Yan Ciwei’s eyes crinkled; she wanted so badly to praise her. You’ve learned well. She knew An Chixu was her best student.

An Chixu merely sneered and turned her head away, this time refusing their eye contact. Yan Ciwei’s gaze fell, feeling as if An Chixu had slapped her. She restrained her expression, maintaining that ugly smile. She straightened her body and leaned back against the wall, watching her Tuantuan from behind. Her heart tightened and loosened in turns.

Even now, she didn’t understand An Chixu’s intentions; she could only take things one step at a time. An Chixu was her best student, the person in the world who understood her most and was most like her. She had guided An Chixu through her entire adolescence; for seven years, An Chixu had never left her side. …Therefore, An Chixu was the most difficult person for her to predict. They were the same.

Once, An Chixu would lose sleep over a single sentence from her; now, she just didn’t care anymore. From the corner of her eye, An Chixu watched Yan Ciwei’s movements, seeing her “shattered porcelain vase” of a smile. It was already broken, yet she maintained a dignified and beautiful front. If she turned Yan Ciwei around, she would surely see the scars all over her body.

But so what?

The elevator doors opened, and An Chixu stepped forward. The shattered Yan Ciwei could only pick herself up and messily glue herself back together, beautiful in her eccentricity. Just like the night of the breakup when she fell into the mud; when An Chixu looked back, she could only see her shining eyes. Yan Ciwei only ever gave the best things to An Chixu. But An Chixu was tired of accepting her boundary-less kindness.

An Chixu turned toward Yan Ciwei’s car. Yan Ciwei forced a smile and quickened her pace. By the time she opened the car door, An Chixu was already sitting in the passenger seat.

Yan Ciwei didn’t know what to think. An Chixu remembered her car, opened the door familiarly, and even sat in the passenger seat—the spot Yan Ciwei had reserved exclusively for her. No one else had sat there since the breakup. Now that An Chixu was in it, not even the settings needed adjusting; the seatback fit the curve of An Chixu’s back, her feet rested perfectly, and the reflection from the side mirror hit her eyes.

It was as if they had never separated.

Yan Ciwei subconsciously sat in the driver’s seat, leaning over to pull the passenger seatbelt. Their peripheral visions collided; Yan Ciwei quieted her breathing, afraid of shattering the Tuantuan beside her. But those cold, desolate eyes clearly told Yan Ciwei the cruel reality. Yan Ciwei’s stagnant breath, her tightening arms, her stiff shoulders, her trembling hair… all displayed her cowardice. Invisibly, she had become just like An Chixu.

She wanted to praise her Tuantuan for being proud and independent now, but her heart was full of blood, and a redness in her throat stopped the words.

An Chixu didn’t stop Yan Ciwei’s subconscious movements. She, too, had accidentally fallen into Alice’s rabbit hole and returned to the past. Back then, when Yan Ciwei got her license, they were like this every time they went out. She would sit in the passenger seat, her heart racing as she waited for Yan Ciwei to buckle her in. That was their “playfulness.” Now it had become a needle, piercing Yan Ciwei directly.

An Chixu saw the clear tears in Yan Ciwei’s eyes. The so-called “peach blossom eyes cutting through autumn water” were nothing more than a beauty about to weep. In this moment, Yan Ciwei was truly beneath An Chixu. Her eyes brimmed with tears, her jaw was clenched, her eyes vacant, using the bitterness to restrain herself from blinking and letting them fall. Before she had even made eye contact with An Chixu, she was already in such agony, her whole body pierced by the past, the freshly glued cracks splitting open once more.

An Chixu spoke, her voice like a willow branch, light as a breeze.

“…Do you miss me that much?”

But everything was of Yan Ciwei’s own making.

Yan Ciwei raised her head, looking up at the lover she could no longer touch, and a single tear finally fell. She was disheveled yet tragically beautiful, and this time, she was personally shattered by An Chixu.

“Don’t miss me.” An Chixu raised her hand and brushed away that glimmer of light.

Outside the window, a sudden downpour began.

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