Enraptured - II

Chapter 3 : The odds

A couple of days later Mrs.Xu visited Mr.Chang's store for grocery shopping, and another purpose. As expected Mr.Chang himself was at the cashier spot. They exchanged warm greetings.

"It's been quite a while." Chang smiled

"It really has." Mrs.Xu returned the smile. "How are things?"

"Not bad at all."

An awkward tension made itself known. Both parties were hesitant to address the elephant in the room.

"So how's JingYu?" Mrs.Xu broke the momentary silence.

"Well....He's really different. In a good way." Chang attempted to enter the topic.

"Oh... Could it be because he and......"

"Yes I'm assuming it's cause he and Weizhou are...together." Chang helped her complete the sentence. He was certain she already knew.

Mrs.Xu pondered for a moment. "Don't you think it's really unexpected? The two of them..."

"What do you mean?" Chang asked in confusion.

"I honestly didn't think that they'd even become friends.."

"Well as far as I know, they were never really friends...,this is where it was headed from the start.."

Mrs.Xu scrunched her eyebrows. "But Weizhou was already with someone, who was a perfect match for him by the way."

Chang decided to ignore the last part of her response. "They are still very young., struggling to sort out their feelings."

"So you're okay with this?"

"Of course. Aren't you?"

"I don't know. I see a world of a difference between them. Zhou is really focused, he knows where he wants to be in 5 years and has solid academic goals, could you say the same about JingYu?"

Chang sighed. "He arrived here less than a couple of months ago., I didn't exactly bombard him with all these questions."

"Well you didn't exactly have to do that to figure out that he has no interest in academic matters. Aren't you the one who told us that he'd been ditching school a lot?"

At this particular moment, Chang came to regret ever sharing those details with the Xu family. "Not anymore. Now he's more focused." Chang said although it was only half true.

"I have a bad feeling about this. Mrs.Xu said worriedly.

"Is your son happy?"

"He may be happy now. But he's just 17 years old, he doesn't know the repercussions that his current decisions could have."

Chang was slightly irritated. "What repercussions? It's not like he could get pregnant." The words escaped his mouth before he could stop himself.

Mrs.Xu watched him with a cold glare.

"I'm sorry, I didn-"

"Chang you're an adult. You should try being JingYu's uncle not his buddy." Mrs.Xu cut in., and walked out.

Chang massaged his temple, trying to soothe the headache he started feeling.

                                                               *****

Weizhou visited Wang that Saturday morning for a study session and to play video games afterwards. This was something that usually included Liang as well, but given the current circumstances, that was out of the question. Weizhou had planned to meet JingYu later on. JingYu had started doing another part time job somewhere out of town and he had to work half-day on Saturdays.