This is Our Story ― Cai Xukun

the crowded festival

6 – the crowded festival

You will have fun they said. The activities will be interesting and a hundred and nine percent better than last year they said. There will be more outside organizations opening their booths they said. The university forked out a lot more to get famous performers to perform on the evening and night stages they said.

And that was what Hanako believed and much to her dismay (and annoyance) was not what she gained out of it. Despite coming to campus the first thing in the morning, the parking was almost full, which resulted in her having to park somewhere at the edge of the campus.

"You people don't come to campus this early on weekdays, why do you have to make me suffer by having to walk like a whole kilometre to the festival. It's bad enough I have to park in a very small space at the very opposite of the field," Hanako mumbled to herself while clutching tight to her car keys that turned her hand red.

As she was walking with tensed leg muscles, a familiar voice called her out, "Are you walking to the festival or walking to find the person that stole your favourite yoghurt?"

Turning to look in the direction of the voice, a very casual Xukun came into her sight and ultimately she stopped and let her muscles relax and let out an exasperated sigh.

"We're early but there's already a lot of people," she complained as she pouted the moment Xukun caught up next to her.

"It's not always. Loosen up. It's just a uni festival, it won't be that crowded like a concert or a free food fair," Xukun joked as always and pulled her by the hand, dragging her to follow behind his footsteps.

With that (mostly with Xukun's strength to drag and push Hanako), they managed to move from one booth to another. Taking the freebies after listening half-heartedly to the promoters explanations, testing the bite-size snacks and even grabbing a few cans of coke and energy drinks. Not to forget, entering their names into most probably a dozen different lucky draws and answering a bunch of surveys just to get the gift bags.

By the end, after visiting (almost, mostly) all the booths, the two found themselves carrying a scary amount of tote bags and goodies. But above all, they were extremely hungry because the food didn't manage to make them full enough.

"So, what now?" Xukun asked after taking a sip of the coke he grabbed from the gaming booth. "Want to head to the food stalls and get food?"

His question made Hanako turn to him with widened eyes of disbelief and shooting glares of 'you have got to be kidding me'. However, it only made him shrug his shoulders.

"Come one, it's not like you to have a large crowd get the best of your love for eating, you chipmunk," Xukun chuckled as he brought Hanako for another trip into the crowded festival.