to be honest, i've been feeling off and overwhelmed by work, so i'm updating earlier to take a longer break this weekend. still, i hope you enjoy it nevertheless :)
take care,
krissy
❂
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N I G H T S I X
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DECEMBER 27, 2016
Wen and Mei are sixteen
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MEI'S HEART CAN'T stop pounding.
She's been standing outside Wen's apartment door for long minutes now, shifting nervously from foot to foot, chewing her lip. Fingers knotting and unknotting.
The past year has changed a lot of things. For one, Mei look entirely different. She's exchanged the tell-tale ponytail for shorter hair that barely brushes her shoulders. Rather than black, it glimmers a rich dark brown in the light. She wears clothes that cling to her figure and a big knit cardigan that keeps it all warm underneath.
It seems like after Mei began paying frequent visits to Lijun's apartment last winter, he'd misinterpreted her actions as the opening of a new door. His lips grew impatient. His fingers grew eager. When she stepped inside, he kissed her neck before meeting her eyes. But she knew better than to give him what he wanted, and when she came home late one night to see her father passed out drunken on the kitchen floor, it hit her how selfish she had been, to seek out distractions as if she was only one bearing their consequences. Do you think you're the only one that's hurting?
She hasn't talk to Wen in a year. Hasn't even seen him for weeks. Before they broke up, Lijun told her they switched schools a month ago, for whatever reason. Though her dad must know more about where they live now, she's too afraid to ask more. To face the twisting guilt gnawing her insides...
Until now. Hopefully.
Her hand rises to the doorbell in hesitation. Her face contorts in a wince, not even sure what she'll say. How he'll react to the friend who abandoned him when he, too, was grieving for a mother lost.
She's about to press it when a voice cuts in.
"Can I help you?"
Startled, she turns to see Mochou. The woman, now well into her thirties, is short and curvy with thick waves of hair tossed up in a bun, swarmed with bags of groceries and jangling bracelets, an unlit cigarette in her mouth. She eyes Mei warily.
