“Hehe, come catch me!”
The garden echoed with children’s laughter. These young souls chased and played amidst waist-high weeds, filled with sunshine and joy, adding a touch of vitality to this gray world.
“Little Tang sister, quick, help me block him!”
A girl wearing a small flower hairpin ran behind Tang Xin, making a face at the boy chasing her.
“Alice, you always do this! It’s no fun just using Little Tang sister as a shield.”
The boy’s tender face was flushed red. He didn’t dare to approach the quiet and gentle girl, so he could only stand there, wide-eyed, secretly glancing at the girl’s face from time to time.
“Na-na-na, can’t catch me, can’t catch me.”
Tang Xin looked helplessly at the little girl behind her.
“Alright, little Alice, stop playing.”
“No, no, I love Little Tang sister the most.”
Alice hugged Tang Xin’s waist tightly, burying her small face in the white dress, refusing to let go.
“Alright, now it’s my turn to catch you!”
The children’s playful sounds gradually faded, and Tang Xin watched it all, standing still, her gaze growing serene.
Just then, she felt a slight tickle by her ear. Someone gently blew air at her. Tang Xin looked somewhat flustered at the blonde girl who had suddenly appeared beside her. The latter smiled gently, as if her previous action was just a small joke.
“Miss Themia…”
“These children really like you,” Xu Xiaoyou said.
“Mm.”
That familiar feeling resurfaced. When she was alone with the blonde girl, her heart involuntarily sped up, and her thoughts became a bit restless. Was it because the other person resembled someone she knew well?
Tang Xin felt a deep aversion to this feeling.
“Please don’t make those kinds of jokes anymore, Miss Themia,” Tang Xin said seriously to Xu Xiaoyou after some thought.
Xu Xiaoyou hadn’t expected the girl to react this way. It had been too long since she’d seen her; she just wanted to tease her.
It was then that she was able to observe Tang Xin’s changes up close. Her hair was so long now, and her pupils seemed much deeper. Even with long-sleeved gloves, one could vaguely see the severely burned and damaged skin on her forearms.
“Sorry,” Xu Xiaoyou said.
Tang Xin shook her head, saying nothing more.
The two remained in quiet solitude for a while, as if by agreement, neither breaking the silence first, until a distant argument caught their attention.
Going together, they saw several small figures gathered around a little girl, chattering about something, half-hidden by the tall weeds.
The little girl wore an ill-fitting white dress. If she had color, her hair would surely be sky-blue. Her normally beautiful iris-purple eyes were dim and lifeless. She held a piece of ochre, carefully rubbing and smearing it on the drawing board on her knees.
“No, no, this flower should be pink.”
One of the watching girls spoke out.
“It’s not pink! It must be purple. Look closely, it’s different from pink. The purple in the book is darker!”
Another girl retorted.
“I think it’s a blue flower. Blue irises are the prettiest!”
The boy said, holding up a finger.
“I’m telling you, blue irises are so beautiful, just as beautiful as Little Tang sister!”
“You talk as if you’ve actually seen blue, Jike, you’re such a braggart!”
The boy was instantly speechless, stammering without a response.
In front of them, an iris grew among the wild weeds, its delicate petals swaying gently in the breeze, inspiring pity.
Seated on the grass, the girl ignored the discussion around her, focusing intently on the irregular stone in her hand, gently and carefully outlining the petals. With this simple tool, she created a vivid painting.
“I told you, Sevinah, you used the wrong color! How can an iris be red?”
A little girl couldn’t stand it anymore. She snatched the painting from her hand and took the stone from the small figure’s grasp.
“That’s… mine.”
Sevinah, weaker than the children several years older than her, fell forward onto the grass, whispering softly as she watched the children who had taken her creative tools run away.
She didn’t try to argue or cry. The girl simply stood up quietly, looked at her small hand, cut by the serrated edges of the grass, and then stared blankly.
“Sevinah,” Tang Xin walked to the girl’s side, softly calling her name.
Sevinah looked up. Seeing the familiar figure, she wordlessly stepped forward and hugged Tang Xin’s waist, burying her entire face in Tang Xin’s skirt, silent.
“Are they still bullying you?” Tang Xin asked.
Sevinah didn’t answer, just kept her small face solemn, her hands tightly gripping Tang Xin’s dress. So small, yet so stubborn.
“Sister Sevia,” Sevinah’s voice was very soft.
“What is it, little Sevinah?”
Sevinah opened her mouth, then closed it again. Through the gaps in the white dress, she quietly observed Xu Xiaoyou, who stood beside Tang Xin.
“Who is she?”
“Ah, you don’t know her?”
Sevinah shook her head with a solemn face, a hint of wariness in her eyes as she looked at Xu Xiaoyou.
Tang Xin thought that perhaps the girl was being ostracized by the other children, hadn’t attended class these days, and was confined to her own small world.
Tang Xin knelt down, looking at Sevinah somewhat sternly, and brushed the hair from her forehead, saying, “Have you not been attending classes these past few days?”
Sevinah kept a straight face and remained silent.
“That won’t do. Do you want to leave this place someday?”
Sevinah nodded.
“If you want to leave here, you can’t always stay in your own little world…”
“I’ve memorized everything in the textbooks, the history books, and all the music theory. I just hate interacting with peers.”
“Even alone, I can do better than them.”
Sevinah said, burying her head deeper, her voice growing faint.
“Why do they all bully me?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Can I really leave here, Sister Sevia?”
“The teachers all say that the world I see is different from everyone else’s. Whenever I ask them this question, they always shake their heads and don’t answer me.”
Once the pent-up grievances found an outlet, they erupted like a germinating embryo breaking through the soil, wanting to pour out all the bitterness to the girl who resembled her in so many ways.
Similar yet lonely individuals always form a subtle connection on the parallel lines of fate. At the moment of their intersection, past experiences shattered into countless fragments of memory, appearing before the girl’s eyes.
The past of being ridiculed, ostracized, and isolated was vivid. Flowers were always well-cared for, while weeds, in their struggle for sunlight, grew lonely and deformed in corners, their crooked shapes unnoticed until one day, they, along with the soil beneath them, were cleared away.
All the children of the orphanage gathered before that beautiful iris. Tang Xin embraced the girl in her arms, but her gaze fell upon a large stone. In the shadow untouched by the sun, a deformed weed stubbornly squeezed through a crack in the stone, crawling towards the light.
Tang Xin didn’t know how to comfort Sevinah, just as many years ago, she hadn’t known how to comfort herself.
The girl suffered from an extremely rare form of color blindness. From the moment of her birth, she had been abandoned by her family, cast into a remote corner of this world, not even possessing a name. The name ‘Sevinah’ was given to her by Director Aerylia.
“Why do they all say the world I see is different from everyone else’s? Isn’t it all just black and white?”
“Why do we see a black and white world, yet the outside world demands we differentiate colors using varying shades of black and white, imposing such strict rules on us?”
“Did we do something wrong? Why are we born to be treated as outcasts by society?”
Sevinah cried loudly in Tang Xin’s arms, venting the grievances she had suppressed for so long, until the little girl’s throat was hoarse, her face tear-stained, and she could no longer utter a complete sentence.
After a long while, Sevinah asked in a hoarse voice:
“Sister Sevia, do we still have a future?”
Years later, Tang Xin recalled the question she herself had posed then:
Why does life cry?
She now had a new answer to that question.
No one can measure what is truly correct. All so-called rules and orders are merely built upon an absurd framework defaulted by a collective consciousness.
Every person is an isolated individual, differentiated from society by their own choices, and pays the price for those choices, irrespective of right or wrong.
Some are born on mountaintops, enjoying wealth, luxury, and more options. Others are born into a gray world, possessing no color, yet are harshly demanded and criticized by the outside world, despite not having the same power of choice.
Why does life cry?
She thought, it was because of an unwillingness to face the injustice of fate.
“Children, come, come! Let’s take a picture together.” Ince, having organized the film, walked over, clapped his hands, and said loudly.
He still had a few mischievous boys clinging to him. Through a short period of simple interaction, he had successfully infiltrated the boys’ group.
Ince was skilled at dealing with children. With his humorous way of speaking, he had successfully befriended the children here.
But upon seeing the camera in the man’s hand, the previously lively and happy children all paused, their small faces bewildered.
Even a boy who had been close to Ince silently put down his ball and retreated two steps.
“What’s wrong?” Ince was utterly perplexed.
“Will that dark box hurt us?” Finally, an older child voiced their inner thoughts.
“How could it? My lads, this isn’t a gun, how could it…” Ince blurted out instinctively, but upon seeing the children’s dusty, bewildered, and worried little faces, he swallowed the rest of his sentence.
Would this camera truly not harm these children?
[Haha, look at their dirty faces.]
[They’re so filthy, you can smell the stench through the photo.]
[How unlucky, just woke up and saw people from the Keyboard District. Don’t spread any diseases to me; I don’t want to lose my colors and turn into a monster.]
[Their eyes are all dark and round; they must be full of malicious intent.]
[They look like they would steal things.]
Ince could already imagine the comments people would make when these photos were posted on the public network. Perhaps these sharp, grating, and unpleasant words would never be seen by the children in their lifetime.
But, as they asked, would this really not hurt them?
The camera was not a gun barrel, but who could guarantee that this baseless malice wouldn’t wound their young hearts like bullets?
The atmosphere fell silent, the children looking at each other with tense faces.
It was Tang Xin who walked to the front of the children and, under the gaze of countless bright black eyes, spoke her thoughts without reservation.
Upon learning of the outside world’s attitude towards them, the children fell silent in unison. Some turned pale, some looked numb, and some quietly sobbed.
Growing up in such a place, even at their young age, they vaguely understood the cruelty of the truth.
“I cannot guarantee whether this will harm you, and I respect your choice.”
“Will this… help Little Tang sister?”
At that moment, someone in the crowd asked awkwardly.
The children’s eyes all lit up again, even brighter than before.
Dozens of bright gazes fixed on Tang Xin. If there were colors, this scene would surely be vibrant and colorful.
Tang Xin was speechless for a moment, then nodded gently.
“Then I’m willing!”
“Mm-hmm, me too!”
“As long as it helps Little Tang sister, it’s fine.”
The children all nodded in agreement, spontaneously gathering together. Even the small figure who had been shrinking away at the edge of the crowd was swayed, met the brightened gazes, and chose to join.
From a distance, the blonde girl watched this scene silently. As she observed the same bright gaze appear in different small faces, a long-sealed chord deep within her heart was plucked by an invisible hand.
Many emotions she had deliberately forgotten washed onto the beach like a rising tide, like faintly glowing seashells waiting to be picked up.
“3, 2, 1…”
“Wait a moment.”
Xu Xiaoyou’s voice interrupted Ince’s countdown. All eyes now fell on the blonde girl. Her face expressionless, she silently walked among the children and took the blue-haired girl’s hand.
“Let me join too.”
“Ah, it’s Sister Themia!”
“Doesn’t Sister Themia dislike having her picture taken?”
“Great, I love Sister Themia the most!”
Ince nodded, starting his countdown again, while inwardly marveling that the children’s innocence, though fragile, could still change many things.
A familiar warmth emanated from her palm. That syllable once again rose to Tang Xin’s throat. Feeling this tenderness, the blonde girl was very close, her serene eyes like a nocturnal beach, holding scattered lights in the darkness, captivating her firmly.
This time, Tang Xin did not release Xu Xiaoyou’s hand. She brushed the hair from her ear, suppressed her ardent feelings, and looked towards the camera with the girl.
The photos were developed.
Ince held the photos in his hand, intending to savor what he considered the most satisfying photo of his career.
In the next moment, a hint of surprise crept onto the man’s face.
The ‘Themia’ in the photo clearly had a pair of beautiful amber eyes.
Rate on N.U.
