The person her friend had been yearning to pursue for years, their “white moonlight,” was Su Miao. This put Zhuang Chunyu in an incredibly awkward position.

-How could she tell her friend that she had also pursued her?

-And that she had failed.

*

The first early summer rain in the small courtyard disturbed her dreams. Waking up and pulling open her door, Zhuang Chunyu saw the new tenant from last night sitting on the public terrace, looking exactly like Su Miao.

Zhuang Chunyu slammed the door shut with a loud bang, unable to hide her suddenly racing heart. She convinced herself it was a hallucination from staying up too late and buried her head to go back to sleep.

The next day, at the same time and place.

Su Miao called out to her, “Come and sit for a while?” just as she had when they first met at fifteen, her eyes smiling, radiant and captivating.

Later, Su Miao no longer appeared on the small terrace. Leaning against the doorframe in a thin shirt, she extended an invitation: “Come in and sit?”

And then later.

“Do you want to?”

Zhuang Chunyu entered her room.

In the boundless summer night, delicate flower branches began to grow wild, and the garden’s spring splendor could not be contained.

They did everything they should have, and everything they shouldn’t have.