If Only Time Stopped at the Moment We First Met

by Meng QiYe

  He didn’t come to school for a few days. Then one day, Xiao Li came to find me and said that Li ZhenYun entrusted him to return the medical fees to me. This Xiao Li guy was pretty sharp, he didn’t ask any extra questions. I told him to give it back to Li ZhenYun and said I didn’t want it. He said okay and left.

  From then on, I would sometimes run into Li ZhenYun, although he still ignored me, his expression was much softer.

  It wasn’t until a long time later that I learnt that Xiao Li didn’t give the money back to the other person at all, instead he went and spent it all. I really wanted to beat him up at the time but there wasn’t any meaning in doing it anymore.

  Just like that, I went from year eleven to year twelve. That year was calm and tranquil, it’s just that I always felt an emptiness that I couldn’t ignore. It was only when I focused on my studies that the pain could be relieved. I was still good friends with Wang XiaoYong and the others, but I didn’t fight with others very often like the mafia anymore. They saw that I had changed and gradually became well-behaved. The teachers and students all said that we changed a lot, there was one instance where a teacher even specifically praised me for becoming mature. However, they would also never know the real reason as to why I changed.

  In the nights of sadness and uncomfort, I would put his photos on the bedside table and taste the intoxicating euphoria with the remains of his scent on the bed. I relived each and every scene from that day without thinking it was troublesome. Sometimes I couldn’t even believe that it had been real. Nonetheless, when I woke up the next morning, that empty depressed feeling would only deepen. However, I concealed it very well, I didn’t go find him nor did I mention it to anyone. I wanted to be the only person to possess this secret.

  I would ask for news about him very attentively and cleverly, or I would maintain my composure and pay attention to his every move before carefully recalling those memories again. I deliberately made myself seem as though I didn’t care about anything to do with him because in reality, I did. The truth was, if I saw him one day, those details would play before my eyes like a movie over and over again. I would sometimes even imagine a few scenes and think of where we would run into each other and what words we would exchange. I started to believe those scenes were real after a while.

  His scores were always very good, but his personality became unsociable and cold. He was originally just introverted but it later developed negatively into a situation where he wouldn’t care about anything nor pay attention to anything but study. He would often also be day dreaming by himself. After hearing this, I really can’t remember just how much I spent thinking about it. I would be very excited from just hearing a tiny bit of news about him, yet I would be extremely sad when I thought about it again and again. I knew that the hurt I had caused him was a big part as to why he became like that. I once thought, if I was him, if I was humiliated like that, then I would rather just go die.

  Later on, I got into a mediocre university in the city. He lived up to his great expectations and went to the best university in a place far, far away. The distance between us was great, he didn’t come back during the winter and summer holidays either. I tried hard to forget about him but in the end I discovered that it was all fruitless labor. To purposely try to forget meant that I was remembering.

  I turned twenty, I wasn’t simple minded and naive when thinking about problems anymore. At the time I had a very good understanding of the whole homosexual business. I thought about whether I was one for a very long time, other people naturally couldn’t see anything strange. I had many girlfriends over the years, I was very close with them too but I didn’t feel anything when I was with them. Even if it was affection, I would only remember back to the Sunday I spent with him and those unforgettable scenes. I understood too, it was love at first sight with him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered every single word he said to me so clearly, I wouldn’t become exasperated because the words he said to me weren’t intimate enough. When each and every detail of that year reappeared before my eyes, I stood on the shores of a time and finally deeply understood what the phrase ‘those closely involved cannot see clearly’ truly meant. But by the time I understood, pain had already been cast.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  Every time I found a new girlfriend, I would always set my heart on being good to her, but it would always end in a breakup. Each of my girlfriends said that there wasn’t any sort of sweetness being with me, I wasn’t romantic and there wasn’t a tad bit of that abnormal craziness in our love. They didn’t know that it’s only in front of the person I truly liked would I would be abnormal and go crazy from being blinded by love. I often wrote him letters, I never narrated events, I only expressed my emotions. I guessed that no one other than us could understand those letters. Sometimes it was to beg for his forgiveness, sometimes it was to go the long way round and hint that I liked him, other times I wrote some ordinary words. However, not one of these letters were delivered, I knew that everything I did would be useless but if I didn’t do it then I couldn’t relieve my inner pain. I placed those letters somewhere, I wanted them to be a secret that belonged to myself.

  In the Winter holidays of my second year of university, the two classes from our high school joined together to organise a student reunion. When the teacher called me, my emotions were very complicated. I knew what I was looking forward to and what I was afraid of. I coincidentally heard that he went home but wouldn’t be attending the reunion. I was very disappointed and said I wouldn’t be going either. The teacher really did have patience and called me multiple times again, I thought I couldn’t just make the teacher lose face so I ended up going that day.

  Inside the very big singing hall, a lot of people started to cheer as soon as I walked in. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to come?! So you did end up giving us face!” Wang XiaoYong’s voice in particular resounded loudly in my ear.

  I chatted with them while having a look at everyone. I believed that the moment I saw Li ZhenYun, his surprise couldn’t have been inferior to mine. His face had originally carried a slight smile, but that smile instantly froze and his complexion became pale. I don’t know what weird expression my face turned into either.

  Luckily that day everyone was extremely excited, no one even noticed. I exchanged a few conventional greetings with some students I didn’t keep much in touch with and then fell unusually silent. A few instances I secretly gave him the elevators, he sat in the corner silently by himself as if he was thinking about something. He was skinnier than what I remembered him to be and a bit more handsome. Actually, I had thought of his face and all his expressions countless times. Today, the real person was before me yet it felt somewhat unreal. I felt as though my imagination was so poor, everything I imagined about him was actually not what it was in reality. He just sat there in a place that was only a few metres away from me yet I felt as if it was so distant. Clearly I could touch him with a reach of my hands but it felt like an entire world lay between us.

  Wang XiaoYong and the others raved through all sorts of songs, everyone else was also fighting to steal the microphone. In the end, probably because only he and I hadn’t sang, the people who were scared of not being able to steal the microphone at first, were now tired from singing and started to pay attention to us.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Wang XiaoYong suggested that we sing a duet together, I was feeling very awkward. I understood the guy’s intentions, the conflicts between a few boys from years ago should’ve been laughed off as a joke a long time ago. He wanted to use this kind of liveliness to defuse our previous conflicts, except I feared that only Li ZhenYun understood my awkwardness. I think he was probably feeling even more awkward than me. I constantly regretted why I didn’t fight over the microphone from the very beginning, that way it wouldn’t come to the point of being the target of everyone’s attention.

  They couldn’t drag me along so they went to drag him. I saw him, so
meone who was polite and weak, be forced to evade from left to right by their joking. However, his face still maintained a faint smile, his smiling eyes were the one thing I never forgot during all these years. At that moment I suddenly had an impulse to fling caution to the wind. I even wanted to tell them, this is the person I love, other than him I’ve never loved anyone else. But only my lips moved. I had always been a cowardly person.

  The fight that day ended in our loss, in the end I stood on the stage together with him and they finally agreed to let us off with the duet. I sang the song “Sorry I Love You” first. At the time the four pop kings[1] were still trending. I didn’t know how to sing many songs but I didn’t sound too bad. They applauded me for ages after I finished singing. I smiled bitterly, only I understood why I chose to sing that particular song, all the lyrics in there were my aspirations towards one person.

  It was his turn next, his face was a bit red but he still began to sing. I think I had heard that song before, but I hadn’t listened to it carefully. Now that he was singing, it was a very different feeling, I didn’t think he would be so good, I really didn’t. There were deafening applauds after he sang the first sentence, I was constantly intoxicated within his voice. The melody was just too beautiful. I kept looking at him and paid no attention to the screen until he finished singing. After we went back to our seats, I quietly asked a student what the song was, he looked at me in surprise and answered, “It’s Chen BaiQiang’s ‘I Just Happen To Like You’.”

  This meeting didn’t change anything, I didn’t have the guts to go privately find him after the reunion finished. Not before long, he went back to school. I thought that our fate in our present lives were perhaps only limited to that one Sunday, or maybe also the rare occasions of singing together in front of many people, and that would be all there was.

  * * *

  [1] 四大天王 This refers to the four most popular c-pop artists in the late 20th century. They include: 刘德华, 张学友, 黎明, 郭富城

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  The empty hole in my heart became bigger and bigger but there was no way of mending it. I found another girlfriend. On a class get together in my third year of university, everyone was singing and dancing. When it was my turn to perform I sang the song “I Just Happen To Like You”. Towards the end of the song, I suddenly found it very hard to control my emotions and hastily finished. I then sat back down, buried my head in my hands and wouldn’t look up. No one noticed, only a single girl silently looked at me. She was my last girlfriend in university.

  Later she carefully said that on the class get together, her instincts told her that I sang that song because of a past love story. She also said that judging from my expression at the time, I must have loved that person very deeply. She ended with lightly expressing how happy that girl must be. I heard her hard to detect feelings of jealousy but I had nothing to say. I really didn’t know what she would think if she knew the truth.

  In the end we couldn’t stay together because she secretly read those letters I wrote. After I knew what she did I coldly initiated the breakup. She felt very wronged, she thought there weren’t any secrets in there and the contents were nothing but greetings to a good friend. She even naively asked me why I didn’t deliver them. I was too lazy to say anything, all I knew was that we were over. She actually really loved me, she really, really loved me.

  I graduated from university and found a decent job. However, because I couldn’t get distributed a house, I had to live together with a few other people, it was always very uncomfortable.

  I constantly fought for an opportunity to go overseas, my subconscious wanted to leave this place filled with grief and go to a place where no one knew me to start a new life. I didn’t find another girlfriend again because I knew I couldn’t escape from the relationship ending in break up. I also understood that I wouldn’t have an ending with him, my only option was to leave.

  Sometimes I also thought, who knew how many people out there look way better than Li ZhenYun and have a better personality than him. He was a solitary person. In the end, if one wanted me to list a few points of why I like him then I would be in a very difficult situation. That was until I saw a rather baffling sentence: ‘This is just the taste I want.’

  I began to laugh and followed with a deep sigh, I felt just that things like feelings were truly mysterious. Some people will be unforgettable in another person’s life and they will do absolutely anything for them.

  Perhaps this was fate. It was predestined.

  One time I randomly came across a book on traditional opera, it was left behind by my colleague who sat in the adjacent seat to mine. I casually flipped through it and saw a sentence that said ‘Love once begun, will never end.’ I always hated pedantic poems, I wasn’t good in my Chinese studies either, yet this sentence made me go into a daze for ages. My melancholy didn’t cease for a long time.

  I understood, I was poisoned by a toxin known as ‘him’ and only he could be the antidote.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  I got the opportunity to go to America, before I left I wanted to go see him one more time no matter what. I didn’t know if I was going to come back, or how long it would be before I did. Nor did I know when that day would arrive or if by then, time would have already erased my existence in this never changing city. Overall, I predicted that it would be very difficult for me to see him again. I went to some lengths of trouble and learned from someone else that he was actually working in a city nearby. It only required a two hour trip. When I sat in the car, I sighed. Why was I always so close to him yet so far apart at the same time?

  I finally saw him again.

  The reunion wasn’t as awkward as what I had imagined, the words we exchanged were vague and insubstantial. I kept thinking, it had already been so many years since his hate for me sprouted, I wondered if it had lessened over time. Of course, it was impossible to forget, or perhaps, he had already labelled me as a passing traveller in a hurry in his life, or maybe just a person who he wouldn’t even spare a glance at. Anyways, I couldn’t tell there was anything unusual about him when we were together privately. He was very indifferent and had a bit of a vacant look. It was like our relationship was a very normal one of two students who hadn’t seen each other for a long time.

  That day I looked around his house, I could tell he lived by himself, it was very clean and neat, just like him. I ranted on about the difficulties of getting a visa to him, they were all words of no importance. He listened in silence, he didn’t care about it a lot but he wasn’t zoning out either. When I finished he asked, “Will you still come back in the future?”

  A wave of warmth burst in my heart but instead I ended up unintentionally saying, “There’s more than a fifty percent chance that I won’t come back. I’m finally leaving after much difficulty, it would boring to come back again. This is also why I’ve come to see you, I want to go meet up with all my old friends again. Luckily you were close to me.” He didn’t say anything, his head just hung slightly downwards. I looked at his hair resting against his forehead, it was still a very palpitating sight. I hesitated for a moment before asking quietly, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He was silent at first, but he still ended up replying, “No, I never got one.”

  It didn’t feel right for me to pry further, it would be awkward if some things were discussed too deeply.

  My expression was very calm, yet it was a storm of rolling waves on the inside. I looked at the somewhat existent smile on his face and I suddenly felt sad. This person only knew of my cruelness towards him, he didn’t know how many sleepless nights I had over these years from thinking about him all night. He didn’t know how many times I lost all desire to eat and drink for him, nor when I found solace in alcohol. When I had a high fever and talked in my dreams, his name was all I said. The people around me told me all of this. I had once went through thick and thin to find his phone number but stopped after dialling ha
lf way through. In conclusion, for him, I lived through many years of life being out of my mind.

  Sometimes I also thought, if I ever saw him again I would tell him all of this. I knew he would despise me, detest me, but at least he would know that someone in his life loved him oh so deeply. However, at that very moment, he sat in front of me and I retreated back once again. I didn’t have a shred of courage, this secret will only ever be known by me. I wouldn’t say a word even if I died. I wouldn’t tell a single soul even if I passed away.

  He continued to look at me silently, his expression was very complicated, it carried slight depression as if he had something on his mind. I thought that I would be leaving in the end anyways, since I didn’t have the courage to say it out loud then I should leave earlier and not disturb him anymore.

  Just when I was getting ready to go, he suddenly called my name softly and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  My heart beat fast and loud as I tried to keep calm, his face suddenly turned red as if he regretted asking the question. Nevertheless, he couldn’t take it back anymore, I only heard him say, “A very long time ago, Xiao Li threw my clothes away. I knew about it the very next day because he told me. Why did you go find them and wash them before returning them to me?” After he finished talking, it was almost like his breathing stopped. At the same time, I thought the sky was going to fall down.

  Such a simple sentence, we both understood and explained the consequences clearly, but we both didn’t understand what the other person was thinking. My nature made me conceal, it made me cower back once again.