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Jiang Xueming finds the old cardboard box under her bed while cleaning there for the first time in ... forever.
She hadn't forgotten about it, not really. She had agressively not thought about it for so long that her entire being had simply... ignored its existence for almost a year.
Could she have thrown the whole thing away? Sure.
Yet, something in her, something soft and vulnerable, had not been able to bear the thought of it rotting away in some big trash pile somewhere.
Its edges are a little beaten up, but the slightly wonky hearts drawn all over it in different colors are still as bright as they'd been when she'd painted them on with her brand new crayons when she was eight.
She'd saved her most favorite color till the end, writing her own name on one side of the box and on the other...
Shi Guang.
Her cheeks are heating up just seeing his name in her slightly unsteady handwriting. Her hands are starting to shake a bit while she opens the lid carefully.
More of her own handwriting is staring back at her. Little bits of paper she has collected over the years. Notes her and Shi Guang used to exchange in class back at elementary school.
Without context, most of them don't really make sense anymore.
Some recipes from stores she kept to keep track of Shi Guang's debt to her. By now she has no idea how many of them he has repaid, cause her younger self simply kept them all as keepsakes anyways.
A few things seem nonsensical to her now. A dice? A little firefighter figurine? A button? They must have meant something to little Jiang Xueming, but she doesn't remember now and yet taking all the things out of the little box and putting them in neat little rows, fills her with warmth. She touches every little item with her fingers, trying to go back to those times.
She's ignoring the letters, though. She's not ready to look at them, tied neatly together with a pretty blue ribbon that was once wrapped around a gift Shi Guang gave her for her 12th birthday. She knows his mother was the one who wrapped it, but she had instantly loved that ribbon. Children are strange sometimes.
It's now wrapped around letters Jiang Xueming wrote and never sent. Some are just fragments, haphazardly stuffed next to the others right after writing them. Some are a mess of crossed out words. Things she wanted Shi Guang to know, but hadn't dared say. In the end, she hadn't dared to write them either.
She'd kept her attempts to pour her heart out in this box along with all the other things, because she'd been irrationally afraid that somehow any of these papers would find their way to eyes that weren't supposed to see them.
Shi Guang...
Maybe next time we can study together for the test?
I will forgive you for still not paying back your debt if you eat ice cream with me tomorrow!
I think I might like you...
Please don't leave...
Go chase your dreams, I will cheer you on...
How are you doing? The club is not the same without you...
Don't worry about us, we're fine...
I miss you, please come visit more often...
I like you.
Do you like me, too?
She's not delusional. By now she has realised that he doesn't like her that way. That he most likely never will. Still she can't help it - there is always this glimmer of hope that makes her stupid little heart jump a bit every time he visits the club or sends her a text message, updating her on his progress.
Sometimes, a very selfish part of her wishes that everything had stayed the way it had been some years ago.
They used to see each other every day. Walk home together. Do homework together. Planned some mischief together.
Well, Shi Guang planned and executed the mischief and she spent half an afternoon convincing his mother to not punish him too harshly... and maybe she did his homework for him from time to time and sometimes had to run after him on the way home cause he wanted to go to the toy store to look at the newest cars, but she had never truly minded.
The point is that it had been fun. With Shi Guang in it, Jiang Xueming's life had never been boring.
Back then, when Shi Guang had gotten into trouble, people would call her. They'd come and get her to diffuse the situation.
Yes, it had been annoying at times, but it had also filled her with pride.
Something going on with Shi Guang? Get Jiang Xueming!
Whom did they call now?
Not anyone from the club.
Not Wu Di. Not Gu Yu.
Not her.
Hong He probably. Shen Yilang she imagines. If things are really bad, most likely Yu Liang.
She has seen how he is with his friends from the Yi Jianghu Club. Sometimes it's like he's now in another world she has no part in anymore, full of stories she wouldn't understand and jokes she doesn't know the punchline to.
She had seen him with Yu Liang on television when she and the club had watched the Beidou Cup together. They'd been so in synch with each other, it had almost been like they were acting as one person.
She is not the one who knows him best anymore.
It hurts sometimes and yet when she swallows down that hurt and her selfish wishes, she's also so incredibly proud of him. She doesn't want to change her friend back, not really. Not when he looks so comfortable being who he is right now. He's happy and that makes her happy, even when it hurts.
She'll just smile through her tears and carry on.
She can't guarantee that these old feelings won't creep up on her from time to time, they're too old to be dismissed that easily afterall, but from now on she'll make an effort and she'll start with this box. It will have to go.
Well, not most of the things inside. They're precious memories regardless - but those bright pink candy wrappers for example will definitely find their way into a bin. Seriously, what had she been thinking when she put those in there?
She buys a new box. It's the exact same shade of blue as the ribbon. It's bigger and she'll not just put her memories of Shi Guang in there, but also the ones of the weiqi club. They're intertwined anyways. If not for Shi Guang, she'd have never started playing, she'd have never met some of her best friends and would have missed out on so many great moments. She'll be forever thankful for that at least and from now on that part of her life will be kept safe in it.
By the time she is done sorting through all the things and puts the lid on the blue box, she's already feeling better. Like some kind of weight has already been taken off her shoulders.
She wipes her face, straightens her back and is about to take the things she decided to not keep outside when her phone starts vibrating.
It's a text message from Gu Yu, asking if she wants to to play a few games tomorrow so they won't be out of practice when they join any future weiqi clubs.
Jing Xue Ming thinks it's kind of nice that he didn't say that she's the one who needs the practice, as if there is even a chance he won't win all their games.
He'd always been careful to show her that they were equals when it came to the club, despite him being a much better player. She'd always appreciated it and it fills her with warmth even now.
She picks up the old box half full with stuff she doesn't need anymore with one hand and types her answer with the other.
Jiang Xueming is looking forward to tomorrow.