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Lin Zhen had always wondered how other people learned about love. No one ever explained it to her.
Boys pulled at the girl’s hairdos in primary school. She overheard one of the cool kids say that it meant the boy like-likes you, but Lin Zhen wasn’t sure if that was true. During her third year, one of the boys pulled so hard at her deskmate’s ponytail that she hit her head when she fell out of her seat. He could hardly make eye contact with her for the rest of the year. At least it served as a bonding point between her and Lin Zhen.
“Boys are so yucky,” she exclaimed when they sat on the steps during class break. She rested her head on Lin Zhen’s shoulder and her heart skipped a beat.
“Yeah,” Lin Zhen said, her young voice too high-pitched. “Stupid boys. How could anyone like-like one?”
Her friend laughed at that. “Don’t be silly. Of course we’ll like-like boys one day, when they’re smarter and less mean.”
Lin Zhen doesn’t remember her name, but she remembers the sinking feeling in her heart as she watched the girl stand and run after the boy who hurt her.
A shout in the other room wakes Lin Zhen up fifteen minutes before her alarm should go off. The other side of the bed has been pulled up tightly, assuring that she would remain warm even on such a chilly morning.
“Lin Zhen!” Yu Xia turns around when she hears the bedroom door creak open. Her silk pajamas from her days in the city are beginning to tatter at the sleeves, and there’s a hole on the inside seam of the matching pants. She waves at Lin Zhen with her free hand, the other one holding something to her chest.
She wraps her arms around Yu Xia’s waist. Over her shoulder, Lin Zhen can see a plastic container holding bits of fragrant flower halfway crushed in her grip.
“Were you trying to surprise me?”
Yu Xia’s smile is bashful as her eyes flicker down to the mess on the stove. “Happy birthday, I think.”
“You think?” Lin Zhen laughs as she pulls Yu Xia away from the stove.
“Well, this isn’t the nicest thing to wake up to, is it?”
“No.” She sets aside the pot and takes out another, a large one that Yu Xia had bought her for the most recent anniversary of their noodle shop. “I don’t like seeing our precious ingredient mixed in with the sauce powder from an instant ramen pack.”
Finally, Yu Xia chuckles. She pecks Lin Zhen on the cheek and then goes to her usual spot at the dining table.
“I feel bad,” she says as Lin Zhen pulls up her sleeves and secures them with worn hair elastics.
“Don’t.” Lin Zhen opens the fridge and takes stock of the ingredients inside. She knows exactly what she’ll make this morning. “Cooking for you makes me just as happy.”
It turns out that falling in love hurts. Maybe it was all of the teenage angst that clouded Lin Zhen’s mind back then, but she still believes it a little to this day.
She has always been a studious child, so getting into an impressive secondary school was easy enough. Lin Zhen wasn’t all that athletic, so she opted to join the cooking club instead of a sports team that would have guaranteed her social status and boys. Lin Zhen was the only one to take this club seriously, and it showed in the number of times the advisor had forgotten to show up.
That’s not to say that it didn’t draw the attention of others. Zhao Mei was the rumored succeeding captain of the running team, but she skipped their afternoon jogs to spend time with Lin Zhen in the quiet classroom.
“How are you so good at cooking?”
Lin Zhen’s cheeks flushed as she ladled more soup into Zhao Mei’s bowl. “It’s all about patience. I’m sure that you’d be just as good if you gave it a try.”
“I would if I wasn’t so busy all of the time.” Instead of picking up her spoon, Zhao Mei brought the bowl to her lips and drank. Her throat bobbed each time that she swallowed some and her eyes closed with apparent bliss as she tilted her head back for more. Zhao Mei’s hair was short enough that it barely touched her shoulders with the movement, which Lin Zhen thought was absolutely adorable.
No you don’t, Lin Zhen reminded herself. She just liked watching people enjoy what she had made.
“Do you have any more?” Zhao Mei placed the ceramic bowl down gently as she used her hand to wipe the excess soup off of her top lip. She smiled eagerly, and Lin Zhen would have really loved to give her more if it meant that she would stay -
“Sorry.” Lin Zhen frowned at the bottom of the tarnishing pot. “You finished the last of it.”
“Darn.” A goofy grin lingered on Zhao Ma’s face when her eyes flickered up to the old clock centered on top of the black blackboard. “Shit!”
It’s late. All extracurriculars should have ended fifteen minutes ago.
“My boyfriend’s waiting for me. Shit.” Zhao Ma knocked a chair over as she sprung to her feet.
Lin Zhen cocked her head to the side. “Boyfriend?”
“He goes to the all-boys school across town.” Within seconds, Zhao Ma had slid the door open, letting in the sound of stragglers like them who lingered at the school for longer than most. “I’m sorry, I’d love to tell you about him - next time?”
Lin Zhen nodded without thinking. She didn’t think much of anything as she walked home alone and ate dinner with her parents. It was only after she shut her bedroom door for the final time that day and fell to the floor in tears that she finally understood -
Being in love fucking sucked.
“Tell me,” Yu Xia says as they sit down for breakfast. “Where do you think you’d be if we never met?”
They’re eating Bowl of the Girl’s Dormitory for breakfast for the first time in years. It used to be all that they could afford, but these days, it’s much too rich for their bodies to handle every day. Not to mention that they now make more than enough to buy proper groceries.
“I don’t know,” Lin Zhen says as she fills the first bowl, avoiding any bean sprouts because she knows that Yu Xia will eat around it before dinner. “Why do you ask?”
The new wrinkles around Yu Xia’s eyes crease when she slides the bowl over. Instead of digging in as eagerly as she usually does, she inhales deeply over the bowl.
“I was thinking,” Yu Xia sighs, “Those years we fell apart were the years I felt the most lost. I don’t know if I could have ever done this all without you.”
Lin Zhen laughs at that. “I don’t think either of us would’ve opened a noodle shop if we didn’t know each other.”
“Not just that.” Yu Xia’s eyes drop to her bowl as she picks up her chopsticks. “Any of it. I don’t think I would be half the person I am today without meeting you.”
Lin Zhen remembers wanting to cry the first time she realized she was in love with Yu Xia.
They were drunk in the smallest karaoke room they had ever seen, paying more than they should for an unlimited drinks service that they definitely didn’t need after attending dinner with their other friends. A thin layer of sweat covered their bodies after working through their long queue of signature songs. A buzzing quiet rang through their ears as Yu Xia reached out to tuck back a strand of hair that had fallen out of Lin Zhen’s braids.
“You’re my favorite person ever. Literally,” Yu Xia halfway screams into her ear. Lin Zhen’s heart skipped a beat, but she was too drunk to think deeply about it.
It’s been a long time coming, she thought instead. It didn’t hurt like it did with Zhao Mei four years earlier. Yu Xia is her roommate, her best friend, her study buddy, and her partner-in-crime, of course this was bound to happen.
“That’s crazy,” Lin Zhen responded, words slurring into one another. “You’re my favorite person ever.”
Yu Xia’s face glowed at her words. She slumped back to her spot next to Lin Zhen and kicked her feet up on the table. An empty glass shatters on the ground. Strangely, Lin Zhen didn’t care about it that much.
“Us against the world forever, okay?” Yu Xia rested her head on Lin Zhen, and she was reminded of a long-ago prediction that she’s so grateful was wrong.
“Okay,” she echoed while taking Yu Xia’s hand for the first time. “You and me, forever and ever.”
Love doesn’t hurt, Lin Zhen thought, so happy that she had to blink away her tears. Falling in love was the best thing to ever happen. Ever.
“Wear the heavier coat,” Lin Zhen says as she opens the closet. Their jackets and shoes are mixed together, organized in a way that only the two of them can understand.
Yu Xia zips up her windbreaker and twists the handle. “Don’t worry. It was warm last night-”
Just cracking the door open lets in a brittle breeze which makes both of them shiver.
“You know what,” Yu Xia closes the door behind her and takes the long winter coat from Lin Zhen’s hands. “I’ll wear this instead.”
“Sounds good,” Lin Zhen says with a smile. She hangs the windbreaker up in their closet and puts on her own coat for the day. She holds out her hand for Yu Xia, who takes it and guides her out the door with a giggle.
Lin Zhen has pieced together bits and visions of how love should feel over the years, but when Yu Xia squeezes her hand when their eyes meet, she finds that the answer hardly matters. Today, they’ll live their life in the new routine that they’ve fallen into in the steadiness and security of the countryside.
“I love you,” she says as Yu Xia opens the door to their noodle shop.
“I love you too.” Cheeks flushed pink, Yu Xia doesn’t bother closing the door before kissing her on the lips. “Happy birthday, Lin Zhen.”