Episode 19-The Candy's Quiet Offering
The blank page in front of Cheng Wei glowed softly beneath the yellow lamp, the cursor blinking with a patient rhythm that echoed the beats of his own heart—a steady tick-tock in the digital void, mirroring the faint pulse at his temple, the steam-thinned air still carrying the clean, mineral tang of his shower. The room around him was warm, still heavy with steam from his shower, veils of mist curling lazily toward the ceiling like exhaled secrets, softening the edges of the bookshelf and the window's frost-etched frame, turning the apartment into a suspended dream where past and present blurred at the seams.
But his mind had already stepped through the thin veil of present time and into a winter more than a decade old—a winter that refused to fade no matter how many years he lived afterward, its chill preserved in the marrow, resurfacing now under the lamp's amber gaze, demanding form from the fog of avoidance.
His fingers moved.
Slowly at first.
Like someone touching the surface of cold water—tentative dips that tested the depth, the keys yielding under his pads with faint, muffled clicks, the screen filling incrementally with black text against white, each letter a ripple expanding outward.
"The year I turned seventeen, winter arrived early.
And he arrived with it."
The words appeared, stark and unadorned, the cursor pausing after the period like a held breath. Wei's gaze lingered on them, the steam's residue beading on his wrist, a droplet tracing down to pool at the keyboard's edge. He could feel the shift in himself, the pull inward, the narrative uncoiling like a scarf unwound from around a throat too tight for too long.
And before the chaos of high school, before the sharp looks across hallways that lingered a second too long, before I ever spoke a real word to him—words that would later tangle into confessions unspoken—there was a smaller memory I had nearly forgotten—until now.
A memory from when we were children, fragile as the first frost on a windowpane, etched in the innocence of not yet knowing loss.
I must have been ten, maybe eleven.
It was one of those cold winter evenings where the sun sat low and exhausted, a bloated orange orb sagging toward the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and golds that bled into the encroaching dark. The whole neighbourhood felt wrapped in a thin layer of silence, the kind that amplified every distant bark or shuttered door, the air crisp with the promise of night frost, carrying the faint, acrid smoke from chimneys stoking against the bite.
I was walking back from the market with a small paper bag—milk for home, the glass bottle cool and heavy against my thigh, clinking faintly with each step; and one strawberry candy I'd bought with whatever change I had left, the wrapper crinkling in my pocket like a guilty secret, red and glossy under the streetlamp's hesitant glow.
I don't know why I bought that candy.
I didn't even like sweets, their cloying stickiness a distraction from the simple salt of rice or the bitter edge of tea. Maybe… I had someone in mind without knowing it, a vague shape in the back of my thoughts, the pull of kindness unformed but insistent, like the way snow gathers before it falls.
When I turned the corner near the alley behind the market, the shadows lengthening like fingers reaching for the last light, I saw him—
He was sitting on the curb, knees pulled into his chest, head buried in his arms, the posture small and folded, as if trying to make himself disappear into the cracked concrete. Even from a distance, ten paces away in the dim spill of a flickering bulb, I could hear that uneven, shaky breathing children try to hide when they're crying—hitched inhales that rattled like leaves in a gutter, muffled sobs swallowed back with stubborn grit, the sound raw and unguarded in the evening's hush.
There was no one else there.
Only the fading echo of a man yelling—harsh syllables fracturing the air, words like useless and go lingering like smoke; and the slam of a door somewhere behind him, a sharp bang that reverberated off the alley walls, followed by the hollow crunch of retreating boots on gravel.
I slowed my steps, the pavement rough under my sneakers, worn soles scraping faintly as momentum faltered, the paper bag crinkling in my grip like a confession caught mid-voice.
He didn't see me.
Or maybe he did, but he didn't look up, his dark hair tousled and damp, strands sticking to his forehead where sweat or tears had trailed, his small frame hunched against the wind that tugged at his thin jacket, frayed at the cuffs, the fabric too light for the season's deepening chill.
I remember standing there for a moment, unsure what to do, the world narrowing to the space between us—the alley's mouth yawning dark, the market's distant hum a faint lifeline, my heart thudding with the awkward weight of witnessing without warrant.
I wasn't good with words back then.
I'm still not, the admission surfacing even now, years later, as Wei's fingers paused on the keys, the cursor blinking in patient vigil, the steam's haze parting slightly to reveal the scar's faint outline through his shirt.
So I opened the paper bag, the rustle loud in the quiet, unfolding the top with careful fingers that trembled just a fraction, took out the candy—the wrapper's cellophane whispering as it slipped free, the fruit's synthetic red gleaming under the lamplight—and quietly placed it beside his shoe.
No speech.
No comfort.
Just… a small thing I hoped might make him feel less alone, the candy rolling to a stop against the scuffed toe of his sneaker, a crimson beacon in the gray dusk, the wrapper's shine catching the light like a promise too shy to speak.
He didn't stir at first, the offering ignored in the curl of his grief, his shoulders rising and falling in uneven cadence, the alley's shadows lengthening to swallow the curb's edge. But then—a hitch in the breath, a subtle shift, the slow lift of his head, eyes red-rimmed and wide, lashes clumped with moisture, fixing on the candy with a bewilderment that twisted something in my chest.
Our gazes met for the briefest instant—his dark, startled, framed by the flush of unshed tears; mine wide, uncertain, holding the bag like a shield—and in that frozen second, something passed between us, unspoken and electric, a thread spun from shared solitude.
He reached for it then, fingers small and hesitant, plucking the candy from the ground with a reverence that made my throat tighten, the wrapper crinkling softly as he unwound it, the sweet's scent blooming faint and artificial in the cold air. He popped it into his mouth, cheeks hollowing slightly, eyes closing for a beat as the sugar dissolved, a single tear tracing down his cheek to salt the treat.
He didn't say thank you.
Neither did I.
I just nodded once, awkward and small, and turned away, the milk bag swinging against my leg as I walked on, the alley fading behind me like a dream half-remembered. But in that moment, as the wind tugged at my scarf and the first stars pricked the sky, I knew—without words, without names—that winters from then on would carry his shape, a quiet boy on a curb, sweetened by a stranger's candy, the first fragile link in a chain that would bind us through storms yet to come.
Wei's fingers stilled on the keys, the paragraph complete, the screen now holding the fragment like a captured breath. The steam had begun to clear, the air cooling to the room's natural hush, winter's chill seeping back through the window's seal. He leaned back, the chair creaking under the shift, his hand drifting unconsciously to the scar, tracing its line through the shirt's damp fabric.
The memory lingered, vivid as the candy's red, a child's gift that had grown into something irrevocable. Outside, the snow thickened, blanketing the city in white insistence, as if urging him onward.
He exhaled, the breath fogging the air faintly, and his fingers returned to the keys.
The story wasn't finished.
Not by half.
To be continued...