The day ended just like any other one for everyone except for Luya. As the last bell rang, vendors shouted over each other, steam rose from sizzling skewers, and schoolbags bumped into elbows in the crowd as students rush to their homes or to their respective coaching centers, after school clubs, sports academies etc.
Through all of them, a girl silently walks on the footpath, a book in hand and occasionally looking ahead before crossing the roads. After a while, she enters a bookstore, not very far from her school. It is a cozy place with a library like setting but books mainly available for buying rather than borrowing. She moves past the front shelves, exactly knowing what she wanted. There was a secondhand books section where she usually got her books from. This section is a collection of various types of books, scriptures, journals, diaries...everything that came from someone else and holds a lot of memories.
She goes through the shelves and picks a book or two, goes through them and puts them back if not liked. This happens a few times until she taps at the cashier's table, ready to pay for two old pieces. Soon she leaves and reaches home on foot, very hungry and excited to plunge herself into new adventures.
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*Door opening and closing sound*
"Mama! Fang's home!" her brother calls out to their mother cooking in the kitchen.
"Aigh Fang, how was school? You stayed up late yesterday to complete school work." her mom walks into the living room area, patting her sweaty face while talking.
"Good. Somehow Ms. Wu was in good mood. No scolding to the ones who couldn't turn in their homework. If I knew she was going to be in such a mood, I would have finished the last chapter of the story." she says, removing her shoes.
"Aigh! All you think about is reading story books all day long. You used to be so disciplined about studies before. Now look at you, barely submitting home work in due time. In which college will you get accepted at this rate? The competition is getting higher everyday." her mother nags while organizing her brother's toys scattered all around the area.
Just then her brother runs across very fast and jumps again and again, a toy aeroplane in his hands. He keeps making those shoo shoo sounds and moves from the ground to the sofa and jumps from the sofa to the ground again.
"Zheng Zhihuan! If you get hurt I'm not taking you to the hospital. Stop running around." her mother snaps at him.
But him being a little kid....continues to do his fun.
"Ma...you know the more you tell him to stop, he is going to do it more?" Fang says while putting her shoes in the shoe rack.
"Hoh, you and your pa are going to make him go out of control." she rants.
"Everything aside, I'm super hungry, today's lunch had eggs with tomatoes. So obviously I took the soup with some rice and veggies thus, I am starving right now." she rubs her belly while going up and continues "I'll get fresh and get down soon."
"Hoh hoh." her mother replies. "What a weird girl to not like eggs with tomatoes." she sighs as she goes back into the kitchen.
*Glass shatters*
"Zhihuan!" her mother screams while her brother runs from his crime scene. He just broke a glass show piece with his plane.
The anger filled voice keeps nagging as Fang closes the door of her room.
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Fast forwarding to her eating up and her mother nagging more about her brother, Fang scrolls her basic feed of Instagram until she sees a post. Username 07.07.12_ has posted a new image of a black cat sitting by a pair of shoes on concrete. The caption says - 'The eyes that see more.'
"Ah! Don't watch phone while eating." her mother says while placing a glass of water by her plate.
"Hm." she responds before locking and placing the phone aside.
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(Evening-Twilight)
Fang sits on her study table. Going through the enormous pile of sheets. She sighs and talks to herself "I'll just read. I don't have energy for this."
She gets up, opens her school bag and takes out the two new second hand pieces she bought earlier.
"The journal seems fun, but I bet the diary will hold better things to read." she mutters while flipping through the journal.
Different colors and pages are used to describe the experiences of its previous owner. She closes it and opens the diary. But it slips from her hand and falls on the ground flipping on its back. The end cover gets opened. She picks it up as it is and reads what's written on the last page.
"Lu Muyan?" she reads out faintly, tilting her head to one side as if she is thinking of something.
Then she flips the book back to the front and while the pages flip her finger stops at a page where a picture is stuck with help of a tape. She examines the picture and her gaze stops at one of the three women with the shortest hair. Then she looks at the middle one.
"Huh?" she mutters, a bit confused. "Is it....?" she adds and grabs her phone from the corner.
She opens a picture and sets the phone close by the picture and compares the faces.
"This can't be." saying this, she quickly dials up a number. It rings for a while.
The call hits the voice mail, so she calls again.
"Come on, pick up." Fang mutters.
But it gets unanswered again. Sighing, she calls and keeps calling again and again until it gets accepted.
"What is your problem?" asks the person from the other side, who undoubtly is Luya.
"Where are you?" Fang questions, ditching the question.
"Home. Why?" Luya replies with a sigh.
"I need you tocome to my home right now."