This is the story of 顾洛 — Gu Luo or little Luo.
Why 'little Luo' you'd probably ask me. Well I don't really know the details either. After all I'm only the narrator of this story.
「 This place was intentionally left empty. 」
Why am I the narrator of the story?
Well...
It seems like maybe Luo wanted me to tell it. I don't really know. But I feel like I have to tell it to you.
「 This place was intentionally left empty. 」
What?
「 This place was intentionally left empty. 」
Am I a boy or a girl?
You really have strange questions... It doesn't matter, as a matter of fact I don't even know. Is the narrator also supposed to have a gender?
I already have enough work!
Well...
What was I saying earlier?...
Oh yes!
Little Luo.
Or.
Gu Luo.
Why was he named like that... let me look it up...
...
...
...
...
It seems it was his nickname in middle school.
And, now that I look at him more closely, that's right, he's not that tall. I could even say he's pretty small compared to others his age.
If I were to describe Gu Luo to you I would say he was an average Chinese boy. Straight black hair.
Not that muscular or tall.
Even a bit tiny.
But well, that's only a detail compared to what I'm going to tell you.
WAIT!
Tiny is a strong word...
Uh...
I don't want to call him little again but you get my point, don't you?
It's half your fault I'm getting lost like this. You're the one I'm supposed to tell the story to, after all.
Let's continue.
He was an average chinese boy.
He was not that popular with boys his age.
And girls!
Well, if he wasn't popular with boys you could've told he wasn't popular with girls either but I wanted to make that clear. It's only my first...10 minutes as a storyteller after all.
Speaking of that, is it better to tell you '10 minutes' like this or 'ten minutes' like this?
Well I don't know, I'll just decide when I'll have to write it.
What I absolutely need to tell you is a thought Gu Luo often had. In fact it was a thought so deeply engraved in him that he couldn't get it out of there.
No matter how hard he tried he never succeeded.
He even ended up believing he was doomed to be like this forever.
He started having this thought a long time ago, when he was still a child.
When he still dreamed about flying across the endless blue surface of the sky.
Whe he dreamed of adventurers and explorers.
He was still disagreing with people saying adventurers and explorers were not the same.
Adventurers seek pleasure in adventure, discovering things about themselves while struggling. That's what they were to Gu Luo.
Explorers were people who wanted to discover things about the world. They wanted to know and see everything there was. They wanted to learn to love and appreciate those things.
That was the reason Gu Luo wanted to be an explorer. Actually he considered himself an explorer.
Now you get who he was as a child, right?
「 This place was intentionally left empty. 」
That's right.
But what I was trying to say was that this deep rotten thought started to emerge around the time Gu Luo wanted to be an explorer.
He realized something was wrong with himself when he started being unable to act the way his mother told him to.
He agreed with her but couldn't bring himself to act according to what he believed in.
He was in a cage made by himself.
Sometimes things look alike but they don't impact you the same way. It's why you need to always pick the one you like most so you don't regret anything.
That's what his mother was saying to Luo.
And the little boy understang the point of his mother. He even believed her words from the bottom of his heart.
But for some strange unknown reason he couldn't bring himself to do it.
It was like, from the moment he needed to make a choice he couldn't make it.
Gu Luo would never have the right to choose.
That was something he truly believed in.
That was what the seven-year-old boy had.
That was the only thing his mind could bring up.
And so this thought engraved itself deeply within the young boy's heart.
That was the thought that changed his story.
He never spoke of it, not to his mother, not to his dad.
Every night, the same whisper crawled under his door.
Little feet would pad across the cold floor of his bedroom, searching for a shadow that wasn't there.
Pressing his palms against his ears, he would hum an old lullaby to protect himself.
He knew now. He knew the thought wasn't a shield, it was a chain.
In the mirror, his own reflection would smile a second too late.
Morning came with bruises he couldn't explain, and his parents would be concerned about him.
「 This place was intentionally left empty. 」
That was when he stopped believing in the boy he used to be.
Every step he took felt heavier, as if the house was swallowing his bones. He took the kitchen knife and hid it under his pillow, not for them, but for himself.
Leaning against the wall, he traced the crack that grew each day like a vein.
Listening, always listening, for a breath that not longer existed.
He would write a single word on the foggy window.
It would always fade before morning but nonetheless...
Maintaining itself the thought would still be there.
This is the story of Gu Luo I wanted to tell you.