Chapter 35.2 - Can You Understand my Rainy Days? (2)
"What's there to be polite about?" Sheng Huainan gave his standard smile. Luo Zhi wasn’t sure if she was overthinking it, but in that smile, she saw malicious teasing and sarcasm.
Her body stiffened. She didn’t know if it was out of stubbornness, but the anger she’d been silently holding in along the way wouldn’t let her leave so disgracefully. They stood silently like that for a long time. In the end, Luo Zhi gave in, thanked him one last time, and then turned around.
He remembered her in such weather, sent her messages to check on her, waded through the flood to pick her up.
But why then…
“Goodbye.” She lowered her head in defeat, her face still calm.
“Luo Zhi.” He finally spoke. Squinting his eyes with a smile, he rubbed the back of his head — the same sincere smile he had shown countless times before, but today, everything seemed different.
“What is it?”
“Can you… remember to return the raincoat to me?”
Suddenly, Luo Zhi felt her mind buzzing. Like a sudden flash of insight from Conan the Detective — but while Conan would be excited to find the truth, she felt embarrassed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely return it. Washed clean, I’ll give it back. I don’t like Hello Kitty.” Luo Zhi lowered her eyes and said coldly.
Sheng Huainan said nothing. He didn’t seem surprised by her attitude but squinted slightly, a trace of disappointment flashing in his brows and eyes.
“Why?” he said, but it wasn’t really a question.
“It’s just a pattern. There’s no need for so many whys.” She shook her head.
“Then what do you like?” Sheng Huainan’s tone was a little displeased.
“What do I like?” Luo Zhi caught his tone and suddenly felt very confused and wronged.
Luo Zhi, why did you run out on such a rainy day? She held back tears, smiled, and tilted her head to look at a puddle on the ground. “When I was little, my dad bought me a green raincoat with a little frog painted on it. It was childish too, but I liked it very much.”
Sheng Huainan finally frowned in confusion. Luo Zhi’s smile grew even brighter.
“More importantly, my dad can never buy me a raincoat again.” She looked him straight in the eye, her smile slowly fading.
They stared at each other like this in the heavy rain for a long time. Luo Zhi felt all her strength had been bet on this inexplicable battle. She kept watching Sheng Huainan’s eyes darken as he turned his head away.
He turned, swiped his card, and went into the building.
It felt like slapping herself.
She remembered those two figures — the pink Hello Kitty and the green big-eyed little frog.
In April of senior year, in the afternoon, she went to school to collect her second mock exam results. She accidentally slipped at the school gate and got all muddy. Looking up, she saw a pair holding hands — one pink, one green. When they went inside, the girl took off the raincoat and stuffed it into the boy’s hand, sweetly saying—
“Please keep this for me. I want to carry it with me all my life.”
“Why?”
“So that,” she smiled beautifully, with a bit of slyness, “you can come pick me up every rainy day.”
Why? Why did he come pick her up wearing his ex-girlfriend’s raincoat, coldly smiling at her? Why?
But what Luo Zhi remembered more deeply was the big-eyed little frog raincoat Sheng Huainan was wearing then.
When she was five, one rainy afternoon, she got a call at her grandmother’s house. Her dad said, “Luo Luo, I’ll come pick you up after work. It’s raining hard outside. I bought you a new raincoat — the little frog one we saw on the second floor of the department store.”
She held the phone happily and called out. She waited all afternoon, spinning around in her grandmother’s kitchen and even knocking over a basin.
But she never waited for her dad.
Her dad died.
