Chapter 139 June has arrived in New York…

“The burn ointment is in the left drawer,” Ren Xiyao suddenly said, taking his soup spoon from him. “Also, the band-aid on your hand needs to be changed.”

Kwon Ji-yong paused, then looked down at his left thumb. It was a cut he'd accidentally made while trying out his new guitar yesterday; he'd specifically chosen a skin-colored bandage for it.

"How could you..."

“Your little finger curls up when you pluck the strings.” Seeing that Quan and Zhilong didn’t move, she turned off the stove, turned around and went out, taking out a first-aid kit from the drawer: “It’s always been like this, there’s been no improvement at all.”

He gazed at her profile as she bent down to apply a band-aid to his face, and suddenly realized that all his careful and considerate gestures during this reunion had been noticed by her. Just like how he noticed she would unconsciously rub her lower back on rainy days, and how she would always straighten her right leg when she read for a long time... These details, which had never appeared in their younger days, had now become unspoken secrets between them.

After tending to her wound, Ren Xiyao looked up and met his reddened eyes. She gently brushed the corner of his eye with her finger: "Why are you crying?"

“I’m thinking…” he said in a hoarse voice, “If Kwon Ji-yong in his twenties saw us now, would he feel like a stranger to us?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head: "He would be envious."

July in New York is sweltering, and the swimming pool reeks of disinfectant. Ren Xiyao is doing underwater rehabilitation exercises in the shallow end, while Quan Zhilong sits on a bench by the pool, unconsciously biting his thumbnail. He's had this habit for years and hasn't been able to break it; it flares up whenever he's anxious, and even manicures don't seem to help.

Half an hour earlier, he overheard Ren Xiyao on the balcony taking a phone call. Through the glass door, he caught a few words: "Canadian team," "technical coach," "honored, but..." When Ren Xiyao emerged from the pool with wet hair, he casually asked as he handed her a towel, "Did the Canadian team come looking for you?"

"Hmm." Ren Yao wiped her hair. "They want me to be their technical coach and lead the team until the end of the Milan cycle."

Her tone was so calm, as if she were talking about someone else, but Kwon Ji-yong noticed that she was drying her hair more quickly than usual. He remembered when he accompanied her to watch the video of last year's World Championships last month, she unconsciously drew lines on her knees to imitate the Dutch skater's cornering technique. Those instincts etched into her bones were more real than words.

"What do you think?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I declined.” She draped the towel over her shoulder: “I’m not suited to be a coach.”

For Ren Xiyao, the refusal was heartfelt. Firstly, her skating career, with all its glory and pain, was etched into her very being. She wanted this chapter of her life to end abruptly on the ice, rather than continuing to be entangled in another identity. She longed to try a completely new life, unrelated to ice skates. Secondly, and more profoundly, her technique and her philosophy were rooted in the Chinese national team's training system. She wasn't ready to completely hand it all over to another flag. She couldn't imagine herself standing on the sidelines, guiding athletes from other countries against the red flag and golden emblem she had once sworn to defend. This emotional sense of belonging made it impossible for her to turn back.

A brief silence spread, each person lost in their own thoughts.

Kwon Ji-yong lowered his head, unconsciously fiddling with the thermos in his hand, his inner turmoil far from the calm he appeared to be. He should have felt relieved, but a deeper unease gripped him. He could refuse the Canadian invitation, but… what about the one from China?

He was afraid.

What he feared wasn't her going to Canada, but the very act of "returning." He feared that the facade of a peaceful China would eventually become an irresistible call, falling upon her shoulders. He feared that when she saw her former teammates struggling and the younger generation unable to shoulder the responsibility, that deep-seated sense of responsibility would reignite, making her desperately want to return, even if not as an athlete, but in some other way, to re-enter the place that had consumed her.

It was a purely selfish fear stemming from deep love. He couldn't imagine her returning to that high-pressure environment, nor could he bear to see her body suffer even the slightest further damage. He wanted to keep her in New York, in this peaceful haven they had just rebuilt.

But he also understood her better than anyone else. He knew that even during her recovery, she maintained a certain level of physical training; her computer contained videos of all recent international matches; and she had studied the new season's international rules more thoroughly than anyone else. Ice had never truly left her life.

What made him feel even more powerless and speechless was that he understood he couldn't ask for a promise of "never going back." Her career, as she herself said, was paved with the blood and sweat of countless people. The phrase "nationally funded" for athletes is a resource, an opportunity, but also a shackle. They are destined to be less carefree and open than self-funded athletes. Because these heavy, blood-and-tears-stained favors and responsibilities are marks etched on her heart, a "burden" she cannot easily relinquish.

And he, in a way, was "absent" from that darkest period of history. He now has no right to demand that she completely sever ties with the past for his sake. Mentioning these things inevitably touches on the wounds of 2017.

Late at night, Kwon Ji-yong woke up from a nightmare to find himself alone. Ren Xiyao stood in the study, the walls covered with technical analysis charts of the Chinese national team's young players. She stood before the charts with her arms crossed, the light illuminating her slender silhouette beneath her bathrobe.

"Can't sleep?" he asked softly.

Without turning around, she pointed her finger at a runner's starting position: "This kid has the exact same problem I had when I was seventeen."

But he simply hugged her from behind and found her trembling.

“If…” he began with difficulty, “If the national team contacts you…”

Ren Xiyao turned around and buried her face in his chest. This rare act of vulnerability tore at his heart.

"I can't promise you anything." Her voice was muffled inside his clothes: "An athlete raised under the national sports system, her life, her achievements, her glory are the result of countless people supporting her. Not to mention 2017... Ren Xiyao's journey to where she is today no longer belongs to Ren Xiyao alone... Do you understand?"

They stood before the wall covered with technical drawings, as if at a crossroads of fate. Kwon Ji-yong recalled her bitten lip during her recovery, her old injury flaring up on rainy days, and the neatly folded national team uniform deep in her suitcase.

As the morning light streamed through the curtains, Ren Xiyao suddenly said, "I've applied for a PhD at NYU."

Kwon Ji-yong was stunned.

“But if the time really comes when I’m needed…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but he understood. This wasn’t a choice about dreams, but an answer about responsibility and gratitude.

Kwon Ji-yong looked into her clear and resolute eyes, where there was no hesitation or impulsiveness, only the calm and determination that came from careful consideration. All his words of dissuasion stuck in his throat. He understood that the one he had fallen in love with was never a bird that would stay in a greenhouse, but a wounded lone wolf that always remembered where it came from.

He pressed her hand to his heart, letting his heartbeat speak for itself. On this sweltering July morning, they tacitly agreed that some burdens were destined to be shared, just as some loves were destined to endure letting go time and time again.

In his early twenties, Kwon Ji-yong would send her twenty voice messages before her matches, turning "don't get hurt" into a mantra. Now, at thirty-six, Kwon Ji-yong has learned to transform his worries into comforting words and his protection into a perfectly timed companionship.

Meanwhile, attention turned to Kwon Ji-yong's career. By July, Kwon Ji-yong was already very familiar with the flights between New York and Seoul. In the summer breeze of July, he migrated between the two cities like a migratory bird, his suitcase half filled with sheet music manuscripts and half with vitamin capsules prepared for him by Ren Xiyao.

He was revising the arrangement of the title track in the airport VIP lounge, the densely packed audio tracks on the screen mirroring his jumbled thoughts. Seven years—almost half an era in the pop music industry. The market had changed, the audience had changed, even the ranking rules for music shows had changed. The market report his team handed him starkly stated, "The attention span of viewers has shortened in the streaming era," and "The traditional idol business model faces challenges."

Sometimes, late at night in a recording studio in Seoul, he would suddenly take off his headphones and ask the producer, "Have I been away for too long?"

Ren Xiyao's apartment in New York became his anchor point. Sometimes, when he finished work in the early hours of the morning and made a video call, he would see her silhouette in the study writing an art history paper. They would often stay on video like this, each busy with their own things, occasionally glancing up at each other.

"Doesn't this melody sound like the sound of an ice skate turning?" One day he suddenly brought his phone close to the monitor speaker.

Ren Xiyao looked up from the documents and listened carefully twice: "So, you're also showing a preference for those sharp speeds now?"

He paused slightly, for it was a memory that had been subconsciously replicated during the sampling.

She saw through his anxiety and understood his pride. When he returned from Seoul with dark circles under his eyes, she didn't ask about the progress; she simply pushed the cooked porridge in front of him.

In truth, they were only on different battlefields, but they both understood the hardships of the journey. They were also each other's strongest support.

At the end of July, Kwon Ji-yong completed the first mixing of his new album in Seoul. Now all he wants is to go back to New York, back to that familiar place, and get a good night's sleep.

These were all private trips, so it was quite peaceful after landing. Many family members were at the airport to pick him up, and he didn't seem to care much about the crowd, just walking briskly. But in a fleeting moment, his gaze swept over the throng and settled on the very edge of the crowd.

Ren Xiyao stood there.

She wore a simple white T-shirt and leaned against a pillar in the distance. She didn't wave or call out; she just watched him quietly. The bright overhead lights of the terminal cast a soft glow on her, separating her from the surrounding noise, like the only tranquil presence in the eye of a storm.

He didn't walk towards her immediately, but stood still for a few seconds. Then, he nodded very lightly, almost imperceptibly, in her direction.

Ren Xiyao's lips curled up slightly in response with a similarly small smile.

He continued walking forward, his steps noticeably firmer and more brisk. He finally reached her through the crowd and naturally took the light jacket she had given him.

The lights of New York City appeared outside the airport's floor-to-ceiling windows. He knew this was an unspoken covenant between them: whether they returned to the field or stepped back onto the stage, they would eventually reunite in their respective glory. And in these fleeting moments of everyday life, their love, adrift for seven years, finally found a deeper anchor—not the burning passion of their youth, but the choice, after weathering countless storms, to still leave a light on for each other on every ordinary night.