Holiday loneliness

After the incident last semester, Panqiu and Ethan had a subtle understanding between them.

After each evening class, she would subconsciously glance towards the office on the third floor. Occasionally, the light would still be on. She would gently knock on the door, briefly mention her research progress, and then Ethan would remind her that it was getting late and invite her to walk with him. The night air was cool, the lamplight cast long shadows, and those few words or silences brought her a faint sense of peace.

But this tacit understanding didn't last long. Winter break disrupted their rhythm. As soon as the new semester started, the two tacitly retreated to a more distant state.

Their meeting returned to the weekly routine – a clean and proper exchange between mentor and student, but lacking the subtle warmth of those evenings spent side by side.

That evening, after packing her bag, Panqiu pushed open the door to the department building, only to find that it was getting dark much faster than she had expected. As she reached the top of the steps, she suddenly saw Ethan coming out from the other side. The two looked at each other and smiled simultaneously, as if it were a long-lost yet natural understanding.

They walked side by side, the air slightly chilly. It wasn't until they turned onto the main road of the campus that Pan Qiu noticed that the couples along the way were much more high-profile than usual—holding balloons, holding hands, and some even wearing matching outfits.

Just then, a female student carrying a flower basket walked over, holding up a rose, and said with a smile, "Five dollars each, Valentine's Day special."

Pan Qiu paused slightly, stunned for half a second, before realizing that the line was meant for them. A slight pang seemed to pierce her heart.

Ethan smiled faintly and shook his head: "No, thank you."

Her tone was as natural as if she were refusing someone's offer of flyers. The girl quickly turned and chased after other passersby, the flower basket jingling as it swayed away.

They walked all the way to the bean tree. At this time of year, the branches were laden with dry bean pods. When the wind blew, they clattered against each other, making a "clattering" sound—neither crisp nor clear, but with a strange rhythm. As Pan Qiu listened, she suddenly thought that the sound was more like a wooden fish than a wind chime.

Just then, Ethan's phone vibrated. He stopped and said softly, "Sorry, I need to take this call. You can go ahead."

Panqiu nodded, asked no further questions, and walked out on her own. After crossing the road and the noise around her subsided, she still couldn't help but look back.

Ethan was still standing under the bean pod tree, his phone pressed to his ear, a look she rarely saw on his face—focused, yet perhaps a little anxious. Her voice was inaudible from the distance, but his expression suggested he was preoccupied with something. It was an expression she had never seen before.

Pan Qiu suddenly had a darkly humorous thought: So even Buddha has to answer the phone.

From her perspective, he seemed detached from joy and sorrow, detached from worldly desires. But at this moment, she suddenly realized—he wasn't a transcendent deity, but a person bound by life's burdens. This discovery was like suddenly seeing a crack, tearing away a bit of that mysterious aura.

When she got home, the warm yellow lights in the living room were already on. Zhiwei was stir-frying vegetables in the pan while video chatting with her boyfriend on the other end of the screen. She held a spatula in one hand and gestured with the other, her voice clear and warm, her cheeks flushed.

Seeing Panqiu push the door open and come in, Zhiwei greeted her casually, "You're back!"

Pan Qiu nodded and smiled, but didn't intend to say anything more. She didn't want to intrude on someone else's intimate moment, so she went straight back to her room.

I had just put my bag down when my phone beeped. It was a text message from Lin Yue: "Happy Valentine's Day."

Just those five words, followed by a simple smiley face. A short sentence, yet it felt like a greeting across time and space, landing in her heart, neither too heavy nor too light. She stared at the screen for a few seconds and quickly replied with the same five words.

Her gaze fell on the painting on the desk—the Rowan tree, its branches stretching out quietly. She had grown accustomed to glancing at it whenever she was tired or her mind was in turmoil, like an unspoken ritual. Over time, the painting had become her private meditation. Without a word, simply looking at the gracefully outlining branches would slowly calm her mind.

At that moment, she suddenly remembered the book Ethan had given her, *The City of Solitude*. She reached for the book, pulled it out, and randomly flipped through it, her fingers landing on a passage:

"You can feel lonely anywhere, but the loneliness of living in the city has a unique flavor—it's a feeling of being surrounded by countless people, yet still feeling alone."

She stared at the line of text and silently added: "Because in the city, you may realize at any moment that you are not necessary to anyone."

The holiday made this loneliness especially acute. Love and companionship were everywhere, even Buddha himself seemed to be concerned as he answered a phone call from an unknown number. But she sat alone at her desk, her loneliness magnified a thousandfold.

She knew in her heart that this could almost be included as a textbook case study in "holiday loneliness." She understood that it actually contained an element of "whining without cause." But at this moment, she was still genuinely struck by it.