Baileys (Part 1)

When did you arrive?

"you guess."

Have you been here long?

"you guess."

"...Have you been having a lot of troubles lately?"

"you guess."

After a long and drawn-out battle, Solkov finally conceded defeat, laughing helplessly: "Tell me, I can't guess."

"I know you can't guess, that's why I'm making you guess."

Zhou Zeyu was lying motionless on his stomach, her voice muffled, and it was unclear what she was thinking.

That means I don't want him to know.

Sorkov reached out and pinched her cheek mercilessly. "No, tell me now."

She had intended to dodge, but she had been lying there lazily for too long and suddenly lost her strength, falling back onto his chest. However, she managed to slap his hand away with quick reflexes.

"You're becoming more and more unreasonable."

"Who is being unreasonable?"

Who appeared silently beside him, secretly wiping away tears, and then kissed him without warning? Now she's clinging to his chest like an octopus. Sorkov was actually a little out of breath, but he held back and didn't say anything.

His voice still trembled slightly. He cleared his throat and said, trying to cover it up, "Then why didn't you tell me? You were always very honest with me before."

Zhou Zeyu hummed in agreement, "Because I didn't care about you much before."

His words were so direct that they sounded almost frivolous when spoken aloud. They were too realistic and seemed out of place in the warm and cozy setting. But thankfully, Sorkov had a strong enough mentality. He remained silent for a moment before speaking again.

"It would make me very sad to hear that."

"Come on," Zhou Zeyu said dismissively. "I don't see anything sad about it. You want to hear the truth, so here I am."

Who would want to hear such a truth after a kiss... Sorkov closed his eyes, trying to take a deep breath, but due to some unknown object pressing on his chest, he couldn't inhale halfway and had to give up the idea listlessly.

"I don't want to hear that kind of truth."

Zhou Zeyu laughed, a very soft sound, almost inaudible. As for why Sorkov noticed it, it was simply because they were pressed too close together. He could feel her body trembling slightly; she was actually trying to suppress a laugh.

“What’s so funny…” Sorkov sighed, unsure how to react. Despite feeling utterly helpless, he couldn’t help but smile. “You’re deliberately making fun of me.”

Zhou Zeyu shook his head, his voice still carrying an undisguised smile.

"I wouldn't have taken such a long flight just to laugh at you. I've already given you the truth you wanted."

Sorkov knew exactly what she was talking about.

Why was she so honest with him before returning to China, willing to reveal all the knots in her heart that had been buried for many years, but now she can't, and can't even reveal a single thing about her life?

Because she hadn't cared about him much before, and people always seem to be willing to show their vulnerability and exhaustion to strangers. At that time, Sorkov was probably just an ordinary passerby in her life. Since she didn't care, she could certainly be honest.

But not now, because she's started to care about him.

She didn't want Sorkov to know her current situation, so there was only one simple answer left: she was not doing well at all, even worse than Sorkov had expected.

She was simply afraid that he would worry about her.

Is it bad?

Zhou Zeyu remained silent for an unknown period of time before slowly speaking, his tone light and cheerful, "Anyway, it's not that good."

That means it's extremely bad.

Why did you suddenly come here?

"You're not welcoming me?"

Solkov chuckled softly and gently stroked her hair. "You know it's impossible, and you always try to avoid my questions."

"Really?" Zhou Zeyu shifted, finding a more comfortable position on him. "I don't want to answer your question."

However, she continued, "I just had a sudden moment of impulsiveness, and by the time I regained my senses I was already in Belgrade. But I haven't figured out what story to make up to fool you yet, so I'm not going to answer your question for now."

What an unusual and strange honesty.

The two of them suddenly fell silent. Sorkov watched the sun slowly sink in the west, its previous brilliance gradually fading away. When he heard Zhou Zeyu's voice again, the evening clouds had dyed the entire sky fiery red, and they seemed to have been painted in the same intense color as well, on the quiet lawn where the wind occasionally blew.

"Get up." He gently nudged Zhou Zeyu.

Zhou Zeyu gave him a hurt look: "Why are you so stingy? Can't you let me lie down for a while?"

Sorkov was silent for a moment, then spoke with difficulty, "The sky is beautiful, you can't see it like this."

She hesitated, then turned her head and, with some difficulty, glanced up at a sliver of sky. She immediately rolled over and onto the grass beside him, lying down and staring at the sky without saying a word.

"How cunning! Did you think you could make me tell the truth like this?" She snorted twice. "Don't even think about it."

Sorkov felt he was practically ready to raise his hands in protest: "God be my witness, I never meant that."

The evening breeze rustled the grass beside his cheek, gently brushing against his skin. He glanced at Zhou Zeyu's profile out of the corner of his eye. She had her eyes closed, her face expressionless, and she was resting her head on her forearm. Her already thin face had shrunk considerably in the past six months, and she had become increasingly emaciated.

He couldn't quite describe what he felt. It was a sour feeling, seemingly accompanied by intermittent pain, but it was also very subtle and too common, so ordinary that he seemed to have gradually gotten used to it.

But how can a person be completely numb to pain? He's just deceiving himself.

"I'm not happy." A very certain tone.

She kept her eyes closed and casually replied, "No."

Then, in the next second, she suddenly opened her eyes, so fast that Sorkov didn't even have time to withdraw his peeking gaze. He was caught red-handed, meeting a pair of eyes that quickly changed from gloomy to sunny, looking at him with a hint of teasing.

"Still peeking?"

Sorkov sighed heavily, feigning frustration. "Take a few more glances, just in case it's gone again tomorrow."

"You're just worrying about nothing." She scoffed softly.

Sorkov remained silent, then reached out and took her hand.

"When will your next burst of enthusiasm come? Will you get a ten-minute warning before it arrives? And will you tell me after you receive the warning?"

Probably, possibly, perhaps.

God knows how much he hates this vague and elusive answer, something he can't grasp or hold onto. Watching it go unnoticed is frustrating, but reaching out to try and then missing out again leaves him feeling powerless.

"Stop focusing all your criticism on me, what about yourself?"

"Same as your answer."

Zhou Zeyi sneered, "Oh my, long time no see, you've learned to retaliate now. You've been drinking a lot of black coffee lately, haven't you? Remember to drink less next time, so that your kiss won't be bitter."

Sorkov was completely speechless.

He sighed and tried his best to search his mind for a less harsh adjective: "Zhou Zeyu, you are really... mean right now."

"Really?" The culprit showed no remorse whatsoever. Instead, he crossed his hands on his chin, pretending to be deep in thought, and then suddenly said lightly, "Then I can only congratulate you on getting to know me completely. Before I met you, I always had this temper."

But it didn't seem so bad, Sorkov thought again. In her environment, harshness was probably an essential part of daily life, like three meals a day. Being too gentle would be a disadvantage. So it seemed fine as it was.

He was convinced that this theory had successfully convinced him, so he stopped taking Zhou Zeyi's previous words to heart and quickly put them aside. He then reached out again and tightly grasped her right hand, which had just broken free.

"Actually, it's very good."

Seemingly not understanding the meaning of this seemingly nonsensical statement, Zhou Zeyu gave a soft "hmm," her voice rising slightly at the end, and turned to look at him in confusion.

"What's good about it?"

It's nothing, it's just that he seems to vaguely see what you looked like before, in your prime, with a prickly temper, easily angered, a subtle sarcastic smile on your lips, arms crossed, your words laced with an almost imperceptible sarcasm, exactly like you are now.

In fact, that's how it was when they first met.

Sorkov recalled their awkward first encounter in the hotel garden and suddenly found it amusing. "Why did you scold me back then?"

His topic changed so quickly that even someone as quick-witted as Zhou Zeyu couldn't keep up. He stood there for a while, lost in thought, before finally recalling the scene.

She hesitated, "I...I yelled at you back then? Oh my god, was my temper still that bad back then?"

Oh my god, I completely forgot.

Sorkov patiently recounted the entire story to her, including how she walked around that place in strange circles, muttering to herself with her head down in terror, and how she reacted with an astonishingly explosive attitude after being discovered, even pointing her finger at him and cursing him for being rude.

For him, this was an experience he would almost never forget.

I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from being tormented by my thesis late at night. I found a quiet place to look through some materials, and when I looked up, I saw a ghostly white figure flash past me. It was numbly circling the garden like a puppet. Who knows if it was some kind of mentally unstable patient, or some kind of gypsy fortune teller, vampire, or sorcerer?

With Solkov's friendly reminder, Zhou Zeyu finally awakened his long-dormant memories, but the expression on his face showed no remorse for scaring others, and he even glared at him with considerable dissatisfaction.

"Oh? Wasn't what you did back then rude, but rather polite?" she argued. "You stayed up all night, staring at me from the shadows for hours, asking me why I was there for no reason, and even grabbing me and not letting me leave. Isn't that just being a pervert?"

Instead of getting angry, the accused pervert laughed and said, "I'm a pervert?"

Zhou Zeyu smiled thoughtfully: "He looks like a thug, but who knows? He also looks pretty much like a pervert."

"Okay, then explain why you did that back then."

Isn't that simple, Zhou Zeyi? You still haven't figured it out.

As for exactly when he suddenly realized that the person in front of him was not a gypsy, a vampire, or a sorcerer, it was obvious, because when his eyes met Zhou Zeyu's, he suddenly recognized her.

The streetlights were too dim, and the agitated look on her face was too unsettling. Sorkov, whose mind was racing with countless thoughts, didn't even know how to react to her.

He was facing someone he had known for a long time.

“The reason I did this,” he began slowly, “is that I recognized you.”

Zhou Zeyu readily agreed and blurted out without thinking, "Ah, no wonder. Didn't you say you were my loyal fan? It's strange, it's actually true."

"Fake."

"Um?!"

He reacted swiftly, pressing down Zhou Zeyu, who was struggling to sit up and roll up his sleeves, and spoke rapidly.

"I already told you before, I've known you for much longer than you think."

The other person abruptly stopped, looking at him blankly, seemingly not understanding what he meant: "I thought you were just talking nonsense back then."

Sorkov was too exasperated to laugh. "I didn't."

"So what do you mean?"

What he meant was that he had seen her a long time ago, knew what she looked like, knew her voice, and knew how far she stood up to his shoulder. But even knowing all this, when she appeared in front of him without warning, as if she had fallen from the sky, he still couldn't immediately recognize that it was Zhou Zeyu.

So Solkov grabbed her hand, squinted, and for the first time hated his nearsightedness so much, wanting to see clearly with all his might, but she quickly left.

He even claimed that he was a pervert.

He pursed his lips: "You understand now?"

“I understand,” Zhou Zeyu nodded honestly, a very superficial thinking expression appearing on his face. In the end, he concluded in just two seconds, “Then you’ve liked me for a long time.”

That's not the point!

Now it was her turn to comfort the enraged Sorkov. She smiled mischievously, "Just kidding, but since you're so nervous, I'll have to seriously consider the possibility of this conclusion."

Stop thinking about it; this possibility is simply not valid.

As for exactly when he started to like T, Solkov himself couldn't say for sure, but he knew it wasn't so long ago. Liking someone, like other feelings that were dispensable, was a privilege reserved for those who were well-off, and he didn't have that privilege back then.

But undeniably, there was another, indescribable emotion that replaced the superficial love between men and women, growing in his heart and supporting him for many years.

However, even Sorkov himself couldn't say for sure what it was, let alone tell Zhou Zeyu.

All she needs to know is that in his eyes, she is always different, always... worthy of his concern.