Lin Wanqing suddenly raised her hand and pressed pause. Only the clanging of the tram outside the window and Ah Yu's own heartbeat, like a pounding drum, remained in the attic.
“Look.” As she turned around, the setting sun shone on the scar behind her ear, making the light pink mark almost transparent. “Some voices can’t be avoided.”
Ah Yu's gaze fell on the suitcase on the floor. A photo was pasted on the inside of the lid—a group photo of the three of them at a cocktail party, their backs to the camera. Lin Wanqing stood in the middle, with him and Zhong Hua on either side, their shadows forming a blurry triangle on the carpet. That day, Zhong Hua wore a long silver dress; he secretly pressed the shutter when the hem brushed against his shoes.
“I didn’t hide on purpose,” he suddenly spoke, his voice hoarseer than the morning mist of Montmartre, “It’s just…”
“I just don’t know how to face it,” Lin Wanqing finished for him. She walked to the wall and took down the empty frame next to the Thangka. “I found it at the flea market. I said I wanted to put a new photo in it.”
Ah Yu watched her place the picture frame on the table, the glass reflecting their shadows. He remembered that when Lin Wanqing was distributing supplies at the charity station, her phone's screen saver was that photo of their backs. At the time, he had laughed at her for being nostalgic, but now he understood that some people are not meant to be forgotten, but rather remembered in a different way.
“Listen.” Lin Wanqing suddenly turned her head and pointed a finger at the floor. “The sound of footsteps downstairs.”
Ah Yu held her breath. The wooden stairs creaked as someone walked up, their footsteps light and hurried, like...like Zhong Hua when he was chasing the news.
He stood up abruptly, his knee hitting the corner of the box without him even feeling pain. Lin Wanqing looked at him, a knowing smile in her eyes, as if she had known this moment would come.
“Go ahead.” She picked up the recorder and placed it in his palm. “Some voices should be heard face to face.”
Ah Yu's fingertips touched the metal casing of the recorder, still warm from Lin Wanqing's body. When he rushed to the stairwell, he bumped into Zhong Hua standing on the last step, holding a camera with the lens pointed directly at him.
“I heard Lin Wanqing say,” her face flushed, as if she had just run, “that you were looking for this?” She waved the object in her hand—a ginkgo leaf specimen, its edges slightly torn, the very same one that had fallen from her hair on the day of the mudslide.
Ah Yu's throat suddenly tightened. He looked down at the recorder in his palm, then looked up at Zhong Hua's eyes behind the lens, where the skylight of the attic was reflected, along with the golden-red sunlight streaming through it.
“I heard it.” Zhong Hua suddenly put down the camera, his fingertips twirling the camera strap. “The words in the recording, and… the photos in your album.”
Lin Wanqing appeared behind them at some point, holding the empty picture frame in her hand: "I knew it, the Montmartre sunshine is perfect for taking new photos."
Ah Yu's gaze swept over Zhong Hua's reddened earlobe, over the scar on Lin Wanqing's wrist, and over the world map on the wall stained with red paint. He suddenly understood that some voices don't need to be hidden, and some memories don't need to be concealed. Just like the smell of old wood in this attic, it will always mix with the new sunlight, brewing into a more lingering aroma.
“That voice recorder,” he said, gripping the black object in his palm, his voice tinged with amusement, “actually, there’s still a part I haven’t finished listening to.”
Zhong Hua's eyes lit up: "What is it?"
“I recorded it secretly.” Ah Yu pressed the play button. This time, amidst the static, his own voice was very soft, very soft, in the beeping of the ICU monitor: “Zhong Hua, when you get better, let’s go to Montmartre to shoot the sunrise.”
In the recording, he paused, then said something even softer, as soft as a falling ginkgo leaf: "In my lens, there should only be you long ago."
The tram outside the attic rang again, its clanging sound filtering through the open skylight and landing on the three smiling faces. Lin Wanqing held up the empty picture frame, placing their shadows in the center, like a newly completed painting. Sunlight streamed in from the edge of the frame, casting a warm golden border on the floor, enclosing both the past and the present within.
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