Time Candy Wrapper
The studio's air conditioner hummed softly in the afternoon. As Ah Yu reached for the nut jar on the top shelf of the snack cabinet in her swivel chair, her fingertips brushed against a cardboard package. The wrapping paper, which should have been bright yellow, had faded to a pale off-white, its edges curled up like crumpled draft paper.
"What kind of antique is this?" He jumped off the swivel chair and held the paper package up to the light. Through the translucent candy wrapper, he could see the fruit candies inside, their shapes flattened by time, like pieces of amber forgotten in the past.
Zhong Hua's voice came from the printer: "Don't flip through it, that's..."
Before he could finish speaking, Ah Yu had already torn open the packaging. A sweet and sour aroma burst out, carrying a hint of stale paper, like suddenly pushing open a dusty door. He picked up the candy, hesitated for two seconds, and then popped it into his mouth—the sourness exploded instantly, rushing down his tongue to his temples. He subconsciously squinted, and the corners of his eyes involuntarily reddened.
"Hiss..." Ah Yu gasped for breath, looking for water, and bumped into Zhong Hua's arms as she turned around. He reached out to take the candy wrapper from her hand, but her wrist was firmly gripped.
"You actually kept this?" Ah Yu's voice trembled slightly, half from sourness and half from disbelief. The candy slowly melted in her mouth, releasing a hint of sweetness, like the sky after the rain, gradually brightening.
Zhong Hua looked down at his reddened eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing: "Back then, you stole my candy, saying it was sour and refreshing." His fingertips brushed against Ah Yu's lips, which were still covered in candy crumbs. "After that, every time I bought candy, I wanted to save one for you."
"Who asked you to stay..." Ah Yu's words were cut off by a piece of candy. Lin Wanqing, who had appeared behind her at some point, smiled as she held up the candy wrapper: "Change to something sweet, sour things are bad for your stomach."
The sweetness of milk candy mingled with the tartness of fruit candy on his tongue, and Ah Yu suddenly remembered that summer in his second year of high school. The cicadas' chirping made the air scorching hot, and he squatted at the entrance of the art studio, crying because his sketch assignment had been criticized utterly worthless by the professor. Zhong Hua had walked by then, carrying these fruit candies in his school uniform pocket, and insisted on giving him two.
"Why are you crying?" Zhong Hua, still a young man at the time, spoke in a muffled voice, "The sourness will pass and it will taste sweet."
Ah Yu was annoyed at the time, so she threw the candy back into his hand: "Will eating this help you draw a good sketch?"
“No,” Zhong Hua picked up the candy wrapper and carefully folded it into a small square, “but it will give you the energy to draw another one.”
Later, they really did spend the whole night in the studio. Ah Yu was struggling with the plaster statue, while Zhong Hua was solving math problems beside her, occasionally handing her a piece of candy. When the morning light climbed onto the easel, Ah Yu finally finished a decent sketch. Turning her head, she saw Zhong Hua asleep on the table, with a small mountain of candy wrappers beside him, all of them bright yellow.
"What are you thinking about?" Lin Wanqing snatched the empty candy wrapper from Ah Yu's hand. "Your face is all wrinkled from the soreness."
Ah Yu smiled, a sweet taste spreading from her tongue to her heart: "It reminds me of the fan in the art studio in high school, which always made the drawing paper rustle loudly."
Zhong Hua had already returned to her desk, tapped the keyboard twice, then stopped and looked at him: "Next week we're going to the suburbs to photograph sunflowers, bring some candy?"
“I don’t want this sour stuff,” Ah Yu immediately shook her head, then added, “Milk candy is fine.”
Lin Wanqing, flipping through the calendar beside her, laughed: "That's not what someone said back when they were stealing other people's candy."
That autumn, during a sketching class, Ah Yu squatted on the wet ground for two hours to photograph the reeds by the lake. When he stood up, his legs were so numb he almost fell into the water. Zhong Hua reached out to support him, the candy wrappers in his pocket rustling. Ah Yu snatched them, unwrapped one, and ate it, hissing from the sourness, but then stuffed the remaining half-packet into his own pocket.
"Don't you dislike sour foods?" Zhong Hua frowned as she watched his actions.
“I love it now,” Ah Yu said, her voice muffled by a candy in her mouth, “It’s so sour it can wake you up.”
After that, Zhong Hua always had these fruit candies in his pocket. Sometimes they were lemon-flavored, sometimes orange-flavored, but the wrappers were always bright yellow. Ah Yu would always sneak over and rummage through his pocket when she was drowsy from working on her manuscript, like a little squirrel stealing candy.
“Hey,” Zhong Hua said, holding down his mischievous hand when they were caught red-handed once, “this is what my mom prepared for me. She said eating sour things before exams can help me stay alert.”
“Then I’ll try the energizing effect for you,” Ah Yu pried open his fingers and snatched the last candy. “Thanks.”
When he turned and ran back to the camera, he didn't see Zhong Hua watching his back as he carefully folded the empty candy wrapper and put it into the lining of his pencil case.
That afternoon, the studio's snack cabinet underwent a major overhaul. Lin Wanqing cleared out the expired cookies, Ayu was in charge of stocking up on new items, and Zhong Hua was labeling them. As Ayu put the newly bought milk candies into the glass jar, she noticed that Zhong Hua was putting the faded bag of fruit candies into a tin box at the bottom of the cabinet, next to which were old camera batteries and broken paintbrushes—all worthless things that they couldn't bear to throw away.
"Still hiding it?" Ah Yu tapped the lid of the tin box.
“Hmm,” Zhong Hua pushed the tin box deeper, “keep it.”
Ah Yu suddenly remembered last winter when Zhong Hua had a high fever but still insisted on revising the plan. When he went to deliver medicine, he saw several candy wrappers scattered in Zhong Hua's drawer, all of them bright yellow. He hadn't paid much attention to them then, but now he realized that this man was probably secretly eating those candies from back then every late night while working overtime.
“Zhong Hua,” Ah Yu squatted down, her gaze level with his, “Let’s go buy candy tomorrow, two bags, lemon flavor.”
Zhong Hua's eyelashes trembled, like reeds swaying in the wind: "Okay."
Lin Wanqing was carrying a newly arrived bag of coffee beans when she saw the two of them squatting on the ground staring blankly at a metal box. She suddenly burst out laughing: "Hey you two, can you stop acting like you did in high school, spending ages pondering over such a small thing?"
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