Chapter 11 A complete break—let her remain in her memories…
Perhaps because she had been suppressing her feelings for too long, Yu Kui could no longer hide her grievances and longed for a formal answer from him so that she could let go of this friendship that had lasted for more than ten years.
“Of course you’re my friend,” Qin You said, almost avoiding her eyes. “The essay competition is also important to the other students, so…”
He was still bringing up the essay competition, completely oblivious to her feelings.
Suddenly, the sadness and pain in Yu Kui's heart seemed insignificant.
She even felt ridiculous.
“I understand,” Yu Kui said in a low voice without accusing or questioning me anymore. “But I feel like you don’t consider me a friend anymore. If that’s what you think too, I hope you can be honest with yourself.”
"If we can no longer be as sincere and trusting as before, then let's stop wasting each other's time."
Yu Kui knew that she had overstepped her bounds by saying these words. After all, Qin You was not her possession; he was an independent and free individual with the right to choose who to be her friend.
But they had known each other for too long, and she didn't want things to end in nothing but chaos. She wanted to salvage the relationship and rediscover the beauty of their initial friendship.
But this felt like moral blackmail to Qin You, who said impatiently, "Do you think I'm lying?"
Yu Kui realized once again that he hadn't taken her words to heart, and was even blaming her.
This realization caused her immense pain, and tears welled up in her eyes. She lowered her gaze quietly, not wanting him to see her helpless tears.
"I'm not doubting you..." I'm certain that you no longer care about me.
But she still refused to accept this fact, like a gambler who had lost all his chips but still hoped to win everything back.
That's too humiliating.
"Can you please stop being like this?" Qin You was very annoyed by her negative attitude. "I was just asking about the essay competition, I didn't mean anything else."
He still hasn't realized how upset Yu Kui is, and even thinks she's caused him trouble.
"Isn't it enough that I go to school with you every day?" He said this almost subconsciously, but he regretted it the moment it left his mouth, and his gaze fell hastily on Yu Kui.
"Is it a hassle for you to go to school with me every day?" Yu Kui struggled to hold back her tears. "Have I become a burden to you now?"
Qin You took a deep breath. "I just feel that we've all grown up and don't need to regard each other as important anymore."
He suddenly revealed an incredibly cruel side, saying with extreme seriousness, "We should all have our own new lives. You don't need to always focus your attention on me. It will be tiring for you, and it will be tiring for me too."
Yu Kui clenched her teeth, her mouth seemingly filled with the metallic taste of blood. So, she had become such a terrifying presence to him.
"You mean you won't walk to and from school with me anymore, and you don't want to be friends with me anymore?" She looked up, her eyes red, and asked stubbornly, "Is that what you mean?"
Qin You frowned, glanced at her, and then looked away. "If that's what you think, then think that way."
He was unwilling to explain further, nor did he want to.
Yu Kui felt a tightness and pain in her chest, and the intense emotional turmoil almost made her faint, but she still looked at Qin You, unwilling to miss a single expression on his face.
Irritability, impatience, rejection, or even aversion...
So he already hated her that much. And she was still foolishly in love with him, fantasizing about confessing to him after graduating high school, while he wouldn't even be her friend anymore.
What about those past ten years or so? Were they just a joke?
Yu Kui closed her eyes, and after a long while, she finally found her voice, "I care a lot about our friendship, and I never thought about becoming strangers with you. Why would you say such a thing..."
Qin You couldn't explain the ambiguous relationship between herself and Tao Jiang, nor could she tell her that she had become an obstacle between them.
With her around, Tao Jiang would not accept his confession.
Faced with the choice between love and friendship, he has already chosen what he truly wants.
She was the friend he decided to give up on, and even though he felt tired and guilty, he didn't want to continue making Tao Jiang unhappy.
Qin You didn't want to tell such a cruel truth. He didn't know why he always liked to lie to Yu Kui, whether it was his feelings for Tao Jiang or Tao Jiang's rejection of Yu Kui. He could never bring himself to say it, as if if he did, he would lose something forever.
That was the thing he least wanted to touch upon.
"You'll make more friends in the future," Qin You said, looking at the desolate night, her voice becoming very low. "You'll meet good people in the future."
"But that's not you..." Yu Kui's tears fell as she looked at Qin You through blurry eyes. "Can you please stop treating me like this? Haven't we always been good friends?"
Why did he change so much in just three months? He seemed to have suddenly become someone she didn't recognize, and the more time she spent with him, the more uneasy she felt.
She was afraid of such changes.
He was her most cherished friend, and she couldn't bear to lose him.
“Everyone changes,” Qin You said with a grim expression as he listened to her sobs. “Just because you’ve known someone for a longer time doesn’t mean your feelings will remain the same.”
So, he really has changed.
He refused to tutor her, stopped replying to her messages, stopped coming to her house for meals, and became increasingly neglectful of her...
He has changed a long time ago.
But she kept finding reasons for him, worrying that something might have happened to him, or that he was in a bad mood because of his studies... She wanted to solve the problem with him.
I never expected that he didn't want to be friends with me anymore.
While she was worried about him, he was thinking about how to get rid of himself.
Just thinking about this made Yu Kui feel like she was about to collapse, and she wanted to hysterically curse and scold him.
What did she do wrong? Why did she do this to herself? How could he say such hurtful things to her!
But she couldn't express it. She was like a bird caged by heaven, only able to let thorns pierce her soft chest, but unable to complain about how painful it was when her heart ruptured.
Tears kept falling, making her vision go black and causing her body to convulse.
Upon seeing this, Qin You's pupils contracted slightly for a moment. "What's wrong with you?"
He instinctively reached out to support Yu Kui, "Are you alright?"
Yu Kui took a step back, avoiding his touch. She stood under the dim streetlights, her eyes brimming with tears as she gazed at him quietly. "I understand what you mean."
The light fell behind her, and in the shadows of the night, Qin You couldn't see her expression, only hear her hoarse, choked voice, "You think I've become a burden to you, don't you?"
"I……"
“Actually, I felt it a long time ago,” Yu Kui said softly. “I felt it before the sports meet, but I just didn’t want to admit it.”
Qin You's eyes widened; that was the time when he fell in love with Tao Jiang.
"I thought you were too busy with your studies and didn't dare to bother you."
At this point, Yu Kui paused, "But I didn't expect that you no longer care about me as a friend."
Qin You looked down at her, the cold wind blowing past his ears, he could only feel the winter chill.
"Actually, I had imagined a lot about our future: going to the same university, doing many things we both like, being best friends for a hundred years, and never being apart... This is the life I've always dreamed of."
"I hope you can be by my side at every stage of my life, because you are not only my friend, but also my... my pillar of support."
At this point, Yu Kui chuckled softly, seemingly finding herself quite ridiculous, "So, fantasy is just fantasy after all."
No matter how wonderful your imagination is, it can never come true.
Qin You took a step back, seemingly only realizing at that moment the terrible harm his casual words had caused to Yu Kui.
The intense emotion he felt was something he had never experienced from anyone before, which shocked him and gave him a feeling of palpitations that he couldn't explain.
"Thank you for speaking up today," Yu Kui tried her best to hide her sadness. Even if things had to fall apart, she hoped that she would appear peaceful in Qin You's eyes, rather than someone who would feel disgusted every time she thought about her. "Thank you for not continuing to deceive me. Thank you."
Qin You's heart trembled. Yu Kui said, "I won't bother you anymore. You don't have to wait for me to go to school every morning, nor do you have to come home with me every afternoon. You can do whatever you want. I won't be an obstacle for you anymore."
Even as they parted ways, she wanted to maintain her dignity: "I accept your decision. From now on... we will no longer be friends. I wish you happiness."
After saying this, Yu Kui could no longer hold back. She turned around and ran into the stairwell. Her small figure disappeared from Qin You's sight like a gust of wind.
When Qin You looked over, he felt a chill on his face and realized it was snowing.
Under the dim streetlights, snowflakes fluttered down, like a grand yet silent farewell.
He should have been very happy, finally able to be with Tao Jiang without any worries, but when the snowflakes fell, he felt an emptiness in his chest.
A jumble of memories flooded his mind: snowball fights with Yu Kui in the neighborhood when they were children, the carefully prepared birthday gifts from Yu Kui, and the times when his mother wasn't around and only she was there to keep him company...
Memories spanning over a decade are not something that can be gathered overnight; they are his most precious treasures from his vulnerable moments.
However, all of that came to an end today.
When Mingming decided to speak up, Qin You felt relieved and exhilarated that he could finally get rid of Yu Kui. However, when he saw her tears, he felt a pang of regret.
Perhaps we could have explained things more tactfully, allowing her to gradually accept our departure.
Unfortunately, they still ended up at this point.
Perhaps this is the price of growing up.
Looking at the lights coming on upstairs, Qin You felt a sense of loss. He had chosen what he wanted, so he couldn't ask for more.
From now on, he will spend more time on Tao Jiang so that he won't regret his choice.
As for Yu Kui, let her remain forever in her past memories.
A note from the author:
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