Chapter Text
In hindsight, Yao Guang Li really should’ve seen it coming. It’s been like, what— Years? Since it happened. Since they met— Her, and Cyrene. It hits Yao Guang like vivid recollection and sunrise. Four years. Four years, and another five—no, seven, just after the first. Again, Time is a human construct, and far, far too long.
She was much younger then, half a year into her three-year Business Major when they met, by sheer coincidence. They didn’t know each other. Yao Guang was working part-time in the Science museum and covering for a coworker . In actuality, Jing Yuan was slacking off and she knew, but who was she to care when their supervisor didn’t know and there was nobody else? So she took the slot, and there she was, touring a bunch of primary-schoolers around the electricity sector at twelve in the afternoon.
Yao Guang makes sure to keep the little ones close when she walks around. Like little penguins, they crowd around a plasma orb and start ooh-ing and aah-ing at it, mesmerised at the way the ‘lightning’ follows their fingers. Her gaze wanders farther and farther back, from the children, to the glass on the side, then the sculptures far, far at the back section, and then the people straying around loosely just outside of the circle her mind drew around her and the kids.
In the middle of all the greys and scientific vibrancy, pink is what catches her eye.
A girl with long, pink hair walks out from behind the concrete beam towards the machinery section. Her nose slopes down in an elegant line, and she had eyes the colour of the twilight sky. Yao Guang blinked.
The girl looked at her, too. Their gazes lingered on each other for far too long a glance, and the moment was gone in an instant. Just like that. The girl smiled, nodded, and went on her way. Yao Guang realised she had looked on much longer than she thought.
She rerouted her attention back to the primary-schoolers, who were already starting to mess around and disperse, much to the dismay of someone Yao Guang assumes to be their teacher.
The day passes much like a blink. Yao Guang exits the building by five, takes the bus home, walks on the pavements and crosses the underpasses amidst the growing quiet. It’s almost half to seven when she arrives. Again, nothing but quiet, save for the muffled sounds of the cars below. Her key jingles when she enters her room.
She cooks herself some rice and egg after walking herself around the room to prepare for tomorrow. Yao Guang smiles a little, finding some solace in the sizzle and smell of the egg and tomatoes in the pan. By the time she has finished everything, it’s nine. It’s lucky that she’s finished her homework beforehand. In short, life was a little mundane. It doesn’t feel too bad when she goes it with her friends, but in days without, sometimes, the quiet grows a little bigger than she can handle.
Yao Guang thought about the girl she saw in the afternoon. Pink hair, with the twilight for eyes. They did not talk, and Yao Guang did not know her name. It was all by chance and luck, and Yao Guang finds herself accepting that they may not meet again. A shame, really, but Yao Guang knows life always has other plans— it’s what brought her here in the first place. By ten, she falls asleep to the sound of the rain outside her window.
Days pass fast. She walks to university, stays for a few hours in lectures, and goes out with her friends to drink. It gets really, really fun when Feixiao— her best friend of a year-and-a-half, gets absolutely smashed, because she would, more than not, actually try to smash a piece of furniture. Fu Xuan— her junior, and Jing Yuan— also her friend in business, would break a leg and a half to stop her. It’s not a question that she would get drunk, either. If she ever did, she barely remembers.
In a Wednesday with nothing, Jing Yuan comes to her. Yao Guang looks up from her laptop and quirks an eyebrow.
“Can I help you?”
“No,” Jing Yuan says, matter-of-factly. “I do have something to tell you.”
“Spill. Is it something with Feixiao again?”
Jing Yuan shook his head. “No. A friend of mine— Stelle, if you know her— told me to invite my friends out for a party. I think somewhere in a club near the edge of the quay. I’ll send you the details if you want to come.”
Yao Guang hums, her fingers hovering over the keys on her laptop. She blinks, and moves them away. Jing Yuan takes her stare as a question and an invitation.
“She and her brother are inviting everyone they know. Can’t fathom how they can hold a party so big, but we’ll see. Maybe you’ll find people, even. Who knows?”
Yao Guang thought about the pink girl she saw in the Science Centre. Perhaps, she thought, there was a chance. It is slim, but it is there.
“I’ll go,” She decides. “Luck is there for those who strive to find it.”
“You talk like a fortune teller, Yao Guang,” Jing Yuan laughs, patting her shoulder. “Marketing really suits you.”
She watches him turn away and leave, walking over to the group of four standing in the corridor. His other friends, Yao Guang assumes. She shook her head and went back to work. Two-thousand words due in three days does not wait for anyone.
Jing Yuan tells her the party starts at eight, on a Friday. When it strikes six, she dons her best outfit, curls her hair a little, and chooses her favourite rings. Her pouch jingles when she picks it up— it’s the little bell she hung there on the clasp when she left her hometown. Bad luck can turn good when you force it to, that was her creed. Everything by one’s own effort. If so, she can turn the tide of her own luck. If she wants to meet this girl again, she will, at some point. Luck is hers to steer.
She arrives at the peak of the party. There were twenty people or so— perhaps more—she really underestimated Jing Yuan’s friend. This kind of connection was extensive. In the back of her mind, she thought of needing to find her own, but it’s not like she does not have strong bonds, either. She files the thought in the corner as she looks around. The music was loud, and the chatter was neverending. It felt like she was in a club. There are people standing around the drink stands and dancing in the centre of the room— briefly she saw Jing Yuan clapping as Feixiao throws a shot of tequila down her throat. In another corner, she noticed Jing Yuan’s friend, Dan Heng (or was it Dan Feng? she can’t give a single fuck, to be honest with herself) trying to stop a grey-haired woman almost as tall as he is— Stelle? from throwing it back, with another grey-haired man who she assumed to be her brother actually throwing it back like he’s done it a million times. This party is indeed lively.
Then it happens. When Yao Guang looks towards the DJ table, she sees pink. The world tunnels to one single point, all of a sudden. Not love, no— just a peculiar sense of curiosity. It’s those twilight eyes again. Laughing with a white-haired man with what looks like a sun tattooed into his open neck— gay man? Yao Guang thought, offhandedly. A little easy to see, as a queer woman herself.
The girl looks at her, then, and their eyes linger upon each other longer than what was necessary. Yao Guang could do nothing but wave. When the girl waves back, she takes it as que and walks her way.
“Yao Guang. Yao Guang Li,” she says, introducing herself. “I remember seeing you in the Science Centre last few Wednesdays. Luck says I get to see you today, I see.”
The girl smiles, charming and glittery. “Cyrene,” she replies. “Cyrene Philia Demiurgus, but just call me Cyrene. It’s lovely to see you again.”
Yao Guang laughs. “Stelle really knows a lot of people, it seems. The world is smaller than I thought it would be.”
“Well, they are well travelled,” Cyrene laughs along, breath trilling airily, “and an outlier. I wouldn’t see why people would not be drawn to her.”
The white-haired man beside Cyrene signs something— I’ll be down at the? Parking lot? with My Day? Yao Guang doesn’t know, she can’t read sign well— and Cyrene nods, waving him away. Most importantly, it leaves Yao Guang virtually alone with Cyrene. The nerves almost fray under her skin. Cyrene breaks the mold first before she could.
Yao Guang finds out they go to the same university, only that she’s taking Psychology, and Yao Guang business. Different buildings. Alas. However, they live in the same building— good news— and apparently she has journaling and photography as a hobby. She probably would click well with March.
It’s almost twelve when Yao Guang decides to leave. Cyrene and her had exchanged numbers— and Caelus— Stelle’s brother, Cyrene says, had put them all in a big group chat Yao Guang knows will probably go dead in around a month. Unless something absurd happens, which will most likely happen.
“I’ll see you again,” Cyrene had said, waving at Yao Guang’s tipsy self. “Get home safe.”
Yao Guang watches her leave, and blinks. Okay. New friend. Quite literally all she could think of. Fu Xuan had to drag her out of the building to the taxi because she was a little jelly to walk on her own.
In retrospect, that really was the start of it. Yao Guang was only a first year who couldn’t divine the finer details. How would she have known that she would’ve fallen so far?