Huabei

He was once an exceptionally gentle person, not with a restrained gentleness, but with a light that naturally extended outwards. He never hesitated when he loved someone, nor did he leave any ambiguous gaps; his emotions were directly delivered, clean, honest, and without reservation. When he spoke, he always put his intentions at the forefront of his sentences, and even his silence had a clear sense of direction, as if sincerity alone could make the world easy to understand.

When he met that person, his life was still moving along an ordinary track, with days filled with wind, light, and inconsequential trifles. His approach was natural, like a habitual warmth that slowly enveloped the other person's initial distance. He would remember small preferences, quietly stay by their side when they were tired, and offer the most direct gaze when they looked up. His love left no room for testing; everything was laid bare, clear to the point of being almost too candid.

That relationship began lightly but went very deep. The two of them watched sunsets together a few times, talked about what the future might hold, and shared topics of conversation at night that led nowhere in particular. Time became soft during those days, as if allowed to linger in a state of temporary peace. He thought that such a state could continue for a long time, perhaps even be called everyday life.

Later, one day it ended too suddenly, with even the transition feeling stingy. The traces left by that person's departure were faint, so faint that it took him a long time to realize the void had become a fixed part of his world. Since then, many sounds have become distant, many habits have lost their meaning, and even breathing felt like learning to rearrange itself.

When he walked into the graveyard, the weather hadn't changed particularly. The gravestone stood there quietly, the name fixed by time into an unalterable fact. He stopped at that spot and didn't leave, as if a choice had been sealed at that moment. He began to speak before the tombstone, his words still maintaining their usual clarity and gentleness, mentioning the weather, mentioning daily life, mentioning those small details the other person had briefly been a part of.

The change happened without him noticing. At first, it was just the soil showing unusual looseness, then the first rose bloomed beside the stone. That kind of flower didn't belong to that land, yet it continued to grow as if chosen by some obsession. In the days that followed, more and more flowers appeared, their colors gradually covering everything within sight, eventually forming a scene belonging only to that single tombstone.

He remained there, and time gradually lost its segmented meaning for him. The departure of crowds became background noise, the changing of seasons blurred, and the only clarity was the tombstone and the continuously blooming roses. He still spoke occasionally, his sentences short and complete, but their content increasingly leaned towards one-sided narration. The roses became denser when he lingered, and maintained their steady bloom when he was silent.

When people passed by, they would notice the unusual sea of flowers, and some would gaze briefly, but no one truly stayed to understand the full picture of that relationship. To him, those observations were unimportant; the important part had long been fixed beneath that stone.