Chapter 61

Around the age of thirteen or fourteen, I lay curled up on the couch under a heavy blanket, feeling frail and listless as I watched a wildly popular Taiwanese idol drama with Mom.

The show starred a girl who threw inexplicable tantrums all the time. She was incredibly clingy, sulking at the drop of a hat and relying on everyone else for everything, until those around her grew utterly exhausted.

That earned her the label of having “princess syndrome.”

Mom shared Grandma’s habit when it came to TV—she’d nod off at the slightest provocation. But she kept patting my back, one steady rhythm after another. When I was sick, I always felt like some ghost would come press down on me in my sleep if no one did that; it made drifting off impossible.

Gazing at the girl on the screen, I suddenly started reflecting on my own habits.

I nestled deeper into Mom’s embrace and asked, “Mom, do I have princess syndrome too?”

I’d once heard a classmate venting about her own mother. The girl had just wanted a pair of those trendy jeans everyone in class was snapping up, and her mom snapped back that she didn’t have a princess’s fate but sure had the disease. I hadn’t known what to say to comfort her, so I’d just given her a hug.

Mom, hearing my question, let out a half-asleep snore from her doze. She jolted awake, patted my back once more, and said, “Chi Shuishui, what wild nonsense are you cooking up now?”

I really did get lost in random thoughts when I was under the weather. “Mom, don’t you worry that if I keep acting like this, I’ll drive people away once I venture out into the world?”

Mom yawned wide. “Drive who away?”

“Lover,” came the word from the TV. “Lover,” I echoed. Mom’s yawn cut off mid-breath as she smacked the top of my head, her voice pitching up at least eight octaves. “Chi Shuishui, are you in puppy love?”

“No.” I hardly ever lied to Mom. “I’m just mulling it over.”

Mom let out an “oh,” then gently smoothed back the sweat-matted strands of hair from my forehead. “If they bolt, let ’em bolt. What’s the point of someone who cuts and runs that easily?”

I wriggled even closer into her arms, my head fuzzy as I murmured on, “Not everyone’s like you, Mom. You stick around no matter how much of a brat I am.”

Mom gave my back a firm pat, then let out a cool little “heh” that carried a warning edge.

“You’d better realize this, sweetie: Mom loves you like crazy not so you can run off and tolerate someone else’s moods for the sake of some ‘lover,’ eating dirt and swallowing grievances.”

My fever-fried brain struggled to unpack that fully, but it touched me all the same. I clung to her that much tighter, all needy and dependent. “Mom, you’re the best. I love you. I’ll watch Taiwanese idol dramas with you for the rest of my life.”

Mom beamed at the sweet talk. She patted my back a few more times, pausing as if weighing whether my odd question hinted at something deeper. In the end, she opted for a straight answer.

“Someday, you’ll meet someone you love. When you’re sick, that person will pat your back and binge SpongeBob with you. You’ll gladly do all sorts of things you’d never dream of otherwise, just for them. You’ll bicker sometimes, and bits will rub you the wrong way. But you’ll make up—maybe you’ll give in, maybe they will. If it ever feels like you’re just ‘putting up with it,’ they’re not the one. When it feels like ‘love,’ that’s the keeper my baby’s meant to cherish.”

Those words were a tangle back then. I was teetering on the edge of sleep as she said them, but they burned themselves into the deepest corners of my memory.

I still remember every bit.

Drowsily, I ventured, “Like you do with me, Mom?”

Mom huffed.

“If they manage even half the love I have for you, that’ll do just fine.”

At twenty-seven, I phoned Mom, all wounded and whiny. “She didn’t put a note on my contact.”

“What kind of note?”

Her end of the line buzzed with noise.

I started to elaborate, but then she mumbled over there, “One bamboo!”

“…”

I went quiet for a beat, waiting for her to scoot back to the phone. Then, through gritted teeth, I spat, “So love really does change after all!”

I slammed the call dead in a huff.

The phone flew from my hand onto the carpet, tumbling a few rolls before fetching up beside a slipper. Cui Muhuo froze mid-pack, scooped it up, but instead of handing it back, just set it aside and resumed folding her clothes.

I stomped off in a sulk to fetch an apple, chomped down—and nearly cracked a tooth. Still, I played it cool, like nothing had happened. They say you can’t lose your fire in a spat.

Crunch.

But was this even a spat?

The apple’s scent bloomed sweetly, dragging my mind back ten minutes. I’d been helping Cui Muhuo pack for her business trip, loath to see her go, half-wishing I could stuff myself in her suitcase too.

Then I spotted the issue—grave, really. Neither in her old QQ contacts nor her current WeChat ones.

Had she ever bothered noting me.

Snatching up her phone, I marched over with a super-friendly nudge. “Cui Muhuo, you haven’t noted me at all.”

She was jotting her trip essentials list at the time, her reply vague and distracted. “Right.”

Right?

That was it? Just “right”?

No follow-up explanation?

I planted my hands on my hips, thoroughly miffed. “You’re not even gonna explain?”

“Explain what?”

Cui Muhuo finally dragged her focus to me, her expression genuinely baffled. “Is this a big deal?”

Not bigger than her heading out on a weeklong trip without me, sure. But… but!

I pouted hard. “Of course it is! If you don’t note me, that means I’m not one-of-a-kind in your book!”

She mulled it over.

“Does that mean if I do note you, you’ll be one-of-a-kind to me?”

I scrunched up my nose, her logic nearly winning me over—but I dug in my heels anyway.

Fuming and wordless, I snatched up my phone and tattled to Mom.

Mom was deep in a mahjong game, clearly having wiped every trace of our earlier heart-to-heart from her mind. That bit about loving me half as much? Total hogwash she’d probably forgotten on the spot—likely only I’d held onto it all these years.

Crunch.

This apple was like a rock! Completely gross. I swore off them starting today.

“Chi Buyu.”

Cui Muhuo piped up—and it sounded like she was biting back a laugh.

Fuming, I stretched the foot dangling off the couch couchward, scooting it over till my puppy socks nudged her suitcase and gave her crisp white shirt a little stomp.

“Hey!”

I started to pull back, but she caught my ankle in a full grip. Her eyes locked on the floppy little dog ears waggling on my sock, and she cracked up for real.

I wriggled, nearly planting a kick in her face. “Quit laughing!”

She didn’t get mad.

She just held on, smoothed out the ruffled cuff at my sock’s edge, and drawled, all casual, “All these years later, and you’re still rocking the puppy socks?”

“I like ’em!” I felt like a sieve catching fire—poke me anywhere and I’d spark.

She kept laughing.

That laugh of hers was dangerously charming.

But I wasn’t about to swoon right then.

I puffed up on the couch like a fuming pufferfish.

She let go and came over, piling both our phones into my lap before wrapping me in a hug. She planted a kiss right on my protruding pout—which could have balanced an oil lantern.

“Chi Shuishui, you look exactly like a duck-bill fire extinguisher right now.”

?

She sure had a way with words.

Even if she’d noted me as “Duck-Bill Fire Extinguisher,” it’d beat nothing.

I quacked out a duck-bill imitation, all pathetic and prodding her chin with my pout. “No, you do.”

She chuckled. “Mm, apple-flavored, too.”

I nearly clawed her shirt open to take a bite.

Before I could, though, she flashed both phones in front of me. The contact labeled “SpongeBob Afraid of Water” had been updated—to “Dear Water-Averse SpongeBob.”

?

She was hopeless at nicknames.

I leveled a finger-gun at her, barrel jammed right into the meager flesh of her cheek, blunt as could be. “How’s this any different from the old one?”

Her already slim cheek dimpled under my “gun.” It made her words come out all cute and muffled, like Patrick Star floating adrift at sea and mumbling in Chinese.

“No difference?”

She glanced sideways at me, utterly unfazed by my weapon. I huffed, then—bang bang—unreasonably plugged her with two more rounds.

She looked so done with it.

Deadpan, she cocked her head in that classic “ow, you got me” pose.

Delighted, I blew imaginary gunsmoke from my finger and slid my gaze to the next one. In WeChat, plain old “Chi Shuishui” had become—

“Princess Chi Shuishui.”

?

I pondered it seriously, then gave her cheek a gentle pinch. “Cui Muhuo, you really suck at pet names, huh?”

She dissolved into laughter.

She shrugged helplessly, darted in for another peck on my duck-bill pout, and lectured me like a kid laying down the law. “Look, I just don’t buy that slapping a note on a contact makes someone ‘one-of-a-kind.’ Doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Okay, fine—she really did have a way with words.

But… hold up!

I propped my cheeks in my hands, beaming up at her. “So you’re saying you love me like crazy?”

Cui Muhuo tilted her head.

I’d caught her off guard. She rarely doled out mush like that. Now snagged, a visible flush crept up her neck. She tried ducking away like old times.

I nabbed both her hands.

She twisted her head aside. I followed. Forced to meet my eyes at last, she sighed in utter defeat, faking annoyance. “Yes, yes, happy now?”

“Yes what?” I wouldn’t let up, my pout damn near ceiling-bound.

She swatted at my jutting lips.

Totally exasperated. “Chi Buyu, that mouth of yours is gonna scrape the sky.”

I kept grinning.

But for the long-term health of this relationship, I decided to cut her some slack.

I swiped her phone, fiddled around, and voilà—her note for me now read:

“Princess Chi Shuishui☆”

She eyed it, clearly puzzling out what the star changed. After a moment, she shot me a look. “Why a star? Not a heart?”

I patted her cheek, blurting something utterly random. “Stars don’t go out. They’re always right there with you.”

She sighed. “Where do you even pull these lyrics from?”

Satisfied my sulk had fully fizzled, she settled back on the carpet to fuss over her suitcase—which was already packed neat as a pin. Lord knew when she’d call it good enough.

I watched her from the couch.

Took a bite of the half-eaten apple. Not quite as tooth-shattering now. I padded across the carpet barefoot, leaned in, and she obligingly took a nibble from my hand. We traded an apple-sweet kiss.

Panting for breath, I noticed my phone ringing. I wiped the apple juice from my mouth and dashed to the sofa to answer it. It was Mom calling.

The sounds of the mahjong parlor still filtered through from her end.

I swung my legs in delight, watching the two floppy ears on my Puppy Socks tussle with each other, and without any real reason, blurted out to Mom,

“She still loves me, and I still love her.”

Mom fell silent, utterly speechless for a long moment, before drawling,

“Is it even half as much as me?”

So Mom still remembered that little thing. I writhed around on the sofa like a beautiful serpent. Yes, if I were a snake, I’d definitely be a beautiful one.

I glanced at Cui Muhuo.

She appeared to be mulling over what might be missing from her suitcase, but it was probably all an act. I could see her ears quietly turning red—likely because she’d overheard what I’d said to Mom.

I deliberately stayed quiet for a beat. Sure enough, she couldn’t help herself. She pretended to casually flick a glance my way before quickly looking off again. Finally, in a totally unnecessary move, she smoothed down her hair to hide those red ears of hers.

I nearly burst out laughing, propping my chin on my hand as I pondered the question very seriously for a moment. Then, to Mom—who was still waiting for my answer on the other end—I said,

“Maybe even more.”