Pastel Colours - Chapter 1

Day0117:08

Songran is an illustrator for children’s picture books.

He went to S City to work hard when he was a fledgling young man. He had been tumbling for years, and finally signed a long-term contract with several publishing houses. Because of his diligence, courtesy, and timely submission, the aunts, sisters and old aunts in the editorial department like him very much. They regard him as a son. They often talk about introducing a girlfriend to the positive young Ranran classmates. He always smiles and says no , Let it happen.

Just kidding, he is a gay, he can’t cheat innocent girls.

Songran’s sexual orientation is natural and hopeless to reverse. Although he has no time to fall in love for more than 20 years, and he hasn’t really liked anyone, but the vague figure sweating on him in the spring dream is not a woman, and he is definitely not a woman.

Songran is single and has no partner yet.

When he first came to City S, he saw a pair of same-sex couples holding hands and shoulders in the subway. This gave him the wrong signal that the **** circle in City S was as ordinary and public as this couple. So he took the courage to go to GayBar for a night, but was forced to flee by the sensual coquettish costume and the slutty estrus atmosphere, and since then he severed the idea of ​​finding a partner in this way.

To this day, Songran has lived alone.

After the late spring, followed by the early summer, after the autumn frost, followed by the winter snow, he composed pictures under dense rain and flowering branches, painted in the warm sun and fallen leaves, quietly and quietly, and every stroke was peaceful.

Occasionally, he will faintly look forward to it, imagining what the other half of the future will be like. Songran likes this sense of anticipation very much. It makes life vigorous and encourages him to face everyone with a smile, because maybe at some inadvertent moment, the destined person will appear unexpectedly.

Songran hoped that the first expression she gave him was the cleanest smile.

Songran has two dimples, smiles very beautifully, reveals the rare innocence and tenderness of adults, and easily overcomes the aunts who are overwhelmed by maternal love in the editorial department.

However, from a certain day, he became lack of self-confidence.

For example, now he is standing at the entrance of the apartment hall, holding the access card in his hand, and practicing smiling at the floor-to-ceiling glass of Guang Ke Jian Ren over and over again, with a little nervousness on his limbs and lips.

The bright hall was empty, and it seemed that someone would come out at any time.

He watched from the corner of his light, urging himself to adjust his smile as soon as possible. A few seconds later, he swiped the card neatly, and a “dingdong” sound was heard above his head.

He pushed open the glass door, walked through the hall, and walked towards the residential elevator.

In the first step, no one appeared.

In the second step, no one showed up.

The third step, the fourth step…Every step I take, I feel more nervous.

After finishing fifteen steps, Songran stood in front of the two elevators and saw that their operation indicators were dim, and the number stayed on the 01th floor-which meant that he could not meet anyone coming down from the upper floors.

Song Ran sighed disappointedly.

Today, the probability of meeting that man is once again infinitely close to zero.

Songran patted the button to open the door, walked into the elevator, turned around, stared at the glass door when he came in, silently saying the last prayer.

There are five seconds before the elevator closes.

He has five seconds left.

If someone shows up, even if only a strand of broken hair or a piece of clothing is exposed, as long as he sees it, he will not hesitate to pat the button to open the door.

But no.

Fate still forgot to take care of him.

The elevator doors are closed step by step like every day before. The bright four-sided steel walls are seamlessly stitched, and the overhead is two rows of inlaid frosted lights. As the floor numbers continue to jump, the atmosphere in the elevator becomes depressing. Songran leaned back against the wall and exhaled a long breath.

It’s ok.

He told himself.

What if you don’t meet it today? He still has tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after tomorrow… As long as he lives here and waits patiently, one day in the future, he will always have a chance to meet that man again.

Songran is a very optimistic person. As a children’s illustrator, his life is full of innocent and interesting fairy tales. Over time, he has maintained a mentality of a big boy. The children believe in Santa Claus and Moon Rabbit Laurel, and he believes in the fate between people, even if the futile wait has lasted for more than forty days, he still believes that fate exists.

What is fate?

The fate is probably that on a boring afternoon, Songran, who never defaulted on rent, received a call from the landlord, saying that something went wrong with his own business, and the house had to be taken back and put on the market for sale. It was troublesome to renew the rent to him. He found a place to stay as early as possible.

Just before receiving that call, Songran had just finished submitting the manuscript, feeling relaxed, and rarely had the urge to act like a baby, so she propped her chin, pouted, and whispered in the editorial department.

Just as he spoke, Aunt Ji, who was searching for discounted skirts next to him, read the last line of the Taobao page and clicked to turn the page. The screen went blank, giving the ears a second of free time, just to catch the complaint.

Just an hour ago, Aunt Ji had a new key in her bag.

This key can open the door of 8012A, Building 5, Bishuiwanju.

Aunt Ji has an old girlfriend of decades, whose surname is Liu. Half a year ago, this old girlfriend and her husband bought a new home in Bishuiwanju. They had just finished the decoration and furniture. Not a few days after they had lived, their daughter from Australia called an urgent phone call and said it was born early. Granddaughter. The couple hurriedly bought air tickets and flew to Melbourne. They had no time to find foster care for the puppet cats at home. They had to return half a year later, so they entrusted Aunt Ji to rent out a clean and cat-loving young man. Hire someone to look after the cat for them.

The point is that the rent is only charged for two thousand and one month.

The old couple surnamed Liu are retired professors of F University. They have taught for 30 years and have a deep affection for the campus. They bought the house within walking distance of Metro Line 10. In addition, it is close to the embassy area, with excellent public security and high-end environment. The normal rent of Bishuiwanju is about 8,000 per month, which is four times beyond Songran’s ability to bear.

Yes, exactly four times.

In S City, where money flows, with Songran’s meager income, he can only afford to rent an old house of 30 square meters built in the 1980s and blacked out by a coal cake oven.

The one-bedroom apartment that Songran rented before was a product of the last century, leaking water and air, and very poor lighting. At the time of planning, I didn’t care much. The doors of two households in the corner were close to each other, and the anti-theft door was often stuck in a stalemate. The next door quarreled and slammed the door, “Kang Kang” hit the door of Songran’s house.

When Songran concentrated on creating, it was easy to be frightened. When the door slammed and his hand shook, the work he worked so hard to paint was ruined. Occasionally, with good luck, it can be saved by tinkering, and most of the time I can only repaint.

The bear child upstairs was also not at ease. Just after Songran finished the background color several times, the bear child bounced his feet, and the white paint on the ceiling was loose, mixed with dust and falling down, covered in light, fresh watercolor. You can’t blow it off. Looking at the canvas like a construction site, he thought about it and couldn’t find a solution, so he rubbed his hair and sat on the bed in a daze.

To be honest, Songran wanted to say goodbye to the slums, but when the sky really fell, a two-hundred-square-meter, prime location, and a monthly rent of two thousand good residences, he found that he could not take advantage of this advantage.

Aunt Ji had a warm heart. She grabbed her bag shortly after five o’clock and drove her to see the house like a cow.

Songran was standing at the gate of the community in a cute cat pullover with a hand-painted kit on his back, watching the private cars with rare car logos passing by, and then was surprised to find that in ten minutes, Apart from them, no third person walked in.

This place is obviously not suitable for mortals to live in-he can’t always park the old bicycle with 0 displacement and these big guys with 4 or 5 displacement in the underground garage, right?

Moreover, there is no vegetable market around.

On the way from the subway station, Songran saw a pet clinic opened by a French doctor, an izakaya with red paper lanterns at the door, comparable to the theater of a five-star hotel, and an imported supermarket specializing in organic food…near Bishuiwanju The building reached the realm of inhumane fireworks, and he drove the small vegetable market out of the downtown area four or five blocks away. I really don’t know what the rich eat.

For the same expenditure of 2,000 yuan, instead of adding 100 square meters of extra space, Songran hopes to exchange for a suitable living environment, preferably a lively community, you can see the old man wearing a vest carrying a basket of vegetables when you go out. Teddy’s kind.

Songran knows what he wants, so he has a persistent attitude.

At least after looking at the house with Aunt Ji, taking the elevator down, walking past the two-meter-wide wooden bridge over the shallow pool, the moment he turned his head and looked back, he was still trying to decline, and said, “The rent is so cheap.” , The house is big, and I don’t have much experience in raising cats, you still…”

While speaking, a silver-gray Infiniti drove into the field of vision from the right, slowed down smoothly to zero, put in reverse gear, and fell into the five umbrella caravan spaces.

More than forty days have passed, and Songran still remembers every frame at that time.

The windows of the car are rolled down, there is plenty of daylight, everything is like pre-arranged, to show him the man in the driver’s seat in the most perfect way-sitting upright, muscles relaxed, left hand on the top of the steering wheel, light blue His cotton shirt has a collar button and the cuffs are neatly rolled to the forearm.

His profile is almost perfect, especially the bridge of his nose and brow bones.

He raised his neck slightly, the back of his head was against the back of the seat, the corners of his lips were raised, and he was chatting with the person whose back seat was blocked by the car window. Because I had a good chat, I smiled naturally, and those smiling eyes seemed to condense the ultimate tenderness of the world.

The speed was accurately zeroed at one and a half parking spaces, and the car stopped so securely that there was no one centimeter forward. The man changed gears casually, glanced at the rearview mirror from the corner of his eye, and started to reverse the car skillfully.

When it hits the full direction, the wheel rotates, and the body traverses a perfect arc, and it is put into the warehouse without rush.

As the angle changed, the man’s profile gradually turned into a straight face, and his handsome eyebrows and pleasant smile were clearly displayed in front of Songran.

Songran stood on the wooden bridge, clutching the corner of the T-shirt tightly, feeling his whole body hot.

His eyes had been lingering in thousands of beautiful colors, but at this moment he could only accommodate this man.

In the past, Songran read gossip magazines with her sisters from the publishing house, and read a list called “What do men do most handsomely”. The elder sisters yelled while holding the magazine, and they all expressed that they couldn’t agree more. Song Ran looked blank, and a pulsating question mark appeared above her head, thinking seriously about where the action was.

Now he stared at the car, breathing disorder, blood flowing backwards, adrenaline boiling like boiling water, and he knew exactly what the sisters felt at the time.

The man is really **** while reversing smoothly!

In ancient times, a keen hunter’s ability to control direction would make all the females in the race fall over. This instinct to admire the strong has been passed on from generation to generation, and it has gone beyond the scope of reason and has become an inducement to ignite hormones.

Infiniti’s engine turned off, and on the wooden bridge opposite, the love in Songran’s heart was burning hot in his chest.

In twenty-three years, his belated love awakened for the first time.

The man pulled out the key, opened the door and got out of the car.

One meter eighty six.

Or one meter 87.

Songran is a kneeling looking person, kneeling in the dust, unable to accurately estimate the height of the man, only to see that he is in excellent shape, his appearance is not messed up after a day trip, his shirt is as smooth as before, and a strong chest and abdomen are faintly outlined. The muscles, the hem is neatly gathered in the waistband by the belt, a typical elite style.

He has a pair of long legs, in Song Ran’s eyes, that is the king’s scepter-upright, sacred, and exudes a powerful aura.

The man stretched out his hand to open the back seat door, bent over and leaned into his upper body, and when he came out again, he had a small child in his arms. The child twisted his **** and sat down on his father’s arm, wrapped his small arm around his neck, and kissed awkwardly on the cheek.

If it was said that Songran had just fallen into the huge impact of love, then at this moment, when the picture of a man holding a young son came into view, Songran was almost stunned.

This is a perfect man.

He belongs to the family.

It is difficult for Songran to tell whether it is the dual identity of husband and father that has added a mature texture to this man, which makes him a fatal attraction, or the happy family behind him that fills Songran’s deep heart for home. desire.

Song Ran has no home.

He had it when he was very young and lost it when he was very young.

At this moment, he was standing on the wooden bridge, watching the man holding the young son from a distance, throwing, catching, and jokingly walking into the meeting room of Building No. 5, then suddenly turned around and took the key from Aunt Ji’s hand.

He wants to live here.

Because on one floor of this building, he lives with a complete family, perhaps very close to the twelfth floor where he will live. They represent the most admired vision in Song Ran’s heart. Across the wall and the floor, those inaudible and invisible laughter and laughter can shield Song Ran’s heart in imagination.

A good man deserves a good family to match. Sometimes, the rules of the world are not too bad.

Songran thought so.

He doesn’t disturb the lives of his neighbors, he just wants to get closer, draw from the happiness of others, and breathe a bit of family warmth-they are his fairy tales.

No one can enter the fairy tale world, but as long as you believe in its existence, you can live happily.

The elevator stopped on the twelfth floor, and the indicator light lit up and flickered softly. Songran adjusted his emotions from the faint disappointment and walked out of the elevator.

There are two households on each floor of Bishuiwan Residence. Go out of the elevator and turn right into Room A, and turn left into Room B. The public area is a smooth beige marble brick surface, and the private space starts from the respective door blanket and extends to the shoe rack and flower stand by the window.

The door blanket of Songran’s house is huge, it is a soft tuft of material, and it shows a chipmunk submerged in a pile of pine cones. Last year, he drew the cover and illustrations for “The Chipmunk’s Dream”, but he was a little popular and made a few peripherals. Songran wanted to ask for a doll, but unfortunately the old aunts in the publishing house have grandchildren in their homes, and they are extremely powerful. He only grabbed a play blanket for toddlers after squeezing his head. He couldn’t decide where to put it, so he threw it out When the door blanket. In contrast, the door blanket in Room B is much more serious-the standard size rectangle, bristles, dark gray, and the material is quite resistant to dirt, indicating that the owner has a determined and capable character.

Songran took off the canvas shoes, put them on the shoe rack upright, inserted the access card into the card slot, and with a beep, the keyhole flashed out.

He took out the key to open the door and observed the plants on the flower stand before going in.

The bellflowers and sunflowers are growing well, full of color, and full of energy in the sun. The soil is soft and moist. It doesn’t need to be hydrated for the time being, just spray a little mist on the petals and leaves.

Then he remembered something, turned around, jumped up to the opposite flower table with one foot, stretched his neck and took a look-sure enough, the two pots of Casablanca were already dead, and the expensive nutrient soil was completely cracked. When he first moved in last month, the flower was a little wilted. He couldn’t see it, so he quietly helped to water it for two weeks. According to this, he might have misunderstood that the flower is the same family as the cactus, and it can live without watering.

Songran was worthless for the flowers and plants, made a face toward room B, and jumped back again.

Twelve kilograms of plush dumplings were waiting inside the door. Seeing Songran’s return, he first whispered and then fell to the ground, exposing his white belly, and begged meow to touch.

Songran soothed it, added water and cat food to the cat bowl, and started to make dinner for herself.

There are fresh asparagus and shrimp in the refrigerator. Songran fasten the apron, defrost the ingredients, marinate the shrimp in a small bowl of cooking wine and ginger, cut the asparagus on the cutting board, and cook the white porridge in a small casserole. He especially liked the sound of thick porridge bubbling. He felt that it was food singing, so he whispered the tune while shaking the pot and spoon to beat.

Stir-fry the ingredients over high heat, pour them into the porridge pot and stir clockwise evenly.

Songran didn’t like the color, so he added a small spoonful of seafood soy sauce. The steam is rising from the pot and the soy sauce is tangy, which makes people greedy.

When the porridge is cooked and the stove is cleaned, the sky outside the window is already dark.

Songran remembered that he still had to spray the flowers and plants, picked up the spray bottle, picked up some water under the faucet, pulled the slippers and pushed out the door. He just pushed open a seam, he felt a little strange in the hand, the door seemed to be blocked by something, and when he tried harder, there was a muffled cry in the dark, the voice of a child.

When the child cried, the voice-activated light in the public area immediately turned on.

Songran poked his head out from the crack in the door, and saw a little boy sitting on the chipmunk door blanket, holding a small schoolbag with his left hand and propping on the ground with his right hand, looking up at him with a grieved face. There were bright teardrops swirling in a pair of black water spirit’s big eyes, which made people think of flowing crystals.

Songran became nervous, and a series of water mist came out from the spray bottle.

“Baby, you… whose child are you?”