Little Octopus - Chapter 3
Chapter 3
It was five months before I saw him again.
We had no contact during that time.
By then, I had ended my aimless wandering and found a new job as a magazine editor.
He suddenly appeared downstairs at my office building.
He was wearing a plain black T-shirt, black trousers, and a black bucket hat, blending into the night so well that I didn’t even notice him at first.
He caught up to me. “Little Octopus.”
I stared at him, stunned for several seconds.
“Forgotten me already?”
“Yu Chenghuai.”
“Present!” he answered quickly, then leaned down to meet my eyes from below with a smile. “What are the Commander’s orders?”
He only had forty-eight hours of leave. His station wasn’t in Rong City; it had taken him eight hours to get here, and another eight had to be deducted for the return trip.
We only had thirty-two hours together. If we subtracted eight hours for work tomorrow and eight hours for sleep, we only had sixteen hours.
As a native of Rong City, where everyone takes life at a leisurely pace, for the first time, I felt the pressure of time.
He and I walked along the Funan River.
At some point, he had taken my hand in his.
He had calluses on the first joint of his index finger and the second joints of his middle, ring, and pinky fingers.
Yes, this was the hand of someone who held a gun.
“What is Little Octopus pondering now?”
“I’m wondering what exactly it is you do.”
“Would you be angry if I said I can’t tell you?”
“Are you a criminal?”
“No.”
“Then that’s fine.” I smiled and walked backward in front of him.
He curled his finger and flicked my forehead. “You believe everything I say?”
“Why would you bother lying to an ordinary citizen like me? Is it because of my youth? Or because I like taking baths?”
“What on earth…” Though he didn’t recognize the meme from the recent TV show, he was still laughing.
His laugh was clean, pure, and enough to make my heart skip a beat.
I took time off work and stayed with him in the hotel for thirty-two hours.
Actually, I could guess a bit about what he did.
Carrying a gun, being a soldier, the secrecy.
It was just that if he didn’t say it, I wouldn’t ask.
Aside from kissing, we didn’t do anything more intimate in the hotel. We simply clung to each other, watching movies or playing games together.
Speaking of which, even that first kiss was an accident.
I had tripped on the hotel carpet and happened to fall right onto him as he sat on the sofa.
My lip smacked against his teeth, and I winced in pain.
He said he’d blow on it to make it better, and then the blowing turned into a kiss.
…
However, even if we did nothing, the clock wouldn’t stop for us.
When he left, he asked me, “Can I file a marriage report next time I come back?”
“You haven’t even confessed your love, and I haven’t even inspected the goods yet!” I buried myself under the duvet to hide my bright red face.
He pulled the duvet and me into a hug. “Oh! Little Octopus! You should have said you wanted to inspect the goods earlier! I wouldn’t have had to hold back for so long!”
His tone was one of extreme regret, like someone who had won five million dollars but couldn’t find the lottery ticket.
I pushed him from inside the blankets. “Go, go, go! Just leave!”
“Next time I’m back: inspection, meeting the parents, and then I’m filing that report as soon as I return!”
My third meeting with him came quickly, only two months later.
Except for when he was on leave, he wasn’t allowed to use a mobile phone.
So for those two months, he could only use a landline to call me for ten minutes every weekend.
If I missed his call and tried to call back, it wouldn’t be him on the other end.
Because of this, I kept my phone clutched in my hand throughout the weekend, determined to answer the very second it rang.
Once, when he called, I was crying because of my roommate.
She had invited people over for a party, left the living room a total mess without cleaning up, and had even let a stranger sleep in my bed.
I used him as an emotional trash can, complaining for over nine minutes. In the end, he only had enough time to tell me to wait for him to come back.
He stood downstairs at my office again.
He had been tanned dark somewhere, looking like a piece of dried fish.
“Why didn’t you call me? I could have taken time off.” I was a little angry, not knowing how long he had been standing there.
I could have seen him sooner.
For some reason, my heart was filled with a sense of grievance.
He smiled and planted a kiss on my mouth. “We don’t have much time. Let’s not spend it being angry, okay?”
Sigh… his time was so limited that I couldn’t even afford to be mad.
“Then give me a hug quickly, and we’ll be made up.”
He embraced me tightly. He smelled so good, like fresh limes.
He had brought a car. I got into the passenger seat and asked, “Where are we going?”
“To see the parents. Didn’t we agree last time?”
“Your parents or mine?”
“Yours, of course. Haven’t you already met mine?”
“Uh… this… I haven’t even mentioned you to them yet…”
“It’s not too late to mention me now. Based on the traffic, we’ll be at your house in half an hour.”
“But you haven’t even asked me to marry you…”
He reached out one hand and rubbed the back of my neck. “Oh no. I’ve proposed to you hundreds of times in my dreams, and you said yes every single time. I must have confused dreams with reality.”
Damn it.
He was smooth.
He had brought a lot of gifts, filling the entire trunk.
“Why does it look like you’re buying wholesale for the New Year?”
“I haven’t visited for so many years; I have to make up for it, don’t I?”
“I’ve only known you for a year. It hasn’t been many years.”
He ruffled my hair with his hand. “I’m counting from the moment you became an adult.”
