The story presented here is a fiction one may find familiar in the late 1970s and the 80s. The author reserves his copy right to not allow trans posting, publishing, or any other uses for commercial purposes without permission of the author.

A Love Story (1)

Yang, a 22 years old college graduate, was assigned to a community college to be a teacher. The college was in a rural area far away from the Capital of the province where he graduated. Yang kissed his girlfriend Jia goodbye who stayed in the city. Yang’s never really sure if he loved Jia. But jia was crazily in love with him.

Yang was good looking, kind, considerate, very gifted and promising. Jia was beautiful, strong minded, with kind of arrogance that many city girls possess at that time. Yang couldn’t resist Jia’s beautiful charm and pursuit, and ended up having sex with Jia after few beers one crazy night. Ever since then Yang had become Jia’s triumph around the campus.

Yang had to leave for the rural area only because he had the least help from his social network. Somehow, Yang’s happy, a feeling he couldn’t really explain. But he did feel guilty for his kind of relief when kissing his girlfriend goodbye. But for Jia goodbye only meant to see you later or soon.

Yang soon started his teaching career that he actually loves very much. Yang and Jia kept writing to each other (not e-mail of course) which was the only connection available at the time. On the side yang was preparing for the entrance exam to graduate school, strongly suggested and supported by Jia.

Life went on. It’s simple in a poor rural community but surrounded by very nice and generous people. He liked his students in general; they were actually about the same age and buddies who played together in and out of the school.

He soon noticed a different look from one of his students, a girl of course. The look that stared at him when he’s not looking, but looked away whenever he eyed at her, which mixed admiration and shyness in the look. It wouldn’t need a genius to figure out that the girl, named Qiu, had a crush on him.

Qiu was so pretty, like a sunshine mixed with innocence and untamed beauty.  Yang liked Qiu too, but only the kind of appreciation towards any beautiful thing, at least he tried to tell him to be that way.  Qiu would ask more questions, and utilized every possible chance to talk or to get closer to Yang, without much hiding of her crush on Yang. Once in a while, Yang felt a little differently as if there was a click and some sort of chemistry between the two of them, but soon the feeling was taken over by his guilt of betrayal towards Jia.

Time flied. Yang was about to go for an interview by his future advisor after successfully passing the entrance exam for grad school the next spring. The night before he went, fearing that she would lose Yang forever, Qiu asked Yang out, and told him that she loved him, actually at the very first sight. And she asked if she had any chance at all. Yang declined her love by politeness and thankfulness, saying that there’s someone else in waiting.  A conversation that was much harder than he would assume. The fact that Qiu cried made it even harder. There was definitely something there that made him almost want to say yes if there wasn’t Jia in the picture.

To be continued…