Chapter 12 second quarter

"What can you do if you catch bugs?" By the river in the evening, she spoke to me.With the orange color of the sky reflected in her hair, Yuki looked at me expressionlessly.I didn't notice someone approaching from behind at all, with a plastic bag in my left hand and a bug net in my right, I turned around. I first noticed that the other party was wearing our school uniform.Then I realized that it was a girl in the same class as me. ——It should have been almost half a year in the same classroom with Xiaoxing. This order is somewhat unnatural, but it is still in this order several times later.

Late summer of the second year of middle school.At that time, I was living with my family in the place where Tokyo and Qiandao meet.His grades are not outstanding, but they are not bad, and his family is neither rich nor poor.In such an ordinary life, I lived a young life that was boring but not actively looking for anything. "It's nothing, it's all right anyway." That was the first sentence I said to Xiaoxing.It's been a lie from the start. My dream at the time was to become an entomologist.At that time, I took bug nets and plastic bags to the mountains and rivers almost every day after school.There are twenty insect cages in the five-tatami room where I live.Before my parents came back from get off work, I lay down on the ground to observe the worms in these cages, compared them with the illustrated book, and if I found something that was not there, I recorded it in my notebook.Yellow star beetles, Sichuan mole crickets... I can still remember all the bugs that were raised in the house at that time.

I never told anyone about my dream of becoming an entomologist.I know that insect collection is very dark compared with some hobbies and pranks of my classmates. Besides, for me in the second grade of middle school, it is too young and naive to talk about myself after adulthood. In the plastic bag in his left hand, the praying mantis he just caught was moving non-stop. "Keeping time?" For this girl in the same class, I always thought she was tall at first.But as she stepped through the withered autumn grass and came to me, I found that I was wrong.She's only as tall as my nose, but she's in great shape.Wearing a sailor suit, the back is straight, and above this straight line is a thin neck that is as natural as it is, white as paper, and seems to emit a faint light in the fading twilight.There is only a slight black stain on the collar of the sailor suit.

"Every day you kill time?" When she asked me, I clicked my tongue inwardly.It doesn't seem like she's seeing me here for the first time.I searched for the right words in my chest, while she looked towards the river and said: "I often come here after school, have you come every day recently?" Xiaoxing called me "you" until the end. "It started three days ago." Xiao Xing was right.Three days ago, when I was walking along the river looking for a suitable place to catch insects, a beautiful blue spot on the meadow by the river passed by my eyes.There was no doubt that it was the black winged dragon I was eager to observe closely.But I couldn't catch them at that time, so I thought that I might meet them again when I went to the same place, so I started to come to the river frequently.

Thinking of wandering by the river with a bug net and being seen by unexpected people, I deliberately said rudely: "Then what are you doing here?" Xiao Xing was silent for a while, looking at the darkening sky. "I'm staying here until I go home." This is hardly an answer.But there seemed to be something moving in that unaffected voice and black eyes. At this time, the wind suddenly blew up by the river.I shielded my eyes with one hand and turned my face away, only to see Xiaoxing's hair was blown upside down by the wind, and it stood upside down in a funny way. ——Xiao Xing didn't frown.I remember being quite amazed.She didn't frown and put on a sad face like ordinary girls.She let the sudden strong wind mess her hair, but she was smiling.If she had frowned at that time, even just a little, would I still be attracted to her?Will you still look forward to her figure, and still run to the same place the next day?

"It gets windy here occasionally." The wind-blown hair finally fell on the shoulders of the sailor suit, and Kokoro looked at me with a smiling face.Probably because of that somewhat indifferent side face, this time his eyes looked very calm. Xiaoxing reached into the pocket of her skirt and took out an old watch.It looks like a men's watch.The ordinary four-corner dial has turned black, and the belt is full of scratches and has begun to fade.She glanced at the hands quickly, and quickly put the watch back in her pocket. "Bye-Bye." The back of the sailor suit got farther and farther away on the grass, and finally disappeared on the river bank.That was all our conversations on the first day.I stared at the direction where she disappeared for a while, and the praying mantis in the plastic bag was still struggling.

In the classroom the next morning, Xiaoxing and I looked at each other.She smiled at me first, and I smiled back at her, but she immediately looked away, sat in her seat, and never looked at me again.I finished the day's class with the vague reluctance of a coin falling through a crack. Her straight and straight back is always in my sight.It's incredible why I ignored it in the daily scenery of the classroom before. During the break, I asked my friend about her situation.No one knew her very well, and I could hear a sneer in their voices when they mentioned her name.Words like "dirty" and "poor" are bound to appear in their descriptions.This is the biggest characteristic of Xiaoxing, a classmate, and everyone seems to think so.

"She doesn't have a father." One of my friends said so. "I heard he ran away with a woman." After school, I went out of the house with the insect net and the plastic bag. Standing by the river, Xiaoxing smiled when she saw me, just like in the morning, puffing out her thin cheeks.Only this time, she didn't look away until I walked in front of her.