Power Up, Artist Yang!

"What's the matter?" Yujia asked.

Zhizhong blinked at her question. He placed his hand over his face, then dragged it down after a brief moment, as if wiping away the tightening of his jaw or the darkness in his gaze. "What do you mean?" he managed to ask back.

"What's that face for? Earlier?" Yujia's eyes widened as her eyebrows gathered together.

Zhizhong feigned ignorance, giving a forced smile as he replied, "Not sure what you're talking about. But— congrats on getting married."

"Thanks." Yujia was hesitant, but she pushed on. "I'm inviting my closest friends and family, and if you came, it would mean the world to me." 

He seemed to know that she was going to ask them. Speaking fast, as if he had already generated a response in mind, he said, "I can't go. I have things to handle. Business. Busyness. You know how things tend to be these days. How they always are. I hope you have a great wedding though. I'm sure it'll be."

Yujia strained herself to keep her disappointment from showing. "Ah." 

How much of a fool did he take her for?

Pushing back the chair she sat at, the legs scraped loudly against the wooden floor. Yujia gave a curt bow. "I'll get going," she whispered.

As she walked out of the shop, all kinds of doubts were already rising in her. She knew she probably shouldn't have grown bitter at Zhizhong, but it was difficult not to be upset. It was one of the most important events in her life. Out of all the people to ask, she wanted him to be there. It couldn't be as simple as he made it either, with "busyness" as an excuse. Regardless of how busy she was, if he weren't already married and asked her to attend his wedding, she would go. How could it not be the same for him? Was their friendship really that strained for him to be so adamant against attending?

Yujia knew she was supposed to talk it out with Zhizhong. That was her plan. She knew something had been bothering him. She knew he was probably stressed. 

Yet she was still incapable of shaking these feelings of resentment off. Above all, it was not his unwillingness to be there for her that bothered her. It was his dishonesty. 

… 

When Yujia returned home, she took some time for herself. As she made some slow sketches in her sketchbook, she allowed her mind to wander over everything. In particular, she thought about Zhizhong the most. She thought about his reasons. She tried to put herself in his shoes. She went over every detail in their conversations, mulling over his words and actions. While sketching the outline of an empty bird's nest that rested on a branch outside her window, his expressions flashed in her mind. 

At the end of it all, when Yujia had filled four pages of scattered, arbitrary drawings, she seemed to have arrived at an answer.

The next day, she went back to Three Inks. She didn't know if Zhizhong was going to be there. It was likely for him to not. But if that was the case, she would go find him in the Bo Villa. 

She had to talk to him.

To Yujia's surprise, though it was awfully early when she walked into the store, Bo Zhizhong was actually there. He stood close to where he was yesterday, lingering close to the entrance of the store. However, in contrast with yesterday, where he wore a black cloak, a red cloak draped over his shoulders. It reminded her of when she first met him. He was dressed in a similar cloak, wasn't he?

"You knew I would come here today?" Yujia asked as her gaze met his.

"I hoped you would," he replied.

As Yujia tried to read his passive expression, she tentatively signaled her head towards the inside of the shop. "Shall we sit down and have a drink of tea? I wanted to talk to you about a lot of things."

"No," Zhizhong said. His hands wrung together, he went on, "I don't think I can stay for long. I'm actually here to… say goodbye."

Yujia blinked. The small, cautious smile she had kept on her face fell with his words. "What did you say?"

Zhizhong continued, "I'm sure you know already. I have so much going on. I just couldn't keep up with the store anymore. I've been a horrible co-owner. I've already arranged the deeds for Three Inks to be entirely under your name." From his sleeve, he drew out a scroll that was likely a legal document. 

"I mean it." He pushed the scroll to her, asking for her to take it from his hands. 

She was afraid to take it from his hands. Shrinking back, she insisted, "It's all a horrible prank, isn't it?" 

Zhizhong wouldn't give up the store like that. The two of them had worked together on it. He worked so hard. She saw his pride and effort. She knew the store meant just as much to him as it did to her. 

As her skin paled, she shook her head some more. Zhizhong only returned her words with silence, beckoning for her to take the scroll again.

If she took it, she would see that it was a joke. That was his plan, wasn't it? Instead of the legal document she was expecting, she would see something silly instead. He always liked to prank her. He did it so many times in the past. Perhaps that was his way of making up for what happened yesterday. This was all just a joke.

Yujia reached forward and took the scroll from his hands. She untied the string and unraveled it. Her eyes scanned over the page, and she squeezed them shut.

It wasn't a joke.

On it, with clear black ink printed against pale parchment, Three Inks was now entirely signed under her name.

"Why?" she whispered, finding her voice hoarse. "Why are you doing this?"

There it was again, that lackluster lie.

"And you expect me to believe that," Yujia stated. 

She looked up from the scroll to him. Wind fluttered in from the open doors into the empty store. The Zhizhong she knew was a boy that always wore a scowl across his face. She knew him for that scowl, but she knew his laughter as well. 

And now, there was none of that. 

"You know, yesterday, I thought about it a lot. I wondered when things had gotten this bad between us. I wondered why things had deteriorated this way." 

These weren't the words that she wanted to say. When she stepped out of the doors this morning, she planned an entirely different approach. But now, they were spilling from her, raw and unprepared. Perhaps they were the true things she had wanted to reveal all along. The truth she couldn't stop from flowing. 

"You were one of my first friends here. And you were one of my closest. I thought you also felt the same. But— was I wrong?"

Zhizhong shook his head for a no.

"Then why? If we were friends, how did things end up this way? Did I do something wrong?"

"Then why are you acting this way?" Yujia drew in a deep breath, though it was hard to even breathe. "It seems like one day, we were as close as ever, and the next, you're just growing more and more distant. I want to know why. I've tried to figure it out. I've tried to get you to explain. But you won't even talk to me. Even now, you— you won't even look me straight in the eyes."

Zhizhong still gave her bȧrėly a response, his gaze remaining cast down. She found her eyes watering up, though she didn't want to cry. Not now. 

"Sometimes…" Yujia persisted, her voice growing even quieter, "it feels like I'm the only one left caring for our friendship. Is that really how it is?"

At this, Zhizhong flinched. His head finally snapped up. "That's not true. I care about our relationship. I care about you."

"Then why?" She yanked the scroll open, allowing it to unravel before Zhizhong's eyes. "Why give up on Three Inks? Why are you saying goodbye? Why are you cutting everything off with me?"

She looked into his eyes, into those honey-brown irises. She saw pain, perhaps as deep as hers. 

There was one last truth, one that she hadn't wanted to face. She ran from it as she covered it with all kinds of excuses. They were all lies she told herself: their friendship was deteriorating because of her mistakes. Because he was just in emotional turmoil. Because of some outside factors which had no correlation.

Peeling back the justifications she attempted to make, the truth was something that she had known for a long time, one apparent from the way she caught him looking at her to the way he treated her kinder sometimes than friends could ever be. It was just a truth that she had not been willing to accept. Knowing that she could never return his feelings, she had simply pretended the truth was not there.

Except now, just like everything else, it spilled out of her.

A heartbeat passed. Zhizhong's eyes seemed frozen in time. His gaze was all she needed for a confirmation. They were the unspoken answers she needed to hear.

Finally, Zhizhong tore his gaze away. Speaking so quietly that she could bȧrėly hear him, he turned so that his back faced her. "As I said, this is a goodbye. Thank you for your… friendship."

"This is… it?"

"I—" 

He seemed to have something he wanted to say. Only he bit back the words, and before Yujia could reach out, he was already gone, vanishing into the morning fog.

Yujia dropped the scroll, covering her face with her hands. She stumbled back to a wall, slumping against it as she sank to the floor. 

Now, she finally cried. 

She cried the tears she hadn't wanted Bo Zhizhong to see. She cried for every moment between them, every fragment of the past. She cried for the friendship that she had never expected to end this way. 

It wasn't the first time she lost a friend. But that didn't stop it from hurting any less. 

When Gao Yi, the clerk, walked in to open the store for the day, he found her still on the floor, head buried in her arms.