First Kiss Diary - Chapter 49

To avoid thinking he’d misread it but also not wanting to seem naive, Ji Ning glanced once more at that tiny mark at the end when he took out the necklace.

No mistake — it really was that familiar bespoke brand.

When that label first came out, Song Yu even complained, “Not only is this stuff expensive, it doesn’t understand men. How many men will buy a necklace for only one woman their whole life? If he meets a next girlfriend who wants this brand and can’t buy it himself, wouldn’t that be a disaster? So all in all, it’s just completely inhumane.”

Ji Ning of course joined the discussion too; at the time she said, “What if a man really does stop buying for other women?”

— That’s a low-probability event. How many guys have the guts to do that while they’re still young? This brand will go under sooner or later.

Facing her assumption, Song Yu replied thus.

She hadn’t expected that after several years, the brand still hadn’t gone under. Ji Ning thought chaotically.

Ji Shiyan reminded her, “Want to try?”

Then added, “Not sure if it will suit you.”

Ji Ning glanced back and saw the camera was already recording; she didn’t know whether they’d cut it into the main footage or the bloopers.

She pinched both ends of the necklace, bowed her head to wrap it around her neck, and after fiddling for a long time still couldn’t align the clasp.

Ji Shiyan cocked his head and looked, “Can’t get it on?”

“This necklace…” Ji Ning choked, “It’s hard to twist, I can’t find the spot.”

“I’ll do it.”

He brushed her hair forward, turned her body to face him, and quickly fastened the necklace.

The girl turned toward him, probably thinking it polite to show him what she’d bought.

The man’s gaze slid downward: the pendant fell past her collarbone, and below it was a swath of pale skin, and further down…

He stopped his gaze in time, a little awkward, turned his head away, and handed the conversation over to her: “What do you think?”

“It’s pretty good, the size fits just right.”

She felt a bit like Cinderella’s stepsister now — seeing that high heel, even if the heel were hacked off she’d still want to slip it on.

Besides, this thing had been tailored for her in the first place, so it was hard for it not to fit.

“Then take this recorder,” the man said, “and we’re going skiing today.”

Ji Ning pressed his lips together, outwardly nodding demurely, while inside he was already bursting into fireworks.

Her favorite season was winter. She liked wrapping herself into a thick, reassuring ball, loved the exhilaration of that first deep breath after struggling to pull her mask down from her face, enjoyed brushing the snow off every outdoor air-conditioning unit at home and pinching a snowball to rest on the windowsill.

I like winter, because it was when the snow was falling that I fell for him.

“But I’m not very good at skating,” she said softly. “Will I fall?”

“You probably won’t,” he said. “What’s your definition of ‘not very good’? Have you had any experience?”

“Maybe.”

The girl shifted her head beneath the hat, tilted her face up, and strained to expose her lips from the hat’s button.

She spoke, her apricot-pink lips opening and closing, a soft white mist curling from them to blur her face before drifting away.

“I’ve watched Korean dramas eight hundred and ten times.”

Ji Shiyan waited a long moment: “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“……”

Alright, then he more or less understood what skiing meant in her heart.

The man adjusted her hat again; it was wide and formed a windproof layer over her face, just covering the tip of her nose.

Whether deliberate or not, his knuckle brushed her slightly reddened nose tip, the touch gentle.

“I understand,” he said in a low voice.

The ski resort wasn’t crowded; as far as the eye could see it was a sheet of white, the sky a clear blue, and the snow gave a crisp crunch underfoot.

Ji Shiyan guessed she probably couldn’t ski, so he planned to teach her today how to dodge obstacles and brake.

But when he saw the couple beside them hugging and playfully using a single pole to tease each other, he thought he might have miscalculated.

Perhaps not many newly in-love girls actually come here to learn how to ski.

So the man decided to change tactics on the spur of the moment.

He carried the ski suit over for her to change into. Ji Ning quickly put on her clothes and boots herself, and as she was about to change her gloves, she saw the man’s long fingers gripping the ski pole and looking at her.

Ji Ning had something she wasn’t sure whether to say or not; it kept rising up and swallowing back down, rising up and swallowing down, and finally she spoke.

She pointed at his hand: “You didn’t change your gloves…”

Anyway, it’s the last issue, so she braced herself and asked, “Are you planning to put the gloves on my hands first?”

The man stood there as if pausing for a few seconds, then set the ski pole aside, walked up to her, his voice faintly amused.

“Alright, I’ll change for you.”

She figured her earlobes must already be flushed red, but thankfully he couldn’t see them because she was wearing a hat.

The girl spread her fingers and reached them forward.

Her fingers were pretty too, straight and slim. He inexplicably thought of a video he’d seen somewhere—of a little white cat obediently splaying its paws while its owner trimmed its nails.

The man lowered his head and looked at her water-red fingertips. “Did you paint your nails?”

She pulled her fingers back, surprised he could notice that.

I only had them done yesterday for the sake of ceremony—he wouldn’t laugh at them again, would he?

But he’s been staring for so long… he must think they’re pretty, right?

Watching the man gaze at her fingertips for a while, just as she thought he was rifling through the straight-man dictionary hunting for a compliment, he finally spoke.

Ji Shiyan put a glove on her hand and said, “Putting on nail polish is bad for your health.”

Ji Ning, who had been waiting for quite a while: ???

She deeply felt that from now on, besides “face king” and “actor-turned-top-star,” her idol could also win votes like “the world’s most straight-laced man.”

Before skiing, Ji Shiyan taught her the movements. She set her feet shoulder-width apart, checked her balance, grabbed the poles and began to mime the motions, then turned to him and asked, “Like this?”

He leisurely walked to stand behind her, and taking her hand he grasped the pole as if to have a clearer view. He leaned his head forward, as if resting it on her shoulder.

Her shoulders went rigid in an instant, as if she had been frozen into an ice block.

“Like this,” the man moved twice, feeling something. “Why are your shoulders so stiff? Relax a bit.”

When he stepped back, her shoulders finally began to loosen naturally.

After finishing the theory, they moved on to practice. Ji Ning felt that his poor skill wasn’t due to lack of effort or a bad teacher, but because this teacher had become a distraction.

Who could possibly study when their idol was resting his head on their shoulder?

She felt that, faced with such beauty, diverting her attention to learning how to ski would be an insult to the handsome man.

Before going on, she worriedly asked Ji Shiyan, “I won’t die, will I?”

Not having the slightest idea what nonsense she was asking, the man chuckled, “What rubbish are you talking about?”

Soon she began trying all sorts of dangerously precarious positions and movements. Ji Shiyan wanted her to stop, but feared that she would not only forget how to brake but would panic more and more. He could only stand by the tree and wave his hand: “Shift your weight to your left foot, glide toward me.”

Her voice trembled with nervousness: “Won’t you bump into me?”

But her body was honest and leaned toward him; the man stepped forward two paces and lifted his hand, wrapping it around her waist.

Ji Ning stopped.

The impact pushed him back a few steps; luckily there was a tree behind them, and neither of them fell.

“Don’t slip.”

The man, breathing a little heavily, landed on the top of her head, sounding genuinely shaken: “You didn’t die — you nearly scared me to death.”

Ji Ning felt the restraint around his waist, blinked, and heard his heart racing.

“But didn’t you catch me?”

After a moment, he sighed, and it seemed as if he was laughing.

“Yes, I caught you.”

Skiing was out of the question, so Ji Shiyan took her to build a snowman.

While they were building, a snowball relay suddenly broke out. Ji Ning got hit twice; as a veteran player she naturally refused to admit defeat, stuffed a bagful of snow and joined the fight.

In the end she played until she had no strength left, sat cross-legged on the snow and breathed heavily. Like a dutiful housekeeper, the man brought her a cup of hot water and handed it to her.

Ji Ning took a sip and asked, “Why didn’t I see you earlier?”

“I don’t play those games.”

She thought for a moment. “Just now when I saw you holding your phone, were you taking pictures?”

He nodded.

Ji Ning reached out his hand. “How did they turn out? Let me see.”

“Left it there to charge,” the man said. “You shot it very well.”

“Ha.” She completely relaxed, blinking her misty lashes, her tired voice growing light. “I don’t believe it.”

By the time they’d finished recording the skiing and the snowball fight it was already afternoon. After dinner, the two of them wandered along the river.

They hadn’t stood by the roadside long before the production team’s message arrived.

She opened it: [The recording of the final episode has ended—Season One of “First Kiss Diary” is wrapped. Grateful for every encounter.]

To be honest, Ji Ning was indeed a little stunned.

This exhilarating day was suddenly brought to a halt, as if punctuating and exposing certain moments people had still been foolishly clinging to.

The night wind was a bit biting; her nose had been blown bright red. She snuffled, turned to him and said, “Finished taking the photos.”

“Mm.”

The man’s voice sounded even more indistinct in the howling wind. He said, “It’s very cold—let’s head back first.”

She nodded, took a few steps back before turning around, put her hand into her pocket, and scratched at the soft down inside her parka.

It felt as if it was over too quickly, and yet as if it hadn’t ended at all; sudden farewells always make it hard to make sense of anything.

She had only taken two steps when her phone suddenly rang; the instant she answered, the streetlights behind her came on one by one.

The music reached her ears faster than any other sound—

The wind rose again at that moment; as it howled past she turned her head, her long hair whipped into a scattered flutter.

He was sitting under a streetlight, cradling a guitar in his arms, his long fingers lightly brushing the chords as he began to sing in a deep voice.

The man’s singing seemed to pull her back to the edge between reality and the virtual; she stepped forward two paces and heard his clear melody.

“This night is too tense / time is too long”

At this second he looked up, and the halted guitar sound began to swirl again—

“My girl”

“Where are you / Looking at the moon”

The man’s voice was low; there was no microphone for the song, as if he were singing just for her.

The line “my girl” was voiced with the utmost tenderness and longing, like murmured words right beside her ear, phrase by phrase, making her chest itch and her tongue burn.

At the final line, she heard him seem to change the lyrics.

Under the lights his face grew even gentler, the guitar spilling out notes like a music box once wound that would never stop:

“Where are you?”

“By my side.”

……

He stood under the dim streetlight, leaves rustling.

The river reflected pavilions and terraces; in the distance the bright moon hung high, its light like a silvery ribbon.

As if it were a bespoke dream one is only allowed in a lifetime.

///

She was memorizing her lines when she came back to the hotel that day; Song Yu was in the shower, and when he came out he saw her studying the script.

“What are you doing? Memorizing lines?” Song Yu tilted his head. “Didn’t the variety show finish filming?”

“Yeah.” Ji Ning said.

“Aren’t you going to cry?” Song Yu was genuinely surprised. “I thought the female guests always cry in the final episode, sobbing, crying into the brother’s arms until they’re choked up.”

“It’s not like I was bawling, right? It’s just the show ended, not my whole life,” Ji Ning said. “Maybe I had too much fun and forgot it was the final episode, so I didn’t have time to prepare myself emotionally.”

“Spare me. You need to ‘prepare’ to cry? Your tears come in three seconds, okay?” Song Yu brought the body lotion to the bed, rubbing it on as she asked, “Why aren’t you sad? Share it with me.”

Ji Ning didn’t share her feelings; she took off the necklace and placed it in front of her.

“Do you still remember this pendant?”

Song Yu looked for two seconds and was certain: “How could I not remember? Even if it turned to ash I would…”

She suddenly stopped, looked at Ji Ning: “Sent by Ji Shiyan?”

Ji Ning nodded and said dazedly, “What do you think this means?”

“If you look at it from a shipper’s perspective, Ji Shiyan has already loved you to the point of obsession, proclaiming his claim to the whole world. Your love deserves to be recorded in history! Double-tap couple for real!”

Ji Ning looked at her, knowing she had more to say.

“But from your friend’s point of view, it’s not that simple.”

Song Yu calmed down in an instant: “I know what you’re thinking, but you like him. The feelings between you are already filtered—you view them through a lens, just like shipper-fans; it’s hard to be objective.”

“I used to like a boy; even when he turned his head to glance at the timetable behind him, I felt like he was sneaking a look at me.”

“Was this necklace ordered by Ji Shiyan in his own name? Did he start recording when he gave it to you? If so, would he have done that even without a camera and without considering the show’s effect?”

“First, make sense of these three things, and only then can you straighten out your relationship.”

Ji Ning loosened his shoulders and only exhaled after getting Song Yu’s answer.

“Mm, I thought so too.”

This logo is hard not to read into, but she wasn’t sure whether Ji Shiyan knew this when he commissioned it. What if he provided the drawings and one of the staff members happened to have ties to that brand and slipped in a product placement?

It’s not completely impossible.

After all this time, she wasn’t a fool; there were moments she wondered whether he might like her—

But that thought was quickly snuffed out by herself.

You can’t be like that as a fan. Once you start placing demands on him based on your own feelings, once greed creeps in, the emotion becomes impure.

His meaning to her couldn’t be summed up with the simple word “like.” In many moments she leaned on him as a pillar to keep going; she didn’t want any of it to become tainted.

“Instead of overthinking, clear your mind,” Song Yu patted her shoulder. “If a man likes you, he’ll take the initiative to seek you out.”

“Hold steady, let’s wait and see. Anyway, the variety show has already finished filming; once you’re off the program, you’ll find out what his feelings for you really are.”

///

On the other side, Jiang Sheng and Ji Shiyan were already seated in the VIP room for seafood.

Jiang Sheng ordered a bunch of food for himself, and by the time his meal arrived, Ji Shiyan still hadn’t decided what he wanted to eat.

Jiang Sheng assumed he had difficulty choosing, and kept offering suggestions, but whether he asked about a, b, or cde, all of them were rejected.

Jiang Sheng was speechless: “You’re really hard to please. What do you actually want? What do you like?”

“I like Ji Ning.”

Agent Jiang was trying to wrestle the abalone with his spoon and his hands; when he heard that, his finger slipped, the spoon spun out and clattered against the dishes, and the abalone—shell and flesh—fell into the soup bowl, splashing broth all over his face.

Jiang Sheng: “……………………”

He wiped his face, his lips trembling as he asked, “What the hell was that????”