As if no one likes it, just one article. When she was little, on a bright and warm afternoon, she would stand under his window and loudly call his name. Then he would poke his little head out of the window to answer her: "Wait, three minutes!"But she usually waits for more than five minutes, because he hides behind the curtain, watching her count the pear blossoms on the tree, one by one, under the tree in full bloom. Only when he sees that he cannot tell which is a flower and which is her will he slowly go downstairs. When she sees him, she will say: "You're late again." Then, they start playing house; she is the mother, he is the father, but there are no children.
She tears the fallen petals into thin strips and makes food for her little husband.
2
When they were in middle school, she and he agreed to meet every morning at 7 at the breakfast stall at the alley entrance. She always sits punctually in the innermost seat, ordering two sticks of fried dough. After 7:10, he drags his black, gooey appearance. When she sees him, she will say: "You're late again." Then he sits down and starts eating breakfast. She puts his dirty backpack on her lap. She tears the thick fried dough into thin strips for him to eat with steaming soy milk.
3
On the day of the high school graduation ceremony, they went to a bridal shop. She pointed at a wedding dress and said to him: "I really like that dress." He looked at the dress—it wasn't white, it was dark blue, an eerie kind of blue, somewhat melancholic, like a bride standing alone in the church, with moonlight falling on her face in full bloom, and a tear falling from her eyes.
Then he softly told her: "On the day you marry me, I will buy it for you."
In college, they lived apart. When she called to ask when his letters would arrive, he often answered about three days later. But when she received the letters, seven days had already passed. So she would include fresh rose petals in her letters, then write: "You're late again."
She tore her diary into thin strips and placed them in the letters. She thought that if he carefully pieced the strips together, he could read her longing for him in the deep night.
4
After graduation, they each had their own jobs. One day he said he wanted to see her, so unadorned as she was, she put on makeup for the first time. Rushing to the station, she looked at the empty railway tracks and felt that they were lonely steel tracks; when the train passes over them, it would emit a cry of despair.
The train was an hour late. When she saw that he had become even more handsome than before, only with a little less laziness in his eyes, she then saw a woman next to him smiling like a flower; he introduced her as his fiancée.
She only said one sentence: "You're late again."
That night, she tore up the letters he had written.It became slender strips, let a gentle flame lightly kiss their bodies.\ 5\ On his wedding day, he also invited her. She saw that the bride was so beautiful, wearing a pure white wedding dress. The wedding dress was blindingly white, as if mocking her wait. No one knew that she was dizzy.\ The next day, she moved to a small city, and no one knew where she was. She was determined to disappear from this world, to evaporate from his life.\ Like most moderately successful men in the city, he experienced career success, failure, divorce, remarriage, another divorce, another marriage, and the loss of his wife. Many women passed through his life: some loved him, some were loved by him, some hurt him, and some were deeply hurt by him. They came and went in a hurry. When he vaguely remembered the little girl who once stood under a tree full of blooming flowers, counting each pear blossom one by one, he was already in his seventies.\ He sought news of her and felt he should bring a small gift when meeting her. Later, someone told him that she had never married, seemingly waiting for a promise, though the deadline for this promise was unknown. So, he knew what he should buy.\ He spent a long time searching for a deep blue wedding dress. He did find many, but none of them were like the one back then, the deep blue wedding dress with the feeling of a lonely bride shedding her first tear under the moonlight. Finally, he bought such a wedding dress from a lady in Hong Kong who had collected many wedding dresses.\ After hearing their story, the lady insisted on not taking money, but he still paid her 55 yuan, which coincidentally matched the time from when they made the promise that he would buy her that dress when she married him—55 years.\ 6\ With that deep blue wedding dress, he hurried to the hospital. He didn't know his seventy-something body could run so fast. But time is the most mischievous thing. The moment he stepped into the ward holding that pile of deep blue tulle, she had stopped breathing.\ He felt that this scene was so familiar, the only difference being that she could no longer say to him: "You're late again!"\ She had always been waiting for the promised time, even though he was always late.\ But she never imagined that the last promised time would be her whole life...
