Farewell

"Leaving quietly... huh?"

"It's not really that quiet, I just... I didn't know how to say goodbye properly." An Shiyaya looked at Ye Shuang, seeming a little flustered. "The truth is, back in high school, I didn't have any friends at all."

"I was in poor health, so I missed the first week of school when the semester started. By the time I got there, all the cliques in the class had already formed."

"I could never fit in, and on top of that, everyone made fun of how tall I was."

"I was so insecure..."

Ye Shuang had heard about how things worked at the Sakura school, where students mostly moved around in tight little groups. Anyone who kept to themselves easily got pushed out, and a lot of students who couldn't stand the stares from others even hid in the bathroom to eat their lunch.

"Yaya." Ye Shuang smiled when he saw how troubled An Shiyaya looked.

"Uh-huh?"

"How old are you this year?"

"I'm twenty." An Shiyaya looked confused about why Ye Shuang would ask that out of the blue, but she was in the same age group as Yu You and the rest of their friends.

"People from Sakura do live pretty long lives, right?" Ye Shuang went on.

"I guess that's true..."

"Which means you still have so much life ahead of you, Yaya." Ye Shuang spoke gently. "All these things you're worrying about now are just tiny little parts of your whole long life. Someday far in the future, when you look back, you'll realize they didn't matter that much at all."

"So why would you choose to leave without a word just because you're scared of saying goodbye? These are your friends we're talking about."

"How can you be so sure you won't get the chance to see each other again in the decades ahead?"

"If you don't say goodbye properly, you might end up sneaking off, and someday later you'll think to yourself, 'If only I'd said a real goodbye back then, I wouldn't be too nervous to even reach out to them now.' You don't want to end up regretting that, right? Yaya, you know what the right choice is."

"Have a little more confidence. Everyone cares about you so much, and you don't want to let them down, do you?"

Ye Shuang's words cleared An Shiyaya's head little by little. That's right, these were all her friends. Why couldn't she just pluck up the courage to say goodbye? She could always come back to visit them later, there would be chances to meet again.

"I get it!"

An Shiyaya clenched her fist and stood up straight. "I get it now!"

"I'm going to say a proper goodbye to everyone!"

"Thank you so much for talking me through this, Mr. Ye."

"No problem." Ye Shuang smiled. He didn't feel like he'd done anything that big, but if she wanted to avoid regrets, saying a proper goodbye was definitely the right call.

An Shiyaya looked much lighter after that, her steps bouncy as she bowed to thank him and walked out of the infirmary.

When the sound of her footsteps had faded completely away, Ye Shuang looked away from the door and spoke suddenly toward the window beside him. "You can come out now."

A head poked out from behind the curtains by the window, and then An Shiyu flipped herself over to sit on the windowsill. "Oh? How'd you know I was here?"

"Nothing that surprising about that." Ye Shuang gave a small smile. "Why were you hiding there eavesdropping?"

An Shiyu looked away, twisting a strand of her hair between her fingers. "No reason. Just wanted to hear what that silly girl had to say for herself."

She hopped down to land steadily on the floor, then glanced over at Ye Shuang. "Didn't think you'd be that good at cheering girls up."

"Is that a compliment or a jab?"

"Whichever one you prefer."

"I don't have a masochistic streak, so I'll just take it as a compliment." Ye Shuang chuckled.

"But... Ducky's going to leave, you must be pretty lonely too, right?"

"Why would I be?"

"Come on, you two are relatives. I remember Ducky came all the way here in the first place just to see you." Ye Shuang thought for a second and then added, "Back then, out of the tiny handful of friends Ducky had, you were basically the only one."

"I barely spent any time with her. It was just a few holidays every now and then."

"That's exactly why she cherished it so much. She had no idea how to make friends, so she even said she wanted to practice ninjutsu with you, remember?" Ye Shuang laughed. "That kid doesn't know the first thing about ninjutsu. Last time we played hide and seek, she almost got herself buried alive."

"She was just doing that so she'd have something to talk to you about when she came here, right?"

An Shiyu went quiet for a moment.

"Probably." She turned her face away.

"Do you want to go say a proper goodbye to her too?"

"Absolutely not. It's not like she's dying or anything. I go abroad every once in a while anyway."

Even as she said that, An Shiyu was already wandering toward the infirmary door, swaying a little as she walked. "Ugh, whatever, I'm going to class. Hanging around here is boring."

After An Shiyu left the infirmary, Ye Shuang couldn't help but laugh.

She really was way too stubborn to be honest with herself. She said she was going to class, but really she just wanted to spend as much time as she could with Ducky before she left.

...

Later that afternoon, in the classroom.

"Ducky, is it true you're going back to your home country soon?" Tang Keke and the rest of the group crowded around An Shiyaya, all of them clearly sad to see her go.

"I'm sorry, everyone. My exchange program is over." An Shiyaya was sad too, but after thinking about what Ye Shuang had said, she brightened a little and asked, "Are you all free to come to my going-away party tomorrow night?"

"That's such a great idea. We can all have a proper send-off for Ducky," Taozi smiled.

Taozi was really going to miss Ducky too. Ducky's very first friend after she came here was her. They'd even had that silly misunderstanding where they went around picking up tons of empty bottles, before they realized Ducky just had a hobby of collecting all different kinds of bottle caps.

Taozi had even thought at first that Ducky was an international student from a really poor family who had to collect bottles to pay for living expenses.

That's why out of everyone in the group, Ducky and Taozi were the closest, just as close as Keke and Yu You, the kind of friends who talked about absolutely everything.

"Let's all pitch in and make this the best goodbye party for Ducky! Tomorrow's the weekend anyway," Tang Keke thought it was a perfect plan, then turned to ask Bai Yuyou, "Yu You, what do you think?"

"Sounds good." Bai Yuyou nodded right away. "It's okay, though. We will definitely see each other again someday."

"I can use my own pocket money to buy plane tickets to go visit," Bai Yuyou added.

"Of course, our little rich girl would say that."

"Everyone..." Ducky never expected all of them to react like this. Just like Ye Shuang had said earlier, her friends cared about her way more than she'd ever imagined.

She felt so guilty when she thought about how she'd planned to just sneak away. If she'd done that, all of them would have been heartbroken.

But she also felt so lucky that she still had time left to say goodbye to them properly.