(My apologies to the English language, but there is somehow only three "sentences" in this wall of text)
By the ten-thousandth time (not that Yu Tu is counting) he opens his eyes to Qiao Jing Jing standing there in front of him, clutching her books to herself and asking him if he wants a girlfriend and what he thinks of her, Yu Tu has stopped wondering what is even the point of the endless loop that apparently exists in this circle of light where time doesn’t seem to matter, where they have tried everything; he has tried every variation of answering yes and no he can think of, and she has tried every variation of asking, or not asking, that she can think of, but the moment one of them steps out of that concrete circle that seems to be illogically flooded with sunlight, they find themselves right back where they started, him sitting and her standing in front of him, the question on her lips seeming to have ceased mattering some nine thousand iterations ago…
These times (days? He doesn’t know anymore, even the excitement of working out how he managed to break the space-time continuum has infuriatingly ceased to matter) they speak less of her question and of anything and everything unrelated to that they can think of, just in an attempt to see if they can break the loop that way – after all, if the loop breaks when they step out of the circle, what if they just don’t step out of it?
It is perhaps the hundred-thousandth iteration by now – and really, enough time should have passed that they must be old enough to die by now – and this time, something was different: Yu Tu looks up, and suddenly the sun seems to shine differently, framing the girl in front of him in a soft halo that now seems to dazzle him, and for the first time in however long they have been trapped in this school yard together, he finds himself wanting to say yes to the question that he wonders if she will still ask…
You Are My Glory
(My apologies to the English language, but there is somehow only three "sentences" in this wall of text)
By the ten-thousandth time (not that Yu Tu is counting) he opens his eyes to Qiao Jing Jing standing there in front of him, clutching her books to herself and asking him if he wants a girlfriend and what he thinks of her, Yu Tu has stopped wondering what is even the point of the endless loop that apparently exists in this circle of light where time doesn’t seem to matter, where they have tried everything; he has tried every variation of answering yes and no he can think of, and she has tried every variation of asking, or not asking, that she can think of, but the moment one of them steps out of that concrete circle that seems to be illogically flooded with sunlight, they find themselves right back where they started, him sitting and her standing in front of him, the question on her lips seeming to have ceased mattering some nine thousand iterations ago…
These times (days? He doesn’t know anymore, even the excitement of working out how he managed to break the space-time continuum has infuriatingly ceased to matter) they speak less of her question and of anything and everything unrelated to that they can think of, just in an attempt to see if they can break the loop that way – after all, if the loop breaks when they step out of the circle, what if they just don’t step out of it?
It is perhaps the hundred-thousandth iteration by now – and really, enough time should have passed that they must be old enough to die by now – and this time, something was different: Yu Tu looks up, and suddenly the sun seems to shine differently, framing the girl in front of him in a soft halo that now seems to dazzle him, and for the first time in however long they have been trapped in this school yard together, he finds himself wanting to say yes to the question that he wonders if she will still ask…