"Mm, the scenery here is lovely, isn't it?" Tilan wore a fitted dark blue dress, with a white belt around her waist that outlined her figure. She tied it into a bow on the side, exuding a youthful charm.
Shortly after they sat down, the server brought over a chilled, refreshing 'Three-Colored Rainbow' juice, along with neatly sliced fruit.
They chatted briefly about recent events before Tilan asked curiously.
"Why did you suddenly ask out? Is sothing on your mind?" Her relationship with Shui Yanqing was neither too close nor too distant.
"It's nothing major, I just suddenly felt like talking to soone." She swirled the juice in her glass with her fingertip, then took a small sip.
"Blanchi is still very innocent and hasn't been involved with songstress-related matters for even a year. Though I have so acquaintances among other students, they aren't songstresses, so there are many things I can't really talk about with them." Shui Yanqing slowly shared her situation.
Unlike Tilan, who didn't seem to notice herself, she was actually surrounded by plenty of songstress friends. First, there was Ores, who often clung to her, and Audrey, who also ca from the Five Phoenix Heritage. Then there were familiar faces like Prin Coco, who hailed from the sa Star Domain, Senior Ailu Kelu, who frequently invited her out, and even Yulanduoja, who was now retired.
Though Tilan ca from an average background, she was far from lonely in the songstress world. She also had past classmates and friends like Deloris, Yilin, Efnie, and others.
But Shui Yanqing was entirely different. She had no concept of a childhood. After her Awakening, she was imdiately placed in a lab for basic education, with no middle school or high school classmates. In university, her only halfway-close relationship was with Blanchi, but even then, there were many things she couldn't confide in her. As for others, while she did interact with them, there was always an intangible barrier between them.
She was acutely aware that she wasn't a normal bloodline citizen of the Federation.
Normally, she busied herself mingling with people from massive corporations, successfully drowning out her loneliness in her work. But once the special training began and external affairs were cut off, confining her to life among a handful of other songstresses, that loneliness gradually intensified and beca overwhelming.
That day, when Tilan saw Shui Yanqing staring blankly at a photo fra in her arms, she guessed that Yanqing must have been reminiscing about old companions.
"It'll be okay. After a few more years, Blanchi will mature bit by bit. With so many classmates at school, you're bound to find a few people who truly click with you." Tilan offered her a few words of comfort.
Several years ago, she had also experienced the sa kind of loneliness as Shui Yanqing. After her family passed away, the 'friends' around her mostly harbored ill intentions, and she often found herself sinking into emotional quicksand.
"Things don't stay the sa forever. The present isn't eternal. Things will slowly get better in ti."
"As for , don't be fooled by how composed I am now. In the past, I was actually really timid and often picked on by others." Tilan reminisced about her past, smiling softly.
Seeing Shui Yanqing's curiosity, Tilan thought for a mont and began talking about her childhood with her sister.
"... Back then, my sister's figure seed like a towering mountain. It felt like I would never, ever be able to catch up to her. That kind of despair."
"I was so ordinary, always dragging behind, relying on friends, and never daring to complain in front of her. I could only hide behind my mother and watch her, watch her shining, self-assured deanor."
"It was just like the ugly duckling looking up at the white swan in the fairy tale."
Though it had felt suffocating at the ti, fortunately, all that was now in the past. Tilan could now speak of it with a light heart.
"Back then, I was terrified, terrified of being completely trapped in my sister's shadow. So, I stubbornly wanted to break free. Later, I defiantly chose the Withering Sequence, with its small numbers, and that set on a completely different path..." As she spoke, a strand of deep blue fla appeared at Tilan's fingertips, rising slowly.
One by one, strands of fla erged, encircling the middle of the round table like candles, casting a gentle glow on their surroundings.
"I don't know how to console you, but I want to say this: even when faced with a scene that seems utterly hopeless, don't lose heart. People grow. What feels insurmountable now might not be a big deal to the future version of you. It's just that we're often intimidated by appearances, unable to believe in the strength we'll gain later."
"Yanqing, you're not a bad person, right? And even if soone is a 'bad' person, maybe they still have sothing that shines, sothing that draws people who are like them. You have to trust that your experiences and feelings aren't unique. There will always be soone who understands, soone who shares your thoughts. Those are the people you can move forward with, spend ti with, and support one another as friends."
The deep blue flas shifted, turning purple, then red, and finally transitioning to orange-red and golden orange. They lit up Tilan's eyes, which shone with gentle warmth. They looked utterly non-threatening yet carried an unyielding strength.
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