You Are My Fairy Tale Thereafter

Her long hair, thick as drifting seaweed, moved with the water. Her beautiful stroke made her seem like a fish that had lived in the sea for years. In the dark blue water she opened her eyes, and her brown irises shone brighter than the buried gems at the bottom of the sea that had hidden their light for thousands of years.

When she surfaced, a pair of clear eyes gazed at her with quiet tenderness. They belonged to the angel who was always by her side, an angel meant only for her. The girl leaped back into the sea.

She stayed under for so long that anyone else would have thought she must have suffocated. Curled up beneath the water, she cried silently. That way, the sorrow could stay in the sea.

1. The Fool and the Girl Hooligan

Jiexia climbed out of the water and collapsed onto the sand, tired, while sunlight sprawled lazily over her body. Sen'an, who had been waiting for her by the shore all along, sat happily down beside her.

"Jiexia, can I go to Kazuya's birthday party tonight?"

"Kazuya? Who's that? Never heard of him." Jiexia frowned. "Are you even close?"

"We've only said hello a few times."

"Then why is he inviting you? Sounds suspicious. Don't go."

"Okay," Sen'an said at once, nodding. The sea wind ran through his long eyelashes.

"Wouldn't you be unhappy, getting invited for the first time and then not going?"

"No. I'll listen to you."

Jiexia turned over so her back faced him, sunset-red color spreading over her face. "Honestly. Fine, go. But listen carefully. If they take you somewhere expensive to eat, ask first whether he's paying. If he isn't, turn around and leave immediately. And if they drag you into a gift shop, the present cannot cost more than a hundred. Not even one more..." She stopped and glared at him. "What are you smiling at?"

Sen'an looked down at her, dimples deep in his clear, gentle face. "Nothing. I just feel so happy. You're always taking care of me."

He reached out and combed through her thick hair with his fingers, shaking the clingy grains of sand from it.

After they parted, Jiexia went and got into a fight at Nancheng Girls' Academy, then wandered through the brightly lit shopping district under the cover of night. She had calculated the time carefully. When she decided Sen'an ought to be done, she rode her heavy motorcycle like a streak through the traffic and stopped in front of a hotel just as Sen'an, in a blue checkered shirt, was coming down the steps.

She flashed the headlight straight at him. He lifted a hand to block it and squinted. There she was in the blaze, proud as ever. Tossing her head, she said coldly, "Get on."

The engine thundered beneath her hand.

After he climbed on, Jiexia saw how happy he looked and could not help smiling. "So? Kazuya isn't bad?"

"Mm. Today I found out his father works under my father. He said he and his dad might come visit our house someday..."

Jiexia's face turned cold at once. With the motorcycle still rumbling under her, she swung it around, found Kazuya in the crowd, and kicked him viciously between the legs.

Clutching himself in agony, Kazuya yelled, "So what if he's an idiot?"

Sen'an, who had run over to stop her, froze where he stood, his face going white under the night wind.

Jiexia spun around and barked at him, "Cover your ears."

"An idiot and a female thug, what a pair."

By the end of it Kazuya had to be carried off to the hospital. Only then did Jiexia loosen her fists. She walked to where Sen'an had crouched down, removed his hands from his ears, and looked at him.

He raised his head quietly, his gaze still transparent.

"All right," she said softly. "Let's go."

She took his hand, and together they walked slowly forward under the night.

Only after taking Sen'an home did Jiexia start back for herself.

The moon hung bright in a sparse sky. She hummed as she walked, her voice clear and sweet, like some spirit wandering through the dark.

Because protecting you matters more than anything. Let me protect you for this whole lifetime...

Sen'an was her boyfriend. Intelligence tests had shown that compared with others his age, his IQ was much lower. Ever since she had known him, he had been mocked constantly for his slow reactions and weak understanding. It was impossible not to imagine how miserable his life would have been without Jiexia protecting him.

2. You Deserve a Better Life

Not long after that, Sen'an was accepted early to Shangbei High School, and the school built a swimming pool because of it. Everyone else was frantic over the exams for admission to high school. But Jiexia and Sen'an, the two students who caused the school the most headaches, remained carefree.

Jiexia herself had essentially given up. She did not believe she had the slightest hope anyway, and even if she somehow blundered into high school by luck, what then? A person like her had no future. Besides, her family was already straining to live on her grandmother's pension.

When she found a provincial swim meet registration form in Sen'an's schoolbag, he snatched it back in a panic and said, with anxious seriousness, "Dad said Shangbei High is recruiting sports scholarship students."

Seeing the half-smiling, half-sad look on her face, Sen'an grew frantic enough that his eyes filled with tears. He shouted with all his strength, "Jiexia, you deserve a better life."

She only entered the meet in a halfhearted attempt to satisfy him.

But the moment she cut into the water, long and elegant as a startled dragon, the world seemed to fall silent around her. All the other swimmers dropped far behind. When she touched the finish, she herself felt a sudden stir deep inside. During the second fifty meters everyone in the arena had been screaming for her, and when the timer stopped, the whole municipal pool exploded into cheers.

She shattered the previous champion's record with ease and took first place in the girls' hundred-meter race.

But when she came up out of the water, the first person she saw was not Sen'an.

A boy was smiling at her with eyes black and deep as the open sea. He wore nothing but close-fitting blue trunks, the gold medal from the boys' division hanging at his throat. His wheat-colored skin and the smooth, beautiful lines of his body seemed made for water.

Jiexia stared, stunned, tears falling in hurried drops.

He took hold of her hand and pulled her out of the pool. "Do you remember me? I used to tell you the story of the little mermaid. I'm Youmu. We promised we would meet again. But when I came back home, you were already gone."

"I moved away, Youmu."

Far off, Sen'an's face was still wearing the beginning of a joyous smile, but the instant he saw the stranger, he froze. Loneliness swept over him.

In 2009, there was one thing everyone understood very quickly: that boy had to be the real owner of the copy of The Little Mermaid that always lay beside Jiexia's pillow.

For all Jiexia's bad behavior, her favorite book had always been The Little Mermaid.

When she was little, her parents had never stopped fighting. Her father hated coming home. Her mother wore a grieving face every day. The little boy next door, though he had no father, had a mother who was a journalist and knew countless stories. He would pass those stories on to Jiexia. Her favorite was always The Little Mermaid, the little mermaid who gave up everything for love and still did not win the prince.

Later the boy learned to swim in a training class and then taught Jiexia in the river near town. The two of them swam together again and again, their pure friendship enduring like the river itself.

Then the boy's mother went to interview a foreign swimming star, fell in love, and emigrated to America with him. The adults' union became the children's separation. Before he left, the boy gave Jiexia a copy of The Little Mermaid and cried from boarding the plane until long after it landed.

"I'll come back for you. We'll swim together again and race to see who's faster. You have to wait for me. I'll write to you. I'll keep telling you stories."

And after America, he did send one story every month:

The Nutcracker. Bluebeard's Bride.

But eventually every one of those stories crossed the ocean to her and then crossed the ocean back again. The postman always said the same thing. No such recipient.

For a long time Youmu had despaired of ever seeing his little mermaid again.

3. Are You Stupid?

Youmu came back as an exchange student after his mother was assigned home for a year by her news agency. And in this strange, impossible way, he and Jiexia were reunited.

"This is Sen'an. My boyfriend." Jiexia made the introduction with calm indifference, ignoring the deep disappointment in Youmu's eyes.

After that, both Youmu and Jiexia quite naturally became members of Shangbei High's swim team. Jiexia no longer went out picking fights so often. She put herself fully into training for the first time in her life, and for the first time as well, she could read admiration and respect in people's eyes. The coach encouraged her again and again. There was an important meet in the middle of the month, and if she won, she could even apply for a full scholarship as an outstanding sports student the next term.

Now acting as assistant coach, Youmu stood by with a stopwatch, smiling, his dark eyes alight because of her. Around them, girls smoldered with envy.

On the next lane over, another swimmer named Jiang Ruoxi did lap after lap. Yet Youmu never took his eyes off Jiexia. "Good. A little faster. Watch the rhythm!"

Every time Jiexia came up out of the water, she saw his warm smile.

Practice always ended late. Sen'an would wait quietly for Jiexia in the classroom. Of course Youmu always came back with her. They had been separated for ten years. Both had kept the other deep in their hearts. There were endless old memories and missed years to talk through. On the walk home the three of them stayed together, and Sen'an was always the quiet one, smiling at the side while he listened to the other two speak with delighted excitement.

On the day of the big meet, Jiexia and Youmu went ahead with the coach to register. Sen'an stayed behind holding both their bags.

A girl with large eyes came over and said, "Sen'an, Jiexia needs to get changed for the race. Give me the bags, I'll take them."

He recognized her as swim team member Jiang Ruoxi, so he handed them over without worry. "Thank you."

An hour later, when the girls' race began, Jiexia pulled decisively ahead while Jiang Ruoxi followed close behind. Everyone was screaming themselves hoarse for Jiexia.

Then halfway through, the shoulder of Jiexia's swimsuit suddenly split open.

There was a wave of commotion all around the pool. She plunged into the water in panic, one hand clutching at her chest, and watched helplessly as Jiang Ruoxi overtook her with ease. Jiexia, who had always been stubborn and hard, suddenly began crying like a child.

Sen'an paced anxiously at the edge of the pool, shouting, "Jiexia! Jiexia!" He still did not understand what had happened.

But someone else, quick as an arrow, had already jumped into the pool and wrapped a white towel around her. She stared up from beneath the water with wide eyes full of despair and humiliation.

Youmu caught her tightly.

I'm here. Don't be afraid.

He carried her out of the pool, hid her pale face against his chest, shielded her from every prying look, and hurried into the rest room.

The seam had been deliberately frayed. The moment she pulled hard in the water, it tightened and burst. Jiexia suddenly remembered that Jiang Ruoxi had been the one to tell Sen'an she had come to collect the bag, and her race swimsuit had been inside.

By then Sen'an had reached the rest room too. He could only stand there helplessly, watching Jiexia cry harder than he had ever seen before.

Youmu let out a breath and asked, "Why did you give the swimsuit to Jiang Ruoxi?"

"Huh?" Sen'an looked blank. "She said you sent her to get it."

Jiexia rushed at him and shoved him hard as she screamed, "Are you stupid? If Jiang Ruoxi tells you to do something, you do it? If she told you to die, would you do that too?"

Even though she knew better than anyone how much Sen'an hated the word stupid, in her fury she hurled it at him without thinking.

Sen'an pressed his lips together, and a strange grief gathered over his face. From beginning to end he stood there quietly, taking the hot tears she flung at him.

4. Are Childhood Promises So Easy to Forget?

For many days after that, Jiexia did not speak to Sen'an. She no longer walked him home. She no longer helped anyone do his homework for him. Every day he was scolded once by a teacher for being too stupid even to finish simple assignments. Jiexia no longer leaped up the way she once would have, shouting at the teacher, "Why are you treating Sen'an like that? Don't forget whose scores are getting you that year-end bonus." Instead she kicked over a desk and strode out of the classroom under everyone's gaze.

Youmu found her on the rooftop, standing in the wind. Whenever Jiexia was quiet, she carried a childlike innocence about her.

"When the coach told me that if I won, I could apply for full tuition and a scholarship, I ran home so happy and shouted it to Grandma at the top of my lungs because her hearing is bad. I yelled, Grandma, high school won't cost anything anymore. There'll even be scholarship money. You won't have to go out every morning with your breakfast stall and work so hard..."

Grandma had cried then. "I was so sure I would win," Jiexia said, and in the wind she wept again.

"These last few days Grandma keeps asking me whether the race has started yet. It's in the middle of the month, isn't it? And I never know how to answer. I didn't win. I failed."

Youmu reached out and wiped away her tears.

"I don't want to lose my temper at Sen'an either. I know I shouldn't be angry at him. He just can't tell good people from bad ones. He trusts everyone."

Youmu's hand stiffened, and his eyes darkened.

He had never understood why she had chosen Sen'an instead of him. Were the promises from their childhood really so easy to forget? He had cried and refused to board the plane, hiding in the airport bathroom so his mother could not find him, hoping that somehow he could stop himself from being separated from the little mermaid he loved. He had cried and told her, I'll come back for you. We'll swim together and race again. You have to wait for me.

Around then a video began circulating through the school. Everyone sent it to everyone else by phone. During study hall students crowded together to watch it, roared with laughter when it ended, and then threw suggestive looks toward Sen'an, who sat alone in the corner.

Jiexia finally could not bear it anymore. She grabbed a phone, watched the clip, and smashed it to the floor.

"If anyone spreads this again, I'll smash every phone I see."

"But we downloaded it online..." the owner of the phone complained miserably.

After school Youmu went with Jiexia to a manga cafe and looked up the video. It had high view counts on every site they checked.

The hidden camera clip showed Sen'an being extorted by three boys who looked only about ten. Taller than all of them by a head, Sen'an calmly pulled out his money and handed it over without the least sign of struggling.

And just like that, Sen'an became a joke to the entire internet and the whole of Shangbei High.

The video had only been posted within the past week, precisely during the days when Jiexia had been ignoring him.

She stopped Sen'an on the street. He was walking with his head down through the laughter and pointing fingers of passersby.

"What was that video?"

"Huh?" He looked at her blankly before understanding. "That day in the alley, three little kids said they needed money and asked me for some. So I gave it to them. I never know how to spend the money Dad gives me anyway."

In his white shirt, with his pale face, pink lips, and clear eyes, he looked heartbreakingly innocent.

"And how exactly did they ask you?" Jiexia smiled bleakly. Then she changed her voice into a pitiful tone. "Big brother, we're so poor, can you give us some money?" She stopped, glanced around, found an elementary school boy walking down the street licking candied fruit, and stepped in front of him. The child looked up in terror. Jiexia stretched out a hand and said coldly, "Big sister's short on money. Hand some over, or I'll beat you so hard your parents won't know you."

Under the pressure of her freezing stare, the boy pulled out all the money he had and shoved it into her hand, then burst into tears and ran.

Jiexia turned back, lifted one brow, and looked at Sen'an.

In that instant, he became deeply uncomfortable. "It was the second one," he admitted, lowering his head at last. He finally understood what everyone had been laughing at. He really was that ridiculous after all, that big of a joke.

"I was wrong."

"Honestly..." Jiexia suddenly smiled as hard as she could. There in the chilly street of early spring, she rose on tiptoe and hugged him, the affection in her voice almost childishly tender. "The moment I stop paying attention to you, you find some new way to make me anxious. I don't think I dare leave you alone again."

Forgiving Sen'an finally lifted the heavy weight of regret from her heart and let her edge back toward happiness.

5. Girls Will Put on Shoes and Walk Away

Jiexia and Sen'an reconciled. Sen'an picked a Sunday to buy her a gift as a formal apology. Passing a luxury shoe shop, he saw a pair of pale blue crystal shoes and immediately lost his mind over them.

"Do you like them?" he asked.

Jiexia wrinkled her nose. "Idiot. What kind of boyfriend gives a girl shoes? Don't you know what it means? If you give a girl shoes, she'll put them on and walk away on the spot."

Sen'an's eyes lingered on the lovely shoes for a long, reluctant moment, but in the end he only took Jiexia's hand and left. He did not want to do anything that might let this happiness slip away.

That same day, Jiexia was called out of class by the coach.

The complicated expression on his face filled her with dread. At last he said it: "The hospital just called. Your grandmother collapsed while setting up her breakfast stall."

Jiexia's soul dropped into ice.

She ran wildly to the hospital, where they told her to prepare for the worst.

After classes, Youmu and Sen'an rushed there too. On the bus, Youmu asked in confusion, "Why does Jiexia live with her grandmother? What about her parents? Since I came back, I haven't heard anyone say anything about them."

Sen'an lowered his head very deeply. After a long silence, he said, "Youmu, she doesn't have parents. Not anymore. If Grandma dies too, then she'll really have no one left."

Why were childhood promises forgotten?

Because after Youmu had flown away to America carrying warm fairy tales with him, there had never again been anything beautiful in Jiexia's childhood.

Jiexia stopped going to class. For the few days when her grandmother hovered between life and death, she stayed in the hospital day and night, never sleeping. Youmu and Sen'an came every day to sit with her. There was no comfort either of them could offer. They could only stay beside this broken-hearted girl in silence.

One day on the bus, Youmu suddenly said, "I told my mother about Jiexia. She said she wants to talk to my stepfather about adopting her. My stepfather was an American swimming star before he retired and became a coach. Jiexia's talent in the water is extraordinary. Dad would really like to meet her. He'll be coming to China soon to lead a team of American middle-schoolers in the China-US Friendship Swim Meet. I want Jiexia to enter. If Dad sees what she can do, it could change her whole future in swimming. Mom is already planning to visit the hospital and speak to her grandmother."

Sen'an fell silent.

From the moment Youmu had appeared, his already fragile soul had grown more ashamed day by day. Maybe he was too foolish to understand math or science or other people's words, but he knew one thing clearly: he would never be strong enough to protect Jiexia. More and more, he was becoming her burden.

If he let go, it would not be because he was noble.

It would only be because he loved a girl.

He got off the bus one stop before the hospital.

6. She Is Your Little Mermaid

A week later, while Sen'an and Youmu sat in a milk tea shop talking for the first time in real earnest, Jiexia was outside pushing her grandmother's wheelchair across the grass.

Grandmother brought up what Youmu's mother had said.

With a warm smile on his face and a light in his eyes bright as stars, Sen'an began, almost dreamily, "The first time I met Jiexia, we were both seven. I was alone on the beach building a sandcastle..."

The sea in spring had been light blue. Seven-year-old Jiexia came running toward it, chased by a group of children.

With nowhere left to run, she bent and dove into the water, swimming away as smoothly as a fish. The others jumped in after her with angry splashes, but Jiexia had already gone far, drawing a deep breath and disappearing into the depths for a long, long time. In the end they had no choice but to climb out, stomp a few angry holes through Sen'an's sandcastle, and leave.

She stayed out in the water so long that he began to worry. Barefoot, Sen'an waded out into the shallows and stared at the place where she had vanished.

Only at sunset did she return, exhausted, from far away, lifting her pale face from the water to look at him in silence.

She never asked whether the others had gone. She simply rose from the sea without a word, water streaming from her body.

They met like that many times. Sen'an noticed that this girl was always silently doing bad things, then fleeing into the sea without ever saying a single word. He even guessed, for a while, that perhaps she was like him in her own way. He was a child with low intelligence. Perhaps she was mute.

Once she stayed under so long that he was terrified. He called adults to help. They dragged her out half-drowned. She had cramped up and nearly gone under. He took her home, and she still did not say a word.

"Can't you speak?" he asked, pointing to his mouth.

Her bright eyes seemed to see straight into the shame in his soul. She only shook her head.

For that whole period they met every day, and not once did he hear her say a single word.

Out on the lawn, Grandmother said her time was short and told Jiexia that she should not keep living such a hard life. It would be better if she accepted Youmu's family's offer, even if that meant leaving Sen'an behind. Sen'an was not suited to her.

"Grandma, what are you saying?" Jiexia broke in loudly. "Have you forgotten who was there for me when I was at my worst? Who stayed by me?"

Though she could see the hope and worry in her grandmother's eyes, she forced herself to turn away.

A year later, Sen'an finally learned from Jiexia's grandmother that Jiexia had autism and could not communicate normally. She was not, in her grandmother's words, a normal child any more than he was. The knowledge hurt him terribly. From that moment on, he decided that even if his strength was tiny, he would still protect her.

Sen'an's face and voice both grew shadowed with sorrow. "I told you already that when I met her, she didn't have a father or mother anymore... Her father killed her mother when he was drunk. I heard they never got along and fought all the time. It happened right in front of her."

Seven-year-old Jiexia had crouched in a corner, hiding under a table. She saw her father kick her mother, who no longer moved. He stood there holding a knife dripping blood and shouted, "Jiexia! Where are you? Come out! You little brat, just like your mother!"

She clamped both hands over her mouth and warned herself that no matter what happened she must not make a sound. Her father sat down right beside the table where she hid and drank a great deal more, and she listened to the clatter of the cup against the tabletop. The fear seeped into her blood and marrow and rooted itself in her soul.

Only when morning came and her father stumbled off to vomit in the toilet did she dare crawl out shaking, run from the house, and throw herself into the river, swimming as hard as she could as though she might somehow reach the sea, then the Pacific, then some warm place far, far away.

Later she was sent to live with her grandmother. Her father was sentenced to life in prison. Her mother died of her wounds. Psychologists diagnosed Jiexia with autism, and because she had witnessed her father's violence, she developed deeply destructive impulses.

Grandmother had steeled herself and said, "Sen'an is a good boy. But he can't protect you."

"Then who was it who protected me before?" Jiexia's eyes filled with tears. "I was such a terrible person. Everyone else hated me, everyone else was disgusted by me. Only he wasn't."

Back then Sen'an had followed her around every day like a tail, talking and talking until she would rather sink beneath the water than listen to the noisy world. But still he kept talking over the surface of the sea. He wanted to tell her stories, tell her jokes. He was just too clumsy, always stumbling from one story into another and getting himself confused.

It took him a year to finally hear her say one sentence.

"Sen'an, you're so noisy!"

At that, he had wrapped his arms around her in joy and cried huge, grateful tears.

Sen'an looked Youmu straight in the eyes, and Youmu, moved by the holiness in that gaze, looked back with equal seriousness. Tears glimmered in Sen'an's eyes as he remembered those sweet days.

"After she started talking, she slowly got better. She loved swimming. She still loved doing troublesome bad things too. She cursed magnificently and fought like a demon. But all of that was all right, because at least she wasn't hiding all alone anymore. Little by little, things changed, and then she was the one protecting me..."

Sen'an stood up. At last his tears fell.

"She is your little mermaid. I am entrusting her to you. Please forgive her past. Even if sometimes she still can't stop herself from doing bad things, never be harsh with her. I bet there is no better girl in this world than Jiexia. Promise me you'll stay by her side, all right?"

He held out his hand.

With solemnity in his heart, Youmu took that trembling hand and gripped it hard. Then he watched Sen'an turn and walk away without looking back. In that instant, something like grief passed through him too.

A week later, Grandmother died.

The funeral was arranged with the help of Youmu and his mother. Only in the middle of all that grief did Jiexia realize that Sen'an had been absent for a long time. No wonder there had been an empty place inside her. But when she finally returned to school, he was gone. With his limitations, Sen'an had always struggled in an ordinary high school, and in the end his parents had put aside their pride and sent him to a special school. But where? Even when Jiexia tracked down his house, the parents who had always disliked her only drove her away.

So she stubbornly waited downstairs.

And in the distance, hidden in the trees, Sen'an watched without daring to step forward, a smile so full of happiness it looked almost like sorrow blooming on his face.

Because of love, they were farther apart at the shortest distance.

Every day Youmu and Jiexia went once to Grandmother's grave, because soon enough there might be no chance to come back. On the bus ride home, Youmu described Manhattan in a half-dazed voice. "It's windy there. The pigeons in the squares aren't afraid of people at all. If they see bread in your hand they'll fly right to you and land on your hand, on your shoulder..."

Often he would stop halfway through a sentence because he realized Jiexia had not heard a word. She would only stare out the window, remembering the many times Sen'an had waited for her at the corner while she fought, bargained, won or lost, and then grabbed his hand and ran with him through the night. His hand had always been so warm.

She searched for him for a month without result.

At last she accepted the answer he had given her.

On the day of the competition, Sen'an still did not appear at the swimming hall. Instead a postman in green found Jiexia and asked her to sign for a package.

Inside were the very crystal shoes they had once seen together in the shop.

There was a letter.

Do you remember? There was one time I wanted to make you speak, so I told you a story. I was talking about how the little mermaid's feet hurt so much she could hardly walk, and because I am so stupid I ended up mixing it together with Cinderella losing her glass slipper. That was the first thing you ever said to me: "Sen'an, you're so noisy. Stupid. The crystal shoe doesn't belong to the little mermaid." I cried then because I was so happy.

You said that if a boy gives a girl shoes, she'll put them on and walk away.

Jiexia, whatever kind of princess you are, please put on these shoes fit only for a princess and go. Because you deserve a better life.

This is my blessing...

She must have taken first place, right?

She must have left on a plane with Youmu, right?

She must have left him forever and gone on to live the better life she deserved, right?

Under the building where he lived, Sen'an tilted his face toward the sky, waiting for a plane to pass overhead.

What he got instead was a girl standing in the wind, smiling through tears at him.

She had not gone to the competition. She had watched Youmu cry and beg her to leave with him, and she had refused. She had gone to her grandmother's grave and apologized. She would not go to America the way her grandmother wished. She had fallen in love with a boy here, a boy who perhaps could not live without her. His love might have been humble, but it was deeper than the Atlantic. She would stay by his side forever, protect him, and love him with everything she had.

Now she came flying toward him in the crystal shoes he had sent.

"I won't go with Youmu," she said.