senior [rebirth]

All the students in Mancheng No. [-] Middle School know that there is a pet cafe opposite the back door of their school.

Pet Cafe has a warm environment, clean storefront, delicious desserts and meals, and cute cats. The students of No. [-] Middle School like it very much.Whether they are going to school or on vacation, they can always be seen noisy in pet cafes.

As if responding to the love of the students, this café has been open for a long time.360 days a year, the door is open from [-]:[-] am to [-]:[-] pm every day.During holidays or when the weather is particularly bad, employees leave work early, and students can still see the lights on in the pet cafe when they pass by.

Often at this time, the owner of the pet cafe is the one who stays inside.

It is said that the surname is Lin, and he has a handsome and gentle appearance. When he is sitting at the bar, he is either making desserts or reading a book with a cat in his arms. Occasionally, when he looks up to meet the eyes of the students, Boss Lin will bend his eyes and smile.

It was a very gentle smile, which seemed to be wrapped in a soft sunset, making people who were in a hurry stop.There are quite a few little girls in the No. [-] Middle School who like him, so they go to pet cafes every three days for this reason.Fortunately, Boss Lin is also in the store most of the time, allowing them to see enough.

But today is different.

At 05:30 in the afternoon, many students who habitually come to pet coffee after class to relax, buy snacks and play with cats are seldom shut down, so they gather outside the door strangely.

"The pet cafe didn't open the door today?" A voice from the crowd said first.

"Yeah, it didn't open when I came at noon, I thought it would open in the afternoon."

"So it was closed for a day? That's strange... I'm already in my third year of high school, and this is the first time I've seen a pet cafe close."

"Don't tell me something happened? A friend of mine added to the clerk's WeChat before, and after asking about it, he said that the boss had a collective holiday today, and people took all the cats back."

"Boss? Is it Boss Lin? Why? What happened?"

The boys and girls looked at each other at the door, and talked about it for a long time without reaching a conclusion.In the end, I have to say that I will come to see it tomorrow, maybe it will be opened by then?Then scattered in the streets of deep winter.

As time passed, the sky above gradually dimmed.The street lights were on, and there seemed to be snow drifting under the warm light.

Contrary to what the teenagers thought, Chong Cafe still didn't open the door the next day.It was closed for three days in a row, and at eleven o'clock on the fourth night, the back door, which had been silent for a long time, was finally opened.

A figure walked in.He stopped at the door for a long time before he stepped forward, bent slightly, reached out and pulled a chair in the store to sit down.

The door was slammed shut by the cold wind behind him, but the man didn't seem to hear it. After sitting down, he reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes after a while.

He didn't know how to smoke very much, and he was choked and coughed after taking a puff, and couldn't help squinting his eyes in the night.After a while, looking at the cigarette between his fingers, he laughed self-deprecatingly.

This is the boss Lin Xi who loves coffee.

Coughing for a while probably made him realize that he was really not suitable for smoking, so he didn't force himself any more, and instead put the cigarette on the edge of the table.

The sparks at the head flickered on and off, like a dilapidated lantern in the night, dimly illuminating the back door of Mancheng No. [-] Middle School across the street for Lin Xi.He leaned back on the chair and watched like this, and suddenly he couldn't help but see the picture that had always been lingering in his mind these days.

Most of them were ten years ago.

Lin Xi remembered that the back door of No. [-] Middle School at that time was not as magnificent and broken as it is now.Every morning, he would carry an old washed canvas bag and wear the same school uniform as the group of energetic children during the day, and enter the school through the somewhat broken back door.

At that time, Lin Xi had a low self-esteem due to family reasons, and he shrank his head all day long, and he didn't dare to look at people when talking.Average academic performance, average communication skills, few friends, and teachers don't pay much attention to it. I'm afraid it's more appropriate to define it as a transparent person.

These all add up and become countless troubles, which gradually obscure the young Lin Xi's eyes to see the world.Blocked him in his own world, made him unwilling to make new friends, and unwilling to think about the future.

Just looking at the old sycamore tree on the playground, he can often pass the whole morning.

Just such a slow, mediocre person who has no color in his eyes, the reason why he changed so slightly later, became alive, and became Boss Lin who was loved by the students... In the final analysis, it was because Xu Han came.

Xu Hanlai was the school grass of No. [-] Middle School at that time, one year older than Lin Xi.Generally speaking, when it comes to school grass, there are nothing more than three elements, good family background, good looks, and good popularity.Xu Hanlai has all three events and is well-known in middle schools in the city.

Such a character like the stars holding the moon, logically speaking, should be very different from Lin Xi in middle school.

But fate brought them together so strangely.

Lin Xi still remembers that the back door of No. [-] Middle School at that time was not a bustling commercial street like it is now, but a winding alley with some uneven roads.The alleys are difficult to walk, the light is poor, and few people pass by on weekdays.But Lin Xi likes to be quiet, and the back door is close to his home, so he goes back and forth from here every day.After a long time, somehow he was targeted by a group of hooligans near No. [-] Middle School.

Those bastards thought that Lin Xi wanted protection money, and if he didn't have one, they let him borrow it, but how could Lin Xi dare to ask others to borrow money at that time?When he was caught again, he faltered for a long time and couldn't even take out a coin. Seeing this, the gangsters immediately became impatient.Just when one of them was about to make a move, Xu Hanlai appeared at the entrance of the alley.

Thinking about it later, although they were in the same school, their circumstances were so different that they had no intersection in the past, so it seemed that it was the first time Lin Xi saw him in a real sense.

Xu Hanlai is very good-looking, with a straight nose bridge under black hair, thin lips, and a pair of peach blossom eyes that always bring a smile, which is the kind of appearance that stands out in the crowd.He just appeared at the entrance of the alley just like that, first stared down at Lin Xi who was surrounded in the corner for a while, then reached out his hand and took out a hundred-yuan bill from his pocket, and smiled at the gangsters and said that he was Lin Xi's classmate is willing to lend him money.

Then, the moment the first gangster approached and touched the banknote with his hand, he tightened his five fingers and swung upwards, hitting the man's nose directly.

That was Lin Xi's first time seeing people up close, especially Xu Han coming to fight, and it was the only time.

Don't look at this person who smiles softly and politely at school on weekdays, like a bright star who is clean and ignorant of world affairs, but the smile on his face disappears in an alley in an instant, when he moves his hands But the strength is so neat that it is almost not like the peers in Lin Xi's impression.

He just stared in the corner for a long time, until Xu Hanlai came up to him and stretched out his hand to him, then slowly stood up from the ground, and dryly said thank you with the communicative ability that he had closed for a long time.

Xu Hanlai was much taller than Lin Xi at the time, and the sunlight came from directly behind him that day, making his shadow almost completely cover Lin Xi.Lin Xi remembered very clearly that the senior stood in front of him for a long time, and finally reached out and gently rubbed his head, saying that you are welcome in a very gentle tone.

Afterwards, especially in the many days after hearing the news of Xu Hanlai's death, Lin Xi wondered how wonderful it would be if he could turn back time to that moment.

If he hadn't been under the long-term self-emotional closure, so stupid that he didn't think of any way to repay him except thank you, if after Xu Han came to save him, he could try to stand by his side and become his friend, It was not in the second year after he was admitted to the Capital University, because he was ashamed to face some emotions that he thought he shouldn't have, and he didn't even have the courage to fill in the capital's volunteers, which completely ruined his qualifications to stand by his side. ...wouldn't things have developed into what they are now?

But it seems too late to say anything.

The senior who once rescued him from school violence and gave him the love of his teachers and classmates, the little doll who had saved his pocket money for a long time but still looked cheap among all the gifts, not only blushed He rescued him, and the senior who was still by his side all the time after that, the senior who finally let him know how to raise his head to see the myriad worlds, shining like a star, in the end did not go to the road of glory as he imagined, Instead, he was cruelly taken away by life, and finally fell alone in a car accident in the capital.

… Lin Xi finds it hard to accept every time he thinks about it.

These days, he always thinks, if he just opened a favorite cafe in No. [-] Middle School a few years ago, when he met Xu Hanlai who happened to pass by, he would have the courage to say all the things he didn't say back then, and take the opportunity to ask questions. Ask the senior how he has been these years, and if he can participate in his life, even if only a little bit, maybe he can know some of his difficulties, so as to change some of his trajectory, and let him miss that scene invisibly. What about a car accident?

But there is always no medicine for regret in the world, and time always cruelly takes away opportunities before people have time to see and think clearly.

So Lin Xi never had time to say sorry to his stepfather who was actually very good to him in his whole life, and he never mustered up the courage he should have when facing his seniors.

At the age of 27, he sat alone in his small shop, looking at the snow that was falling more and more outside, and the streets that were so deserted and quiet, he suddenly felt that his life seemed really meaningless.

He didn't have big dreams. He thought it would be enough to manage this favorite cafe well and finish the ordinary and long second half of his life. But when the news of Xu Hanlai's death came, Lin Xi realized that what he wanted was far more than that. .

He recalled over and over again the senior who pulled him up in the alley more than ten years ago, and Xu Hanlai who was standing under the streetlight outside the pet cafe a few years ago, smoking in the direction of the back door of No. [-] Middle School.

Thinking of him smoking a cigarette with an indifferent expression, turning around and seeing himself walking over, suddenly laughing after a moment of daze, then raising his hand like many years ago, and finally falling down again, Lin Xi especially wanted to reach out Go and pull him, and it would be best to just pull him back from the car accident like this.

But this is impossible after all.

Lin Xi leaned back on the chair, looking quietly at the snow that seemed to be falling slower and slower outside, the street lamps that became less bright, and the smoke that had extinguished itself at some point.Suddenly, I felt that my body seemed to become extremely stiff, and I was desperately falling down as if being pulled by some gravity, and even my five senses gradually became blurred.

It was a bit uncomfortable, but he didn't want to take care of it, and his eyes kept falling on the back door of No. [-] Middle School outside the store.

There is no one on the snowy streets, time seems to be passing, and it seems to have stagnated.

It wasn't until a violent "So I asked you to borrow money, didn't you borrow it!" suddenly sounded from his ear, smashing the almost still gray and white picture with force, and pouring color into it, Lin Xi opened his eyes wide with his heart beating wildly.