“What? What keeps you awake at night? Please, tell me.” Wai Lan sat down next to him, folding her hands in the lap of her skirt.

Kwan Lau Ming hesitated, shook his head. “Just…I have these compositions. Good, bad, half-finished. A story you’ll become familiar with.”

“Oh,” said Wai Lan. “Do you still write?”

“No. That’s why I can’t sleep.”

“Oh…I see…”

“Don’t worry, you’re not supposed to have anything wise to say at—what are you, fourteen, fifteen?”

“Nearly fifteen. In August.”

He laughed. “Fifteen in August. By then you’ll have forgotten me anyway. It’s just as well that I’m leaving.”

“It’s true,” said Wai Lan.

“What is?”

“As you say, I’m just a kid. I’ll find someone else to fixate on quickly enough.”

Kwan Lau Ming clapped his hands and threw back his head in a throaty laugh that Wai Lan hadn’t heard before. Suddenly she felt acute embarrassment at the hours she had spent playing so earnestly at his piano. She felt herself blushing and tugged the hem of her skirt at her knees.

“Let me tell you something,” he said in a softer voice. “You never once asked me why I invited you here, or why you should come. You just came, played piano, and went home. You never brought it up. Not even today.”

“No.”

“You never needed me to tell you why. You made your own reason, Wai Lan. For that, you will always have my respect.”

He leaned in, smoothing away some strands of hair that had fallen on her cheek. For the first time, she noticed there was no smell to him. His eyes were bright and shining with hunger.

Nobody looked up from their meals or their newspapers. They could not be pried from their dull serenity.

IV.

Wai Lan just happens to be passing by Sing’s house as he returns from his rounds. Leaning on the metal gate, she introduces herself as Fong’s cousin and asks if he has a letter for her. He says no, and she asks him what he’s doing for the rest of the afternoon. When he tells her he’s going fishing in the bay, she seems disappointed and announces that she’ll occupy herself somewhere else then. But there she is the next day. This time she asks him what he hopes to catch, and he says, Whatever wants to be caught. As he goes inside, he thinks she is still at the gate looking at him. The day after that she is at the gate yet again, this time as he is leaving, and she invites herself along, asking does he mind, and he says fine, as long as she doesn’t complain if she gets bored. And so she goes with him that day and the day after and the day after that.