Xiaochun | Tailor and Xiaoshuang

Anyone who has been to the Late Night Diner around 2015 must have known the tailor. He is from Fujian, doesn’t talk much, likes to wear a baseball cap, and his thin figure often shuttles between the dining table and the kitchen. As we joked, the tailor is the third generation of the Late Night Diner. At the same time, there was also a girl named Xiaoshuang in the store. Frequent customers should have an impression of her. She was very young, had short hair, loved to laugh, had a silly and collagen face, and was also a capable person in the Late Night Diner. The story I want to tell today is about them.

Before the tailor became the Sandaime, when everyone still called him the Little Tailor, he had an "office romance" in the cafeteria with Xiaoshuang. I may have forgotten when they got together, or I may not know it at all, but they just got together.

At that time, the late night restaurant was just beginning to become an Internet celebrity restaurant. Five or six people were busy in the small kitchen at the same time. The two of them had no time to exchange glances or flirt in the "office". They looked no different from ordinary colleagues. Instead, I often teased them in the intervals between my busy schedules, making everyone burst into laughter. The tailor and Xiao Shuang would also laugh along with them out of embarrassment, but they couldn't stop working. This kind of scene often occurs in the kitchen, and some customers would wonder what those people in the kitchen were laughing at. Some customers also said that your working atmosphere is really good.

I forgot how long they were together, but I remember that in the later period of their relationship, Xiaoshuang was very unhappy, probably because the tailor was too self-centered, didn't know how to take care of others, was very straight, only centered on his own feelings, etc. In the end, Xiaoshuang left the late-night canteen.

When facing a breakup, my tailor was not as calm as everyone thought. Sometimes he would sit and smoke, sigh, and sometimes tell me about their conflicts. I would help analyze and give some advice, pretending to be a person who had experienced it.

During that period, after closing every day, the tailor would change the music in the shop and play Wu Bai's "Ring" on repeat.

One day, the canteen closed, and the tailor closed the shop and told me that Xiaoshuang was leaving Dali. She was going back to her hometown with a boy, and they might get married. The train was at 7 o'clock in the morning. I asked him what happened next, and the tailor said he regretted it. He had been thinking about it for so many days and realized that he was selfish in his relationship, and he still liked Xiaoshuang. I asked him what happened next, and he said he wanted to wait for Xiaoshuang at the entrance of the train station, even if it was as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack, even if there was a boy next to Xiaoshuang, he still wanted to try to save the relationship one last time, and told Xiaoshuang that he knew he was wrong, and it would be best if he could save the relationship, but if he couldn't, he would have no regrets.

After he finished telling me, I was suddenly very moved. I was moved by the courage of the tailor at that time. I said you go ahead, don't worry about anything in the store, just go find Xiao Shuang. At six o'clock, before dawn, the tailor left for the train station, leaving me alone in the store to make braised meat, beef brisket, black jelly, and scallion oil, and I worked until after eleven o'clock in the afternoon. For the love of the tailor, I paid a huge physical price that day.

At the end of the story, the tailor returned home disappointed. Xiaoshuang boarded the train on time. The tailor never told me the details of the reconciliation, but I could roughly imagine it. He didn't tell me, and I didn't ask.

Yesterday, Xiaoshuang returned to Dali. After not seeing her for a long time, she has become much rounder, but her personality has not changed. She is still carefree and heartless, but the details of her speech reveal her maturity. And she is already a millionaire. I made an appointment with the tailor and Xiaoshuang to go to Jason's house to play. He Chen was also there. The old friends from that year met again after many years. We had dinner and chatted together.

After the show, I drove the tailor and Xiaoshuang, and suddenly I felt that this scene was nothing short of amazing and incredible. I said, Xiaoshuang, let me play you a song that belongs to you. Xiaoshuang looked confused and didn't know what I was talking about. I said to the tailor sitting in the passenger seat, "Play a song." Then Wu Bai's "Ring" echoed in the car, and the lyrics scrolled on the screen. At first, Xiaoshuang was embarrassed and thought the lyrics were corny. I turned to look at the tailor, and only the light and shadow of the street lamps passed over his face, and I couldn't see any expression. After the song was over, the tailor didn't say a word.

The return trip was short, just a few songs away. I never thought that there would be a day when the people in the story would gather together again and talk about the past as if they were telling other people's stories, lightheartedly. I don't know what the tailor and Xiaoshuang were thinking. But I truly felt that it was so good back then, everyone was so good back then, and youth was so good.

At the end, everyone got off the road and said goodbye, leaving. I think this story, perhaps as of yesterday, has really come to an end.

very nice.

 

Xiaochun 2023.4.25