Love in the Subway

We all regard the subway as a symbol of economic development and use the construction of it to measure the prosperity of a city. Thinking of a subway, what pops into our mind is nothing but reinforced concrete, expressionless passers-by, and underground trains roaring at full speed. We don’t expect that romantic stories sometimes happen in the subway.

     
Once there was a cute and elegant girl named Cathy. She worked as a clerk in a photo developing store. Every day, she went to work by subway. On her commute, she kept on coming across a person in the same position. It was a good-looking boy with sparkling eyes. He was，tall, slim, well-dressed, and always wore a headset. He must be a music fan, the girl thought. She had noticed him for some time, since every time she looked at him, the boy would quickly move his sight away. Then there would be a beam of delight creeping up on his face, and a flush quickly filling his cheeks. Something chemical was germinating and growing quietly. The boy knew that he should take the initiative. But he couldn’t tell the girl he loved her directly. It really racked his brains.

     
One day, the girl was standing behind the counter, working. Suddenly, she felt a shadow towering over her. She lifted her head and saw the boy standing there, nervously biting his upper lip. “What can I do for you, sir?” asked the girl with a hidden smile. The blushed boy didn’t answer; instead, he hurriedly left two films on the counter and ran away. The girl looked at his back coyly.

    
The films were soon developed. The girl was astonished to find that in every picture there was this boy with a small blackboard. In the first photo, there was an “I” on the blackboard. Then there was an “L”, an “O”, a “V”, an “E” … all together there were 19 photos, with 19 letters forming the sentence “I love you. Do you love me?” The girl was so happy that she decided to give some response to the boy.

    
The next morning, when she saw the boy in front of a door, she grinned. She walked towards the boy and stood beside him. Without looking at his face, she said: “I’ll check off at 5 o’clock this afternoon. So let’s meet at the subway station at 5:15, OK?” No response. The boy’s face just blushed again.

    
5:15, subway station, the girl was waiting on a bench. Behind her, the boy strode to the train. 15 minutes passed, the girl didn’t know what happened: why hadn’t the boy come? Meanwhile, the boy was wondering why he didn’t meet the girl on the train as usual.

    
The two met again the next day. Just before the girl reached her destination, she walked to the boy, asked: “Why didn’t you come yesterday?” Then “dingdong”, the door opened, she got off, hoping the boy would follow her. She turned back, only to see the boy standing still, pointing to his ears and looking at her senselessly.

    
Her heart sank. He was deaf.

     
The train roared away at full speed.