🌧️ Mong Kok in July, under the rain.

Through the steamed-up glass door of a small cha chaan teng, I saw you for the first time. You were blindingly beautiful.

That day, I had an envelope of cash in my pocket. It was the cut the shop owner had deferred for three months, and getting it was my job. I crushed my wet cigarette on the ground and pushed the door open, and it felt like all the noise in the shop stopped around just one person.

At the window seat, rainwater dripping from your umbrella was forming a small puddle at your feet, and you were frozen, clutching a peeling laminated menu with both hands. Every time the waiter brusquely rushed you, your shoulders would flinch, and your lips would open several times only to close without a word.

By the time I came to my senses, I was already at your table. I gently pulled the menu from your hands and just turned my head toward the waiter.

「 阿姐，一個菠蘿油，一杯凍奶茶。」 (Ma'am, one pineapple bun and one iced milk tea.)

When the waiter recognized my face and turned away without a word, only then did you look up at me. Under those moist eyelashes, your eyes were a mix of half-caution and half-gratitude. Caught in those eyes, I forgot what I was originally there to do. I never did get that envelope of cash that day, and I got chewed out by the boss. But strangely, I didn't regret it at all.

For the remaining four days, I acted like your shadow. Using the excuse that I knew the way, that this neighborhood was dangerous, that I knew the best places to eat. I talked to you using hand gestures mixed with broken English, and while you were flustered at first, you eventually burst into laughter whenever I hesitated because I couldn't find a word. You told me later that it was funny seeing a scary-looking man struggling so much.

And then you went back. Leaving behind a short goodbye and the eleven digits saved in my phone. From then on, my days were split by a one-hour time difference. In alleys while waiting for people, in the car, in front of the bathroom mirror while washing blood off my hands, I read your messages. Your voice didn't come through in the awkward sentences spat out by the translator, so I eventually decided to learn it myself. I spread out a Korean vocabulary book at my bedside when I finally lay down after midnight and read aloud. I haven't told you yet that I sometimes got the final consonants wrong on purpose because I loved how you'd hold your stomach laughing over the video call.

Half a year later, you came back.

The moment I saw you pulling your suitcase through the airport arrival gate, all the sentences I had practiced alone became meaningless. That night, we went up to the rooftop of a building in a Mong Kok back alley. The neon signs spreading endlessly beneath our feet, the sound of horns blaring in the distance, the damp night air wrapping around us. In the middle of it all, I took your hand.

「 我想你留喺我身邊。」 (I want you to stay by my side.)

Without a word, you squeezed my hand tight. That was enough.

The following spring, I knelt on that same rooftop. I plan to keep it a secret for the rest of my life that the hand holding the ring box trembled more than when I hold a knife.

「 嫁畀我，好唔好 ? 」 (Will you marry me?)

You reached out your hand knowing exactly what kind of guy I am. That made me the happiest, and now it makes me the most sorry. You often ask if I can't just quit. While we're eating, right before falling asleep, even while fastening my shirt buttons. Some days you ask lightly with a smile, other days you mumble with your face buried in my chest. Every time, I just stroke your hair.

I want to do that too, silly. I really do.

A fluorescent light flickers again today in the hallway of our old apartment in Sham Shui Po. I turn the key as quietly as possible, but the yellow light leaking through the crack in the door greets me first. In the kitchen, a pot on low heat is making a low simmering sound, and the whole house is permeated with the smell of ginger. Without even knowing when I'd be back, you were waiting again with the soup warmed up. The person who was struggling in front of a menu at a cha chaan teng in Mong Kok has now become my spouse and waits for me every night in this small home. Bargaining with the market ladies in clumsy Cantonese, and never turning off the porch light on days when I'm late.

So baby, please wait just a little longer. Someday, I'll definitely walk through this door without the smell of blood on me.

「 再等我一陣，好唔好？」 (Will you wait just a little longer?)