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September in Changsha was rather a nice time of the year. It wasn't as hot as it was in summer, but it wasn't really cold, yet coming out on the streets you needed a jacket and a scarf. Tui loved early autumn, gorgeous red-yellow-orange leaves falling from the branches and covering the ground with the most beautiful blanket that could ever exist. She absolutely adored the sunset in autumn - it was in her opinion much more beautiful than sunsets in summer - and, within the year and a half since her family had moved to Changsha from Nanjing, Tui had created for herself a routing of either going to the park high on the hill not far from her house or climbing to the rooftop with pillows, blankets and a thermos with hot berry tea to keep her warm to watch the sun slowly going down to lightly kiss the skyline and then disappear completely. She liked the warm gust of wind blowing in the face, while she tried to hide her nose in the huge snood-scarf wrapped around her neck. Her parents ofter asked her why on earth she loked autumn so much, if she always got cold so fast? Tui had no idea. She just knew that in early autumn she always found herself feeling nostalgic... in a good way, although deeper in the season she would always find herself feelind slightly depressed for no particular reason.

This time she sat on the bench in the park with kids running around and their parents trying to catch them to take them home. The girl seemed to be deep in her thoughts absent-mindedly mangling the hem of her jacket in her anxious fingers. She was in a bit of a daze lately, feeling confused with her own feelings. When her parents asked her how was school, seeing coming Tui coming though the door in the evening, she always answered with the same words "Everything's fine. I'm tired, dinner's soon?" It wasn't intentional, she just felt this way. Whenever she was with her parents, she always felt at ease, so there was no point to let her frustrations get to her. But lately... Lately she felt like the most confused girl in the world.

Overall, everything was fine, but some little things just made her go out of her mind. She had no problems with her classmates - Tui even concidered them as friends, although she had slight difficulties making friends, but her classmates never put her into any uncomfortable situations, so she was on good terms with them. She also had no problems in school or with teachers, everyone in her school were an 'alright' people. The only problem for her was the new boy. He had transferred to her school few months before the summer break and... Tui liked him. At first she had no idea what was going on with her body, whenever he was around her or talked to her or looked at her or mentioned her or... Just simply when he was within 15 meters away from her. Tui never was the girl people turned around to look at, neither was she a mousy person. True, she never really approached anyone first, but she liked being around people. She liked to be in both girls and boys companies, and after spending quite a lot of time in study groups after school, she learned how to actually be around boys.

But with this one particular boy, everything was different. She always got so worried and flushed when she saw him coming through the class door every morning. The fact that they sat next to each other in class wasn't helping her either, although it was rather nice for her to think, that out of all the free seats in the classroom he could choose from, he chose to sit next to her. She remembered him glancing around the classrom, when their teacher told him to choose any free seat, and when he saw Tui, she saw a shadow of a smile appearing on his face. Then he nodded his head as if mentally telling himself "Right, found it" and walked to his desk. Tui remembered it like it was yesterday and she thought that the feeling, that striked her when he smiled at her on his first day, only intensified and now she was almost sure, that she fell for someone for the very first time in her life. And she was utterly confused, because she had no idea what to do. Whenever he was around her, she seemed to always forget how to talk, because every sound got stuck in . She felt her chest tighten, her stomach flip, her cheeks redden. She found it hard to be around him, but every morning she opened her eyes just to feel her insides jump around inside of her in thought of seeing him in an hour time.

Sitting now on that park bench, she remembered the conversation she had with her mother the previous evening. She decided, that her mom could help her in that matter, she after all was a school girl once and also had a crush on someone for the fisrt time. Her mom told her to not fuss and stress over everything, just go with the flow. What her mother didn't know was that Tui's feelings started to get too much for her. She was just 14 and new to all of this. Just on Friday their discussion on how to solve the equation during the break was interupted by the girl from the parallel class group, asking him whether he'd like to go to the movied with her in the weekend. Tui stared at the girl in shock, only to turn her gaze at him when he said, that he wouldn't mind. At that moment she felt anger grow inside of her, the feeling that she heard of from her parents. And as she looked at his profile while he contimued to prove her wrong, she finally understood what jealousy felt like.

The girl was whisked away from her thoughts with the loud noise not far from her and looking up she saw Yixing and his friends. Yixing was another problem: even though they had been neighbors for over a year now and their parent always tried to somehow make them hang out in the same company, they weren't anything more than equaintances. They were both polite enough to spend time together whenever one family or another came to their now regular Friday night gatherings, but outside of the houses they never behaved as friends. And every once and a while she would feel tired of their parent's attempts to get them to be friends, because she thought that if they're meant to be frriends, they will be. Even though Yixing didn't seem to care about it, Tui felt pressured anyway. The girl signed loudly and got up to go home.

"Hey, isn't that your neighbor, Yixing?" She heard one of them ask and mentally prayed for them to not recognize her, because she really really didn't like Yixing's friends.

"What? Tui?" The said girl only sped up towards the exit of the park.

"Yeah, looks like her... Hey, Wallflower!" Tui hated the nickname they had given her. She wasn't so much of a quiet girl, she just never talk to them. Some boys were nice and everything, but Yixing's friends weren't the type of friends she'd like to have. Hearing Xiaobing - she did recognize his voice - call her that, she almost stopped to turn around and lash out on him a little bit, but decided for the best of it to leave it and go home.

"Why do you always call her 'Wallflower' and never miss the chance to laugh at her? She's actually not bad." That was the last thing she heard before leaving the park. And, for once, she found herself wanting to thank Yixing for standing up for her. Kind of.

 

It was the next day, when she sat at the table having dinner with her family and heard a loud crash. They all stood up and went towards the sound, only to see pieces of the broken flowerpot on the floor and ginger devil beside ot, smelling the soil from that pot.

"Angou! Not again! It's the third flowerpot in two weeks!" Exclaimed Tui. Angou was really a little devil sometimes. It's like whenever he wanted, he could be just a nice purring ball of fur that would lie on your legs keeping them warm. Tui stepped to the cat and picked him up, while her parents took care of the mess. "I'm gonna go see if the Zhangs are home. He sometimes finds the little holes to escape, when they leave him alone."

Holding Angou close to her chest, the girl rang the door bell, then knocked at the door a few times, but seeing dark windows, she knew they were out. Sighing she returned to her house, letting him down on the floor. "You're a lucky cat, you know that?" Tui caressed his silky fur. "Basically, you have two homes. How cool is that, huh?"

By the time, Tui came in into the kitchem, her parents had already set the table for the dessert. She sat with them and, as always, they had a small talk, laughed together. Angou wandered around their legs, occasiounally rubbing his sides against them and the legs of the table.

"I don't get it," said Tui's father. "I'm allergic to cats, but whenever he's here, I don't feel any of the symptoms I'm supposed to have. Maybe, I'm not allergic after all and we should've kept him?"

"Dad, what's done is done."

"Yeah, I know. But look at him! He's so nice and..."

"Yes, dear," Mrs Lang chuckled at her husband and placed her cup on the coaster. "Angou's really nice, even though he constantly breaks our flowerpots and cups, spills milk all over the floor and, I think, I saw him sleeping in the middle of my flowerbeds a few times."

"Oh, come on! Qinqin, he's a cat. What esle is he supposed to do? Either way, he's rather good at being cat."

They all laughed together, while Angou seemed to smell something on the table, that he liked and stood on his hind paws, trying to reach for the edge of the table to cling to it with his fore paws. He still wasn't grown up enough to easily stand like that, but it was entertaining to watch his attempt. Angou tried time after time to reach for the table, but failed every time. 

"Sometimes I wish cats could talk... That way he could say what he wanted." Tui leaned forward for the water jug. "What do you think his voice would be like?"

"Well, looking at him now," her mother made the face like she was really concidering the question. "I would say... Squeaky."

"Mom!" "Dear!" Both Tui and her dad exclaimed in unison.

"But I gotta admit..." Tui looked down at the intruder. "I kind of agree on this one."

Seemed like Angou had had enough of not being able so see what smelled so good on the table, so he decided that desperate times call for desperate measures. He got ready to jump on Tui's lap and... He lost his balance and started to fall down, only to let his claws out to hook onto something, which unfortunately turned out to be Tui's left knee covered with laced knee-length skirt. She cried out in pain, scaring the cat, that instantly let go of her and dashed for some hiding place. Tui felt tears running down her cheeks as she clamped her leg. The scratches weren't that deep and she didn't have to go to the hospital, but it hurt a lot anyway. Her father took her in his arms and carried her to the bathroom to disinfect the cuts and put a bandaid on.

"That damned cat," her father swore, taking care of her skin above her knee.

"No, dad, it's ok. It happens. He's just a cat. It fine really." Tui looked at her damaged leg and wiped the tears off of her face. Her dad helped her down on the floor and back to the kitchen. Angou was nowhere to be seen.

Even though the evening was messed now, the family still finished the dessert in warm atmosphere. It was their thing after all. Wherever they were, The Langs always brought warmth and sunshine with them. Everyone anticipated their arrival and their presence always brought smiles to people faces. Looked like people always saw them as The perfect family. Of course, it wasn't like that. They had their problems to deal with and burdens to bear. They never intended to look like the perfect family, they just clicked with each other. And, boy, did they clicked well.

 

Later, when Tui went to her own room to watch something, she left the door open and laid down on her bed. Twenty minutes into the movie she felt the weight on the foot of her bed and then Angou's purring. He came up to her from the back and laid his fore paws on her hurt knee. Tui smiled and leaned to scratch between his ears.

"It's okay, don't apologize." Angou only purred louder. "I like you too."

By the time the movie was coming to an end, Tui looked out of the window and saw the light in their neighbor's house. She always thanked whoever she believed in that her bedroom wasn't just the opposite or Yixing's, because that would've been the biggest cliche ever. But some things she had no controll over. Like, for example, both families deciding that to have a shared garden would be a terrific idea. So they demolished the fence in between their homesteads and now had a very big and beautiful shared garden-like area with picnic table and benches and swings and even a few loungers, which was cool, but still rather weird for the offsprongs of the families. At least it was for Tui.

"Ok, kitten, it's time to go home now," as if actually understanding what he was being told, Angou jumped off the bed and ran under it. Tui wrinkled her nose feeling that the coming few minutes won't be a delight. She got off the bed and sat on her knees on the floor, careful to not damage her left knee any further. Lifting the bedspread and looking under her bed, she thought that se really needed to vacuum under here more often. Tui saw kitten-tolder sitting right in the middle of the bedspace and when she extended her hand to grasp him, Angou fiercely hissed at her. "Oh, man... Not now, please!" The plea in her mind seemed to travel to the cat's brain and he meowed quietly and as if understanding that he'd done already enough of damage this evening, he crawled towards the girl. But the moment she wanted to take him, he meowed again and ran for his life out of the girl's room. "YOU! COME BACK HERE!"

Eventually she managed to catch the ginger devil, who still tried to get away from her. "You don't want to go home or something? But you live there. There's your home. You can come here anytime you want, you know.. Which you obviously do know very well. Just try not to tear down our house next time, ok? We both know, you can be quite a lucky little thing to have around, especially when you feel sorry." And on cue, like Angou could read her thoughts, he stopped struggling against her and calmed dowm, facing his upcoming faith.

Tui lightly knocked on the neighbor's door again, tightly holding the cat, that only two minutes ago was trying to get out of her strong hold, against her chest. "Funny", she thought. "Everytime I'm trying to catch this little Satan's baby, he keeps hissing at me, but when I come to their door, he's all so suddenly turns into just a little kitten-angel. This cat is really bipolar..."  The moment the door opened, she smiled.

"Hey", the girl extended her arms with the little devil, who just innocently meowed at the owned. "He ran away again."

The woman before her just sighed and apologetically smiled at the girl. "I'm so sorry again. I do tell him to keep an eye on the kitten, but it seems to just fly right out of his head."

"It's ok. No worries. It's what neighbors are for, right?" The girl giggled, taking small steps backwards. "I've got to go now. Good night!"

"Sweet dreams, dear!" The woman smiled at the silhouette of the girl and closed the door, letting the little ginger cat go wander around the house. "If that's going to continue, we really should leave some food for you in their house too."

 

It was Friday evening after school and, not having after school groups to attend for once, Tui was laying in the lounger reading a book, when she almost felt like jumping out of her skin from the sudden voice.

"Mom told me about Angou and your knee. Sorry." Yixing sat in another lounger.

"It's fine. happens. Oops," she squickly covered . "Don't tell my parents I said that. They'll kill me."

"No worries," the boy chuckled and looked around trying to find another topic to talk about. "So, how..."

"Look, you don't need to do that." Tui cut him off.

"Do what?"

"Trying to find things to say to me. We're neighbors, yeah, but we don't know each other and never hung out together. Thank you for asking me about the knee or whatever, though. I appreciate that a lot. But, really, Yixing. You and I are not friends to go to the extend of even feeling awkward trying to find something to talk about."

"Well, maybe we should try being friends? I mean, we live next to each other and every Friday have dinner together, like today. What do you have to lose?"

"Can I not answer that?"

"I'd like you to answer, though."

"Fine," Tui sighed exasperatedly and closed the book, placing it next to her. "To be completely honest, I don't like your friends and who you become when you with them. It's like when I see you alone, you're nice, really nice, but when you're with them, you're totally different. You mock people and act like nothing's bothering you at all. I don't know..."

"You should try to get to know me," the boy looked at the ground before looing at his neighbor again. "Because we will be spending a lot of time together in the future. Not only in his garden or on Friday nights, but... I'm transferring to your school and we'll be studying together. And frankly, Tui, I'm not that bad and you, might I add, won't lose anything having me as a friend. I might look like what you've described me, but I happen to think, that you're a good girl and nice to have around. Plus, for my friends I am a fortress, even though I'm just fourteen. Well, almost."

They were silent for a while, when Yixing stood up. "So, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

"Your parents would be so happy to know, that we get along... Just amagine that!"

"You can't use that card!"

"I just did."

"Fine, you win. We'll try to get along, ok? Why are you so keen on being friends anyway?"

"Because you can never have too many friends, Tui."

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