"Hahahaha… Your face is too funny!"
Xing had a hearty laugh at the face of a boy who was sitting in front of her. He had a grim expression because of what she said earlier. Did he really think that she would take advantage of him?
"Haha… Tianlang, you are so honest with your expressions."
She was still laughing. Tianlang's face turned dark.
"Li Xing, are you making fun of me?"
"Huh? Haha not really, I said I would take advantage of you but I had no idea what I was talking about too. Don't worry, I won't do anything bad to you."
She smiled and stood up, signaling him to get up too. They were about to get going but the old piano bench which she was sitting on suddenly broke and fell down bumping into a cello which had a part of it sticking out, causing the whole huge pile of broken instruments to crumble down too. Tianlang saw it and pushed Xing to another side to prevent her from getting hit by them. It was a loud crash. Thankfully, everyone at the school already left, otherwise there would be a big commotion. Now, they could only wish the school guard did not hear it.
Tianlang removed some pieces of the broken instruments which fell on top of his legs. He heard Xing ask him worriedly.
"Tianlang, are you okay?"
"I'm okay." He replied.
"No, you are not."
Xing made a way across the fallen pieces and kneeled down to help Tianlang. She had concern written all over her face. She blamed herself for taking him into the music room. They could have talked somewhere else but she just had to bring him to the isolated and rundown music room. Her eyes became foggy because of tears of guilt. Making another person get hurt because of her was the last thing she would want to do in life.
"I'm really okay. It doesn't hurt."
The boy noticed his friend's tears and tried to soothe her even though his right ankle hurt a little. He did it to protect her from getting hurt, not to see her crying like this. He stood up and helped her stand up too. Her tears finally dropped to the floor. He took out a tissue pack from his bag and used one to wipe her tears gently. His hand touched her soft cheeks lightly.
"Don't cry. I'm really not hurt. I'm fine, see?"
He then performed the famous squid dance he usually saw on television to show her that he was really okay. Xing saw it and laughed amidst her cry. Both of them looked like dumb and dumber.
Tianlang felt relieved when Xing stopped crying. They started putting the broken pieces of instruments in cardboard boxes and placed them next to the wall at the right corner to make sure they wouldn't fall again, and made the room look a bit cleaner than before. After cleaning up the mess they made, both youngsters left the room to where the bicycle parking area was. The sun already set and they could see from afar that there were only two bikes left.
"Tianlang, you rode that bike to school?"
Xing asked surprisingly. She had no idea that he could learn how to ride that fast. She was impressed. The boy smirked. Of course, he could learn and do anything if he put his mind into it.
When they got near the bikes, Xing suddenly yelled out of shock.
"My bike! Who did this to you?!!"
The state of her bicycle was beyond imagination. Both the basket and saddle were not there anymore. The tires were also nowhere to be seen. There was no way she could ride the bike back home. She wanted to cry for the second time. The day could never get any crueler than this.
"Do you have any enemy in this school? A normal thief wouldn't do this."
Tianlang asked her out of concern but he was also trying to stop himself from laughing after he looked at her poor bike. It was like a skeleton.
Xing turned to glare at him. He could have been less straightforward. She never had a fight with anyone and she didn't think it was an act of theft either. There was only one option – an old man who was a pervert could have been stalking her all this time and did this to make her walk home alone. Then, at a corner of the alley to her home, he would jump in front of her and open his long coat to show his pride.
Xing shivered at the thought. The crime movie she watched with her mother the night before was taking over her imagination. She started feeling scared and the sky already darkened.
"Let's take your bike to the repair shop first."
Tianlang took another step closer to her bike and pick it up to carry it on his shoulder. He then told her to wheel his bike and follow him.
They arrived at a repair shop after a long walk because the other shops already closed. Tianlang went inside to talk with the shop manager and Xing was waiting for him in front of the shop with his bike next to her. She looked left and right to see if there was any sign of an old man who looked like a pervert. She then felt a tap on her shoulder and when she turned to look, she saw Tianlang grinning from ear to ear. She raised her left eyebrow, meaning to ask him why he was smiling like that.
"Congratulations, Miss Li Xing. Your bike will be repaired in a short time of two weeks because there is no saddle left in stock. They have to order it."
Tianlang clapped with his wide smile still glued on his face. Xing's eyes opened wide. That was ridiculous. There was no way a saddle would take that long to arrive or they could just get one from the nearby shop when they opened the next day.
"Are you kidding me?"
"No. I asked them to order a limited edition saddle from The Herz*g and I already paid so no worries. Yay."
Tianlang clapped again and Xing could feel her blood boiling in the middle of the autumn evening. The summer heat was still in her.