One day

Chapter 15

I'm Sen, one day I had to do the task given to me by a psychiatrist.

First, I should greet everyone when I get home.

"Hi Lilith, I'm back from school." I don't understand how I can say this so easily. 

Normally there would always be something stopping me, even though I knew it was necessary to say it but I still couldn't put it into words, yet such a meaningless greeting I was able to speak fluently.

Lilith stared at me, obviously shocked and speechless. After a while, Lilith regained her senses and said to me: “Wao, did you have any fun today? Why are you in the mood to say hello to me?”

I'm not fun, and I don't want to say hello to Lilith, I just do it because it's necessary.

She looked out the window and said, "The sun might go down in the East today."

Well, it seems Lilith is overdoing it, which is exactly what I don't like about taking the initiative to start a conversation with others.

If I don't talk they think I'm arrogant, if I talk they call me weird. I don't know how to re-integrate with people like before, and the treatment of the psychiatrist is not very reliable.

The second thing I need to do here is going for jogging.

Jogging, since that unlucky night I haven't gone out if it is unnecessary. I was going to run in the yard, but the doctor said that I must run on the street, so a perfectionist like me chose to jog in the afternoon.

I didn't tell anyone before going out, and yet Lilith insisted on coming with me. This is exactly what I've been worrying about for a long time, it would be troublesome if she followed me everywhere.

And I remember Lilith didn't go out before, so why would she want to go jogging with me?

“I wanted to go for a walk before but no one showed me the way.” Lilith said: “You see, your parents are busy with work, you go to school, so I am alone at home. Sometimes I really want to go out, but no one comes with me, if I'm lost will only cause trouble for your family."

I don't believe what Lilith says, but it's not really necessary to clarify if it's a lie or not, because I'll just jogging and not care about Lilith chasing after me.

Jogging outside wasn't too difficult, I just had to endure a lot of others' eyes. Maybe I'm beginning and they want to say hello to me, it's just that the good intentions annoy me, I don't like being looked at by other people for even a second.

“Wait for me, you must slow down.” Lilith from the back called out to me, she must be very tired.

I looked back at her, then remembered my mother said she was in pretty bad health, so I ran up to her and said, "I went before." I then continued running and didn't notice Lilith trying to call me.

Anyway, I don't intend to leave her behind, I just want to jog first and then come back to pick her up later, so I won't need to hear her rambling in my ear anymore. It's just that when I turned around, I couldn't see her anymore.

I started panicking, can't think of where she could go, because this jogging track is a detour that connects to each other, if I run all the way and still can't see her, there is a high chance that she runs into town.

This town isn't too big but it has a lot of similar roads, someone who doesn't know like Lilith will definitely get lost, so I need to find her before it gets dark. My parents are coming home from work, we had to get home before they realized Lilith was lost.

I ran from street to street, circling around town for two hours, and in the end, I still couldn't find Lilith. I went back home to tell my parents that she was lost, but when I got home, I found Lilith there.

Lilith pretended not to know that I was looking for her, jokingly said: "Where have you been for so long? I have to cook dinner for you."

I put my hand over my eyes to hide my resentment, tilting my head up to adjust my emotions. Lilith is too much, I would really hate her.

I've never hated anyone before, everyone has a bad side and a good side, I may not like someone's bad side but also admire their good side. In my eyes, no one is hateful, many people don't even deserve to be hated by me, so hating someone is against my longstanding principle.

But Lilith is most likely the first person I hate, she doesn't have a single good point, all I see in her is just carelessness and love to tease others, sometimes even wanting my parents to scold me.

Maybe she's happy when I'm in trouble, she likes to make fun of me, and she looks down on me.

I feel it every day. If judging from all of Lilith's expressions, it doesn't seem like she hates me at all, it's like she's merely teasing me, but if I think about it a little closer, her actions are all the same carefully calculated.

Of course, part of me thinks so also intuitively.

So I continued to ignore this, no more calculations with Lilith.

In the evening after the family finished eating, my father took me to the hospital for a routine check-up. 

I was curious if he was still there or was discharged. But just a few days ago, I saw him lying on a hospital bed with a bunch of medical equipment, how could he be discharged so quickly?

So surely he is still there.

Last time I didn't have time to say anything to him, maybe I need to see him again today.

I went to the door of his hospital room and found his accomplices there, so I just dared to stand from the outside to look in. So of course he saw me, I immediately ran to my clinic and pretended to be in the process of healing.

My father saw me acting strange and asked, "Why did it take you so long to go to the bathroom?"

I shook my head, saying it was okay. The doctor started examining me, at that time I heard the sound of those thugs walking around outside, maybe they recognized me here.

But I think they dare not do anything to me because this is a public place, not a deserted place.

Furthermore, most of them don't seem to remember my face, so if I act casual, they won't notice.

It's a bit of a pity that I can't meet him face to face today, many of my questions remain unanswered. It's just that I guess I knew it was real that he wanted revenge.

My father's car was thrown by someone with eggs, I wanted to tell him to hurry up, but he did not expect my father to park on the roadside. I was scared to call: “Dad…”

My father took out a cleaning cloth, he wanted to clean the broken eggs on the car window. Then, as I expected, someone from behind came and grabbed him by the neck, he immediately responded by knocking the opponent to the ground.

I didn't have time to scream, but from both sides of the road came a group of armed thugs, they must have wanted to hit me. This place is not empty, there are a few houses in front of me, but I can't get help because there are too many thugs.

This is a result of my own subjectivity, I should have known that he would call his accomplices until he saw me at the hospital. Now I have no choice but to call the police, but I just do not know when they will come to our aid.

“Hello, we need help, a bunch of people is attacking us.” I hurriedly told them my situation.

The police did not delay, but asked again: "Please tell me your current location, and stay calm, we will come right away."

I frantically looked around trying to find a feature of this place that I could describe to the police but was really intimidated by the scene before me. The police thought there was something wrong with me, so they hurry asked, “Hello, hey, are you there, hello-”

Just then something slammed into the front windshield of the car, making a rather loud noise grow, so I regained my composure and said, "No, I- I was looking at it wrong, it is okay." Then I hung up immediately.

After a long time, when my father was able to clean the eggs from the windshield, he got into the car and started the engine home. There was a slight fishy smell of eggs on his hands, and his clothes were mixed with another fishy smell, making me a little nauseous.

I remember my dad used to say he did many jobs but didn't know he was so strong. Before, I saw at a glance that there must have been more than two dozen people surrounding us, and yet he was able to deal with them in less than five minutes, even so quickly that no one could get up.

Seeing the blood on his clothes, I started to worry about those thugs again, what if they all go to the hospital then sue my father for assaulting others, it will be difficult to solve, I don't want my father to go where's the prison.

When we got home, my mother asked us what was wrong, and my father replied, “It seems that these young people are a group of robbers. I've already dealt with them, but they threw eggs on the windshield so the smell is quite fishy, tomorrow you can take the car to wash it."

My mother lamented, “There are dangers everywhere these days.”

Like before, I would definitely ask my father why he was so strong, and then listen to him talk about my youth, but now I have to suppress my curiosity and go to my bedroom.

I have one last task for today, which is to say good night to others.

"Good night." I said to Lilith who was lying beside me.

Although it was late, Lilith still wanted to overdo it, she exclaimed in surprise: “Why are you condescending to me like that?! Did you have a plan? I don't believe you'd be so nice to me as to wish me good night."