Our Tender Harmony

Liu Fangjie, over the months of shooting, had established herself as the ‘youngster’ of the crew, in part thanks to her fashion sense. Tonight, she wore a school uniform–esque outfit: a navy-blue pleated skirt, a beige blouse, and a pair of leg warmers to cover her calves and ankles.

That, combined with her slang knowledge and her backpack covered in charms from who-knows-where, cemented her place as the cast’s ‘youngster’—especially since the other person near her age, Han Jingyi, dressed in blouses and slacks when not shooting.

Setting her bag down, Liu Fangjie sat down beside Xia Ruyun at the courtyard’s middle table. From a distance, the two looked like a student and teacher, and the courtyard’s warm glow shrouded them in a faint haze.

Xia Ruyun led off the conversation, and as she did, the grass swayed in the wind as if filling in for the rest of the class. “How has the cast been treating you? Has everything been alright? I’m surprised you came to look for me.”

“Everything has been good, Senior Xia. I just… feel like I’ve woken up. I wanted to start meeting more of the cast, and you’re first since, in my opinion, you’re the gentlest person in the crew,” Liu Fangjie answered with a smile. Unlike the last time they practiced, her smile carried unconcealed good will—and far less naivety. “I was really attached to Senior Chu, but my rose-tinted glasses slowly cracked as the show went on. I feel like I’m finally learning how to play the social game.”

“Is that so?” Xia Ruyun’s gaze deepened, glimmering with a speck of curiosity. “It seems this show has been a good maturing opportunity for you.”

“It has,” Liu Fangjie leaned back in her seat. She looked upwards at the star-less night sky. “What Senior Chu said earlier today really helped peel back the curtain finally.”

“It is quite uncharacteristic of him to be so open like that,” Xia Ruyun tapped her finger against the wooden table. “I wonder what he was planning.”

“I have no idea either,” Liu Fangjie frowned. She tore her gaze away from the sky and unzipped her bag to take out a script. “I’ve come to realize that he has layers. He has a charming exterior to the fans and naïve actresses he wants to charm. He then has a bit more of a greasy side, but even that feels fake. It’s like it’s a deliberate obvious disgust to make you complacent to anything more. So, today’s outburst might have been to cover something else.”

“Not impossible,” Xia Ruyun sighed before turning her own attention back to her script. “Not much we can do but be on guard though. No point in speculating about it too much. Maybe there’s nothing and he’s just dumb.”

“Yeah…” Liu Fangjie stared at her own script. A faint silence hung in the air before she continued speaking in a quieter tone. “On another note, I’m thinking of actually going back to school after this show.”

Xia Ruyun’s eyes widened.

I guess she has more to say.

She set her script back on the table as she looked towards Liu Fangjie. “Oh?”

“I dropped out a year ago, and this is my first real show with a named role, but I think going back to school would help me most right now,” Liu Fangjie twirled her pen. She pursed her lips, and the warm lighting filtered through her eyelashes. “I hated school, so, I don’t regret leaving, but this time has given me the perspective I need to appreciate school again.”

“How mature,” Xia Ruyun sat back in her chair.

I wonder what’s with the younger people in my life opening up to me…

Maybe if acting doesn’t work out, I can go into therapy.

“I’m just glad that I didn’t do anything with Senior Chu that let him have leverage over me,” Liu Fangjie chuckled before covering her face and groaning. She twisted in her seat as if trying to wipe her mind. “I was SO stupid, Senior Xia, you don’t understand. Oh my god, I have so much second-hand embarrassment just thinking about it! I was like a middle-schooler again…”

“I think in your case, it’d be first-hand embarrassment,” Xia Ruyun raised her eyebrows. She reached over and neatened Liu Fangjie’s script, preventing it from getting swept onto the ground. “It’s all in the past now, though. Don’t fret too much. Nobody will remember in the future.”

“Nobody but me, ugh,” Liu Fangjie mumbled. She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table and her face in her arms. “Even now, I’m cringing just thinking about it.”

“Then how about we start practicing then,” Xia Ruyun guided Liu Fangjie back to their original topic. “You have an important scene tomorrow, walk me through it. We can discuss and you won’t think about… unsavory memories.”

---

Later that night, after seeing off Liu Fangjie, Xia Ruyun sat in the courtyard alone. Now alone, she relaxed her shoulders and propped her chin up. For a few minutes, she stared at the grass.

Her mood was poor.

Her eyes turned to her script. She had flipped it to her own scene in two days, Du Ruolin’s tragic fall. Dense annotations covered every empty part of the script. Character analysis. Posture notes. Tone notes. Eye contact notes. Phrases to get her into the mood.

Everything.

Yet, despite it all, the scene felt… wrong.

I just can’t figure it out. I just can’t embody the character. I just can’t make it natural no matter how much I try...

Why?

Why?!

Is this really my limit as an actress? I swear I can be better…

Stress, fatigue, anxiety—all of it had been building up, and now, during late nights, they had begun rearing their ugly heads like a multi-headed hydra.

Lost in her thoughts, Xia Ruyun reached down into her bag like a woman possessed and pulled out her phone.

[12:43]

A hollow laugh left her mouth as she stared at the time.

What am I doing?

This is going to be another night with less than six hours of sleep…

What am I doing?

Xia Ruyun needed sleep. She knew that. When she toured, she had always forced herself to sleep at least 6 hours a night. Sure, she could function without it for a few days—even a few weeks—but anymore and she’d start making mistakes during performances.

And now it’s been what… two months?

What am I doing?

She knew her body had begun breaking down. Hunger pangs. Random soreness. Headaches.

So. Many. Headaches.

She couldn’t recall a day in the past three weeks where she didn’t have one.

All just to do well in this show.

At least it’s almost over…

… I’ll look at this scene again tomorrow. Maybe Feiling could help me…

Hauling her tired body off the table, she grabbed her bag with one hand, slung it over her shoulder, and grabbed her script with the other. One rough stuffing of her script into her bag later, she trudged out of the courtyard. Her footsteps echoed against the stone path, coming to a stop by the glass door partitioning the courtyard from the rest of the hotel.

She pulled the door open, pausing.

She inhaled, gathering her courage before stepping through into the sterile-white hallway. Then, as the door closed and her figure disappeared down the hallway, the one final defeated laugh slipped through her lips. “Who made me chase a dream that I have no talent in…”

Her confession floated through the night, heard by nothing but a wooden table and a patch of green grass swaying in the meandering breeze.