People often say that the ambiguous stage of a relationship is the most nostalgic, the part you long to relive. But between us, there was no ambiguity. From the very beginning, I was certain that he liked me. The only uncertainty was my own. It took me months, caught in my usual indecision, to figure out how to respond.
One night, just past midnight, I sent him a text: “Oh no. I think I might be falling for you.”
A few days later, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, we went to see a movie and then strolled through a quiet park afterward. Sitting on a bench under the night sky, he turned to me and said, “The moon is beautiful tonight.”
“Yes,” I replied.
He gently rested my head on his shoulder. From that moment on, I had someone to watch movies with.
In Hugo, there’s a scene where the characters play an old reel of A Trip to the Moon. That was when I learned it was considered the first movie ever made—depending, of course, on how you define “movie.” It wasn’t at all what I had imagined. It wasn’t stiff or simplistic; it was wild, surreal, and bursting with strange imagination. Maybe it was even the world’s first cult film, though that too depends on your definition.
It’s remarkable to think that this vast, immersive world of cinema began with something so odd and unexpected.
That big, luminous moon on the night he leaned my head on his shoulder felt like the beginning of a journey—both in film and in life. At the time, I couldn’t have predicted what our days as two peculiar people together might look like.
Last year, I came across a story in the newspaper about Natsume Sōseki. In one of his lessons, he asked his students to translate “I love you” into Japanese. Someone translated it as 我愛你 (the literal way of saying "I love you"), but Sōseki shook his head. “No,” he said, “it should be translated as ‘が绮丽ですね (The moon is beautiful tonight).’” The story went that this eccentric literary giant accidentally stumbled onto the most understated, romantic confession in history.
I, on the other hand, was lucky enough to hear the most delicate, romantic confession in person.
And then, just moments after we held hands for the first time, a woman in a sun hat—at night, of all times—ran past and smacked him on the head. Before I could process what had happened, she was gone.
“That was my mom,” he muttered, half-stunned.
But it didn’t matter. The moon was still beautiful that night.
“We’re lying on the moon.
It’s a perfect afternoon.
Your shadow follows me all day,
Making sure that I’m okay.”
(The Moon Song, as sung by Scarlett Johansson—a perfect excuse to revisit Her.)
