“Ta-da-da~” I jumped out, proudly spinning around in front of the handsome guy, “You have to give it to me, or I’ll run away right now!”
He smiled, pulling me in front of a large mirror, standing behind me, adjusting the dress and my hair.
“Are you going to give it to me or not?”
“Of course, why else would I have you wear it?” He said while pinching my cheek, why does everyone like to do that, I rubbed my face in pain.
He put a tropical-style baseball cap on me, inserted a yellow decorative flower on the outside of one sneaker, and put a small flower and white crystal anklet on the other foot, completely complementing the white sneakers into a matching pair. Ah! I fell deeply in love with myself!!
“Are you a designer?”
“Uh-huh, but don’t worry, this dress was just made, and I hadn’t planned on including it in the upcoming collection, so there’s only this one.”
“Really?!”
He nodded with a smile.
“Ah! I love you!” The more I like something, the more afraid I am of others having it. This dress meets all my criteria, HIAHIAHIA~
He smirked, “Thanks~ Let’s go eat, I’m starving.”
Bouncing back, today was so fun, the handsome guy gave me so many things and told me to come over more often to play with him. Joking, I would have gone every day even if he didn’t say anything, to raid his clothes, oh ho ho ho~ Today, I happened to learn that he was at a meeting, and then I realized he was the chief designer of Narcissus. This brand has over twenty years of history, taken over by the founder’s second son seven years ago. So, the handsome guy is that second son? His boss is his mom? My sister loves this brand, no matter how expensive, she buys it anyway. When I used to shop with her, the price tags often scared me. Thinking back to how I, as a little kid, was scared by a string of numbers, it’s really unbelievable…
I remember my sister once told me that Narcissus was the name of a Greek god, a beautiful youth who pined away for love of his own reflection in the water and died, turning into a narcissus flower. Back then, I didn’t understand and mocked her for acting like a grown-up, pretending to be melancholy. She just smiled lightly, a cruel smile, which I hated to see. Now, looking back, I truly understand what it means to be connected by blood, we are all the same. Until the very last moment, one could never truly recapture that long-lost clarity.
Five days later, Narcissus has an autumn/winter collection show, and I’ve joined this intense preparation. Thanks to my volunteering, by a twist of fate, a streetlamp has made my dream come true. Narcissus this season leans towards the movie style of the 60s and 70s, and the monotonous stages in China would never have made this SHOW successful. Gao Miao was worried day and night. Indeed, it was a risk, but risk represents hope. I brought a ladder onto the stage, without anyone’s consent, climbed up, and painted a streetlamp on the dark brown partition. Unless they knocked the ladder over, willing to pay a hefty medical bill for me, no one could stop me. I painted a small streetlamp, floating in the air, out of place, and Gao Miao had to let me continue. I made it clear to him that what he needed was a real stage, and I could bring it to life, if only he allowed me to be Narcissus’s unrestricted stage designer.
He was not weak either, and without any hesitation, he said that as long as this street lamp could make him feel extremely important by 6 PM, he could start working tomorrow. I was facing a seven by twelve-meter partition, and I only had 8 hours, which was indeed a challenge! However, I had enough confidence to handle it. That small, hanging street lamp was, of course, intentionally placed by me; I had envisioned this partition to become a silhouette of a city street at night, with the street lamp just one part of it. I had people divide the partition into eighty-four dark lines, each square meter, sketching in reduced dimensions on paper, and then scaling up the contents of each small square into the larger grid. I spent an entire afternoon on the scaffold doing the same task, painting. At 4:30 PM, I officially became Narcissus’s stage designer without any restrictions, fulfilling my wish. Everyone was extremely satisfied, but both Gao Miao and I understood that the success of this backdrop meant we would be working day and night for the next four days. Stage work has always been about the whole; an incomplete stage is worse than a blank one. The success of the painting, in a way, was a threat; if the actual set did not match up, it would all be for naught. But there was no need to take it so seriously because, from Gao Miao’s perspective, the stage was merely a tool to showcase his costumes; the audience’s attention should only be on his work. However, this was my first project after graduation; would I let it just be a showcase? Four days were enough; I would make it shine alongside Gao Miao’s work! What I wanted to capture was the gaze and the flash of the cameras! Of course, he believed in my words, that this stage, combined with his work, would certainly be worthy of the Narcissus name. Yet, he could also guess that putting too much effort into an outstanding stage would steal media attention, diverting it towards the stage designer, but he still supported me. I had to do my best and seize this opportunity. For me, it was undoubtedly a win-win situation, and even for Narcissus, it was a new selling point, a new outlet. Who isn’t selfish? This concerns my future; I don’t want to just live off money in the bank, how boring would that be? Moreover, stage design has always been my passion; I must utilize it well. With only three days left, we had already decided on the materials; all that was left was my stack of drafts. We must start work by noon tomorrow, so tonight, Gao Miao and I are determined to pull an all-nighter, hoping to begin setting up the site in the morning.
“Why are you calling again? I told you I’m not coming back tonight!”
“Miss, please come back! The master is getting furious!”
“I don’t care, he’s not coming back either, he won’t know, just deceive him!”
“But he already knows…”
“What! You betrayed me?”
“But… this is my job…”
“Oh, right.”
“The master is already on his way, he’s very angry, what do we do? He says you must appear immediately, what do we do?”
“Alright, alright, I’ll come back, bye.”
I don’t remember how many times I’ve brushed him off…
“Are you going back?” Gao Miao, buried in his drafts, looked up and asked me.
“Do you believe it?” I continued to work hard.
“Miss, where are you now? Let me come pick you up, or I’ll be in big trouble if the master comes home and doesn’t see you!”
“Are you annoying? Hide by the door, knock him out when he comes in, then give him half a bottle of sleeping pills, I promise he’ll see me when he wakes up, that’s it!”
I turned off the phone to avoid further trouble!
“Is that ‘he’ the man from that day? Who is he?”
“My boss.”
“Really? I’m also your boss, are you planning to do the same to me?”
“Of course not, you’re so understanding~” I even winked at him.
“Haha, I’ll go get some midnight snacks to feed that strange mouth of yours, what do you want?”
“PIZZA, ice cream, and some dim sum…”
The handsome guy went to get snacks, leaving me alone in the vast studio, which felt eerie and terrifying. I buried myself in work, trying to enter a state of flow, but my eyes and ears were more intent on catching any movement around me…
