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"What?" Jiuhuayue noticed something and put away her expression.
"Stretch it out and you'll see."
"."
Jiuhuayue did as she was told, and less than a second after she stretched out her hand, Fujii Shu took out a small gift box and placed it on top.
The girl's pupils shrank slightly, somewhat incredulous.
“This, this is——”
"Just a gift to wish you a happy new year, Jiuhua."
Fujii Itsuki was right beside her, speaking in normal, ordinary words.
Jiuhua Yuebin's purple eyes reflected his melancholy look as he smoked.
The girl looked at him silently for a while, then turned her gaze to the small gift box in her hand.
Fujii Itsuki knew that she was shy and didn't like to accept favors from others, so he deliberately smoked a cigarette, stood at a distance, and said:
"Don't think too much. This is a New Year's gift from a friend. I agreed to be your friend, but I haven't really treated you as a friend. I've been bothering you to help me these past two days, so I think it's only right that I give you a New Year's gift."
"I, I," Jiu Huayue hesitated and emphasized, "Of course I won't think too much!"
"Would Jiuhua be moved by a small gift?"
"Of course not!"
Jiuhuayue thought of the little girl in the orphanage who was hugging her teddy bear tightly when she was leaving, and she also held her own gift tighter.
"Thank you. Thank you, uncle."
Fujii Itsuki noticed her emotions but didn't say much, "Aren't we friends? And, give me your guitar."
"What do you want a guitar for?"
"Forgot? The day before yesterday you promised me to go out and help me move things. I want to give you a song in exchange."
"That kind of thing doesn't matter anymore after I know that you are buying gifts for the children in the orphanage."
"Do you want to hear me play the piano for you?"
"."
Jiuhuayue decisively ran back into the house, took out the guitar and handed it to him.
"Let's go to the small wooden pavilion in the side yard."
Fujii Itsuki sat on the cold wooden bench, crossed his legs, and twisted the head of the guitar to tune it.
"Which song do you want me to play?"
"This song." Jiu Huayue took out her cell phone and showed it to him.
"'Take Me With You', right? There's no sheet music."
"No, it's a song created by a guitarist on the Internet. I don't have the score. Can you play it, uncle?"
Fujii Itsuki did not reply, but took the earphones handed to him by Jiuhuayue, put them into his ears and listened twice, then followed the rhythm in his ears and took out the music score.
He tried it twice following the prelude, and then analyzed the playing method according to the accompaniment in the middle and later part of the song.
"hiss--"
"Isn't it okay?"
"Without the score, I can't reproduce the details. The original artist is quite skilled and has played the guitar for at least eleven or twelve years, but I can still play the general idea. Would you like to give it a try?"
Fujii Itsuki tried to play the prelude, and Jiuhuayue's eyes lit up immediately after listening to it.
"That's it! It sounds good."
"That'll be fine then."
"Ok!"
"Then I'll start."
"Ok!"
Fujii Itsuki held the chords with his left hand and placed his right hand quietly on the five strings.
He thought about it for a while, cleared his throat, plucked the guitar, started with a brisk prelude, and sang slowly for Jiu Huayue who was sitting diagonally opposite him:
Looking at the starry sky, recalling the boring days
Come, hold my hand, you in front of me seem to be dyed with brilliant colors
Meeting you is an incredible power. It is because of you that I can move forward at this moment.
At this point in the song, the pitch is rising, the rhythm and emotion gradually strengthen, and after a short pause, it bursts out in one breath.
Fujii Itsuki was not very good at singing in this style, so he changed this part of the song into a slow and lyrical one.
Take me with you, to cross the sky and overlook the world; take me with you, to the shining direction, if I can share the joy with you, if I can be by your side forever, please keep doing this; take me with you, to the unknown world, no matter where, no matter where, I can fly freely
From now on, you are my happiness
It’s okay, Fujii Itsuki feels that he sings well.
Although I haven't trained my voice particularly well, it's still pretty good compared to most people.
After he finished singing the song, he turned around and found that the girl Jiuhuayue was suddenly crying.
"Nine flowers?"
Jiu Huayue immediately wiped away some of her tears. She sat up straight, raised her head, and said in a light voice with some sobs:
"It's okay, it's okay, uncle sings really well. It's a version I haven't heard before."
"I changed it to be a little more sentimental, as an extra New Year's gift to you, Jiuhua. Is it okay?"
"Yeah, I like it very much."
Seeing Jiu Huayue's eyes watering and her trying hard to hold back tears, it would be a lie to say that I was not touched at all.
Although there are still many mysteries about Jiuhua, the emotions she reveals at this moment cannot be faked.
The child is very lonely and isolated.
She lacks people who care about her and who try to understand her.
So much so that she, a sixteen-year-old girl, actually wanted to be friends with a twenty-six-year-old man.
Fujii Itsuki more or less understood the importance of the "friends" that Jiuhua mentioned to her.
Seeing Jiuhuayue still crying, he suddenly wanted to comfort her like he comforted Qiansui, but he suddenly realized that he and her did not have as many common experiences as Qiansui did.
All I can do now is to stay with her for a while longer and give her a few more songs as a friend, right?
"What other songs do you want to hear? I'll make an exception for you today. I can play anything for you."
Seeing his smile, Jiuhuayue's tears stopped a lot, ".Just listen to what you like."
"What I like, I like more classical music. How about this, I'll play a can-can for you."
Fujii Itsuki started playing without saying a word.
The cheerful, bright, and slightly funny melody of the cancan music quickly infected Jiu Huayue's mood, and she covered her mouth and laughed.
Seeing that her mood had improved, Fujii Itsuki was also quite happy.
"very nice."
"Speak clearly, what is really good."
Jiuhuayue's voice was small, "It feels like a friend."
"I think so too. So after school starts, how about Jiuhua make more friends? Become friends with Chitose first. She's been too busy lately. Originally, when I asked her to be your friend, she didn't have time to talk to you."
"Yes! But don't worry, uncle. Even if I really have a lot of friends in the future, I will not forget you."
"You make me sound like your ex-boyfriend. Why?"
"You are the first friend I have made now, and the only friend who is willing to try to understand me and take care of me."
Jiu Huayue, with tears in her eyes, held the gift box he had just given her on her legs with both hands, and her thumb kept scratching the string of the gift box, "Thank you."
The girl spoke in a soft voice and her face was slightly red, which was really cute.
She is very beautiful, with the youthful aura of a sixteen-year-old girl and her pitiful tearful look, which makes people inevitably fall in love with her.
"fine."
"Oh, right! I also have a New Year's present for you, uncle! I forgot to tell you."
"That hand-poured coffee equipment, right? You bought it when you came back from Tokyo last time."
"Uncle, you——"
"Who told you not to clean it up properly? I saw it. But if you give it to me, I will accept it. Thank you Xiao Jiuhua too."
Jiuhuayue's ears turned red, "Uncle, what do you mean by that?"
"It's just an extra 'sauce'. To be more friendly, should I call you Xiaoyue?"
"."
Jiuhuayue lowered her head, too embarrassed to speak.
".I'm sorry, I didn't say anything just now and made you angry."
"No, it's okay. I'm not angry."
*
At night, Jiuhuayue opened the gift from Fujii Itsuki in her bed.
Inside is a music box made of ceramics. The ceramics are shaped like various marine creatures, among which the shark is the most conspicuous.
When you turn the spring, the music box will play beautiful music.
Jiuhuayue couldn't help but like the shark when she saw it, not to mention that this was the only New Year's blessing and New Year's gift she received this year.
Jiuhuayue curled up in the quilt and liked the music box more and more the more she looked at it. Then she put the music box on her chest and hugged it for a long time.
The girl suddenly felt that he had just called her "Xiao Jiuhua" and "Xiao Yue". These names sounded quite nice!