Love and betrayal story
The second button comes from a Japanese legend: “The second button is the best gift for a lover because it occupies the position near the heart…”
He was a diamond bachelor, also a love rogue.
His favorite saying was: Since people come to this world, they should love as many people as possible. What he implied, of course, was to break up with many people and not stay for anyone.
No one ever knew that such a rogue would suddenly turn around and marry a woman who, though gentle, was not particularly beautiful.
At his wedding banquet, he told us this story.
He spent most of each year drifting through various cities across the country, so he also got used to finding some women in each city he passed through to pass the lonely times.
In a small town, he met her, a woman with an ordinary appearance and a gentle personality. After a moment of tenderness, he was about to leave the city, so, as he treated any relationship, he deceived her by saying, “You are the one I love the most, but I am too busy with work. When I am not busy, I will definitely come back to marry you.”
He knew that women are not fools and would generally not wait for him to come back when he was “not busy,” at most, they would make a scene, then take some money and material things to calm their resentment.
But this gentle woman silently gazed at him without making any demands. When she sent him off at the train station, she looked up and quietly but firmly said, “Give me the second button on your shirt.”
He was surprised by her humble and strange request, but he never refused a woman’s request when leaving. So he cut off the second button and placed it along with a platinum necklace in her palm.
She took the button but gently pushed away the necklace. As he boarded the train, he heard her say, “Take care of yourself in the future.” He turned around and saw her face full of tears.
He understood that she knew he would never come back after this departure. He was even more puzzled about why she only wanted a simple button.
He resumed his routine, falling in love with various women and leaving them. When breaking up, each woman would make different demands: some wanted a house, some wanted money in the bank, some wanted him to arrange a comfortable job. But those women who had been tender with him, who had said sweet words, cried, and laughed for him, all left him with a cold back after getting the material things they desired, just as he had left them heartlessly.
Oddly enough, no woman ever asked for the second button on his shirt again.
One time, his middle school niece came to his house to play and saw the shirt in his wardrobe missing the second button, like discovering a secret, she said, “Uncle, who is your sweetheart?”
He was stunned. His niece told him about a Japanese legend, saying the second button is the best gift for a lover because it occupies the position near the heart…
That night, he took the fastest train to the small city he thought he would never return to, knocked on her door, and saw her in pajamas with a red string around her neck, the pendant being his ordinary button.
No one knew that over 30 years old, looking so dashing on the outside but lonely inside, he longed to be loved in the deep of the night.
Yes, he had countless women, but they were just some empty, soulless bodies.
But this woman who tied his ordinary button around her neck, close to her body, made him understand what true love was. His wandering heart seemed to finally find a harbor to dock.
In love, it has never been about conquering how many people of the opposite sex, nor about interpreting happiness through gaining some material benefits.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
