She preferred to keep her hands natural, because they were beautiful. Perhaps his love for her began when he saw her hands with neatly trimmed nails, neither painted nor artificial. Her hands were white, her fingers slender, her nails closely trimmed, and resting on the palms of her hands had a unique beauty. That alone, in their first meeting, stirred a slight tremor in his heart, as if he had just met a girl who would walk the path of his life with him from then on.
Life doesn't explain why two people meet and fall in love, because if it could, there wouldn't be any love stories in the world. His feelings for her began with those beautiful, neat hands.
He and she both had their own ideal type of person in mind when thinking about marriage.
Before he met her, he imagined his ideal woman to be a girl wearing a traditional Vietnamese blouse (áo bà ba) and cooking delicious food. It probably started when he went to Ben Tre to visit Con Phung Island, and the tour guide was a girl in an áo bà ba with a very unusual name: Pho. Perhaps seeing how much he loved Con Phung Island, her hometown, Pho invited him to her home and showed off her cooking skills, preparing dishes like grilled snakehead fish, fish sauce hotpot, and boiled pork with crab sauce. At that time, he fantasized about proposing to Pho, or if she refused, he would go to the Mekong Delta to marry a girl in an áo bà ba. He only thought about it, but after his trip , life took him far and wide. By the time he returned to Ben Tre quite some time later, Pho had already gotten married. From that moment, he realized he lacked romance and didn't act decisively when he had feelings for someone.
She envisioned marrying a tall, handsome man with a high haircut, a beautiful smile, and who usually wore a white or navy blue shirt. She longed for a complete and honest love, where even when angry, they would speak gently. She liked to spend weekends strolling through the city on a Vespa with her lover – perhaps because she loved the movie "Roman Holiday," where the two main characters travel through the ancient city on this scooter. She would wrap her arms tightly around her beloved, letting the wind playfully ruffle her long hair. She also envisioned many other romantic moments: occasionally receiving a bouquet of roses delivered to her door, her lover holding an umbrella for her on the porch when it rained, or coaxing her to take her medicine when she was sick… In short, she imagined her love life like something out of a movie.
He and she had different dreams, walking on two different paths. Yet, in this city of over a million people, they didn't get lost in the crowd, but instead met and fell in love as if bound together by a red thread.
On her 24th birthday, she unexpectedly met him. That day, she hurried to a coffee meeting with her friends – a group of single women like herself. The cafe was on the second floor, right at a six-way intersection, with tables where you could see the bustling city below.
He, in his striped T-shirt (only slightly to her liking because of the blue of the stripes), his hair not cut short but left long, strolled leisurely down the street as if observing the world with a gentle smile on his lips. He had just left a hardware store with a brand-new toolbox, at a reasonable price thanks to their year-end sale. This season, the city was getting chilly, the trees on the street had shed their leaves from the previous year, waiting for spring to arrive and sprout new green shoots.
The two were walking in opposite directions, like so many others, but a situation unfolded straight out of a romantic movie: as she passed him, she tripped and broke her high-heeled shoe.
He and she met by chance on her birthday. He had no flowers, no guitar to play romantic songs that would melt her heart. But he had a newly acquired set of hand tools. And so, the pliers and hammer brought them together. Thanks to these tools, which had nothing to do with romance, he fixed her shoe, and not long after, she invited him for coffee as a thank you.
He knew her well. He had never seen her wear a traditional Vietnamese blouse. She usually wore cute dresses, like the fairies in fairy tales. Now he liked her white dresses and enjoyed watching her hands nimbly move across the keyboard, completing tasks at work or arranging flowers.
Back when they were just getting to know each other, countless guys sent her cute teddy bears or vibrant bouquets of flowers from famous shops on her birthday. But she only showed off on Facebook about someone helping her fix the gate, install a swing, or replace the sink... Images of new items added to his toolbox also became a familiar sight on her personal page.
Then they got married. They bought a small apartment on the fifth floor. Their apartment building was full of young people, all rushing through the mornings and closing their doors at night. Even after the wedding, he still didn't know how to say sweet things to her and considered himself completely devoid of romance. Every morning, he would hastily prepare breakfast for her and rush out the door to be on time. He didn't choose the restaurant; she would. If she liked the riverside, he would go; if she liked a restaurant with lots of lanterns, he would follow. He didn't order; he ate whatever she ordered. He didn't buy her gifts, but he would accompany her to all the places she liked to go; she could buy whatever she wanted, and she could just use his credit card to pay. He knew he couldn't create romantic surprises like her ideal. And she knew he would never break a promise, and would never stop loving her.
Today, he worked overtime. She waited for him to come home, then fell asleep on the sofa. He came home late at night, quietly entering the house. He took her hands, noticing her long nails that she hadn't had time to trim. So he meticulously sat down and trimmed her nails for her. She was awake, but remained still.
"Perhaps you don't know that even just cutting your wife's nails is a very romantic gesture," she smiled at him.
Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/doi-ban-tay-cua-co-gai-ay-a196440.html
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