On the covered walkway near home that leads to the train station, there were often young people busking — solo guitarists and singers, or small bands of three or four. There were also the old-school uncles with their portable speakers belting out nostalgic Cantopop. Shy as I am, I find it embarrassing to watch anyone perform in public, let alone perform…

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Her name wasn’t Lei, but her real name has been eaten, ___ rather than leaving gaps every time I mention her, I’ll use Lei to refer to her.

I had just started ___, could make no friends, and spent every ___ alone in the library. One dusk I came out and walked along the pond’s bank toward the train station. On the bridge I spotted a group of koi swimming …

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After a fairly mild cold, I lost my sense of smell. At first I thought it was just a blocked nose, but when the congestion cleared, I still couldn’t smell anything. The feeling is hard to describe. Losing sight or hearing — even touch (like when a tooth’s been numbed) — is imaginable. But losing smell? On the surface nothing looks wrong, and it seems to…

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A senior classmate of mine worked at a café and said it was a good spot — quiet, good for reading and writing. I had nothing to do during the day, so I tried it. The café also had lots of jigsaw puzzles to pass the time. I’ve had a fear of jigsaw puzzles since childhood — the sight of those jagged cut lines makes me uncomfortable. But they were the café…

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That morning I opened my eyes and for a moment had no idea where I was, and my head ached as if it belonged to someone else. When I finally managed to get up, I saw it was ten o’clock. I normally sleep badly and usually wake around five or six in the morning. Sleeping this dead-to-the-world late had never happened before.

I also discovered I reeked of al…

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The last time I ended up in Wui was in Secondary Four. For a while I was terrified of going to school and kept skipping. Even when I did sit through class, nothing got through to me. I couldn’t follow the topics my classmates talked about, and sometimes I’d end up being punished for things I hadn’t done. But someone had to be punished, and it happened t…

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Just after the pandemic ended, I decided I couldn’t keep sitting at home and made up my mind to find work. A senior from my old department put me forward for a teaching assistant position. The school still required masks, so I was reminded to wear one.

When I arrived at the school office — during the gap between morning break and lunch — I was about to e…

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For a while I used to have lunch at a Japanese restaurant regularly. I’m not picky about food and I don’t eat much — I normally leave half a meal untouched, and it was no different there. The reason I became a regular wasn’t the food; it was Maan.

The first time I went in, the girl at the door greeting customers was completely ordinary-looking, totally u…

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I met Pun in the second year of secondary school. That morning on the way to school, not far from the gate, a girl fell over right beside me — scraped her elbow and knee. I just stood there, not because I didn’t want to help, but because I’ve always been terrible with strangers, let alone touching someone I don’t know. In the end I forced myself to crou…

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For a while, I wasn’t doing well mentally and was spending most of my time at home recovering. Every day my dad would nudge me to go for a walk in the nearby park, saying it would be good for me. At first I didn’t want to go — I’d wander around half-heartedly and come back feeling no better. It was always either too cold or too hot outside, and I’d rath…

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The first time I noticed Jok was on a warm evening. I was sitting at my desk by the window reading, when I casually pushed back a strand of hair. The clip near my temple slipped loose, bounced lightly off the desk, and disappeared from sight. I crouched down and searched every corner of the floor — nothing. At the exact moment the clip vanished, I heard…

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The Ordinary and the Strange

All the stories in this book were first published in the fanzine Oi Hui-kau — Fiction Passion, roughly one per month starting from June 19, 2024. During the same period I was also writing SF Girl’s Diary, a record of daily life with my sisters — over four hundred thousand characters, now published as a separate volume. Both a…

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Hello, World! 🥰

I’m Ng Heng-sun, the President of the Fiction Passion Secret Society. 😎

We are a collective of story-driven souls who came together to create the doujinshi magazine, 愛虛構 Fiction Passion. Our founding team includes myself, Lui Ting-yam, Lai Sun-fei, and Wu Ani. 🐵🐯🦊🦄

What We Do Our heart beats for fiction. We publish everything from sho…

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