Chapter 4

My heart gave a violent thump. I looked up. A delicate-looking boy in glasses stood in the second-floor corridor, watching us.

My mouth opened soundlessly. My thoughts tangled into a mess. It felt as though ten thousand words had surged to my lips, only to choke me before a single one could emerge.

Sudden weight settled on my head. Song Mingqi was stroking my hair, the corner of his mouth lifted in a brilliant smile. “Why are you sneaking looks at me? Don’t worry. I got over it ages ago.”

Before I could react, he withdrew his hand, turned, and bounded up the stairs. In a few strides, he vanished around the corner.

I stood frozen, watching him disappear. When I looked back at the class monitor, he lowered his gaze to me, then turned and left the corridor.

I could have ground my teeth to pieces. When I finally found a chance to explain, the class monitor asked me three questions.

“Did you stop walking home with me because of him?”

“Were your parents called in because the school thought you two were dating?”

“Did you really tell him… that you liked him?”

Straightforward as I was, I could not force out a single no.

I tried uselessly to explain. “I—I didn’t say I liked him. I said it wasn’t…”

It was not that I did not like him. We were high school students. We had learned what a double negative meant.

My defense was too feeble even to convince myself. He waited, but when the rest of my stammered sentence never came, he lowered his head and said gloomily, “I think we should focus on our studies at this stage.”

My first love ended before it ever began.

Fury rose in my heart like a storm-tossed sea, but when anger hits its limit, it circles back to perfect calm.

For a while afterward, I behaved perfectly normally. Yet the vigilance in Song Mingqi’s eyes whenever he looked at me never eased. As time passed, he grew warier still. Even if he spotted me from far away, he would stop in his tracks and walk in another direction.

But we were in the same class. There were only so many places he could hide. I waited two weeks: one to let him stew in fear and one for our seating groups to rotate.

We went from opposite ends of the classroom to seats separated by a single aisle. All I had to do was turn my head to see him diagonally behind me.

On a bright and breezy Wednesday, the temperature made everyone drowsy. Even the teacher was asleep over the lectern during the lunch break. I rose soundlessly and walked to Song Mingqi’s side.

Then I hacked the hair off the crown of his head.

Dad was summoned to the office and scolded again, but the sight of Song Mingqi’s smooth short hair shaved down to a buzz cut filled me with satisfaction.

He did not seem to mind losing his hair, though. When the sun beat down on his scalp, he simply put on a baseball cap.

That weekend, Mom dragged me to his home to apologize. The little bastard smiled at her. “It’s fine, Auntie. Short hair is nothing unusual for a boy.”

Then he placed a glass of water in front of me, every inch the magnanimous older brother. “You’re not angry with me anymore, are you?”

I had not been.

But seeing him act as though nothing had happened made me feel as if I had punched a wad of cotton.

Now I was even angrier.

At dinner, he peeled a shrimp, dipped it in sauce, and placed it on my plate.

I stared at the sauce-coated shrimp, my expression stiff.

Mom said, “Haohao, do you remember the first time you met Mingqi? He stole your shrimp because he wanted you to remember him. Now he’s grown up and knows how to peel one for you.”

Her face glowed with satisfaction. Song Mingqi said bashfully, “I was an ignorant child.”

The two of them made such a touching picture of maternal affection and filial devotion. Why didn’t Song Mingqi just start calling my mother Mom?

I lowered my head, rolled my eyes, and made a point of eating around that shrimp.

After dinner, our mothers talked while cleaning up in the kitchen. I sat on the sofa looking at my phone when the cushion suddenly dipped beside me.

Song Mingqi sat down and said solemnly, “Lu Haohao, let’s call a truce.”

…

It was now 4:46 in the morning, and I still had not slept.

I picked up my phone, put it down, picked it up again, put it down again, picked it up…

Biting my lip, I finally switched it on.

The screen flashed to life and settled on the lock screen. A moment later, the phone buzzed.

There was one unread WeChat message.