Chapter 9
Chapter 9
By the time we left the shop, the sky was already stained with the colors of dusk.
Xia Mo was picked up by her uncle.
That left Zhou An to walk me home.
I hadn’t brought my keys, so he stayed to wait with me by the roadside.
The evening breeze dispersed the day’s heat, and the trees along the road cast mottled shadows.
I was busy gnawing on a roasted sweet potato.
Zhou An had originally been squatting on the ground watching ants.
For some reason, he suddenly stood up.
I looked up at him, a bit dazed.
The boy stood against the setting sun, his silhouette outlined with a fuzzy golden border by the warm yellow light.
He had grown a bit taller since last year, lean and lithe like a bamboo shoot in spring.
His eyes were very bright.
It was the kind of brightness unique to youth-untainted by the world, clean and translucent.
I immediately grew wary.
“I’ve already bitten into this sweet potato. If you want some, go buy your own-”
“Xie Zhiyu.”
He spoke with a forced, breathy deep voice.
Me: “?”
“Do you hate me?” he asked.
I shook my head instinctively.
“That’s good.”
Zhou An suddenly took a step forward.
The distance between us closed abruptly.
I could even see the curve of his eyelashes and smell the faint scent on him-like grass that had been dried in the sun.
It was a scent unique to teenage boys.
Clean, crisp, with a hint of reckless vitality.
“Xie Zhiyu,” he said.
“I like you.”
“Ever since our first year of middle school…”
My eyes widened. “You don’t have to go this far just for a bite of roasted sweet potato-mmph!”
He pinched my mouth shut like he was grabbing a duck’s beak.
?
“Let me finish,” he continued in that deliberately deep voice. “The first time I saw you, my heart skipped a beat…”
I thought back to our first meeting.
It was during the middle school sports meet, at the high jump event.
We were the three unlucky souls picked by the random draw.
Back then, Zhou An had wiped out face-first into the dirt. I had laughed so hard I couldn’t stand up straight, while Xia Mo stood nearby frantically taking photos.
…That made his heart skip a beat??
“Now that the Gaokao is over, I can finally stop hiding my feelings.”
Zhou An continued, his eyes flickering toward a certain direction behind me before quickly snapping back.
He recited his confession like he was reading a textbook in front of a Chinese teacher:
“Now I want to say, I really like you. Will you go out with me?”
What on earth was he babbling about??
He suddenly leaned down.
I was terrified.
His lips landed on his own knuckles.
I slammed a fist into his stomach.
Zhou An let out a muffled groan.
He stumbled back two steps, and his hand let go of me.
He shot another quick glance behind me, then rubbed his stomach with a straight face, his expression as calm as if nothing had just happened.
I was furious. “I treated you as a friend, and you do this to me!”
Zhou An gave a simple “mm” in response. “I just saw your brother.”
My anger vanished instantly, and my heart skipped a beat. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone,” Zhou An said, reverting to his usual nonchalant self.
I got angry again. “You-”
“You look like a pufferfish,” Zhou An said suddenly.
“?”
“Just giving him a little push.”
Zhou An turned around, his back to me, and gave a wave over his shoulder.
The evening breeze ruffled his hair. The boy’s lean silhouette stretched long in the sunset.
He looked inexplicably cool, like a hero walking away from an explosion.
“Saves us from having to listen to you drone on about your ‘girly heart’s secrets’ every day.”
He paused, then added:
“No need to thank me.”
“If it works out, remember to treat me to ten skewers of grilled fish balls.”
I stood frozen in place, watching his retreating figure. It took a long moment before I finally reacted-
Who does he think he is, acting all cool like that?!