Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After transferring, Sang Ge lived with his grandfather. Only later did I learn that a car accident had taken both his parents when he was seventeen. His grandfather was the only family he had left.

There was a reason for his coldness.

Sang Ge had excellent grades, so the teacher asked him to tutor me. To my surprise, he agreed. After school, I often followed him home with a spring in my step.

His grandfather adored me. He secretly showed me photographs of Sang Ge as a child, beautiful as a porcelain doll. He treated me better than Sang Ge, even adding an extra egg when he made noodles for me. Sang Ge never complained aloud, but he sulked in silence.

“Grandpa, why do you like me so much?” I asked around a mouthful of noodles.

He smiled. “Sang Ge’s grandmother always wanted a granddaughter. I think you and I were meant to meet. Besides, Sang Ge likes you.”

The stone-faced boy who had been listening closely choked, his ears turning bright red.

I looked at him suspiciously and received a fierce command in return.

“Eat.”

I had no idea what was happening, so I only grinned foolishly.

I knew Grandpa had made it up. He liked me because Sang Ge had genuinely become more cheerful after we started spending time together. Gradually, he made several other friends. I went from being his only friend to merely one of them, and I did not mind.

I loved seeing him smile in the sunlight.

That was who he had been meant to be.

But the gulf between Sang Ge and me was wide, and after the college entrance examination it became impossible to ignore. He attended one of the country’s finest universities. Not only was it thousands of kilometers from my school, it occupied an entirely different social world.

His military training began later than mine. By then, the sun had already roasted me into a little lump of charcoal, yet I secretly used my short break to take a train for several hours just to see him.

The campus was so large that I could not find him. I stopped people at random to ask, “Do you know Sang Ge from the directing department?”

One boy muttered, “Another person looking for Sang Ge. Isn’t that him?”

I followed his finger. A group of young men was walking toward me. The tall, slender one in the middle was Sang Ge. Everyone along the road stole glances at him.

I had always been carefree, yet something tightened inside me. Only years later did I learn the name of that feeling: inferiority.

I hesitated before waving and calling loudly, “Sang Ge!”

He raised his head in disbelief. The night before, when we spoke on the phone, I had still been thousands of kilometers away. His eyes shone. Cicadas screamed through that immense summer moment, and I realized I would never again be able to treat him as casually as before.

I had fallen in love with Sang Ge.

And because I loved him, I could no longer ignore his coolness, the distance between us, or the fact that my presence might make no difference to him at all.

Sang Ge and his classmates had just finished military training and were going to eat, so they took me along. At a private restaurant near the university, several older students from his club joined us until the table was packed.

I could not fit into Sang Ge’s world. All I knew how to do was smile. I understood none of their professional jargon. Sang Ge’s parents had both been respected artists, and directing seemed to be written into his bones. He had barely entered university, yet everyone at that table already revolved around him.

Whenever he wished it, he would always shine.

Sang Ge kept putting food in my bowl, so I lowered my head and ate.

Someone looked me over and teased, “Sang Ge, is this your little girlfriend?”

Sang Ge denied it calmly. “A classmate from high school.”

So I had overestimated myself. Sang Ge and I were not even friends.

An older girl who clearly liked him asked me with feigned casualness, “Do you attend F University across the street?”

That too was a century-old prestigious school, but it was not mine. I shook my head and named my university. She relaxed immediately, all wariness disappearing from her gaze.

By the end of the meal, I was painfully full and still had a train to catch.

Sang Ge frowned. “It’s already this late, and you’re still going back?”

“I have class tomorrow.”

He stared at me, baffled. Perhaps he could not understand why I had traveled so far just to see him when my break lasted barely more than a day. Embarrassed, I lowered my head.

Sang Ge walked me to the station gate.

The trip had been worthwhile. Seeing that he had made so many friends put my mind at ease. We belonged to different worlds. Unless something unexpected happened, I would not contact him again. Whatever thin connection remained between us would soon fade.

This goodbye would truly send us down separate roads.

“Don’t come next time.” Sang Ge looked at the top of my head and sighed.

I stared at my shoes. “All right.”

“I’ll come see you instead.”

Certain I had misheard, I looked up and met his eyes. His expression remained cold, but most of his face had gone red, from his ears down his neck.

“Ding Guchun, will you go out with me?”

My mind went blank. My hands moved before reason could catch up. I threw my arms around his neck, rose onto my toes, and kissed him.

His lips were cooler than mint.

We were both clumsy and inexperienced, but those memories had long since surged away with that summer.

The Sang Ge before me now was no longer that boy.