The phone was from a style at least ten years old.

The kind of non-smartphone that collectors on tricycles, cruising through old alleyways with megaphones blaring “buying old phones, scrapping broken phones” on loop, would routinely scoop up.

Ruan Yu almost thought she had been transported back in time.

She stared at it for a moment, then took a photo of the old phone and sent it to the chat window: Did you send the wrong package?

Xu Huaishi: No, sister — turn it on and look in the drafts folder.

Kids these days really knew how to be creative. Drafts folder, of all things. Was this some roundabout way of writing her a love letter?

Since she had woken up from nightmares drenched in cold sweat, she didn’t turn it on right away. She left the package on the coffee table, went to shower first, and when she came out, she found a new message from Xu Huaishi waiting on her own phone.

A long one. It filled the entire screen.

Sister, you’ve seen it by now, haven’t you. I’m sorry — I was the one who stumbled upon that phone by accident, and I went ahead and read the stories in the drafts folder without permission, and rewrote them on my own. It was also me who was too much of a coward to come forward, so when you got caught up in the plagiarism dispute, I lied and kept the truth hidden. And it was me who looked you up by name, and dug up your information.

I’ve already been terrible enough. After spending a day and a night with you in Hang Shi and seeing that you were still going to all this trouble to track down the truth, I realized that if I stayed quiet any longer, I’d just keep being terrible forever.

Sister, it’s okay if you don’t forgive me. It’s okay if you hate me. But my brother only found out about all of this on the fourth day after it happened. He dropped a case that was about to go to trial and flew back to the country — he originally planned to tell you the truth, but when he saw that you kept pretending not to know him, he kept putting it off.

So, if you can, please forgive him. He really, truly likes you.

When she finished reading, Ruan Yu stood there, phone in hand, completely rooted to the spot.

Every single one of those words, taken apart, she understood perfectly. But what they all added up to when put together — she seemed unable to process it all at once.

She scrolled up, and found that a screenshot had been attached above the message. It showed the backend of a Weibo account: Xie Shiren.

She stood there in a daze for two full minutes. Then, sluggishly and in something of a stupor, she turned and reached for the old phone on the coffee table. She turned it on, and tapped into the drafts folder.

327 unsent drafts.

She scrolled through them back and forth, then tapped one at random to read.

That model exam essay Teacher Zheng showed our class — that was yours, wasn’t it.

What model essay? Ruan Yu’s brow furrowed in slight confusion. She kept scrolling.

Your father asked me why I was always playing piano in Room 301. I didn’t dare say — it was because from the window of that practice room, I could see you just right.

Her brow smoothed out. The finger she had been pressing on the navigation key froze in place. Now she thought she was beginning to understand — whose drafts these were, and for whom they had been written.

Your seat moved to the one by the window. I was late to class so I could stand in the corridor and watch you.

Are you still going to PE class on the sports field? I’ve already run five laps.

Hanazawa Rui doesn’t eat fried chicken, does he.

You said you loved looking at the sky after rain clears. So for the anniversary celebration, I’ll play “After the Rain.”

The boy in your class who pulls your braids came to me asking to copy my English homework. I didn’t let him.

The cat under the art gallery kept meowing. I fed it a can of food. But I don’t like cats. I like you.

I’m going to America. Is there any way to make you remember me, even just a little.

Then let me hold your hand once.

The dull, unmelodic beeping of the old keypads sounded with each entry. Ruan Yu’s eyelashes trembled uncontrollably. She steadied herself against the sofa and sank slowly onto it, every last bit of strength in her body seeming to be drained away by these messages, one by one.

She thought she understood now.

Why her story outline had never gone missing.

Why his payment passcode was 309017.

Why he knew she was afraid of heights.

And yet it was still hard to believe.

The only thing that could be matched against these messages was her own memories. But in this moment, every memory she had seemed to grow distant, blurred, and unreal.

Everything she had known about her high school years was, because of these messages, violently split into two versions.

Two completely different versions. One belonging to her. One belonging to Xu Huaisong.

If all of these messages were real — why had she never noticed anything, not even once, back then? How was it possible that she hadn’t noticed anything at all?

Ruan Yu sank into the sofa like a patient desperate for medicine, scrolling back and forth through the three hundred-odd drafts, trying to find one that could directly prove, beyond all doubt, that Xu Huaisong had liked her back then too.

In the end, she found this:

The class contact book that was distributed to your class — you didn’t give me one. When they were collecting them back, I slipped one of mine in myself. With any luck, you’ll see it.

The class contact book…

Ruan Yu shot to her feet, set down the phone, and ran into the bedroom.

Among the things she had brought back from the old storage chest in the attic at her parents’ home — besides her diary — were various odds and ends, including one class contact book.

It was a thick stack of loose-leaf pages: once taken apart, the colorful template sheets inside could be handed out to people one by one.

She had of course never given one to Xu Huaisong. She had assumed he barely knew who she was. Even the few sheets she had passed along to Class Ten had only gone there because she had too many left over, and had taken them along on a whim.

At graduation time, class contact books had been flying around everywhere, and filling out so many of them had diluted the meaning. By the end, everyone had stopped putting in real effort — a quick smiley face drawn, a “don’t forget me” scrawled down, and that was that. So when she got hers back, she hadn’t looked through it carefully at the time.

She had always meant to go through it properly afterward. But when the graduation trip came and Xu Huaisong had broken his promise and not shown up, everything from those high school days had been packed into that chest — deliberately left unvisited.

Ruan Yu ran into the room, pulled out the class contact book, and crouched on the floor, frantically flipping through it.

The thick stack of colorful pages rustled and shuffled wildly under her hands — until a white template sheet came into view, and her hand froze mid-air as though someone had hit the pause button.

On this sheet, which stood out completely from all the other colorful pages around it, not a single field had been filled in — no name, no star sign, no blood type, no hobbies, nothing.

Only one short line. The layout was neat. The brushstrokes bold and vigorous.

It was a handwriting she recognized.

He had written: “May you leap and cheer in the dazzling tomorrows ahead — even if I cannot see any of it.”

Ruan Yu crumpled to the floor, her eyes instantly brimming with hot tears.

At ten o’clock that evening, she sat alone in the brightly lit living room, clutching two phones, lost in a daze.

By this hour, Xu Huaisong should have landed. And yet he hadn’t messaged her. And she hadn’t reached out to him either.

She wasn’t sure why, but she had a feeling they were both feeling the same kind of nervous uncertainty right now.

Even though Xu Huaishi had taken it upon herself to send his phone, she wouldn’t have done so without giving him any warning at all — at the very least, she would have told him after the fact.

So the moment he stepped off the plane, he would have known that she now knew the truth.

The minutes ticked by. Half past ten.

What was he afraid of? That she would blame him?

She probably should have blamed him. Such a long deception. Such a long silence.

But after she had read through all three hundred-odd messages, crying and laughing like a fool, she had suddenly felt that none of it mattered anymore.

Whether she had been deceived, whether she had been led around in circles — all of that was in the past. And none of it was as important as the one fact that he was coming back now.

He was coming back. She wouldn’t have to live in the tomorrows he couldn’t see.

That was all that mattered.

Ruan Yu paced circles around the room. Finally she bit down, steeled herself, and dialed Xu Huaisong’s number.

And then — his ringtone went off from somewhere very close to her.

The strangeness of that moment startled an involuntary yelp out of her, and she jabbed the end-call button on instinct.

The next second, a knock came at the front door, followed immediately by Xu Huaisong’s voice: “What’s wrong?”

“…”

Ruan Yu pressed a hand to her chest and went to open the door, her face scrunched in exasperation. “You nearly scared me to death — you come over and don’t make a single sound? Are you filming a horror movie…”

That unexpected little moment shattered whatever delicate, loaded atmosphere had been about to settle between them.

But very quickly, Xu Huaisong’s silence pulled her right back into that uneasy, fluttering feeling.

The two of them stood there, one inside the doorway and one outside, eyes meeting, briefly wordless.

Half a minute passed. Xu Huaisong opened his mouth. “I’m sor—”

“Xu Huaisong,” Ruan Yu suddenly cut him off, her voice catching slightly. “Let’s start over.”

No more pretending. Either of them.

He didn’t need to keep wearing a mask, second-guessing every step. And she didn’t need to keep scheming to hold the upper hand.

They should meet each other as they truly were — completely, openly — and start over.

Xu Huaisong didn’t quite register it at first. He blinked.

Ruan Yu closed her eyes for a moment, then drew on a full day’s worth of gathered courage. She held out her hand toward him in a handshake gesture and said: “Hello. I’m Ruan Yu, formerly of Class Nine, Grade Twelve, Su Shi First High. I once liked you very much. And now…”

“Wait.” Xu Huaisong cut her off in turn.

A flicker of surprise passed through Ruan Yu’s eyes.

Then she watched as the tension on his face dissolved, and he suddenly gave a small laugh. “Something like that — I should say it first.” He reached out his own hand, mirroring her handshake gesture. “Hello. I’m Xu Huaisong, formerly of Class Ten, Grade Twelve, Su Shi First High. I once liked you very much. And now — I like you even more than I did back then.”

Ruan Yu’s nose stung again. She stood there with her lips pressed together, unable to move for a long moment.

Xu Huaisong glanced down at his own hand, still suspended in the air between them. “Are we shaking hands or not?”

She was just about to say “yes” — but before she could, he had already supplied the second half of the sentence himself: “If not, then a hug will do.” And with that, he took hold of her hand and drew her in toward him.

Ruan Yu let out a startled sound. The very next second, a muffled thud came from around the corner of the stairwell — the sound of someone’s head meeting the wall.

Still in their embrace, the two of them turned their heads in unison.

Around the corner, the soprano neighbor — the one who had been screeching in the elevator before — poked half of herself out and said: “Sorry about that! I was coming back from my evening exercise and took the stairs, and I heard the two of you and thought you were rehearsing a script, so I got a bit curious — I’m so sorry, so sorry, I’ll leave you to it…”

Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu: “…”

Ruan Yu stood stiff as a board, and slowly extricated herself from Xu Huaisong’s arms. She straightened her clothes, smoothed her hair, and gave Sun Miaohan a politely vague smile. “Yes, we were rehearsing. Just finished a scene — we’re going in to fine-tune some of the details.” With that, she grabbed Xu Huaisong by the sleeve and pulled him inside.

They were in a public space. They couldn’t really blame anyone for eavesdropping.

The door closed. She covered her face and stared at the ceiling. “That was so embarrassing…”

Then, without warning, Xu Huaisong leaned in from behind, and asked in all seriousness: “Now that we’re inside — what details do you want to fine-tune?”

Author’s Note: Please don’t go around pressing buttons everywhere — the trends need buttons pressed, and if you’re not careful there won’t be any buttons left — oh~ oh~