He Youyuan had never really gone out of his way to coax anyone.

Among his whole group of friends, he was the most pampered and the most high-maintenance, which meant that it was always everyone else coaxing him. But for all his neediness, he was remarkably easy to win over — all it took was a couple of soft words and he would immediately be floating on air, completely forgetting what day it was.

It was precisely because of this that despite having been coaxed so many times, he had never actually picked up any skill at coaxing others. And he had no intention of asking his friends for advice — he did have his pride, after all. He scratched his head over the problem for several days, and in the end the only thing he could think of was the scene of Li Kuiyi calling out to him at the base of the teaching block during the National Day holiday.

He decided to copy the answer.

Brilliant, really — a first-place student’s answer had to be right.

He deliberately chose a day when Fang Zhixiao was on cleaning duty. After the monthly exams, Class Twelve had rearranged their seating, and he and Fang Zhixiao were no longer in the same group, which meant he was able to arrive at the school gate ahead of time and lie in wait.

“Hey, Li Kuiyi.” The phrase rolled over and over on the tip of his tongue: “I’ll take you out for something to eat.”

No guy wanted to look like a bumbling novice at something like this, and He Youyuan was no exception. He privately ran through the line several times, all so he could say it to Li Kuiyi with complete ease. After all, when Li Kuiyi had first said those words to him, her expression and tone had been completely natural and unaffected — he couldn’t afford to lose face in front of her.

Fifteen minutes after the bell rang, the school gate had grown gradually quiet. The occasional person passed by, always in a hurry. He Youyuan stood with his eyes downcast, pacing back and forth beneath a dim amber street lamp, his shadow stretching out and shrinking back, long and lean. The phrase, ground smooth from so much repetition, was rolling off his tongue with ease now — but for some reason, a strange restlessness was beginning to creep into his heart.

He exhaled slowly. Must be because the prickly pineapple was taking her sweet time, making him wait, he told himself.

After another two or three minutes, a few figures drifted out through the school gate — the students who had been on cleaning duty alongside Fang Zhixiao. He Youyuan squinted, recognised them, and gave a soft click of his tongue, tilting his head away, wishing he could vanish on the spot.

But someone had already spotted him from far off — a loud, boisterous girl from his class, who called out: “Hey, why are you still here? Who are you waiting for?”

As if that’s any of your business. He Youyuan was irked, and shoved both hands into the pockets of his uniform trousers. “Someone,” he said vaguely.

The girl apparently failed to register his dismissiveness and was instead amused: “Obviously a person — I know that much. As if you’d be out here waiting for a flight!” Having said that, as though she’d cracked herself up, her laughter rang out particularly loudly in the evening air.

A few of the others laughed along.

He Youyuan’s lips twitched. What was so funny about that, he wondered, casting an impatient glance toward the school gate — and there were Li Kuiyi and Fang Zhixiao, chatting as they walked out.

Brilliant. His worst fear had come true.

With this many people standing around, how was he supposed to open his mouth to the prickly pineapple?

Go, please go, everybody just go, he prayed silently, while at the same time sneaking a look at Li Kuiyi, hoping she would slow down, just a little more.

But unfortunately, nothing goes according to plan. The boisterous girl spotted Fang Zhixiao and actually turned back to meet her, wide-eyed: “Hey, Xiaoxi — I could have sworn you were ahead of us! How did you fall behind?”

Fang Zhixiao noticed He Youyuan was there too, faltered briefly, then glanced at Li Kuiyi before patting her little electric scooter and giving the girl a cheerful grin: “Probably because I popped by the bike shed.”

Li Kuiyi’s gaze settled lightly on He Youyuan.

She tried to work out why he was standing there — was he waiting for her? After all, Zhou Ce, Qi Yu, and Xia Leyi had all left school long ago. The only uncertainty was Zhang Chuang. And He Youyuan was staring straight at her right now, as if telling her that yes, he really was waiting for her.

Was he going to apologise?

Just thinking about it made her blood boil. Over the past few days she had been plotting how to vent her frustration, but it hadn’t been easy — she couldn’t actually go and beat him up, and whether or not she could win was a separate question entirely. This was a law-abiding society; getting expelled for punching someone would be an absolute disaster.

Maybe she could disrupt his studying? After thinking it over carefully, she decided against it too — sabotaging someone’s studying was the kind of thing that invited divine retribution. She couldn’t do that.

Eventually she began entertaining certain impractical fantasies — for instance, she wished she could run into him on one of her cleaning duty days, so she could dump the rubbish bin over his head.

Unfortunately, on her cleaning day, after she and Zhou Fanghua had taken out the rubbish together, she lugged that large blue bin around the school for nearly half a lap without managing to come across him once.

Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating. And now she’d finally run into him today — she really ought to do something about it.

She watched herself just about to walk past him.

What reason could she use to stop, that would seem natural?

She started silently cursing He Youyuan again — if he wanted to apologise, could he not just hurry up and call out to her? What was he waiting for?

She was actually rather curious how he planned to go about it. The guy was so prickly by nature. Last time he’d bumped into her, all she’d asked was for him to say “I’m sorry,” and he’d worked himself up into a nosebleed. So what was his plan for today — a dramatic scene of frothing at the mouth?

She didn’t mind watching that at all.

He Youyuan, hurry up. Call out to me.

“Hey —”

As Li Kuiyi passed in front of him, he mumbled something, his voice coming out low.

“I just — actually, could I just ask — has Zhou Ce… already gone?”

He had actually called out to her. And in front of so many people, he’d even managed to keep up a somewhat polite pretence.

Li Kuiyi gave an almost imperceptible twitch of her lips, turned back, raised an eyebrow, and asked, with perfect knowledge of the answer: “Hmm? Are you talking to me?”

“…”

He Youyuan’s lips moved, and he silently cursed with everything he had. He was beginning to think Li Kuiyi was genuinely diabolical. She was too good at sizing people up and playing to each one’s weaknesses. Around Chen Guoming she put on an act of pure, harmless innocence; around him she was domineering and insufferable, her true nature on full display.

He swore — once he’d finished apologising to her, he was done with her for good.

As for whether she liked him — he had no intention of wasting any more time thinking about it. The day she’d stubbornly pushed the barbecue money back into his hands had already nagged at him for days, nearly driving him to wander down to the little garden near his building and pluck a flower, tearing off petal after petal — she likes me; she doesn’t like me…

But now he’d worked it out. He was a perfectly decent, perfectly attractive young man — why should he torture himself over something like this? Plenty of people liked him, plenty of people were willing to fuss over him. He was certainly not lacking a prickly pineapple.

“That’s right, talking to you.” He leaned back against the lamp post, folded his arms, and assumed his usual air of lazy nonchalance.

“Oh. He left a long time ago,” Li Kuiyi said, then turned and made as if to leave again.

“…What about Qi Yu?”

“Qi Yu left too,” Li Kuiyi replied cleanly. She wanted to see what excuse he would come up with next.

“Then…” He Youyuan faltered. Xia Leyi’s name came to mind, but he didn’t want to mention it — he didn’t want anyone reading something into it. His mind raced for a moment, and he squeezed out: “I have something to give them — could you take it for me?”

“Sure.” Li Kuiyi extended her hand.

“Come with me for a second.” He walked past her and dropped a single low sentence, almost a murmur, and then moved away a few paces.

But Li Kuiyi didn’t budge. She blinked. “What? I didn’t quite catch that.”

He Youyuan wanted to strangle her.

Truly. Nothing like this had ever happened to him in his life.

And Li Kuiyi, for her part, found in this small act of tormenting him a tiny flicker of satisfaction.

In the middle of He Youyuan’s exasperation, Fang Zhixiao’s eyes began to roll thoughtfully, and then it suddenly clicked — she understood exactly why he’d been waiting here, and exactly what that elaborately roundabout question about whether Zhou Ce had left really meant.

Tsk. Stubborn, face-obsessed man. At the crucial moment, he needed big sis to lend him a hand.

“Anyone live on the west side of the city? Come ride with me, I’ll take you part of the way on my scooter,” Fang Zhixiao called out to the others in the group. The boisterous girl threw her hand up immediately, thoroughly delighted: “Me, me, me — I live on the west side too.”

“Hop on.” Fang Zhixiao indicated the back seat, then said to the rest of them, “All right, everyone head home — it’s so late, lingering out here really isn’t safe.”

Once she’d put it that way, even those who had been half-inclined to linger and snoop for gossip had no choice but to smile and agree, exchange farewells, and disperse in all directions.

“He Youyuan, don’t dawdle either — if you have something for Li Kui to take for you, hand it over quickly. Don’t hold her up getting home.” Fang Zhixiao offered this farewell instruction just before riding off on her scooter, in the most admirably impartial tone of someone simply looking out for everyone equally.

He Youyuan watched as the little audience successfully scattered, and couldn’t help but twitch the corners of his mouth. The prickly pineapple’s best friend had quite a good eye, he thought — if only the prickly pineapple herself could develop the same awareness.

With everyone gone and quiet falling over the two of them, He Youyuan dropped the act. He cleared his throat, straightened his posture, looked out into the vast evening, and said: “So — let me take you out for something to eat.”

Practising had paid off, apparently. Not bad at all.

Li Kuiyi: “…”

The last thing she had expected was that his way of apologising would be to copy hers outright.

So unoriginal! So insincere!

“No!” She glared at him and said it viciously.

He Youyuan had anticipated she might refuse, but he was completely unruffled — he had experience with this situation: “I know you’re still bothered by what happened the other morning. The reason I want to take you to eat is precisely because I want to apologise for that…”

Li Kuiyi hadn’t even heard him finish before her head started buzzing.

He’d copied a line or two from her — fine. But apparently he was planning to copy the whole thing, cover to cover.

“You’re stealing my lines. Have you paid the copyright fee?”

“You used the same approach to apologise to me after you made me bleed. Since you chose that method yourself, clearly you approve of it. So now that I’m using the same method to apologise to you, why won’t you accept it?” He Youyuan was perfectly reasonable.

“Because you’re not sincere!”

“How am I not sincere? I stood here waiting for you for twenty minutes!”

“I still don’t accept it.” Li Kuiyi folded her arms and turned sideways.

“Then what do you want?” He Youyuan was growing a little frantic too, standing there with his hands on his hips and a huff of air swelling in his chest. He stood there for quite a while — and then, as though he’d made up his mind about something, he bent forward and offered his face to her directly, shutting his eyes with the air of someone resigned to their fate: “What if — you pinch my face too?”