Liking someone is like a sudden downpour in the height of summer—it comes crashing down before you’ve even had time to reach for an umbrella, and so, at first, you panic without thinking. But once the rain lets up, the wet clothes clinging to your skin bring a coolness sharp enough to cut through the sweltering heat of summer, and only in hindsight do you realize it was a gift, one of youth’s own making—so much so that you begin to hope it comes down even harder next time.
And a secret crush remains a secret crush precisely because it hides on the far side of the moon, protected again and again by words that say one thing while the heart means another, by things left unsaid even as they hover on the tip of the tongue.
So on the surface, I turned back into the old Tang Heqing.
I’d gone back to normal—and now it was Zhou Haiyan’s turn to act strange.
Even though I swore up and down, again and again, that I wasn’t seeing anyone, Zhou Haiyan still wasn’t convinced.
Every time he picked me up or dropped me off, his eyes worked like radar, scanning anyone who walked even slightly close to me.
Whenever I told Mom Zhou funny stories from school, Zhou Haiyan used to ignore it entirely—he said it wasn’t meant for him specifically, so it wouldn’t be right for him to listen in.
Now, he said it made no difference who was listening—one more listener or one less changed nothing. He’d even set his work aside and sit himself down on the sofa nearby, listening openly, without pretense, occasionally chiming in with his own thoughts.
“Today the homeroom teacher invited an outstanding alumnus back to share his experience. He was giving his talk when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence, scanned the room, and spotted someone in the back row sound asleep, face-down on the desk. He politely apologized to everyone first, then, without another word, marched straight down and smacked the guy awake—hard enough that you could hear it echo.
That kid’s usually dead last in the class, and he’s got a pretty bad temper too.”
Mom Zhou: “Huh? Didn’t that end in a fight?”
Me: “Nope, the opposite! The moment he got smacked awake, his face completely changed, and without a word he sat up perfectly straight.
Seeing that, everyone who was dozing off or zoning out snapped awake instantly, terrified of getting hit too. It wasn’t until after class that we found out—turns out that alumnus was that kid’s own older brother!”
“Oh my, hahahaha.” Mom Zhou wiped tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes and asked, “That last-place kid sounds like a hoot. His name was pretty interesting too, wasn’t it—I remember you mentioned it before, what was it—Wang something?”
“Wang Zhe?” Zhou Haiyan cut in abruptly.
“Yes, yes, that’s him, hahahaha!” Mom Zhou clapped her hands together.
It was only later that I found out Zhou Haiyan had secretly joined the parent group chat and memorized the names of every single one of my classmates.
……
I don’t like using electronics, so at breakfast I habitually read the newspaper instead.
I reached for the paper he’d handed me and looked it over.
Bold black headline: “Shocking! Top High School Students Both Fail College Entrance Exam After Puppy Love Scandal!”
I picked up a second paper.
Another equally bold headline: “Beware! A Tragic Accident Caused by Puppy Love.”
I looked up.
Zhou Haiyan said, dead serious.
“See? I told you puppy love was bad news.”
I pointed at the two papers and said, deadpan. “Except Daily News shut down back in 2008, and Morning Herald also announced its closure in 2015.”
Him: “……”
Truly, human potential has no limits—he’d even developed a talent for forging entire newspapers.
……
The homeroom teacher said there’d be a parent-teacher meeting on Monday themed around gratitude.
This time, I wanted Mom Zhou to attend.
But she turned me down again, saying she wasn’t good with that kind of event.
Zhou Haiyan was eager, saying he had nothing but time on his hands.
But if I’d had any power to see the future, I would rather have gone alone than let Zhou Haiyan go!
At the meeting, the homeroom teacher gave speech after speech, laying the groundwork for an emotional, gratitude-themed atmosphere.
The classroom’s seating had been rearranged into a square, with parents seated and students standing directly across from them.
As the music started, everyone sang along while performing a hand gesture dance.
“I used to wonder how many times the same words needed saying before it felt like enough.
“Rarely reaching out for a hug, even smiling shyly just to save face.”
At first the students all felt fairly awkward, but as the music slowly built, with the homeroom teacher’s immersive, guiding performance beside them, the students gradually got into it, and the parents’ eyes began to glisten with tears.
……
Everyone was swept up in the emotional atmosphere.
Zhou Haiyan leaned back against his chair, chin tilted slightly upward, his gaze carrying a heat and directness unlike anything I’d seen from him before.
Our eyes met across the room, and under that stare I couldn’t help growing nervous, my heart pounding like it was about to leap out of my chest.
In a moment of carelessness, my movements fell completely out of sync. I was already lip-syncing since I sang so badly off-key that the homeroom teacher had specifically asked me to fake it, and now, with the rhythm thrown off entirely, I couldn’t get back into the mood at all.
“Singing praise to something this ordinary, a line or two can’t capture a debt as heavy as mountains, heavy as mountains—it just doesn’t sound natural.
“Looking back, saying thank you only makes the debt feel heavier somehow.
“Oh, what my mom and dad gave me was never too much, never too little, just enough to carry me through this era, just enough to get by.”
The whole classroom’s mood surged to a climax along with the music, the singing around me breaking with quiet sobs, parents’ eyes brimming with tears, sniffles echoing one after another.
Unable to cry myself, I stood there awkwardly, out of place.
Just then, amid the sea of crying, a wildly out-of-place stifled laugh suddenly rang out.
Zhou Haiyan turned his face aside, unable to hold back the smile tugging at his lips, his eyes crinkling into crescents.
Strangely, seeing him laugh, I felt a mix of embarrassment and amusement, and couldn’t help laughing along with him.
I bowed my head, staring at my shoes, shoulders shaking with laughter.
But laughter, as it turns out, is contagious.
The classmates near me also started laughing for no clear reason, tears still on their faces, laughing so hard some of them started blowing snot bubbles.
Seen from anyone else’s perspective, the scene became even funnier still.
And so more and more people started laughing too.
The emotional scene suddenly veered sharply into comedy.
The homeroom teacher, who’d been orchestrating the whole thing, wore a deeply conflicted expression.
He looked at Zhou Haiyan and me, half-pleading. “Why don’t you two step outside for a bit?”
“……”
“……”
And so, at the very first parent-teacher meeting, both a parent and a student got kicked out.
Zhou Haiyan and I wandered around the empty campus.
I hung my head low.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Wasn’t on purpose, really. You just looked way too funny, all flustered like that.”
Me: “……”