The night was deep and still. Outside the window the lights glittered, and the layered, colorful glow filtered through the glass — weaving together with the warm amber light inside the room.

Light and shadow overlapped in layers. The boy’s brows and eyes were washed in that mottled, gentle warmth, his features like something carefully sculpted, each detail precisely right. The eyes that usually held detachment and cool distance carried an emotion now that was hard to name — tender, lingering, ambiguous.

Lin Tao felt as though all capacity for thought had been stripped from her. Her mind went blank for an instant, her eyes full of bewilderment and surprise, her heartbeat spiraling out of her control — as though something had abruptly given way inside her. She was completely at a loss.

She seemed to be turning something over in her mind. After a long silence she finally remembered to speak, her voice coming out a little stilted, her tone filled with sheer disbelief. “You mean……”

Jiang Yan knew what she was going to say. He cut her off cleanly. “You’re thinking what you think you’re thinking. I posted the thread.”

“……”

Everything had gone sideways. Completely sideways.

Lin Tao had never felt anything quite like this before.

When it came to the “secret feelings” post, she’d considered all sorts of possibilities — continuing to pretend to investigate, even if there was nothing to find; waiting until a better moment down the road to come clean. She had never, not once, imagined things would unfold this way.

He was saying he was the one who posted it.

Which meant……

Lin Tao’s thought caught up with itself, and she snapped back abruptly — her dark eyes lifting and locking straight into his.

The boy’s gaze was deep, eyes holding a brightness he made no effort to conceal. He looked at her openly, with nothing hidden.

Her breath stilled for a moment. Something inside her was crying out at full volume, striking again and again against what had always been a fragile line of defense.

Lin Tao felt her breathing falter — her fingers curled inward then released, her heart beating like a drum, a faint heat breaking out across her back.

She was like someone standing at the edge of a cliff surrounded by deep sea — mist rolling in from every direction, waves churning below, a thousand-foot drop in every direction she looked, perilous and unreadable.

No retreat. Forward was the only way.

“Do you like me?” She finally asked, into the silence.

The boy looked at her without blinking. At her question, he suddenly smiled — and answered without a single beat of hesitation. “Yes.”

Jiang Yan held her gaze, his expression soft and tender. “I like you. I like you very much.”

The waves stilled. The surface of the sea went calm. The layers of mist pressing in from all sides parted and dispersed — and beyond, a clear and brilliant light burned.

Lin Tao found the path that had been hidden within the cliffside. From this point forward, there was only brightness ahead.

She looked up at him. Her lashes trembled, faintly, involuntarily. Her lips parted slightly — she wanted to say something, yet didn’t know what came next, or what she should do.

It was an answer she’d been expecting. And yet hearing it for real, Lin Tao found she still didn’t know what to do with herself, her thoughts having no shape or order at all.

The room was quiet and still. The night outside was thick and dark. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, one second after another, time flowing gently by.

After a moment, there was a helpless, resigned sigh close to her ear. Jiang Yan, unable to stop himself, spoke up. His voice carried a faint trace of laughter. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Lin Tao sat stiffly, her heartbeat thundering, feeling the pressure rise just from looking at him. “Say… what?”

He went quiet again, his gaze fixed on her, unmoving.

Lin Tao felt a tightness grip her chest. There was something she wanted to say — but when it rose to her lips she couldn’t get it out. There was only a vague sense that there were certain things that shouldn’t come from her side first.

Jiang Yan let his eyes close briefly, then looked away. The next instant he gave a low, quiet laugh — it sounded somewhere between helpless and resigned. “Trying to hear one thing I actually want to hear — why is that so difficult.”

Lin Tao said quietly, defensively, “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“You really don’t?”

He moved closer, deliberately.

“……I really don’t.” She lowered her head.

The next second, a figure closed in. Lin Tao instinctively looked up — the boy’s face was directly in front of her. She leaned back; her spine met the armrest of the couch.

Jiang Yan pressed forward, closing the distance again. His clean, faint scent was right there. He lowered his gaze, the thick dark lashes sweeping down — yet still unable to conceal the smile in his eyes. “Then I’ll teach you.”

“……” Lin Tao was completely enveloped in his presence, warmth rising everywhere as though she’d caught fire. She avoided his gaze, voice dropping low. “Who asked you to teach me.”

“Then say it yourself.” He seemed determined to see this question through.

They were impossibly close together, breath mingling.

Lin Tao had nowhere to go. She gave up trying to escape and met his eyes directly — back slightly rigid, fingers clutching at something, though she wasn’t sure whose clothes.

She looked at him. In his eyes she saw her own reflection, and a thread of tension she would have missed if she hadn’t been looking for it. The small, knotted feeling inside her suddenly loosened.

“You like me?” she asked, softly.

Even though Jiang Yan didn’t understand why she needed to ask a question she already knew the answer to again, he still followed her lead and answered: “Yes. I like you.”

“But you’ve done so many things against school rules before — fighting, skipping class, sleeping in class……” Lin Tao counted them off on her fingers, and then looked up at him. “See — you’ve done all those things before.”

“……” Jiang Yan’s expression shifted slightly. He didn’t know why she was bringing this up, and his voice dropped a little. “So what?”

“So,” Lin Tao looked at his expression — which was growing just slightly uneasy — and all at once smiled. “I think you probably wouldn’t mind doing one more.”

“?” He looked at her, puzzled.

Lin Tao felt her own heartbeat like rolling thunder. She held his gaze and refused to look away, fingers gripping tightly at something.

She’d tried her best to steady her voice. But even so, the last syllables trembled faintly from sheer nerves. “Classmate Jiang — interested in an early relationship?”

The moment her words landed, a sudden sharp blast of horns erupted from outside — urgent and piercing.

Lin Tao snapped back to herself at once, breaking eye contact, her heartbeat already a complete mess, her breath coming unsteadily.

Jiang Yan clearly hadn’t processed what she’d said. He was still frozen in place.

A long moment passed — long enough for the car horns outside to fade — before he came back to himself. He stared at her, and then he laughed.

“Alright,” he said, quietly.

What does it feel like to be with someone you love?

Lin Tao didn’t have any particular, earth-shaking feeling about it. Only a sense that every bit of luck she’d accumulated her whole life had been spent in this single moment of being with him — and even a sense that all the things that hadn’t been worth it across her sixteen-odd years, and in all the years yet to come, would be made worth it by the beauty of this one moment.

On the night she’d posted the thread, Lin Tao had imagined many possible scenes. But this one — this exact one — she hadn’t imagined.

She’d thought she’d still have a long way to go before climbing aboard the forbidden-romance ship. She’d never expected it to arrive this suddenly, this inescapably — pulling her down into depths from which there was no return.

The room was still dim.

Jiang Yan lowered his head. His fair, fine fingers hooked around hers. He leaned gradually closer, his voice low and unhurried. “You still haven’t said whether you like me.”

Lin Tao couldn’t help wanting to roll her eyes. She reached up and pinched his finger. “Isn’t it obvious enough from how I’m acting?”

I literally just agreed to be in an early relationship with you.

Does it get any more obvious than that?!

“Not obvious enough,” he said quietly.

“Oh.” Lin Tao released his hand and stated, perfectly seriously: “If you think it’s not obvious enough, it’s because you don’t like me enough.”

“……”

“I see it now — you’re just a scoundrel who deceives innocent girls and plays with their feelings.” She pointed this accusation at him with zero expression.

There was a time when Lin Tao absolutely, definitely, positively could not have said this. But now, with their relationship settled, something had shifted. She felt like she had the footing to be reckless — facing him, it was easier to say whatever nonsense came to her without restraint.

Jiang Yan: “……”

He laughed despite himself, head dipping low. Just like every other time she’d said something completely out of nowhere — no way around it, no limits to how much he’d put up with. Just let her.

In front of her, he was unlike himself.

The boy’s voice carried helplessness and, underneath it, indulgence. “Fine. Go ahead and take advantage of the fact that I like you.”

Lin Tao lifted her head. Her fair face was bathed in the hazy glow, her eyes soft and bright where the light touched them. At his words, a wash of color came up in her cheeks, her earlobes flushing pink.

Jiang Yan pressed his lips together, watching her for a few seconds — and then, unable to contain the feeling rising in his chest, reached out and pulled her toward him.

Almost nose to nose. Each the entire other’s world. Breath winding together, a charged, intimate warmth slipping quietly in.

Lin Tao had not expected him to do that. Her forearms pressed against his chest. The moment she looked up, she was met with his features inches away, and her breath seized.

“……”

She pressed her lips together, wrestled her heartbeat back down from its thundering pace, and pulled back a little. Her tone came out stiff. “Classmate Jiang, the approach you’re taking right now — it makes me feel like you’re someone who’s very well-practiced in these things.”

“Which is extremely bad for the fragile relationship we’ve only just built.”

“……”

Jiang Yan loosened his hold and leaned back, sinking into the soft couch cushions. The corner of his mouth curved up slightly. “This is my first relationship. I don’t have much experience.”

He hooked his fingers around hers, thumb kneading idly at her knuckles. His expression was unhurried and at ease. “Might as well use you to practice.”

“?”

Lin Tao pulled her hand away again, looking at him without expression. “I had actually worked myself up to worrying about what university to choose for when the college entrance exam comes — and now I realize I was thinking way too far ahead.”

She let her fingers relax, her gaze turning dispassionate, as though looking at a stranger. “We might not even make it to the end of tonight.”

At that, Jiang Yan couldn’t hold back a laugh. He dipped his head low, the line of his neck showing. When he’d laughed enough, he raised a hand and rubbed it across his face, then looked up, arm resting on the back of the couch, chin propped on his hand as he watched her. “You just said you’d been worrying about the college entrance exam — have you already thought about which school you want to go to?”

“Not before.” Lin Tao looked up at him. The mottled light fell over her, settling a layer of brilliant shimmer across the bottom of her eyes. “I have now.”

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her answer.

“I want to go to the same school as you.” Lin Tao said. “I used to always just coast along — I never had a clear plan for the future. Whether my grades were good or bad never really felt like it mattered that much. I always felt like I was living without much purpose — because I didn’t know what I wanted, or what I didn’t want.”

“But meeting you is the first time I’ve known what I want.”

“I like you. I want to be with you.” She pressed her lips together slightly, and said it with quiet certainty: “If it’s possible — I want to be with you always.”

When she finished, Jiang Yan set down the casual smile he’d been wearing and looked at her steadily. Lin Tao felt a little self-conscious and lowered her gaze.

After a long, still moment, he reached out and gently lifted her chin. Their eyes met — inevitably, completely.

“No ‘if.'” The boy’s gaze was deep, carrying something impossible to look away from. “We will always be together.”