The girl, crushed by Lin Tao’s immovable authority, flushed with surprise and embarrassment, pulled her friend away, and left. On her way out she couldn’t resist muttering under her breath: “She’s terrifying.”

Her friend patted her arm consolingly. “Think about it with your toes — you don’t get to sit next to the school tyrant by being anything less. And they’ve gone from desk partners to a full-blown couple, so she obviously can’t afford to lack presence.”

Lin Tao: “?”

“……”

She didn’t give their words further thought. Lin Tao waited until they were well out of range, then grabbed Jiang Yan’s arm with both hands, her disbelief written clearly on her face. “So THIS is why you didn’t want me to come along?”

Jiang Yan put his phone away, glanced at the hand she had wrapped around his arm, and smiled. “Didn’t I tell you to rest in the classroom?”

“……” Lin Tao’s fingers curled slightly and pinched the flesh of his arm. Her voice was fierce. “Don’t change the subject. I know now — you didn’t join the basketball tournament to rehabilitate your image at all.”

“?”

“You joined to attract admirers.” Lin Tao released his arm with the air of someone who had given up on the world, her tone philosophical. “Men — they always want what they can’t have.”

“……”

Jiang Yan had just finished playing. His forehead was damp with sweat, and his hair at the ends had a slight sheen to it. He reached up to push back the loose strands falling over his forehead, revealing his sharp brow bone, and spoke in a tone that was casual and entirely unhurried. “Who else do I need to attract?”

He leaned down toward her, the warm energy radiating off him — the clean, cool scent of a young man like cedar in snow — pressing in from every direction. His voice dropped low. “The best one is already firmly in my grasp.”

The low register of his voice hit Lin Tao like a current, leaving her tingling from head to toe. She took a distinctly uncomfortable step backward, but still somehow managed to get a retort out through gritted teeth. “You insufferable man.”

“……”

Jiang Yan gave a quiet laugh, straightened up, and let his shadow fall across most of the light in front of her. His tone was fond and indulgent. “Fine, call me insufferable. But who is it that has me so thoroughly leashed?”

“……”

Lin Tao genuinely did not know where this person had learned all these lines that made her ears flush hot and her heart race, and somehow he seemed to come up with new ones every day.

Not just that — she could never out-flirt him. That was the worst of it.

Boys and girls were gathered in rings several people deep around them. Quite a few gazes had drifted in their direction. Jiang Yan — about as useful as a decorative screen — stood in front of her, looked down at her, and said: “Heading back?”

“Are you still playing?”

Jiang Yan checked the time. There was still a while before class. “Let’s play one more.”

“Then I’ll wait here for you.” Lin Tao kept her hands tucked in her pockets and teased him deliberately. “And keep an eye on you.”

Jiang Yan gave a low, amused sound and handed his phone to her. “Keep all the eyes on me you want.”

The guys quickly returned to the court.

Lin Tao stood to one side holding his phone. After a while, Meng Xin received a message from a classmate and headed off early.

The cheering on the court continued in swells, one wave chasing the next. The young man in his red jersey, tall and agile, wove fluidly through the other players. The orange ball left his hands in one pass after another.

His perfectly in-sync teammate caught it, jumped from a standstill, and sank a beautiful three-pointer.

The screams of delight crested at a new peak.

The young man ran over and slapped his teammate’s palm, the joints of his hand sharp and clear. He reached back to rake his fingers through his hair, his even features laid bare, bright sunlight making each person glow — such youthful, unrestrained energy.

The boldness and vitality of youth at its finest.

Lin Tao looked on, and before she could stop herself, raised her phone and took a photo.

……

The unofficial scrimmage drew to a close amid a crescendo of cheering.

Jiang Yan tossed the ball to Hu Hanghang and tugged up the hem of his jersey to fan himself. A trim, lean strip of his torso flickered in and out of view.

His face was slick with sweat, dripping down his cheek to gather at his chin. His jaw shifted as he spoke, and sweat fell to the ground. “We’ll sort out the specifics when we get back.”

He turned and walked over to Lin Tao in a few steps, slightly breathless. “Any water?”

“Mine. Half gone already.” Lin Tao held out the bottle she’d been drinking. “Want it?”

“Yeah.” He took it, twisted it open, and drank. He held it in hand as they walked. “Let’s go back.”

The two of them headed out of the court, one slightly ahead of the other.

It was early spring. The parasol trees lining both sides of the shaded path were putting out new growth, delicate green leaves swaying in the breeze. Two figures walked beneath them — sometimes close, sometimes a breath apart. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and broke into patches of shifting light and shadow. The wind was soft and warm. The world felt quiet and just right.

The first class of the afternoon was physics. Old Yang kept up his characteristic rapid-fire pace as he introduced the new topic, his delivery like a machine gun with the safety off — rattling on without pause.

Lin Tao hadn’t rested at lunch and wasn’t feeling sharp. She pushed through and tried to listen for a while, but couldn’t hold out against the drowsiness and ended up face-down on her desk, fast asleep.

Jiang Yan hadn’t noticed at first. By the time he did, she was already deep in sleep — eyelids closed, her curved lashes fluttering faintly, breathing even and deep.

He watched for a moment, then turned his attention back. His gaze drifted to the notebook spread open on her desk. He thought for a second, then reached over and picked it up.

Lin Tao’s handwriting was beautiful and bold.

The characters were neat and well-spaced, each stroke confident and sweeping, with strength in the lines — at first glance, it didn’t look like a girl’s handwriting at all.

Jiang Yan flipped through it casually, then continued from where she had left off.

He didn’t often take notes — usually he just marked up his textbooks here and there. But Lin Tao was different. Physics was her weak subject, so her notes were written in careful detail. Having quickly looked them over, though, Jiang Yan could see she had repeated a lot of content, and her treatment of certain formulas and their derivations was overly drawn out.

He jotted down a few key points in his own clean style, then picked up a red pen and began marking up what she’d already written.

Lin Tao woke up to find him still at it, pen moving.

Outside the window, the sunlight was bright and strong, streaming in with clarity, settling over the young man and wrapping all around him. The angle of his profile was flawless — as though every line had been calibrated to perfection. His brow bone was sharp, his eye socket deep, the corner of his eye traced into a small, precise curve. Light and shadow pooled along the bridge of his straight, high nose. His lips were thin and just faintly flushed, pressed into a line, his jaw taut and cool.

He was looking down, his pale hand gripping a black pen — white and black, strikingly distinct — his expression focused.

Lin Tao’s gaze drifted downward and only then did she notice he had been writing in her notebook all this time. She propped herself up and leaned in closer, voice still carrying the lazy haze of someone freshly woken. “You’re helping me take notes?”

Jiang Yan glanced at her, released his grip for a moment and flexed the space between his thumb and forefinger, then picked the pen back up. “You’re doing well in math — so why can’t you manage physics?”

Lin Tao licked the corner of her mouth and answered honestly: “Because physics is hard.”

“……” Jiang Yan set down his pen and looked at her. “Math isn’t?”

“It’s hard too. But not as hard as physics.”

Lin Tao had once seen a forum post where people were asked: if you could eliminate one subject from the college entrance exam, which would you choose?

She had answered physics without hesitation.

Thinking of the forum reminded her that she’d been too busy lately and hadn’t updated that post in a while.

Since she had nothing to do at the moment, she got out her phone and logged into the forum.

It had only been about half a month since she’d checked, but the comment count at the bottom of the post had grown by three or four thousand, and the likes were approaching a million.

This had as much traffic as some of the biggest Q&A platforms in the country.

Lin Tao clicked into the post. It took a moment before she thought of anything to update. On a whim, she tapped into her photo gallery, thinking she’d post a meme.

The gallery opened to the most recent hundred photos, and sitting at the very top was the one Lin Tao had taken of Jiang Yan at the court during lunch.

In the frozen frame, a young man in a flame-red jersey — features striking, figure tall and straight, a captured instant of motion, youth leaving its mark on every passing second.

Lin Tao, moved by something she couldn’t quite explain, tapped into the photo and started editing. She erased the surrounding people until only the frame of the photo remained, then placed a ridiculous sticker over Jiang Yan’s face — and posted it.

Before this, people in the comments had occasionally drawn fan art of the two of them based on the content Lin Tao had shared — though most of it had been imagined rather than based on reality, so the resemblance to the real thing was rather far off.

The moment the photo went up, the notification alerts didn’t stop. The numbers on comments and likes climbed at a visible rate —

AAAAAAAAA I’m dead!! Just from that tiny bit of jaw showing I can already tell he’s a total dreamboat!!

His skin is SO white oh my god!!

AAAAAAA THE MALE LEAD SHOWED HIS WAIST!! IS OUR GIRL FINALLY COMING?!

Oh my GOD this WAIST I am LOSING IT (prairie dog screaming!!)

I need the version without the sticker. Crystal clear. Unfiltered. (hint hint hint)

Just another day as a sour little lemon 🙂

I’m covering my mouth so I don’t make a sound like a dog T-T

It’s fine, being single is fine. Whatever. [woman of dignity does not easily shed tears.jpg]

Other people’s stories [smiling peacefully after life has roughed me up.jpg]

I’m used to it.

Other people’s desk partners are always attractive, good at school, good at basketball, and completely devoted — mine, on the other hand… never mind. Let’s not go there.

……

Lin Tao had grinned her way through these comments more than once. Jiang Yan had noticed before that she often looked at something and laughed to herself, but he had never paid it much mind.

After enough time, even someone with no curiosity would develop some.

He set down his pen, rolled his wrist slowly, and asked in a quiet voice: “What are you looking at?”

Lin Tao, of course, heard him — and startled like someone caught red-handed. She shoved the phone behind her back at lightning speed, eyes darting away from his face. “Nothing. Just browsing.”

Jiang Yan looked at her with amusement, his brow tilting upward, tone unhurried. “You know what you look like right now?”

“…What?”

“You look like……” He watched her, a meaningful, drawn-out smile tugging at the corner of his eye, deliberately stretching the syllables. “Someone who’s done something behind my back that they can’t show anyone.”

“……”

“And it has to do with me, specifically.”

“……”

It wasn’t exactly something shameful to post on a forum, but the content did involve him. Lin Tao was feeling somewhat exposed. She touched her nose, looked away, and scrambled to deny it. “No I didn’t, I haven’t, you’re making things up —”

Before she could finish, something flashed at the edge of her vision. The young man’s hand shot toward her unexpectedly, and she barely had time to react. “……”

She managed to keep the phone clutched firmly to herself — he didn’t get it. But in the chaos of it all, both of them had forgotten they were still in the middle of class.

Teacher Old Yang had not stayed up at the lectern. He was already standing right in front of them, a smile on his face with blades behind it. “What are you two wrestling over? Hmm? You two in the back — what are you doing instead of paying attention?”

Lin Tao: “……”

Jiang Yan: “……”

Old Yang was nothing like Old Yu when it came to being managed. He didn’t even give Lin Tao or Jiang Yan time to explain. His gaze swept over both of them and settled on Lin Tao. He extended his hand with the directness of someone who already knew everything. “Hand it over.”

When Lin Tao had scrambled to stand up, she had grabbed the phone and held it behind her back on instinct. Now there was nowhere to conceal it. She could only smile awkwardly and play innocent. “Teacher Yang, what do you mean?”

“Don’t try to play games with me,” Old Yang said. “Hand it over now, and I won’t say anything more about it.”

“……”

A three-way standoff stretched for a moment.

Lin Tao crumbled. Head lowered, she surrendered the phone. “Teacher Yang, I was wrong. I shouldn’t be on my phone in class.”

Jiang Yan stepped in to cover for her. “Teacher Yang, it’s not her fault. My phone ran out of battery, so I asked her to look something up for me.”

Old Yang glanced at them both. “Looking something up, is that right?”

Jiang Yan nodded. “That’s right.”

“All right.” Old Yang held the phone out toward Lin Tao.

Lin Tao’s heart leaped with relief. She hadn’t even managed to reach for it before Old Yang’s voice dropped into a cool, flat conclusion: “Unlock it. I’d like to see exactly what information you were looking up.”

Lin Tao: “……”

God help me.

Lin Tao’s every instinct screamed in protest, but circumstances gave her no room to maneuver. She had no choice but to reach out and unlock it.

She still clung to a thin thread of hope, though. She’d only been scrolling through the forum. Even if Old Yang saw the page, he wouldn’t think to connect it to her. The worst that could happen was a lecture.

With that framing in place, her anxiety eased somewhat.

Throughout the unlock process, the phone remained in Old Yang’s hand the entire time. Once it was open, he looked down at the screen — and his expression shifted into something very difficult to read.

Lin Tao was baffled. It was just an advice and venting forum. Surely that didn’t warrant this kind of reaction.

She and Jiang Yan exchanged a glance. He looked equally confused.

Jiang Yan didn’t actually know what she’d been looking at — but by any reasonable guess, it was probably pictures of handsome celebrities, or at the most, a novel she’d been reading.

Whatever it was, he could find a way to explain it.

What he hadn’t anticipated.

What Lin Tao hadn’t anticipated.

What Old Yang certainly hadn’t anticipated.

Life has a way of exceeding expectations.

After a beat of silence, Old Yang raised his head. This time, however, he looked at Jiang Yan — with an expression entirely unreadable. “You’re certain you had Lin Tao looking things up for you?”

“You’re certain she was looking something up?”

“You’re certain the thing she was looking up was for you?”

Three pointed questions, each enunciated clearly. Jiang Yan felt his footing wobble a little. After a pause, he nodded cautiously. “Yes, I asked her to look it up for me.”

The moment Jiang Yan confirmed it, Old Yang’s expression grew even more indescribable.

After a moment, he let out a sigh. The look he gave Jiang Yan became increasingly layered with things that could not quite be named. “Stop by Teacher Yu’s office when class is over. This is not a small matter.”

Both Jiang Yan and Lin Tao were bewildered.

Old Yang placed the phone on the desk, turned, and walked back toward the lectern.

The two of them moved in identical sync — heads down, eyes on the phone.

The screen was still on the forum Lin Tao had been browsing. But whether it had been tapped by accident during the scuffle, the post on display was no longer the one she had been reading. It had been replaced by a different one — the title front and center, impossible to miss:

Why can’t a boy like another boy?

Jiang Yan: “?”

“……”

God help me.

Author’s Note: Brother Yan: Why can’t a boy like another boy 🙂