After pressing off the alarm, Xia Li lay blinking for a while, the sensation of waking arriving only gradually.

When it registered where she actually was — Yan Sishi’s apartment — she sat bolt upright.

She changed quickly, folded her pajamas neatly and tucked them back into the suitcase, then opened the door.

She had thought she was up fairly early. Yan Sishi was earlier.

He was standing at the kitchen counter, dressed in a white dress shirt and grey trousers — understated tones that made him look entirely removed from the ordinary world.

He was holding a slender silver-necked kettle, pouring water in a slow, careful stream over the filter paper in a pour-over coffee dripper.

“Morning.” Xia Li walked over. “You’re up so early.”

Yan Sishi glanced up. His gaze rested on her face for only the briefest possible moment.

“Morning.” He said in an even tone. “Breakfast?”

Xia Li looked at the takeout paper bag on the dining table. “Let me wash up first.”

After washing up, Xia Li brought her things out of the bathroom and returned to the guest room.

The contents of the bag had already been set out — on two white plates: a bacon and egg toast roll, and a seafood and cheese egg crepe with cabbage.

Yan Sishi set a cup of coffee at her elbow. “Sugar?”

“No.” Xia Li took it by the handle and brought it to her lips for a sip. “Bitter is better for waking up — working people don’t get to have sugar.”

She looked up and caught what appeared to be a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes. She hadn’t been imagining it.

After breakfast, Xia Li volunteered to wash the plates and coffee cups, but Yan Sishi declined and told her to simply pack up her suitcase.

She had already packed it long ago. She pulled it out now and settled into the living room sofa to wait.

Looking across the dining area toward the open kitchen, she watched the figure in the morning light — pale and clear. Even the sound of the running water seemed pleasant.

In under twenty minutes, the car pulled up to the business park and descended into the underground garage, parking near the elevator for the building where Xia Li’s company was located.

The car came to a stop. Xia Li unclipped her seatbelt and asked Yan Sishi to unlock the trunk.

“You can leave it in the car and pick it up after work,” he said.

“I’ll probably be working late tonight, and I don’t know how late.” Xia Li smiled. “I really can’t keep imposing on you.”

Yan Sishi looked at her for a moment, then ultimately said nothing further.

He walked to the back of the car and lifted the suitcase out for her.

Xia Li took it, started rolling it forward — then remembered something and quickly turned back, pulling open the rear passenger door.

The bouquet had spent the night there. It was no longer as fresh as the day before, but it was like a beautiful face grown languid — still lovely.

Xia Li gathered the flowers into her arms. Yan Sishi naturally took the rolling suitcase from her hand.

They walked toward the elevator together. The roses, one night old, carried a fragrance that had deepened.

From the corner of her eye she glanced at Yan Sishi beside her. A question had been lodged in her chest, avoided all of yesterday — and now it had circled back, nagging at her until she needed to say it.

She turned it over in her mind, deliberating — all the way to the elevator lobby.

They stepped inside. Xia Li pressed the floor button. She looked sideways at his reflection in the polished elevator wall, drew a quiet breath, and finally spoke: “There’s something I want to ask.”

Yan Sishi looked down at her. “Yes?”

“You gave me flowers — is it because I gave Teacher Dai flowers?”

Yan Sishi paused.

Just the two of them in the space. After she said that, the air seemed to thin by two degrees.

“That’s one reason…”

Before he could reach “reason number two,” the elevator reached the ground floor.

The doors sprang open, pulling them back at once into the morning of a working day.

Outside stood seven or eight people waiting to board, and among them — Song Qiao’an.

The scene inside the elevator made Song Qiao’an’s eyes widen slightly.

Yan Sishi’s office was in a different building. He said a quiet word of goodbye to Xia Li and stepped out of the elevator.

As he passed Song Qiao’an, he didn’t spare him a glance.

Song Qiao’an got on, squeezed in beside Xia Li, and looked down at the bouquet in her arms and the silver rolling suitcase at her side.

“…Did you two come in together?” He gave a quiet laugh as he asked.

Xia Li didn’t want to, and didn’t feel any particular need to, explain herself to Song Qiao’an. She simply said, “Mm.”

Song Qiao’an didn’t press further — because as Yan Sishi had passed him stepping out of the elevator, he had caught a brief trace of fragrance, and it was precisely the same as what Xia Li’s hair carried now.

For the entire rest of that day, the bouquet sitting beside Xia Li’s computer prompted no shortage of questions.

To every one of them, she gave the same answer: a classmate gave it to her. Not a single detail more.

As for Song Qiao’an — Xia Li was certain he had drawn his own conclusions, and likely quietly confirmed them for himself, because the particular attentiveness that had made her uncomfortable so many times had simply evaporated.

Though, thinking about it more carefully, it hadn’t been entirely sudden.

Ever since the team-building outing a while back, Song Qiao’an had noticeably cooled. She didn’t know what had happened that day, and she wasn’t curious enough to ask.

Now that the two of them had returned to a plain, simple colleague dynamic, it suited her just fine.

Toward the end of the month, Xia Li was scrolling through her Moments feed when she saw that Tao Shiyue had posted a new update — geotagged at the Beicheng airport.

She still owed Tao Shiyue a meal, and she reached out on the spot, asking how many days she was in Beicheng and whether she’d be free to get together for dinner.

Tao Shiyue replied that there was actually someone else who owed her dinner too, and suggested they might as well go as a group.

Then she created a group chat.

Three people. The third member was no surprise to Xia Li — it was Yan Sishi.

Tao Shiyue sent a message in the group: Only here for three days and my schedule is absolutely packed, so sorry I can’t do separate dinners. Tomorrow night is my only free evening — does that work for you two?

Xia Li said she could make it and asked if Tao Shiyue had any particular restaurant in mind.

Tao Shiyue said she did — just not sure if they’d be able to get a reservation.

She sent along the restaurant’s location.

About a few minutes later, Yan Sishi, who had been silent in the group, replied: Reservation’s done.

SayaTAO: …You’re still the type who just gets things done quietly.

Sherry: See you both tomorrow evening then?

SayaTAO: I’m bringing someone — hope you don’t mind?

Sherry: Boyfriend?

SayaTAO: Yep.

After the group chat wound down, Xia Li received a private message from Yan Sishi.

YAN: Let’s go together tomorrow evening.

Sherry: Sure.

The following day was a workday. Xia Li expected to work late, so the plan was to head straight to dinner with Tao Shiyue and finish the night working from home.

Shortly after the regular end of the workday, she got a WeChat message from Yan Sishi saying he was already in the underground garage and would be pulling up to the park entrance momentarily.

Xia Li packed up her things and headed downstairs.

The park entrance at that hour was a chaotic tangle of cars and people.

She spotted Yan Sishi’s black SUV and walked briskly toward it, pulling the door open.

A wave of cool air rushed out to meet her.

Yan Sishi noticed that she had settled into her seat and clipped her seatbelt — and that resting on her lap besides her bag was a neatly wrapped gift bag. “A gift for Tao Shiyue?”

“Yes. Just a small thing.”

She was always this thoughtful.

Rush hour traffic meant the journey took nearly forty minutes.

By the time they parked and walked into the restaurant, Tao Shiyue and her boyfriend were already there.

“Sorry, sorry — traffic was a bit bad.” Xia Li sat down and passed over the gift bag.

“Oh, a present!” Tao Shiyue looked genuinely delighted as she took it.

Once everyone was seated, Tao Shiyue introduced her boyfriend to Xia Li and Yan Sishi.

Tao Shiyue had grown into someone radiant and self-possessed, and the slight air of superiority she had carried in school had been entirely shed — she was warm and vivid now. Her boyfriend suited her well. Both were based in Hong Kong; he worked in securities investment, went by Dev, and had the look and bearing of someone thoroughly polished. His personality ran to the same warm, outgoing register as hers — and though this was his first time meeting them, a few words in and the whole table had an easy, lively atmosphere going.

“This is Xia Li — my high school classmate, we were in the same class before I transferred to the international track.” Tao Shiyue then turned toward Yan Sishi and said to Dev, “And this is Yan Sishi, whom I’ve mentioned to you — the person I had a crush on in high school.”

Dev actually reached out a hand to Yan Sishi and said with a smile: “A pleasure.”

Yan Sishi shook it. “Likewise.”

Xia Li felt the whole scene was quite surreal.

Did spending time abroad make everyone more effortlessly at ease with things like this?

She seemed to be the only one at the table who, hearing Tao Shiyue introduce Yan Sishi in the same casual tone one might use to mention a celebrity crush, had nearly choked on her tea.

She thought — even ten years from now, she probably couldn’t stand in Yan Sishi’s presence and introduce him to someone else as: the person I used to have a secret crush on.

She couldn’t do it.

With Tao Shiyue and Dev both naturally good at keeping conversation going, there was no question of awkward silences. Recent developments, gossip, industry inside stories — everything was fair game.

Tao Shiyue had heard from her mother about Dai Shufang’s visit to Beicheng for surgery, and made a point of asking Yan Sishi how Dai Shufang was doing.

The dinner went on for nearly two hours.

At the end, Yan Sishi picked up the bill, went to get the car from the garage, and the other three waited at the door.

It was only then that Tao Shiyue sidled up to Xia Li with a smile. “So what’s going on with you two?”

“…Hard to say.”

“That means there is something going on?”

Xia Li smiled, not denying it.

“You’ll have to come visit me in Hong Kong when you have time — we can sit down properly and you can tell me everything. I’m dying of curiosity. How did you two manage to get tangled up with each other?”

Tao Shiyue, having spent time abroad, now had a rather candid way of putting things.

“If I had to call it something,” Xia Li said, “chance, I suppose.”

Tao Shiyue studied her for a moment. “Can I ask you something — you don’t have to answer if it feels too personal. Is what you feel for him something that’s been there all along, or is this a fresh start now that you’ve met again?”

Xia Li smiled. “That’s a hard question to answer. Anyway — you’re clearly long over it, I take it.”

She had heard, through various channels, that Tao Shiyue had never gone very long without someone in her life, and had changed partners with remarkable ease.

That girl who had sung tearfully — I miss him too, we’re all the same — had long since walked a very different road.

Tao Shiyue shrugged. “He vanished off the face of the earth. Was I supposed to fall for thin air? And besides, looking back now, I’d find it exhausting to like someone like Yan Sishi. He never says anything — you’d never know what he’s thinking, and you can’t run a relationship entirely on telepathy.”

Xia Li smiled quietly.

“And being with someone like him, the woman always ends up doing more of the reaching. On top of that, he has a history — what if he gets unhappy one day and cuts off contact and disappears again?”

“Would he?” Xia Li asked with a light laugh.

“That’s just me talking out of nowhere. Don’t take the omen seriously,” Tao Shiyue said with a laugh.

Yan Sishi’s car appeared at the curb.

Tao Shiyue and Dev were staying at a hotel not far from the restaurant, so Yan Sishi dropped them off first.

At the hotel entrance, Tao Shiyue and her boyfriend got out and thanked Yan Sishi.

Yan Sishi put on his hazard lights, opened his car door, and told Tao Shiyue he’d like to take one minute of her time, to ask her something in private.

Tao Shiyue glanced at Dev, then joked: “Oh no — is he having a sudden change of heart and about to confess to me?”

Yan Sishi got out of the car and walked with Tao Shiyue a short distance away, putting some space between them and the vehicle.

Tao Shiyue smiled. “What did you want to ask?”

Yan Sishi said, “This might seem a bit out of nowhere. Back then — did you ever give me a magazine?”

“I gave you something and you can’t even remember…” Tao Shiyue paused. “Secretly? Anonymously?”

Yan Sishi nodded.

“Since when have I ever done anything for you in secret? I always did things openly, I practically shoved them at you — besides, why would you even suspect me?”

But Yan Sishi had already stopped speaking further.

It had been a copy of Cinema: Midnight Screening — left on his desk while he wasn’t in the classroom.

There had been a small note tucked inside.

He still remembered exactly what it said:

Film is the antidote to life.

Nice weather today. I hope you’re in good spirits.

The note had been signed with a single letter: S.

As things stood, among everyone he knew from high school, only two people had English names beginning with S — though of course it was also possible that neither of them was the one, and that S was simply the first letter of someone’s surname.

And if it hadn’t been Tao Shiyue.

Was it her?

He cast a glance toward the car parked ahead, hazard lights still blinking quietly.

Or rather —

Did he hope it was her?