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Li Kuiyi could hardly believe she had actually given that bouquet of flowers to He Youyuan. She sat now at her desk, her backpack still strapped to her back, replaying over and over in her mind what had just happened downstairs. The weight of the backpack gave her a kind of grounding sensation, keeping her from drifting loose, anchoring her in the real world.

By the seventh time she replayed it, she finally lowered her head helplessly onto the desk and resigned herself to the truth: she had given the flowers to He Youyuan.

She didn’t know if what she had done was right or wrong. She reached over and swept a piece of scratch paper off the desk, picked up a pen, and drew a simple coordinate grid on it — she would assess the pros and cons of her decision using a SWOT analysis. But she had barely written a few points before she set the pen down in defeat. The decision had already been made. What was the point of evaluating it now?

She had made a pinky promise with He Youyuan. She couldn’t go back on it.

Thinking of He Youyuan, Li Kuiyi kicked off her slippers and climbed onto the bed. She leaned over to the window at the edge of the bed, poked her head out and looked down. Her bedroom window was at an angle to the path leading to the compound’s main gate; if He Youyuan was leaving, she should be able to see him.

She just didn’t know if he’d already gone.

She sighed. She had said “I hate you” — would he understand what it meant? Li Kuiyi grew anxious again. What if he actually thought she hated him? Then the result would be the complete opposite of what she’d intended.

He Youyuan, He Youyuan — surely you’re not that foolish?

Just as Li Kuiyi was fretting over He Youyuan’s intelligence, a bicycle came whooshing past below, light and quick as a breeze. She knew the figure on it instantly — young and striking, full of youth — and heard him let out a triumphant “whoop!” as he tossed the bouquet high into the air and caught it cleanly, a burst of unguarded, unpolished youthfulness that made the passersby on the street turn to look.

He was that happy, was he.

So you’re not so foolish after all, He Youyuan.

Li Kuiyi couldn’t help smiling too, watching the young man’s silhouette disappear into the night. He drew her in — bright and clean, full of wild ideas, romantic and clear-eyed, reckless and vivid.

Fine. No more SWOT analysis needed. She’d given him this answer, and given it she had. She didn’t regret it.

But they were still in high school, and practical matters still had to be considered. Li Kuiyi stepped away from the window and returned to her desk. She crossed out the coordinate grid on the scratch paper and wrote a few fresh words in its place — three binding terms — then put a colon after them with great deliberation.

She wrote quickly for a good while, finally finishing all the terms she wanted to set with He Youyuan. She carefully copied the list out neatly onto a clean sheet of paper, folded it, and tucked it into the pocket of her school uniform jacket. As it was the first day back at school, the teachers hadn’t yet started assigning homework. She finished washing up early, picked up her phone, and got into bed.

She opened her phone to find, as expected, messages from He Youyuan. He wasn’t saying anything in particular — just repeatedly poking her on QQ. Their chat window bounced and wobbled from all his pokes, like the erratic, thumping heartbeat of a young man in the grip of feelings.

What was wrong with this person?

He was too embarrassed to say anything, and she was equally too embarrassed to start — so the poking went on and on, until Li Kuiyi grew fed up and snapped at him: “Stop poking! Go to sleep!”

He Youyuan: “Okay.”

Very obedient, Li Kuiyi thought.

Then the next second.

He Youyuan: “Goodnight night~”

Li Kuiyi was instantly covered in goosebumps. “Goodnight” was normal. “Goodnight~” was barely acceptable. But “Goodnight night~” — what on earth? When did he start repeating words like a toddler?

Ugh. Revolting.

If she’d known her confession would unlock this kind of “puppy-speak” in him, she would never have said she liked him. She regretted it. She truly regretted it.

Li Kuiyi: Can you please not talk like that? Be normal.

He Youyuan: No. Other people all talk like this.

“Other people” — who exactly? Surely not… couples?

Li Kuiyi: How would you know how other people talk?

He Youyuan: Seriously, Zhang Chuang talks to his girlfriend like this.

Li Kuiyi saw the word “girlfriend” and immediately panicked: “I’m not!”

He Youyuan: Fine, I won’t say it for now.

He Youyuan: It’s only a matter of time though. I’m not in a rush.

What did “only a matter of time” mean? Li Kuiyi was genuinely at a loss with him. She flung down one last “going to sleep” and switched off her phone. Then thought about it and felt uneasy, turned it back on, and typed a warning: “At school, you’d better behave yourself. Don’t you dare…”

Don’t dare what?

Li Kuiyi thought carefully, and finally landed on the perfect phrase: “Don’t go wagging your tail everywhere!”

He Youyuan: …

He Youyuan: What kind of insult is that?

Accurate, though. That’s exactly what you are.

Satisfied that she’d described him with flawless precision, Li Kuiyi turned off her phone with great self-satisfaction, crawled under the covers, and went to sleep.

The next day she came to the classroom carrying soy milk and two steamed buns. As she walked in, she felt eyes on her from the back of the room. She pretended not to notice, staring straight ahead as she made her way to her seat and got started on breakfast. By the time she’d finished, she discovered that her desk cubby had also been stuffed with breakfast — warm milk, seaweed and shrimp crackers, and a packet of mixed nuts.

…What exactly made him think that sneaking her breakfast didn’t count as wagging his tail?

Not wanting to be wasteful, she ate his breakfast too, and ended up feeling uncomfortably full — she spent the entire early reading period standing up.

Still, He Youyuan did listen to her. At school, he largely made no effort to come near her. When they passed each other in the corridor, he would turn his face pointedly to one side, pretending not to see her, and stride past with a great swagger — anyone who didn’t know better would think the two of them had some kind of feud.

He didn’t need to be quite so… deliberate about it.

That evening, after tutoring ended, Li Kuiyi felt she had a lot she wanted to say to him, so she told him she didn’t want to ride the bicycle today and would rather walk home. He Youyuan’s lips curved knowingly: it was just that she wanted to spend more time with him, wasn’t it?

She was stubborn like that.

Fortunately he knew she was stubborn — otherwise, how would he ever have read the true meaning behind that “I hate you”?

“I hate you!”

No one else could have understood that, in his ears, those were the most stirring words of affection he’d ever heard — the most exquisite form of coyness, delivered in her own distinct way.

Li Kuiyi, Li Kuiyi — you really are impossibly, adorably contrary.

“Let’s go.” He Youyuan slung his backpack over one shoulder and looked at her sidelong with a gleam of contentment.

Walking through the school grounds, she was a few steps ahead and he pushed his bicycle behind her. Even without speaking, the silence wasn’t heavy. Being with the person you like is just like that — quiet and still comfortable, every step made worthwhile.

Once they were outside the school gates, He Youyuan took two quick strides to catch up and walked beside her.

“Don’t bring me breakfast anymore,” Li Kuiyi muttered. “What if people notice?”

“They won’t. I come early.”

“Still, you don’t have to. I can buy breakfast on my way in every morning from the stalls along the road. It’s very convenient.”

He Youyuan refused to budge: “No. When we’re at school, we’re basically just ordinary classmates — we can barely exchange a word. You eating my breakfast is the one way I have of showing that we’re not ordinary classmates.”

Li Kuiyi couldn’t follow his logic: “Why does it matter so much, at school, to show that we’re not ordinary classmates?”

He said calmly: “Otherwise I feel insecure.”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

Fine. Let him do as he pleased. The money she saved from not buying breakfast could be put toward little gifts for him. Both sides would benefit.

Li Kuiyi was quiet for a moment, then opened her mouth to speak again. Before she could get a word out, He Youyuan rubbed his nose and asked, with a tone that was neither particularly light nor heavy: “Hey… what is it about me that you like?”

How does a person have the nerve to ask a question like that?

This person was truly… too smug.

Li Kuiyi gave a soft snort: “Who said I liked you?”

A low laugh escaped from his throat, warm with delight, as though tiny flowers were blooming one by one in the darkness of the night: “Then why did you give me flowers?”

“Does giving someone flowers automatically mean liking them?” Li Kuiyi kept her head high and played stubborn.

“In my understanding it does.”

“Think whatever you want.”

Li Kuiyi didn’t want to keep talking to him. She was afraid that if they kept going, he’d eventually coax the words “I like you” straight out of her mouth — and she was not like him, so thick-skinned that those four words rolled off his tongue as easily as breathing.

“I like you” — to her, it was deeply mortifying to say.

But she still wanted him to know how she felt. So she had given him a bouquet of flowers, and in the world of human beings, flowers always carry feelings within them — didn’t they?

“He Youyuan.” She called his name suddenly, her voice turned muffled with shyness.

“Mm?”

“Do you know why I had you sing ‘Red Bean’ all the way to the end that day?” Li Kuiyi stopped walking and summoned her courage to lift her eyes and look at him.

He Youyuan stopped too. He recalled what she had said at the time, and his heart still stirred from the memory: “You said — that from now on, whenever you heard ‘Red Bean,’ you’d think of me.”

“Yes.” Li Kuiyi nodded, then started walking again, her steps light: “But it wasn’t only to remember you. It was also to remember that moment.”

That moment — the one that had made her feel happy.

She walked on, speaking softly: “While I was living through that moment, I had a feeling — a premonition — that I would miss it someday. And every time I missed it, I’d feel that life was beautiful. It was as if I were creating a save point in my memory, and ‘Red Bean’ would be the trigger — a song that could bring me back to that moment, no matter what circumstances I found myself in, restoring me to full strength.”

Her throat tightened slightly as she spoke, because there was a risk in saying this — it made her seem overly sentimental. If he couldn’t understand this feeling, he might even find her dramatic.

But He Youyuan understood what she meant.

Once a person becomes aware that they are happy, they begin to fear losing it. And perhaps for that very reason, people who are in the midst of happiness often feel the urge to cry.

So she had cleverly used a particular method, in an attempt to preserve that kind of moment permanently.

Li Kuiyi continued: “Once I realized I would someday miss this present moment, I wanted to feel it more intensely — the freedom, the ease, the joy that this moment was giving me.”

Like on New Year’s Eve, when she had suddenly become aware of her own young body and wanted to seize the chance to feel the full force of its living warmth. She wanted to catch every precious hour that life had placed in her hands.

“Do you understand?” Li Kuiyi felt her breathing quicken slightly. “He Youyuan — that is why I gave you the flowers.”