Lin Zhexia’s attention returned: “Oh.”

Chi Yao lowered his hand and said, “Hold onto me.”

The corridor was crowded.

Lin Zhexia knew his words likely had no other meaning; he was just afraid she might follow the crowd in the wrong direction again.

She slowly grabbed Chi Yao’s sleeve: “It’s not like I don’t know how to walk.”

Chi Yao led the way: “So you do know how to walk. I thought you were sleepwalking.”

“…”

The couples around them were all holding hands as they entered, with her and Chi Yao wedged in between.

After walking into the theater, the lights suddenly dimmed, leaving only the large screen in front illuminated.

Lin Zhexia lowered her head, using the light to look at her hand gripping Chi Yao’s sleeve.

Chi Yao never paid much attention to warmth when dressing, and the jacket he wore today wasn’t particularly thick, so she could even feel a faint hint of body heat and the bones beneath the fabric.

She nervously moved her fingers.

Although she and Chi Yao weren’t holding hands like the people around them. But. Rounding things up, this could count as holding on, right?

Lin Zhexia held onto Chi Yao’s sleeve as they made their way through the side steps to find their seats.

He Yang stretched his arms and said, “While the ads are still playing, I’ll edit the photo first.”

“It’s not that I’m impatient,” He Yang explained, “I just want to get it over with. Every second I think about this photo, I get goosebumps.”

Lin Zhexia had no time to care about what He Yang was saying.

She sat next to Chi Yao, feeling awkward.

“Hey,” Lin Zhexia said with one hand still in the popcorn bucket, trying to ease her emotions through conversation, “do you want some popcorn?”

She thought Chi Yao probably wouldn’t eat any.

But to her surprise, Chi Yao leaned back a bit, then turned his head and casually reached out.

Lin Zhexia’s hand was still in the bucket and hadn’t had time to pull out, so their hands made extremely brief contact for a second inside the popcorn bucket.

Her fingers touched the back of his hand.

When Chi Yao reached in, they lightly brushed against each other.

Lin Zhexia yanked her hand out quickly, and the air filled with the unique sweetness of popcorn.

She coughed and asked: “Is it crunchy?”

“It’s alright.”

Chi Yao rested his elbow on the armrest, his hand against his jaw, munching on popcorn. After a while, before the movie prelude began, he suddenly added: “It’s quite sweet.”

Thankfully, the lighting in the theater was dim.

Otherwise, she feared her currently abnormal reactions would be exposed.

As the movie officially began, Lin Zhexia, with flushed cheeks, also grabbed a piece.

Today’s popcorn.

Seemed sweeter than usual.

He Yang had bought the movie tickets, and she had no idea what the movie was about. She hadn’t asked He Yang what movie he’d chosen before coming.

After arriving at the cinema and seeing the holiday poster, she could guess it was a Valentine’s Day romance film.

With this in mind, Lin Zhexia looked at the crumpled movie ticket in her palm.

The movie title on the ticket was “I Want to Be with You.”

Before the movie sound increased, He Yang put away his phone and commented: “Finally finished editing. You know, my Brother Yao’s hand is quite easy to edit. Just a little tweaking and it looks more slender, though the fingers ended up looking a bit too long.”

“But it’s fine, no big deal.”

He nudged Chi Yao with his elbow: “Thanks.”

Chi Yao ignored him.

The movie lasted over an hour. At first, because Chi Yao was beside her, Lin Zhexia found it hard to focus on the film.

The images on the big screen seemed to fly by like silent film clips.

Even though scenes played one after another and she stared at them, her mind registered nothing, just a blank.

After a while, she gradually began to grasp the content.

It was a Valentine’s Day youth drama about two desk mates secretly in love during their school days. The ending wasn’t happy; perhaps to make the story more dramatic, the girl was predictably diagnosed with cancer, and the two ultimately passed each other by.

They had made a naive promise during their school days to meet again ten years later.

At the film’s end, ten years later, the boy returned to the classroom but didn’t see the girl. Instead, he found a letter she had written before leaving: “Let me tell you a secret, I really liked you. If there’s a parallel universe, I want to be with you.”

Lin Zhexia had a low threshold for tears and started crying halfway through the film.

At first, she didn’t want anyone to notice and secretly sniffled.

After just a few sniffs, the person beside her handed over a tissue. Chi Yao wasn’t watching the movie but instead was resting his chin on his hand, watching her. As he passed her the tissue, he said: “Why are you crying again?”

“Don’t call you scaredy-cat,” he added, “I should call you crybaby instead.”

Lin Zhexia took it, wiped her tears and nose, her voice choked: “I’m not called scaredy-cat in the first place.”

“And not a crybaby.”

“This movie is so touching,” Lin Zhexia said, “I just have strong empathy, unlike certain cold-blooded, heartless people.”

Chi Yao leaned against the chair back, pinching his finger joints, casually saying: “Cancer storylines, outdated even ten years ago…”

Lin Zhexia glared at him.

Chi Yao, in his cold and detached manner, corrected himself: “It is quite moving.”

Lin Zhexia ignored what he said: “Anyway, you’re cold-blooded.”

“I’m cold-blooded,” Chi Yao gave a cold laugh, “but the fact that I’ve watched this far already shows great respect for this movie.”

After speaking, he shifted slightly to give her some viewing space. “There’s someone even more cold-blooded.”

Through the gap Chi Yao made, Lin Zhexia saw He Yang slumped over, fast asleep.

“…”

“It’s tough for him,” Lin Zhexia wiped her nose again and said, “Just to post on social media, he had to come to the cinema specifically to sleep.”

Perhaps half-awake and hearing someone talking about him, He Yang suddenly woke up. He sat up straight and asked: “Who called me? Is this incredibly boring movie finally ending?”

Lin Zhexia: “…”

The movie was indeed about to end.

Although the film had a tragic tone, it still highlighted the Valentine’s Day theme.

At the end of the movie, the screen suddenly darkened, and a line of text appeared:

“May all unspoken affections blossom and bear fruit. Without a parallel universe, we will still be together.”

Although Lin Zhexia had cried because of the plot earlier, throughout the entire movie, what moved her most was this line.

All.

Unspoken affections.

She stared at these words, forgetting to get up even though it was time to leave.

He Yang couldn’t wait: “Brother Xia, why are you in a daze? Let’s go.”

He Yang shifted his gaze and realized he was the only one standing: “And you, Yaoyao, why aren’t you leaving either?”

Following He Yang’s words, Lin Zhexia looked at the person beside her. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Chi Yao also seemed to be looking at that line.

The young man leaned against the chair, his light pupils deeply colored by the screen light. Then he lowered his eyes, concealing his unclear gaze. When he looked up again, it was as if his previous expression had never existed. He stood up, hands in pockets, still his usual self: “Let’s go.”

The three walked back to the main hall.

Lin Zhexia: “Wait, I want to take a photo too.”

After she spoke, the other two looked at her.

“I mean the three of us together, as a memento.”

“After all, in one’s lifetime,” she said slowly, “…it’s rare to have such an eventful experience as today. I can’t help but want to capture the embarrassing things you two did.”

When she said she wanted to take a photo, neither of them objected.

Most of the time, they were quite accommodating to her.

“Hurry up and take it,” He Yang took out his ticket stub. “I almost threw it away when I left.”

Lin Zhexia looked up at Chi Yao.

Chi Yao didn’t say anything, but he also took out his ticket stub.

Lin Zhexia opened the camera and quickly took the photo: “Done.”

When she got home, she sat at her desk reviewing the photo she had taken at the cinema.

She wanted to take a photo because chances like today’s coincidence might never happen again.

But she definitely couldn’t take photos like He Yang did, so she could only photograph the three of them together.

She could have posted this photo on social media.

But after looking at it for a while, she carefully posted it as visible only to herself.

In the photo, Chi Yao’s well-defined knuckles were very close to her hand.

Their ticket stubs were right next to each other.

He Yang, standing farther away and eager to leave this sad place, was at a bit of distance from them.

Even though no one would see this post, visible only to herself, Lin Zhexia still wrote and deleted captions multiple times before finally leaving just today’s date.

2.14.

[Image]

He Yang didn’t go home but followed Chi Yao.

Now he was sprawled on Chi Yao’s sofa, scrolling through social media for a while before starting to edit his post.

“What do you think I should write for the caption?”

He Yang rubbed his chin, “‘Not alone this 214,’ ‘Together with her,’ or ‘The movie wasn’t the beautiful thing’?”

“…”

Chi Yao leaned against the kitchen doorway, holding two bottles of water.

He held back repeatedly, barely resisting the urge to throw the water directly at He Yang’s head: “Now, immediately, get out of my house.”

He Yang took the water: “Don’t be like that, I don’t want to go back and listen to my mom nagging.”

“I think the last one is better,” He Yang continued editing his caption, “it has more atmosphere, and that unsaid feeling gives it an air of mystery.”

He Yang quickly finished editing, set the visibility to [Classmates], and posted this fraudulent, fake update.

After completing this major task, he exhaled deeply, fell back on the sofa, and said: “Today was not easy.”

He Yang burst out with a soul-searching question: “How can Valentine’s Day movies be so boring? I even picked one that seemed watchable. When I was choosing, there were several others, but I couldn’t even watch their trailers all the way through.”

He Yang continued: “But speaking of which, I fell asleep halfway through this one, but even the half I saw, I didn’t understand.”

Chi Yao: “Are you illiterate?”

He Yang: “…No, it’s just that the romance was genuinely hard to understand.”

He Yang sat up again, intending to discuss it in detail: “Why didn’t they tell each other they liked each other? Why not say it? If just one person had broken the ice, wouldn’t it have been resolved early on? Did they need to wait ten years? It’s very strange. Anyway, I don’t get it.”

Adolescence.

People inevitably begin to secretly explore the word “like.”

Although He Yang pretended to be cool all day, it was just his vanity acting up, just wanting to show he had grown up.

But he had never had a proper relationship, only knew how to play games all day, and didn’t even have a girl he liked.

He Yang truly couldn’t comprehend it.

But he never expected Chi Yao to respond to him—after all, someone like Chi Yao probably had even less tolerance for romance films than he did.

He probably didn’t pay much attention.

Likely just glanced at it, then looked down to play with his phone.

Only a fool like Lin Zhexia would cry rivers over such a movie…

As He Yang thought this, without any warning, he heard the person leaning against the kitchen doorway say in a very low voice, almost as if talking to himself: “…Because it’s too important.”

Because this person’s position in life is too special, too important.

More important than liking, and weightier than love.

So one proceeds with the utmost caution.

So it can’t be voiced, can’t be revealed.

“What?” He Yang didn’t hear clearly.

After coming home, Chi Yao had taken off his coat. As he spoke, his Adam’s apple moved with difficulty. His hands hung down, fingers curled around the water bottle, knuckles tensing and turning white with force.

But when He Yang sat up from the sofa to look at him, he released and flexed his fingers, as if the previous emotions had been just an illusion.

“I said,” Chi Yao twisted open the water bottle and pointed at the door, “when are you leaving?”

Although He Yang hadn’t heard clearly, he had caught something: “No, you clearly said ‘because’ something something, so what came after ‘because’?”

Chi Yao physically started pushing him out: “Never said that. Your ears have problems.”

He Yang staggered toward the door: “I heard…”

His response was met with Chi Yao’s merciless door-closing sound.

“…”

He Yang stood at the door, scratching his head, a bit confused: “Did I hear wrong?”

“Forget it,” he stopped thinking about it, shook his head, and walked home, “…it was just a boring movie anyway.”

Author’s note:

Only you found it boring; those two found it quite engaging.