[Happy ending + mutual secret crush + both pure]
In the height of summer at seventeen, parasol trees shaded the corridors. Jiang Zheng hid a love no one knew about, while Li Xiang carried a fondness she didn’t dare confess.
They were familiar faces in each other’s peripheral vision, silent confidants who understood one another without words, and the two people the whole class teased, even as they desperately kept their distance.
Countless exchanged glances, countless near-collisions, countless moments when they almost spoke. The boys’ and girls’ timidity held their burning feelings captive, while pride locked away all their tenderness. Then came an unexpected graduation and a silent farewell. The north and south lay between them, year after year, as they drifted through the crowds.
They asked after each other’s well-being and kept mementos from their youth.
Their phones remembered each other’s names, and the evening breeze remembered the flutter of their hearts that year.
Six years passed, and neither of them won.
When they met again, Jiang Zheng listened as Li Xiang told him what had happened in her life.
“For you.”
“What is it?”
“A lollipop.”
“Li Xiang, these past few years must have been hard for you.”
“Li Xiang, I wish I’d been by your side all these years.”
Two stubborn people had found each other again. Rather than saying they had found their way back into each other’s hearts, it was more like they had never left.
