See You Later

[Youthful Regrets × School Days Crush × Beautiful Tragedy × Complete]

The summer they were eighteen, when the cicadas sang at their loudest, Lin Yiqing said, “On your birthday, I have something to tell you.”

When they first met, he was the top student who sat by the window, as cool as ice. Then he gave her a nickname with a smile and shared the snacks she had stuffed into his hands with a stray cat. Only then did she discover the warmth hidden beneath his icy exterior. Feelings neither of them dared to voice quietly took root in the graduation-season breeze.

On the evening of July 1, he handed her a glass jar filled with stars. “Look at it tomorrow.” In the early hours of the morning, Chibie crouched beneath a lamp and opened it. Every star had a message written on it, from “It wouldn't be bad to talk to her a little more” to “This summer feels especially long, long enough for the seed in my heart to sprout in the evening breeze.” Three years of feelings were hidden in the starlight. The last star read: “The stars in this jar end here. I should tell her the rest face-to-face.”

At daybreak, she messaged him: “I saw the stars. When are you coming?”

His reply was like an icicle: “I'm busy. Grandma's gone. Can you try to be more considerate?”

She ran frantically to his house, found him with bloodshot eyes, and heard him shout, “Who told you to come? Go home!”

As she turned away, Chibie thought, “Back then, I didn't understand that shattered stars couldn't be put back together, or that someone who said they were leaving wouldn't wait. But we haven't even said goodbye… We'll see each other again later, won't we?”

Only later did she learn that in the early hours of that morning, he had stayed by his grandmother's portrait, coughing until he brought up blood. His phone was still open to the page for ordering a cake. She had only heard him say “Go home.” She hadn't seen the star-shaped paper crushed in his fist.

“See you later” were the words he never said. They became the obsession that stayed with her for the rest of her life. At night, the jar of stars on her bookshelf glimmered, reminding her of the summer that had stopped at eighteen.