When the sycamore leaves fell all over the playground in my junior year, Shen Zhijun's physics notes were left in Lu Yichuan's desk. On the title page, there was a little man shooting a basketball with the words "Wait for me when I come back" written next to it. The transfer student's seat was vacant all spring. Lu Yichuan stared at the electromagnetic field formula in the notebook, always feeling that something was missing.
The sun was shining brightly at the big newspaper, and Lu Yichuan bumped into a pair of familiar eyes - Shen Zhijun was standing in front of the bulletin board, with the same little man drawn on the physics exercise book in his hand.
The time that follows is like the basketball metaphor hidden in the physics questions, the sweet and sour pork ribs in half on the canteen plate, the wrinkled visitation sign outside the ICU, and the white shirts worn side by side outside the competition examination room. The chatter in the alley cut through the summer night, but they could not break away the intertwined hands of the two teenagers; the rumors spread across the playground, but they could not spread the light path they calibrated for each other in the shadow of the phoenix tree.
On the steps where the graduation photos were taken, Shen Zhijun quietly held Lu Yichuan's hand. When the shutter came down, both of them thought of Da (÷) San's missing corner of the group photo - it turned out that all the separations were foreshadowing, and all the blanks were waiting to be filled by reunion.
This is a story about two teenagers: one is like a passionate arc drawn by a basketball, and the other is like a rigorous light track in a formula. In the time when the shadow of the phoenix tree shakes, they go from parallel to overlapping, turning "wait for me back" into "always be there."
