Su Nian's sketchbook holds a secret: on page thirty-seven, she captured Lu Xingci in profile.
He's the cool, aloof boy at the top of his class, and a spirited presence on the basketball court. Yet on rainy days, he quietly tilts his umbrella toward her. When she hurriedly hides her drawings, he whispers, “You draw beautifully.” And on New Year's Eve, he lights up his phone screen with a message: “I want us to get into the same city for college.”
But he's a star student in the advanced class, while she's an art student in a regular class. At his side stands the honor student everyone else thinks is a better match for him. Her feelings can only melt quietly into the sour-sweet taste of lemon candy.
On a summer night after the college entrance exams, the boy, reeking of alcohol and red-eyed, corners her against a wall. “Ever since the day you knocked my notebook to the floor... every scrap of paper I've scribbled on has been covered in your name.”
Cicadas roar around them, and at last she understands. The figure her pen had secretly followed all those years had long been etched into the timepiece on his wrist, worn throughout his youth, silently answering her feelings.
