[Cheerful, lively good girl + Cold, ruthless wolf-dog guy]
[Secret crush turns to love vs. a public declaration]
Seven years have passed, but the words I never got to say, “I’ve liked you for a long time,” are still buried in my heart!
I was seven seconds late taking the fork in the road after ninth grade!
I deliberately stayed behind to sweep the classroom seven times!
The love I never confessed has lasted seven years!
For seven years, time seemed to move in slow motion. The sound of her erasing the blackboard at the lectern, the droplets in her hair when we shared an umbrella, and the crooked signatures on our graduation gowns all seeped into my notebook in shades of blue.
I know she likes extra popping boba in her milk tea.
I know she tugs at her lip when she can’t solve a math problem.
I know she secretly writes novel outlines in her diary.
I chewed up these secrets and swallowed them, letting them ferment into the faint breeze on the athletic field on summer nights.
Later, on the day she received her acceptance letter from a top university, I slipped sheets of scrap paper covered in her name into both sides of her schoolbag.
The crease along the notebook’s spine was deep, like the words I never said: “I’ve liked you for a long time.”
They were hidden in the passage of time, covered in dust, yet always clear.
Seven years was slow, so slow, and so long!
But it was the seventh year I’d been secretly in love with you!
“Hi, I’m Lu Chenyu.” I’m really good at physics!
“My name is Tian Qi.” Tian as in “field,” Qi as in “seven years”!
