At the first monthly exam of their second year of high school, science whiz Jiang Yubai and humanities prodigy Xu Zhixia once again claimed first and second place in their grade. He was a taciturn study fanatic who barely spoke to anyone; she was a reserved girl who quietly wrote essays in a corner of the library. Their only real connection seemed to be the few minutes they stood side by side onstage at each awards ceremony.
No one knew that tucked inside Xu Zhixia’s notebook of mistakes was a sheet of scrap paper she had accidentally picked up, covered on one side with Jiang Yubai’s hurried physics formulas and, in the margin, a crooked little cat. No one noticed the iris bookmark hidden in Jiang Yubai’s pencil case, dropped by Xu Zhixia during a debate competition.
They were the distance of a hallway between two people gazing at each other from afar, the silence of sharing a table in the library, and the supposedly casual glances whenever they passed. The grandest secret crush of youth is never a dramatic confession. It is every flutter of the heart hidden in densely written notes and moments no one else knows about. When the joint entrance exams draw near and the competition for recommendation slots heats up, will the feelings tucked inside that notebook of mistakes finally be whispered aloud in the noisy midsummer, amid the cicadas’ song?
