At their high school’s 18th-anniversary reunion, 35-year-old Shen Yubai and Lin Zhixia have had just enough to drink to feel tipsy. She laughs and says, “I had a crush on you for three years back then, but I never dared to tell you.” He grips the faded graduation photo in his wallet, his throat bobbing. “Me too.”
Before they can even process their regrets, they open their eyes and find themselves both reborn on the first day of their second year of high school in 2008. Chalk dust hangs in the classroom, mingling with the scent of camphor trees, while their homeroom teacher taps the desk with a set square.
Each thinks they’re the only one carrying eighteen years of memories. Without consulting each other, they both abandon their original plans and choose the same history-and-politics class.
Every morning, he buys an extra cup of hot soy milk with two spoonfuls of sugar and leaves it by her desk, pretending he bought too much to finish.
Whenever it’s her turn to clean, she quietly tidies his messy desk and slips an orange candy into his pencil case, pretending she couldn’t finish it.
Keeping their shared secret close, they cautiously test the waters with each other. There are no melodramatic misunderstandings or love rivals, only the cicadas singing in the summer when they’re seventeen, the camphor tree outside the window, and two people secretly choosing each other.
This time, they won’t miss their chance.
