Everyone at school knew Jiang Qinian liked Xu Qingye.
Everyone except Xu Qingye herself.
She always said, “He’s just my little brother.”
So Jiang Qinian stayed by her side for years under the identity of her “little brother.”
She picked scallions out of his food, peeled tea eggs for him, and handed him soy milk. Even when she felt his forehead, she acted as if it were perfectly natural: “We’ve always been like this.”
But then Xiao Nian grew taller.
After a basketball game, girls crowded around to offer him water. He turned them all down and lowered his head to drink from the half-empty bottle in her hand.
On rainy afternoons, he let half his shoulder get soaked rather than tilt the umbrella away from her.
The radio station microphone was still on, and the whole school heard the boy laugh softly and ask:
“Big Sis, how about I bend down so you can feel my forehead?”
Xu Qingye finally panicked.
Then, in Jiang Qinian’s old notebook, she found the scripts she had read on air from middle school through high school.
Every page had a date written beside it.
So he had listened every time she went on air.
So every time she called him “Xiao Nian,” he had been holding himself back.
Before the college entrance exams, he put all their flirtation aside and quietly stayed with her as they studied, then walked her to the exam room.
He said, “Xu Qingye, just focus on your exams. I won’t bother you.”
Later, on her eighteenth birthday, Jiang Qinian stood outside the Xu family breakfast shop and asked her earnestly:
“I don’t want to be your little brother anymore.”
Xu Qingye looked at him, blushing.
“Then don’t call me Big Sis anymore.”
Jiang Qinian’s gaze darkened.
The next second, she said softly:
“Call me your girlfriend.”
He had stayed by her side for years as her little brother, and at last, she was the one to change that title.
It turned out she wasn’t just used to having him around.
She liked having him around.
