Against the background of the alternation of old and new in a small southern town, two teenagers with family scars quietly approached each other in their youth with stacked test papers.
He used sunshine to resist brokenness, and she used silence to protect her self-esteem. Every passing of rubber, dark transition of scholarship, and traces of chilblain cream were all unspeakable redemptions.
They shared secrets in the early morning light and exchanged body heat during lunch break. All the excitement was hidden in the notes handed back and the tightly clenched corners of the clothes in the back seat of the school uniform.
When the huge wave of reality finally extinguished the last starlight, the unspoken "like" turned into the eternal "never forget" on the back of the photo, and became the most sour footnote of a generation's youth amid the roar of bulldozers.
