Fifteen years ago, Shen Xingyuan met a young man by the window of the second grade classroom. His name is Xu Feng. He sits by the window, with the sun shining on the textbook, and he always draws stick figures in the blank space. She secretly remembered all his details - the fingers holding the pen, the red curve of the tips of his ears, the sweaty temples after gym class. They discussed math problems together, shared a bowl of shaved ice, and stood side by side under the cherry blossom tree all spring. Some words were hesitant to say between two summers, and were finally crushed into dust by the countdown to the high school entrance examination and the distance around the corner of the corridor.
Fifteen years later, Shen Xingyuan received a yellowed old eraser at a class reunion. Xu Feng sat opposite her. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes, but his eyes were still the same as before. He asked: "At that time... Did you ever like me?"
The sycamore leaves outside the window fell all over the ground, like all the words they didn't say that spring. She lowered her head, her face blurred by the heat of the tea in the cup, and suddenly remembered that hot afternoon in the third grade of junior high school, when he walked across half the playground and handed her half a piece of watermelon. The tips of her ears were red and hot, but he only said, "Eat it to relieve the heat."
It turned out that the young man had run towards her with all his strength, but it was only later that she saw clearly the dust raised along the way.
