The Thirteenth Tear

[Secret Crush | Angst | Golden Boy × Wallflower]

Liang Shu’s youth began in her second year of middle school.

It began on the first day a boy named Zhou Beichen transferred to her school. He was the golden boy, the kind of person everyone noticed first in a crowd. She was just an ordinary girl in the corner, so insecure she was like a faint shadow on the wall.

From that day on, she secretly kept an eye on him. There was no particular reason. She just couldn’t help herself.

In high school, she worked herself to the bone to get into the main campus. She even secretly changed her elective subjects so she could end up in the same class as him. She just wanted to be a little closer to him.

But that was all. In five years, the times he spoke to her probably wouldn’t fill two pages.

In the winter of her final year of high school, Liang Shu fell seriously ill. She didn’t tell anyone and kept going to school as usual, growing quieter by the day. Sometimes, sitting in the classroom and watching Zhou Beichen’s back, she would wonder: How many more times will I get to see you?

After she was hospitalized, on a sleepless night, she took out her diary and counted.

In five years, she had cried over him thirteen times.

The thirteenth time was the last.

By then, she was already very weak, but just thinking of him made her tears fall.

Yet Zhou Beichen never knew any of it.

He could barely even remember that there was a girl named Liang Shu in his class.

Five years. Thirteen tears.

He never knew a thing.