You or Someone Like You

Plenty of people were waiting to see Liao Qingyan make a fool of herself:

Everyone knew her family had gone bankrupt years ago and that she no longer belonged in their social circle. She was only hanging around because she had been Zhou Jin's first love in high school, hoping to use their old feelings to climb the social ladder. But the Zhou family's status was far beyond the reach of an ordinary person.

At one gathering, Zhou Jin planned to propose. Naturally, the woman he intended to marry wasn't Liao Qingyan.

A sudden downpour left her unable to get a cab, and her dress got dirty, too.

Liao Qingyan waited for the rain to stop in a pavilion. A car drove past, with Bo Sinian in the back seat. He was the true center of their social circle.

Perhaps seeing how miserable and bedraggled she looked, Bo Sinian politely asked if she needed help.

Liao Qingyan smiled and said, “If you really want to help, then sleep with me.”

/

Bo Sinian accidentally overheard Liao Qingyan talking with a friend. The friend asked why she was keeping things so ambiguous between herself and him.

Liao Qingyan paused before saying, “He… reminds me of someone I like.”

Bo Sinian suggested ending their relationship. Liao Qingyan shrugged, completely unconcerned. “I'm sick of all the stupid rules in your circles.”

Overnight, Liao Qingyan vanished from Bo Sinian's social circle, and she herself disappeared without a trace.

No one knew where she had gone.

She was smooth, worldly, and never told a single honest word.

Bo Sinian thought he must have lost his mind to use every connection he had to find someone like her, all so he could keep being someone else's “stand-in.”

/

Only later did Bo Sinian learn that there had never been anyone she liked who resembled him.

There was only him.

There had only ever been him.

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He | Unrequited love on her side becomes mutual | Casual sex turns into a real relationship | First love for both

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Content warnings:

Self-indulgent writing, written on a whim | Angsty melodrama | Unrealistic Mary Sue elements | Characters have plenty of flaws (later chapters contain a tiny amount of cuckoldry) | The leads both refuse to speak their minds (and it really will make you furious)

If you can't accept any of the above, this probably isn't for you~

Theme: Love takes boundless courage.