The evening breeze of 1995 carried the scent of old books through the classroom window. The moment Gu Yanci looked up, he saw Su Nianhe walking to her seat with a sketchbook in her arms. Her shoulders, wrapped in plain clothes, were straight and slender. She held a charcoal pencil between her fingers, a faint smudge of gray on her knuckles, and the corners of her eyes curved with focused tenderness. Somehow, it made his grip on his pen tighten.
The famously aloof top student was cold enough to be irritating to everyone else, yet he hid a bellyful of secret feelings for Su Nianhe. When she bent her head to sketch, he stole glances at the soft pencil strokes smudged across her sketchbook. When she handed him a drawing and asked what he thought, he deliberately let his fingertips brush the charcoal smudge on her knuckles a beat too slowly. Even when their shoulders accidentally touched, he had to hold his breath to suppress the heat in his throat.
Later, it was hard to say who lost their composure first.
Under the desk, his fingers quietly caught the corner of her sketchbook. Around a hallway corner, he gripped her wrist, the one holding her charcoal pencil, and pressed her against the wall to kiss her, his nose brushing the faint charcoal dust caught in her hair. Then, in the empty art room one weekend, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and murmured, "Nian Nian, I can't quite make sense of the lighting in this portrait. Come closer and show me?"
Su Nianhe looked up from her sketchbook, the bright glint of concentration still in the corners of her eyes. She gently poked his burning earlobe. "Gu, you seem to be standing rather far from the drawing board for someone who's 'looking at a painting.'"
But no one knew that the hand at her side had quietly tightened around her charcoal pencil. She accepted this tenderness, wrapped in the scent of graphite dust, with all her heart. From now on, year after year, the lines in her sketchbook and the light in her eyes would revolve around this one aloof yet passionate boy.
Theme: Set against the unhurried pace of the nineties, this is a story of enduring love, hiding exquisite tenderness and a peaceful life together amid the everyday bustle.
