Pull Him Into My Arms

Bittersweet / Mutual pining / BE

Bright and rebellious Xie Yaozhou x gentle, insecure Luo Jinnian

In their first year of high school, a classmate at the neighboring desk suddenly switched seats during class. By a twist of fate, Luo Jinnian ended up sitting beside Xie Yaozhou. She had barely settled in when Xie Yaozhou whipped around and, caught off guard by an unfamiliar face, let out a startled cry. The noise drew the teacher's attention.

Unwilling to go, Xie Yaozhou was sent to stand at the back of the classroom as punishment. Seeing Luo Jinnian sitting peacefully at her desk, he couldn't stand being the only one punished. So, right in front of the teacher, he casually brought her up, and Luo Jinnian had no choice but to join him at the back of the room.

He was the one who got her in trouble, yet Luo Jinnian wasn't angry at all. She even took the initiative to strike up a conversation with him.

Later, Luo Jinnian really did become Xie Yaozhou's regular deskmate. He always thought she was a top student, so he trusted her completely when copying her homework. But when their monthly exam results came out, one had placed fifth and the other sixth, their ranks right next to each other. Xie Yaozhou couldn't make sense of it. After watching her for a while, he realized Luo Jinnian had only been pretending to work hard. And so the two little academic underachievers began their journey to turn things around.

As they spent day after day together, feelings quietly blossomed, and they gradually fell for each other. But everything felt too beautiful to be real. Luo Jinnian's deep-seated insecurities surged up again and again. She couldn't help thinking that none of it was real, that it was all just a distant, unattainable dream.

Teenagers are still immature, and don't yet know how to love.

On the mountaintop, the boy pointed to the Big Dipper shining overhead. A brilliant but fleeting smile touched Xie Yaozhou's lips, like fireworks vanishing in the night sky. With starlight in his eyes, he turned to the girl beside him as she made a wish. "Luo Jinnian, I hope even your wildest daytime dreams come true."

But she was the one whose dream came true, and she was the one left with a broken heart.

A careless remark from the boy became the one wish Luo Jinnian could never fulfill for the rest of her life.

Xie Yaozhou had once promised her that when they were old enough, he would take her to meet his parents, then pick an auspicious day for their wedding.

That year, Xie Yaozhou was only a few days shy of his twenty-second birthday when Luo Jinnian met his parents for the first time, at his funeral.

When they were young, she had said to him, "If you sink, I'll go down into the abyss with you. If you want to reach the light, I'll pull you back to solid ground."

But now, you are both the abyss and the solid ground. From that day on, her world was left in darkness.

From becoming close in high school, to enduring a long-distance relationship through college, to promising each other a future as they entered the working world, they never let go of each other's hands. But the greed of capitalists separated two people who loved each other so deeply, leaving them on opposite sides of life and death.

The weeds rustled over the grave. In the end, those unforgettable vows amounted to nothing more than a handful of cold earth.

Xie Yaozhou swept into her life like a howling gale. Luo Jinnian had felt the warmth of his palm and longed for those fleeting moments of tenderness, but in the end, she never got to hold him in her arms.

May we weather the years in this life, and may we meet again.

Theme: Treasure today, and don't let a chance meeting go to waste.