Next up: the full-length novel "A Dream, and Suddenly the Summer Breeze Is Long". Please add it to your to-read list~
Reunion After Years Apart | Mutual Secret Crushes | Free Short Story
In high school, Xia Zhi'an had a crush on Jian Huai, and it looked like their feelings might finally become mutual.
But after her best friend pleaded with her, she had no choice but to turn down his confession.
"I really like him. You're my best friend. I'm only going to ask you for this one thing in my whole life: don't say yes to him."
Back then, she thought the love of a seventeen-year-old was a firework that shot into the sky and vanished in an instant, while a friendship at seventeen would last forever.
After summer vacation, Jian Huai transferred to another school, and they never crossed paths again.
*
Ten years later, Xia Zhi'an runs into Jian Huai again, at the lowest point in her life.
Jian Huai has even become her direct superior.
Some people you think will stay with you forever say goodbye along the way.
Some people you think you missed out on forever were never really far away.
When she turns around, he's still right where he was.
Telling her how much he missed her.
Coming Soon: "A Dream, and Suddenly the Summer Breeze Is Long"
Thirteen Years of Friendship Turned Romance | Bickering Couple | Push and Pull to the Extreme
A clingy golden retriever who always wants his wife's attention x a tsundere kitty who thinks the retriever is an idiot
During freshman orientation and military training, Jiang Yu was invited by a classmate to go see the school's heartthrob.
But there were so many people along the camphor-lined avenue that, after wandering around for ages, she still couldn't get a glimpse of his face.
Only later did she learn that the heartthrob she had craned her neck to see was the silly boy sitting next to her, Xu Muyuan.
Xu Muyuan was her closest buddy in high school.
He was also the secret crush she couldn't bring herself to confess.
Her thermos never ran out of hot water in winter. She never had to take out the overflowing trash after cleaning duty. Fruit and yogurt were always there when she reached for them, and cans of Wangzai milk could be stacked into a whole wall...
Even though Xu Muyuan always said, "You're my best friend. It's only natural."
With all that special treatment, Jiang Yu thought Xu Muyuan liked her too.
After the college entrance exams, she mustered every bit of courage she'd had as a teenager and wrote him a letter to confess her feelings. But then she heard Xu Muyuan call another girl after getting blackout drunk.
From then on, Jiang Yu decided to hide every emotion, dig a hole, bury her secret, cover it with dirt, then pour a layer of reinforced concrete on top so it would never see the light of day.
*
Years after they parted, Jiang Yu returned to China from an overseas assignment and crossed paths with Xu Muyuan again.
Xu Muyuan was still the same silly boy, and she was still flawlessly playing the role of his "best friend."
Even the special treatment he'd once given her hadn't changed.
Xu Muyuan replied to her messages instantly and came running whenever she called.
He took her to try every delicacy under the sun, went out to buy barbecue for her in his suit, picked her up from work in the middle of the night, stubbornly insisted on seeing her several times a week, and did everything he could to make her happy...
He even took her hand in an escape room.
But Jiang Yu already knew the right answer, so she wouldn't believe it again.
An illusion was just an illusion, in the end.
There was nothing wrong with being "best friends."
But this time, Xu Muyuan disagreed.
"I've fallen for a very, very good friend."
In their thirteenth year of knowing each other, they crossed the Milky Way called "friendship," and all the things left unsaid became a single "Merry Christmas."
*
"If we're still unmarried at thirty, let's just settle down together."
A lot of people have probably made a promise like this with someone during their school days, half in earnest and half in jest.
This isn't giving in or settling. It's a summer that arrived long overdue.
Theme: Nothing is impossible if you put your heart into it.
