The chirping of cicadas in June was noisy throughout midsummer, but suddenly fell silent when the college entrance examination bell rang.
Lin Zhixia's heartbeat that she had hidden for three years all fell on the person next door, Ban Jiang Yubai.
It's the pace that slows down subconsciously when passing by each other in the corridor between classes. It's the name repeatedly traced on the back of the monthly exam draft paper. It's the soda that I didn't dare to hand out under the camphor tree. It's the same sunset that I shared outside the evening self-study window.
They shared the piles of test papers, talked about the frustration of failing the mock exam, walked side by side through the empty playground on hot summer nights, and tacitly avoided all topics about confession.
On the day of the graduation ceremony, the sound of cicadas slowly disappeared in the hot wind.
He stood at the school gate and looked back at her. She clenched the letter in her pocket filled with her thoughts. The two of them only said "Cherish the future" and said nothing more.
Many years later, when I hear cicadas chirping in the summer, I will always be reminded of the heartbeat that ended in vain when I was seventeen.
No one knows whether they will meet again after many years in different places. The unspoken love at that time will always remain in June, where the sound of cicadas stops.
Concept: The love of a seventeen-year-old is hidden in test papers, the night breeze, and each other's eyes. Young people are trapped by the pressure of entering higher education, ignorant and timid, and choose to keep it secret. There is no right or wrong in this cautious heartbeat. The young restraint is the tenderness that belongs only to high school. The unspoken confession does not mean that love has never existed.