The Sickly Handsome Senior Has a Secret Crush on Me

[Beautiful gong | Handsome shou | Mutual pining short story | Bittersweet ending | Happy-ending bonus chapter]

In his first year of high school, Fu Huainian has a crush on Jian Bowang, a second-year student.

The senior is the school's universally acknowledged heartthrob, beautiful and fragile. The first time Fu Huainian sees him is at sunset on the school's spiral staircase. Fu Huainian has just finished a fight, and climbs the stairs, licking blood from the corner of his lip.

The setting sun bathes them in light as they pass each other by.

Like people from two different worlds.

And they are. A good-for-nothing student who has given up trying and the top student in the grade are worlds apart.

The second time Fu Huainian meets the senior is one afternoon at the start of his third year.

Everyone is shocked that the senior has come back to repeat the year, while Fu Huainian is being reprimanded in the hallway after school.

“If you can't get into A University, you might as well quit studying,” his aunt, the homeroom teacher, says, flinging a blank exam paper at him.

Fu Huainian shoves his hands in his pockets and steps over the paper, but someone behind him calls out.

“Your exam paper.”

The senior passing by picks it up, even taking the time to gently brush the dust off with his hand. “Don't understand it?”

Fu Huainian pauses, then pretends not to care as he teases him. “What, are you going to tutor me?”

The senior, usually so distant, smiles as he replies, “I don't see why not.”

After that, they spend more and more time together.

On the eve of the college entrance exams,

Fu Huainian asks the senior where he wants to go to college. The senior tells him he wants to study in a city by the sea.

It is a midsummer night filled with the sound of cicadas.

Fu Huainian invites him eagerly, “Shall we go see the sea together when the time comes?”

The senior gives a slight nod. “It would be my pleasure.”

Later, Fu Huainian travels to every coastal city, but never sees again the person who showed him such kindness.

Theme: Strive toward the next brilliant future.