Name Withheld

Blurb: Unrequited love begins, but never finds its end.

Completed unrequited-love novel, Nobody Knows

"You are like the night, with its silence and stars. I spent an entire barren youth doing nothing but searching for you."

Firefighter x Artifact Restorer

1

It was an ordinary rainy day.

Shan Wan ran down the stairs and accidentally bumped into the boy she had a crush on.

When she looked up, she met his eyes, clouded with dampness.

A little cold.

She murmured, "Sorry," but he didn't answer. His fingers rested on his phone's keyboard as he lowered his head and carried on typing his message, as if he hadn't seen her at all.

Back then, he was a free-spirited bird, always surrounded by a changing cast of faces. Love was just a way to pass the time when he was bored.

When a girl occasionally poured out her feelings to him, he would only laugh without a care.

And she was no more than an extra whose face was too vague to make out.

No one ever knew about the dreams she had of him.

2

Years later, Shan Wan ran into him again outside a convenience store.

The youthful innocence was gone, and the man looked jaded and dissolute.

On impulse, she ran up to him and asked, "Do you remember me?"

"...I do," he said.

Those two words were like a spell, and she fell for him all over again.

Like a moth to a flame.

* Mutual unrequited love, both leads are each other's first and only

* "You are like the night, with its silence and stars." - Pablo Neruda

The neighboring novel, currently updating, is a similar story: Hiding My Talents

* Oblivious sweet girl x aloof, secretly scheming guy

* Unrequited love turns mutual / reunion after years apart / romance between roommates

"The first time I met you, the clouds covered your profile. I wanted to know what stories you had to tell. I felt I understood what made you special." - Heart on the Wall

1

In middle school, a tall, lean boy transferred into the class next door. He had monolid eyes and a cold gaze, said little, never wore his uniform, dressed all in black, and spent most of his time sleeping with his head on his desk.

Like all the other girls, Xue Yuening would pretend to go to the bathroom between classes, clutch her textbooks, and hurry past his window with flushed cheeks.

But she never dared look at him openly.

On graduation day, she watched the girls go up one by one, blushing as they handed him love letters, only to be driven away by his indifference, just as expected.

Xue Yuening waited until the evening clouds were ablaze before finally working up the courage to run over and say his name for the first time:

"Ch-Chen Zhuo."

In the sunset's afterglow, the boy's fingers paused as he lit a cigarette. He raised the corner of his eyes and glanced over without expression.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the jar of paper stars in her arms. He pointed off to one side. "Go play over there."

The seed called "love" in her heart had only just begun to sprout, and it withered then and there.

2

After graduation, she spent three years drifting around Guangzhou with nothing to show for it. On the day she hesitated over whether to end her lease and return to her hometown, fate took a turn, and she ran into those familiar eyes in the hallway.

That night, Xue Yuening posted an urgent plea for help on Douban: "My roommate is the guy I had a crush on in middle school. What should I do!!!"

One day, long afterward, someone happened to see her post history. He immediately registered an account and carefully replied to every person under the post: "Thanks, everyone. We're together now."

Across the long river of time, all the bittersweet thoughts of a lovestruck girl were finally given their happy ending.

3

One night before they got together, the power went out. The man was about to leave for overtime at the office when Xue Yuening couldn't help grabbing the edge of his sleeve. She looked pitifully at him. "Could you stay? It's so dark here, and I'm scared."

At that, he raised an eyebrow and gave a derisive laugh. "Am I a lamp?"

Later, when Xue Yuening was giving him the silent treatment, the man shamelessly cut the power, took his pillow, and knocked on her door. With an earnest expression, he said, "I wouldn't mind being your lamp."

A little skit:

With the high school entrance exams approaching, the dean was determined to crack down on the unhealthy trend of young love. His first target was naturally Chen Zhuo, whose handsome face had stolen the hearts of half the girls in his grade.

Dragged to the office halfway through a nap to hear a lecture, the boy let it go in one ear and out the other, until the dean started fishing to see who else might be getting into a relationship.

He narrowed his eyes and immediately scribbled down several names.

They were the very boys who had been pursuing Xue Yuening most aggressively at the time.

* A slow-burn, everyday-life story about the ordinary love between two ordinary people

* A timid girl who's extraordinarily brave when it counts, and a cool guy whose mouth is as stubborn as his... well, the rest of him: calm on the surface, but secretly so jealous he could burst

Theme: It doesn't have to be grand. You are the universe