It was an carefree era of white shirts and blue skirts. My deskmate and I sat on the outdoor stairs of the science building, reading. She stared at her history book, lost in thought about the final exams, while I was still absorbed in an article I'd just read, unable to come back to myself.
It was a sunny summer day, and the vacation between our second and third years of high school was just around the corner. The air was sweet and heavy, a little lazy, a little tense. Seduced by the sunshine that day, I resolved to write to the article's author. And so my first love came quietly to me through the warm, humid air.
In an age of love letters written by hand, when love was all talk and no action, I used the Thirty-Six Stratagems to turn a first love steeped in the sense of inevitable disillusionment into reality, leaving an opening for beauty in this fleeting, ever-changing world, so that ideals and romance might survive.
Theme: School life
