It's All Him

I squatted on the corner of the stairs, my palms sweating while holding the strap of my schoolbag. The morning light slanted into the corridor, casting slender diamond-shaped light spots on the steps. He Jichen's footsteps came closer and closer, and as the hem of his white school uniform passed around the corner, it brought with it a breath of mint-scented breeze. "Morning." His voice was like water flowing over cobblestones in early spring. I hurriedly buried my face in my arms and didn't dare to look up until the footsteps disappeared at the end of the corridor. This is already the seventh day since I hid in the stairwell and peeked at him - from the day I transferred to Qinghe No. 1 Middle School, this tall and thin figure has been burned into my retinas. A faint scent of pine came from the astronomy club activity room. When I tiptoed to take off the telescope case, a clear voice suddenly came from behind me: "Turn the focusing ring counterclockwise three times." He Jichen's fingertips lightly scratched the metal lens barrel, and my wrist trembled uncontrollably. He lowered his eyes to adjust the eyepiece, and his eyelashes cast butterfly-wing shadows under his eyes: "The Orion Nebula looks like blue velvet sprinkled with silver powder. Do you want to see it?" I nodded breathlessly. The dusk outside the glass window filtered in, casting a warm orange halo on his shoulders. When he taught me how to identify star trails, his profile was reflected in and out of the telescope, like an intermittent love song on a midnight radio station. "President!" The publicity committee member rushed in with a camera, "The cover of the next school magazine will feature a special feature on the astronomy club!" The moment He Jichen turned around, I hurriedly backed away, and my lower back hit the iron locker with a muffled sound. He almost subconsciously reached out to protect my forehead, and his warm palm brushed against my bangs. Amidst the click of the propaganda committee member's shutter, I saw the red tips of my ears next to his cold white wrist in the viewfinder. After that day, I always found mints in my locker. The light blue candy paper is folded into a paper crane, and the star map outlined by a pen can be faintly seen on the wings. Until the night before the college entrance examination, I passed the equipment room holding the 128th candy paper crane and heard the head teacher's voice coming from inside: "Ji Chen really decided to give up the recommendation? He can obviously go to the Department of Astronomy at Tsinghua University..." The chirping of the cicada suddenly became shrill, and the wings of the sugar-paper crane crinkled in my palm. Through the crack in the door, I saw He Jichen's slender fingers stroking the astronomical telescope: "Some stars have to go a long way to meet each other." It was raining heavily on the day of the graduation ceremony, and I found the star trail photo he left in the empty classroom. The Milky Way flows through the black cardboard like spilled milk, with a very faint "Ji'an" written in pencil on the back. Raindrops hit the glass window and formed a river, and I suddenly remembered what he said when he taught me how to recognize stars - "The brightest star in the Summer Triangle is Vega, but you have to wait until Deneb in the constellation Cygnus rises to form a complete star track." We met again at the academic forum ten years later. He was wearing a suit and leather tie and explained the newly developed astronomical imaging system. During the tea break, I approached the booth holding a coffee cup. The star track ring on his ring finger reflected the same light as my starry sky bracelet. "The star map on the candy crane," he rubbed the rim of the cup with his fingertips, "is the coordinates of Deneb." The spotlights in the lecture hall suddenly dimmed, and the big screen lit up with the time-lapse star trails he had captured. The stars rotated into a brilliant whirlpool and suddenly stopped at a certain moment - countless light years away, Vega and Deneb finally formed a perfect isosceles triangle. Intention: To give to all the people I loved when I was a student