[Icy Class Rep x Problem Desk Mate]
"You make the rules, I'll make the exceptions."
"Ning Yutong, from today on, Lu Yuanfeng is your responsibility."
With one sentence, the homeroom teacher paired Ning Yutong, the model student ranked first in the grade, with Lu Yuanfeng, the notorious troublemaker.
"Desk Mate Pact, Rule One: No sleeping in class." Ning Yutong slapped the freshly printed rules down on Lu Yuanfeng's desk.
"How about adding a clause: Class rep Ning Yutong has to bring me breakfast every day." The boy lazily propped his chin on his hand, his pen leaving a streak of ink across the paper.
"In your dreams!"
"Then I'm going to sleep right now." Lu Yuanfeng yanked his uniform over his head, turning his back to her.
"Scallion pancake with two eggs, no cilantro. Hmm... chili sauce on the side." Lu Yuanfeng sipped through a straw and raised an eyebrow at the breakfast in his hand. "It's cold."
Ning Yutong clenched her fists. "If you dare be late again tomorrow..."
"What?" He suddenly leaned down toward her. "Make me your desk mate for life?"
"Lu Yuanfeng! Pass another note and I'm writing your name down!"
"Sure." The boy folded a sticky note into a heart and slipped it into her pencil case. "Keep this one too, while you're at it."
The note was written in wild, scrawling handwriting: "Good student, wait for me after school."
"Ning Yutong." In the pouring rain, he cornered her in an empty classroom, water dripping from his uniform. "I can't keep pretending to be a good student."
She watched the rain blur the writing on his withdrawal form, then suddenly slapped her law school acceptance letter against his chest.
"Who asked you to pretend? I want Lu Yuanfeng: the wild, impossible, thoughtful, kind... my Lu Yuanfeng."
"Final revision of the Desk Mate Pact:
1. Ning Yutong belongs to Lu Yuanfeng.
2. The term is forever.
3. Penalty for breaking the pact: try again in our next lives."
"Sign it." He bit open the pen cap and scrawled a crooked line on the back of their graduation photo.
She smiled and pressed her fingerprint onto it.
"Deal."
"We're not dating in high school."
"We grew up together."
"We saved each other."
"It's the Desk Mate Pact."
"It's a destined reunion."
(From school to the workplace / first-and-only love / happy ending)
Theme: True salvation means allowing yourself to be seen at your most vulnerable and broken
