Xia Zhi's youth is like a marching drum that never hits the right beat.
When the boy who had skipped a grade and called her "senpai" suddenly appeared in the sophomore classroom wearing the same school uniform, the rainbow hairpin hidden in her short Japanese hair began to become hot. The black wristbands on Lin Yubai's wrists always reminded her of the corridor of junior high school - the chalk dust on his sleeves when he chased her with function questions; the cold water droplets on his fingertips when he handed over lemon soda; when he squatted under the cherry blossom tree to bandage a stray cat, the bow the bandage formed was like an unsent love letter.
Every heavy sound she made on the drum kit was the panic of his heartbeat that he could see through. The parabola he shot into the basketball always overlapped with the trajectory of her peripheral vision when she peeked. The names side by side on the list had secret coordinates drawn on the back of the answer sheets. As they passed by, the sudden sound of "Senior Xia" made the canvas shoes leave imprints on the ground like annual rings.
In this youthful labyrinth of light and shadow, the resonance of drum sticks and basketballs startled the cherry blossoms. On the sixteenth-note score, all the words and hesitations turned into midsummer rain. She didn't know that in the interlayer of his application form for skipping a grade, there was a half-page draft of her composition written in the third grade of junior high school. He also didn't realize that the graffiti in the corner of her music score was exactly the silhouette of him leaping and dunking while playing ball.
When the melody of "The Love Is Unavoidable" spreads over the lunch break desks, bubbles appear in front of the vending machine when two cans of soda collide. The pain on the toes of shoes, the cartoon polar bears hidden behind the packaging of wet wipes, and the scattered music papers in the music classroom will eventually compose the most violent and gentle chords in the heavy rain of the graduation ceremony.
Purpose: In the misplaced rhythm of youth, find the courage to be honest with yourself