The September wind blew the sycamore leaves past the window edge. When the back door of Class 3, Grade 2 was gently pushed open, Chen Juan was sweeping the last dead leaves out of the desk. Transfer student Lin Yanzhi was standing next to the podium with a stack of books in his arms. The collar of his white shirt was stained with fine gold, as if he had the entire autumn pinned to his body.
The head teacher arranged Lin Yanzhi in the empty seat next to Chen Juan, and from then on, the gap between the two desks became a secret passage. Chen Juan always peeked at Lin Yanzhi's pen-holding hand in math class - the joints were distinct, and he would tap the table lightly when doing calculations, and the rhythm was like the folk songs he had hidden in his MP3. When Lin Yanzhi was hit in the back by a basketball, Lin Yanzhi silently handed over the mint-scented band-aid, his eyes softer than the lights in the infirmary.
On the day when the sycamore leaves had fallen the thickest, Chen Juan found a note in Lin Yanzhi's English notebook: "Lend me your copy of your wrong question book. See you at the library on the weekend?" The handwriting was clear and a crooked leaf was drawn at the end. Later, they often picked up the intact sycamore leaves as bookmarks after school. Next to Chen Juan's physics formulas was a leaf with teeth on the edge, and Lin Yanzhi's poems contained a piece of yellow that had been made translucent by the sun.
During the evening self-study before the midterm exam, the shadows of the trees outside the window swayed on the test papers. Lin Yanzhi suddenly whispered: "When the leaves have fallen, let's go see the ginkgo at the end of the playground." Chen Juan paused with his pen tip, and the ink dots blurred into small circles, like his heartbeat that was beating too fast at the moment.
The fallen leaves on the desk were swept and piled up, just like the unspoken words of the teenagers, layered in layers in the autumn wind, quietly paving a road to spring.
Concept: Using the leaves of the sycamore tree in autumn as an image carrier, it delicately depicts the obscure and pure emotional growth among adolescent boys. Through details such as the secrets in the gaps between the desks, the tacit understanding of the sycamore leaf bookmarks, and the unspoken invitations, it shows the tenderness and restraint of young people's thoughts piled up like fallen leaves, conveying the sincere emotions that are unspoken but quietly growing in the school days, as well as the implicit and beautiful throbbing and expectations of youth.