The Year the Wind Blew

That year, the wind blew from the end of the playground, blowing the broken hair on the young man's forehead, and wrinkled the dog-eared poems in the girl's diary.   Xiao Jiming is a man of the hour in the eyes of everyone - the captain of the school basketball team, with top grades, cold and taciturn. Jiang Nian'an is the gentle voice in the radio station, quietly writing poems that no one knows. Their worlds had nothing to do with each other, until on the way home after a rain, he held an umbrella to send her back to the dormitory. The umbrella they shared was slightly tilted, like the quietly opening prologue of a story.   From then on, she began to look for him in the crowd, and when he played, he would always look into the audience inadvertently after scoring. Once he missed a jump shot and the basketball rolled to the side of the court. She bent down to pick it up and touched it lightly with her fingertips when handing it back. Her heartbeat was louder than the sound of the basketball hitting the ground. Later, she quietly brought her tennis bag and became his exclusive "caddie" - not for the attention, but just to get closer to him.   There was no grand confession between them, only a glass of warm water passed in the library, the tree-lined avenue they walked side by side after evening study, and the sentence in her diary: "He plays ball like the wind, and I just want to be the leaf that gently lifts when the wind passes by."   But youth is never just sweet. The pressure from family, the choice of further education, misunderstandings from others, and the hesitation and shrinkage hidden in the eyes are all quietly testing this sentiment. When the graduation bell rings, can they still hold each other's hands and walk far away?