Lemon-Flavored Candy

Lin Zhi first met Gu Huai in their classroom on the first day of their first year of high school. The boy sat in the last row by the window. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the gaps between the plane tree leaves, scattering flecks of light across his lowered eyelashes. His profile was cool and distant, as if he were wrapped in a thin veil of frost.

No one knew that on a sweltering afternoon before the school year began, Lin Zhi had stood on tiptoe in the convenience store by the school gates and secretly tucked a lime-flavored hard candy onto the highest shelf. She did this every day after school. She thought no one had seen her, until one day after classes began, she found a neatly folded candy wrapper in her desk drawer. It was lime-flavored, and a line of elegant handwriting in ballpoint pen read:

"The candy is sour, but thank you."

Lin Zhi spun around and saw Gu Huai sleeping with his head on his desk, the tips of his ears red beyond belief.

One was the cool and distant "flower on a high peak," always ranked first in the grade. The other was a girl who quietly healed others with one lime candy after another, yet always forgot to heal herself. When secret love became mutual, and the sour lime candies finally gave way to sweetness...

It turned out all the sourness of youth was simply there to lead to that little sweetness after meeting you.