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Psst! We're moving!
Lin Zhe Xia couldn’t remember whether she had moved closer or not.
Her slightly awkward, lowered hand seemed to have accidentally brushed against Chi Yao’s hand in her nervousness.
Her last memory of the photo session was Chi Yao leaning a bit closer to her. Then, under the photographer’s guidance, his hand rose and moved behind her back.
After the “click,” the moment froze.
The shop owner used an instant camera and took two photos of the pair.
Because Lin Zhe Xia’s pose was stiff and didn’t change much, both photos turned out nearly identical, with only subtle differences.
In the pictures, the pitch-black night was illuminated by countless lights, with blurry silhouettes of passersby in the background. In the center of the frame, a girl in a white coat held a stick of cotton candy, staring blankly at the camera. Beside her, a taller figure gazed downward, his head tilted slightly as if looking down at her. His jawline and neck were strikingly elegant, his posture exuding a relaxed charm.
The small difference between the two photos lay in the position of Chi Yao’s hand behind her. He made two similar gestures above her head.
He formed a “V” sign.
This “V” appeared like a single rabbit ear because it was positioned above her head.
In the other photo, his fingers were slightly bent, making the “V” droop like a floppy rabbit ear.
After receiving the photos, Lin Zhe Xia pulled Chi Yao away from the stall.
Once she calmed down, she thought she might have overthought things—perhaps it was just a casual gesture. She asked, “What was that gesture supposed to mean?”
Chi Yao replied, “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Huh?”
“Rabbit ears.”
“…”
It really was rabbit ears.
Lin Zhe Xia skipped past the topic and asked, “Do you want the photos?”
Chi Yao’s voice was cool. “Doesn’t even a tool person deserve labor fees?”
Lin Zhe Xia: “So who gets to choose first—you or me?”
Chi Yao said indifferently, “Up to you.”
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t hold back. “I’ll go first, then.”
She carefully compared the two photos. In both, Chi Yao looked stunning, while she looked stiff, making it hard for her to decide.
Finally, she shuffled the photos, closed her eyes, and picked one at random.
She ended up with the one where the rabbit ear was drooping; the slight curve of his fingers made the pose unexpectedly cute.
“…” She couldn’t help but say, “Why do you always look so good in photos?”
Chi Yao snatched the other photo from her hand and said, “Because I’m handsome.”
…
Arrogant.
And impossible to argue with.
After nearly finishing their tour of the market, the group decided to head back early since walking at night wasn’t convenient.
“It’s already ten,” Chen Lin said. “If I stay out any later, my mom will scold me.”
Tang Shuxuan added, “Same here. My mom just called me.”
Xu Ting offered, “Then I’ll see you guys home. We can share a cab.”
As they waited for the car, Tang Shuxuan stood next to Lin Zhe Xia.
She noticed Lin Zhe Xia still staring at the instant photo and realized she was still bothered by what had happened earlier. Leaning close, Tang Shuxuan whispered, “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. You seem unusually tense today. It’s just a group photo, after all. Given your relationship with Chi Yao, no one would think anything of it.”
“You and Chi Yao are practically inseparable childhood friends—the kind who grew up sharing pants. You’re best friends. Even if you went around tomorrow showing people this photo as a ‘couple photo,’ no one would take it seriously. Relax.”
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t respond.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the photo.
After Tang Shuxuan finished speaking, she glanced at the road. “The car’s here. We’re leaving now. See you!”
Lin Zhe Xia put the photo down and waved. “See you tomorrow.”
Perhaps it was because of the photo session.
On the way back, Lin Zhe Xia and Chi Yao didn’t talk much.
“I’m a little tired from all the fun,” Lin Zhe Xia said as they reached the entrance to their building. She tucked the photo into her pocket and gestured toward the door. “I’m going upstairs first.”
After a pause, she added, “I’ll keep this photo safe.”
Chi Yao waved the other photo in his hand. “No need to keep it safe—just pin it up somewhere.” Casually, he added, “How about right in front of your desk?”
Lin Zhe Xia: “?”
Chi Yao: “So you can admire my face every time you look up.”
Lin Zhe Xia: “… Don’t push your luck.”
When she got home, Wei Ping was still working late, so she told Lin He about what had happened at the market.
While shelling sunflower seeds, Lin He asked, “Did you finish eating that cotton candy?”
Lin Zhe Xia: “Xiao He, I’ve been talking so much, and all you care about is the cotton candy?”
She added, “Yes, I finished it. It was so sweet it almost killed me.”
After recounting all the delicious foods from the market, Lin Zhe Xia clutched the photo in her pocket. For some inexplicable reason, she suddenly said, “Mom.”
Lin He, eyes glued to the TV and hands still busy shelling seeds, responded absently, “What is it?”
Lin Zhe Xia hesitated before saying, “Something else happened at the market today.”
Lin He listened half-heartedly while watching TV.
“We wanted to take a photo, but we didn’t realize it was a couple’s photo booth. So I ended up pulling Chi Yao to take a picture with me.” As she spoke, Lin Zhe Xia anxiously watched Lin He’s expression.
On the TV, the main characters were arguing, and Lin He was engrossed.
Her expression didn’t change at all.
Lin Zhe Xia repeated, “Chi Yao and I accidentally took a c-o-u-p-l-e photo.”
Lin He: “I heard you. I’m not deaf.”
“…”
Lin He furrowed her brow. “So? It’s just a photo.”
“Are you two dating?” Lin He asked bluntly.
“No,” Lin Zhe Xia replied gloomily.
“Then there’s nothing to it,” Lin He said dismissively. “Honestly, I think it’s strange that the vendor had conditions for taking photos. Isn’t that just driving customers away?”
When Lin Zhe Xia brought up the topic, she did so with a sense of resignation.
She’d rather risk being suspected—or even be scolded by Lin He.
But neither happened.
Like everyone else—like Tang Shuxuan, Xu Ting—they never doubted her relationship with Chi Yao.
Lin He didn’t dwell on the photo. She urged, “Go take a bath and get some rest. Oh, and didn’t you say you haven’t finished your homework?”
After her bath, Lin Zhe Xia struggled with a math problem for ages but couldn’t solve it.
She closed her math workbook, laid the photo on the table, and solemnly wrote today’s date on the back with a black pen.
After staring at it for a while, she slipped the photo into the fairy tale book where she kept her wish cards.
________________________________________
Autumn had arrived, and the second semester of their sophomore year was nearing its end.
Their curriculum was grueling—they had to cover both sophomore and half of the junior year’s content to leave ample time for review and mock exams during their final year.
Lin Zhe Xia had done decently well in her freshman year, but by sophomore year, she started struggling in certain subjects, especially math. The deeper they went into topics like solid geometry and functions, the worse her test scores became.
Sometimes, even after Chi Yao explained a problem to her, she’d make mistakes if the conditions changed.
The final exams lasted three days.
Lin Zhe Xia seemed cursed when it came to finals. Just like last winter, she caught a cold before the exams.
After the math exam, she immediately felt doomed.
She left two of the big questions unanswered.
Chen Lin: “Desk mate, you don’t look too good.”
Lin Zhe Xia slumped on the desk, groggy. “I think I bombed it.”
Chen Lin: “The math problems were tough this time. The average score probably won’t be high. Don’t stress too much. Think about how winter break starts tomorrow. Cheer up.”
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t reply.
Just before dismissal, Chi Yao sent her a message.
Chi Yao: “Old Liu has something for me tonight.”
Chi Yao: “Wait for me.”
Lin Zhe Xia stared at the nickname “Chi Yao” and replied, “Got it.”
“By the way,” Chen Lin whispered conspiratorially, “do you remember the rumors about Chi Yao when he participated in the physics competition?”
Lin Zhe Xia’s cold-addled brain struggled to keep up. “What?”
Chen Lin: “Someone confessed to him. Back then, no one knew who it was, but recently, people are saying it was Shen Shanshan, who transferred schools.”
Chen Lin, ever the gossip queen, was always up-to-date. “Shen Shanshan confessed to Chi Yao. Did he tell you?”
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t answer. Instead, she perked up and asked, “How do you know?”
Chen Lin: “School forum.”
“But I didn’t participate. I haven’t posted random comments online in a long time. A lot of people were talking about it, so I just checked it out.”
With that, Chen Lin returned to her tasks.
The bell rang, signaling the end of class.
Everyone scrambled out with their holiday assignments, eager for vacation. Soon, only two students assigned to clean-up duty remained in the classroom.
While waiting for Chi Yao, Lin Zhe Xia opened the school forum.
Chi Yao’s popularity was ever-growing.
She didn’t even need to scroll far to find the latest discussion thread.
This time, however, the post titles avoided using their full names, opting instead for initials: “SSS” and “CY.”
11th Floor: [That’s Shen Shanshan, right? Someone from Class Two mentioned she and Chi Yao were in the same school during middle school.]
12th Floor: [So it’s a long-time crush?]
13th Floor: [Kinda ship-worthy… After all, she was the only girl in the competition team and the only one from Class Two.]
14th Floor: [True. They’re a great match. Both of them excel academically.]
…
Lin Zhe Xia scrolled further.
Unexpectedly, she found her own name among the comments.
52nd Floor: [Isn’t Chi Yao close with Lin Zhe Xia from Class Seven?]
Seeing her name paired with Chi Yao’s made her heart skip a beat.
She swiped to the next page.
53rd Floor: [Stop overthinking. They’re childhood friends.]
54th Floor: [Exactly. People talked about it at the start of the semester. Those kinds of relationships rarely turn romantic. They’ve known each other for too long.]
55th Floor: [There’s truth to the saying, ‘A childhood friend can’t compete with someone new.’ The reverse applies too—childhood bonds aren’t easy to break.]
56th Floor: [Forget romance. If a childhood friend I’ve known for years confessed to me, I’d die of awkwardness.]
…
57th Floor: [But Shen Shanshan isn’t exactly ‘new,’ is she? Looks like her confession failed, and she’s already transferred schools…]
There weren’t many comments about her.
Soon, the discussion shifted back to Shen Shanshan.
Lin Zhe Xia figured that on the day of the competition, Shen Shanshan hadn’t just sent Xu Ting away—others must have guessed what happened and let it slip.
By the time she finished reading, she was the only one left in the classroom.
Even the cleanup crew had left.
She stared at the empty room, her nose growing stuffier from her cold.
Her phone lit up again.
Chi Yao: “I’m on my way.”
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t reply.
She thought about how, when she changed his contact name, she’d secretly settled on “Chi Yao.”
Only she knew what that nickname meant.
Even if someone accidentally saw it, they wouldn’t understand.
When Chi Yao appeared at the doorway of Class Seven, tears welled up in her eyes.
He was about to say, “Let’s go,” but as he approached, he saw Lin Zhe Xia blink, and a tear slipped silently down her cheek.
Chi Yao paused, his tone softening. “Why are you crying?”
Lin Zhe Xia’s voice was thick with congestion. “I’m not crying. I just feel awful from this cold.”
The feeling of liking someone should be sweet.
Lin Zhe Xia didn’t deny that.
But her sweetness seemed fleeting.
“My nose hurts,” she said, her body trembling faintly from suppressed sobs. “My eyes hurt too.”
She really didn’t want to cry.
But once the first tear fell, the rest followed uncontrollably.
Her tears flowed freely. “… And I bombed the math exam too.”
“I left two big questions blank.”
“Two questions. Each worth twelve points. That’s twenty-four points gone.”
“I might fail.”
The more she spoke, the more her body shook, her eyes reddening. “Why did I leave those two questions blank? I reviewed them thoroughly.”
“Why couldn’t I solve them? Why did I forget during the exam…?”
Chi Yao stood by her desk, reaching for tissues from another student’s desk. He bent down close to her.
The distance between them was minimal.
He leaned in, gently wiping her tears.
His movements were as light as the tissue itself.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “Which two questions did you leave blank?”
Through her blurred vision, Lin Zhe Xia answered, “The last question.”
Chi Yao hummed. “And?”
Lin Zhe Xia: “The third-to-last question.”
As her tears dried, her vision cleared.
She could see Chi Yao clearly now—the school uniform he wore, his face so close as he bent down, his deep-set eyes and sharp features, and the intense gaze he fixed on her.
“I’ll explain them to you when we get home.”
He said, “You won’t make the same mistake next time, okay?”
Lin Zhe Xia nodded.
At the same time, she realized something with crystal clarity.
They had known each other for far too long. So long that no one would ever imagine that kind of relationship between them.
Though they were closer than anyone else in the world, they were also the farthest from the word “like.”
Seeing that she had stopped crying, Chi Yao handed her the tissues and asked, “Have you packed up yet?”
Lin Zhe Xia shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Move to the side when you’re done crying.”
Once she moved to Chen Lin’s seat, Chi Yao began packing her bag for her, asking as he worked, “Do you want to bring this? What about this? Got everything? Anything else?”
Lin Zhe Xia pointed to her desk drawer. “There’s still a set of math papers.”
The setting sun streamed through the classroom windows, casting golden light over both of them.
The scene felt familiar.
Lin Zhe Xia remembered a similar moment from long ago.
Back then, she had been scolded by her teacher for chatting in class and cried as she left the office. When she returned to the empty classroom, she found Chi Yao waiting for her, quietly tidying her pencil case.
The childhood memory overlapped with the present.
Suddenly, Lin Zhe Xia called out, “Chi Yao.”
Chi Yao, who had been squatting and organizing her pencil pouch, paused. His throat moved slightly. “Is there anything else you forgot?”
“No,” Lin Zhe Xia said, her voice still hoarse from crying. “I just called your name.”
At seventeen, Lin Zhe Xia had developed feelings for someone.
But at this age, those feelings were still too tender to be properly placed.
More than her age, the real challenge was that the person she liked was her best friend, the one she’d grown up with since childhood.
He was someone she couldn’t afford to lose, someone she absolutely couldn’t allow herself to fall for.
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