“…”
“Hello?” Bai Kou waited a long time without hearing a sound. “Yang Wanxi, are you listening?”
“Oh, my roommate just handed me something. What did you say?”
Bai Kou pursed her lips, but she still patiently repeated it to Yang Wanxi with good temper. “My friend says she’s been feeling like she might like her friend lately, so she’s a bit troubled.”
“Oh.” Yang Wanxi responded, then asked indifferently, “What’s there to be troubled about?”
Bai Kou: “…” She suddenly did not want to chat anymore.
After hanging up the call and using up a “favor” without getting any proper advice, Bai Kou still felt uncomfortable with Yang Wanxi’s words.
She thought it over and could only come up with one sentence—
Yang Wanxi had indeed changed.
Tracing back, Bai Kou figured it probably started after that love letter. After that, Yang Wanxi had changed. Of course, it might also have been that she suddenly felt like Yang Wanxi had excluded her from her secrets, so she got sulky and did not want to hang out with Yang Wanxi for a while.
Over time.
Yang Wanxi was busy with her senior year of high school, then busy with the graduation trip after that, and when she came back, she was busy going to university.
Bai Kou had felt lost for a long time and eventually processed the fact that Yang Kuikui was no longer Yang Kuikui on her own.
But she had not told anyone about this depressing matter and kept up her usual attitude toward Yang Wanxi on the surface.
This time, she had finally mustered the determination to seek Yang Wanxi’s “help,” only to get a response that treated her like a child again. The words seemed to imply that her problem was indeed quite trivial.
Would the old Yang Kuikui have answered her so perfunctorily? Bai Kou felt not.
So after putting down her phone, Bai Kou sat alone on her bed and felt unusually down for a while. That night, she even dreamed that she was chasing after Yang Kuikui from behind, shouting her name.
But Yang Wanxi’s back figure walked farther and farther away.
When she woke up, Bai Kou still felt very sad.
On her way downstairs, she sent a WeChat to Lu Tongtong, asking her to have lunch together at noon. Lu Tongtong quickly replied with a “Sure, sure!”
Bai Kou paused and silently pressed her phone to her heart, unable to help but sigh that Tongtong was still the best.
“…”
At noon, Bai Kou took the bus from the municipal high school alone to the Experimental High School sixteen stops away to meet Lu Tongtong.
Before getting off at the agreed stop, Bai Kou spotted through the glass window that three other people stood beside Lu Tongtong, and everyone was happily gesturing a circle with their arms.
Over these two years, because the municipal high school’s high school division had produced a top science scholar, the admission scores had risen with the tide. Several classmates who had been close to Bai Kou in junior high ended up slipping a couple points short and went to Heyan’s second-ranked Experimental Middle School.
…Lu Tongtong, Zhang Yang, Wang Xuechun, and Zeng Wen, who had not been that close to Bai Kou and the others before, now stood together.
Bai Kou withdrew her gaze and gripped the yellow handrail by the back door tightly. She thought that it looked like she would not be able to chat with Lu Tongtong about her and Pei Yue’s matter over lunch today.
As soon as she got off the bus.
Among the four, Zeng Wen spotted Bai Kou first. She immediately waved both hands at Bai Kou. “Bai Kou, Bai Kou! You’re finally here!”
The other three also turned around. Lu Tongtong ran up to Bai Kou in two steps and hugged her tightly, rubbing her face frantically. “Bai Doudou! A day without seeing you feels like three autumns apart!”
“Hahaha, you’re so exaggerated…” Bai Kou got rubbed until her eyes curved happily, and she hugged Lu Tongtong back tightly.
The five of them headed together toward the Walmart behind the station. Zhang Yang said that a new conveyor belt sushi place on the third floor was particularly good. Huang Xuechun immediately chimed in. “Oh, I know it!” She even turned back to look at Lu Tongtong, who was arm-in-arm with Bai Kou. “Tongtong, it’s the one Juzi mentioned during self-study last night.”
“Oh oh!” Lu Tongtong laughed. “Then let’s go there! After all, Juzi loved it so much she ended up in Old Liang’s office, haha!”
“Hahaha!” Huang Xuechun laughed along.
Bai Kou’s gaze wandered between them, smiling at whoever spoke.
It was not until the three in front turned back around that she quietly leaned close to Lu Tongtong. “Who’s Juzi?”
“Juzi is my desk mate.” Lu Tongtong said, “Oh man, Bai Kou, you have no idea how hilarious she is. Last night—”
Lu Tongtong animatedly recounted how this Juzi had chatted with them about conveyor belt sushi last night and accidentally got caught by the homeroom teacher.
“Hahahahaha, and then she—” She even got more excited as she spoke, laughing so hard she could not continue.
The three in front also laughed. “Hahaha, Juzi was too talented last night!”
Bai Kou slightly curved her lips and laughed along cooperatively. “Haha.”
She thought, it’s over. Why could she not tell what was funny about this story… It just sounded like a very ordinary… very ordinary incident.
During lunch, Lu Tongtong and the others mentioned “Teacher Chen” again.
Teacher Chen had been their homeroom teacher back then. Bai Kou happily put down her chopsticks, thinking that she finally had a topic she could understand.
But before she could speak, she heard Lu Tongtong say, “Teacher Chen is too heartless. She never listens to the end. Wen Yue clearly answered the acceleration, but she still made her stand at the back.”
“Exactly.” Zeng Wen chimed in, then, “Cough cough, ‘I’m too lazy to talk to you guys’—” She imitated perfectly. “Hahaha, Chen-jiang always does that!”
Mm.
Bai Kou lowered her head, picked up her cup, and sipped. Ouch, so hot!
The freshly added matcha matcha steamed with white vapor, and Bai Kou’s tongue burned spicily.
After lunch, everyone went shopping at the supermarket on the second floor together. Bai Kou still walked at the back with Lu Tongtong.
“Uh, Tongtong.”
“Right, Bai Kou!”
Their voices rang out at the same time. Bai Kou smiled. “You go first!”
Lu Tongtong did not refuse then and pouted. “Sigh—” She let out a long sigh first. “We probably won’t be able to have lunch together like this often anymore.”
“…” Bai Kou was dumbfounded and only asked after a good while, “Why?”
“It’s all the school’s fault. They say we’re too lax this year without military training, so starting next week, the whole school has to rest at noon from 12:30.”
Zhang Yang, who had just taken a bag of onion rings from the front, turned back. “And the homeroom teacher has to do roll call every noon! Too perverted!”
“Oh…” Bai Kou responded in a daze. “Like that… You guys are so pitiful…”
After getting on the bus, in the spacious midday car back to the municipal high school.
Bai Kou sat by the window, blowing the slightly cool autumn breeze, lost in thought.
As they passed a tree-shaded path, two entangled overlapping green leaves hung at the corner of the glass window.
Bai Kou lowered her eyes to look at them and sighed silently, then raised her hand.
She pushed the two green leaves out the window.
They scattered because of it, one in front and one behind, each flying toward the distance.
During afternoon PE class, Bai Kou sat by the flower bed. In front of her, Tao Miao, Xiao Ying, and the others exchanged a shuttlecock while playing badminton.
She had no mood for it, and her head turned left and right with the shuttlecock, her face showing not a hint of smile.
Then, also during PE class, Pei Yue, who was walking to the supermarket with classmates, noticed such a Bai Kou.
They passed right in front of Bai Kou, but she did not even notice her.
Pei Yue kept looking back as she walked, very worried.
Tao Miao rotated out and sat down beside Bai Kou, hugging her at once. “How is it? Does your stomach still hurt a lot?”
Bai Kou barely managed a smile, shook her head, covered her stomach with her hand, and laughed. “No, it’s much better after resting a bit.”
“Or should I go upstairs and get you a cup of hot water?”
“It’s fine.” Bai Kou lifted her watch. “Class is ending in a few minutes anyway. I can drink when I get back.”
“Mm, alright.” Tao Miao smoothed Bai Kou’s hair from behind. “Our poor Little Baibai.”
Bai Kou smiled, tilted her head back, and watched the shuttlecock flying left and right, thinking about many things.
After PE class ended, everyone walked back together. Tao Miao asked with concern, “Xiao Ying, are you still planning to grow out your hair?”
“Ah? I—” Xiao Ying touched her ear shyly. “We’ll see.”
Bai Kou was still in a daze at this point. She stared ahead and occasionally smiled, but she was extremely absent-minded.
As they entered the corridor to turn right, Bai Kou heard someone calling her from far behind.
She paused her steps and turned her head, seeing Pei Yue carrying a bag and running over from the direction of the sports field.
The black-and-white summer school uniform, hair not tied up, black hair fluttering in the wind as she ran.
Bai Kou had not seen Pei Yue since the end of military training. Although she had kept intermittently thinking about whether she liked Pei Yue, she had not thought about it too much. Only now, upon suddenly seeing her, did that forgotten pounding feeling surge back, assaulting Bai Kou’s heart once more.
She watched Pei Yue come closer from afar and unexpectedly felt a bit embarrassed. Her hands fidgeted behind her back, secretly pinching her fingertips, forcing herself to wait in place.
After Pei Yue ran up, she did not speak immediately.
Bai Kou’s class had dismissed earlier, and she had hurried over this way, running too fast.
She stood in front of Bai Kou, pursed her lips, caught her breath a bit, then raised her arm. “I bought some snacks for you on the way.”
Bai Kou blinked, instinctively looked down through the transparent plastic bag, and vaguely saw QQ Candy, chips, and two packs of AD Calcium Milk inside…
“…” She moved her lips, reached out to take it, wanted to say thanks, but found she could not make a sound. She raised her gaze to Pei Yue’s eyes, moistened by the run, smiled, and said softly, “There’s too much…” She paused, then muttered while looking down again, “And are you treating me like a kid…”
Pei Yue said, “You said before that eating candy can make people happy.”
Hearing this, Bai Kou smiled from the heart.
She reached out and poked Pei Yue’s shoulder. “Oh! So you listened! You were so stubborn back then, saying candy only causes cavities!”
Because of Pei Yue’s comfort, Bai Kou’s mood really improved a lot.
