Chapter 05
I Might Not Love You
4
During activity class, I often played ping-pong with San Ye, because it was the one sport I was somewhat good at, and it only required two people.
One time, neither of us had brought a ball. Since I was on good terms with the PE teacher, I saw him training the athletes and went over to borrow one. He went into the equipment room to look for a while but couldn’t find any. When he came out, he handed me a tennis ball instead.
“Here, use this. Same thing.”
I brought the fluorescent yellow tennis ball back to the cement table. San Ye chuckled, bounced it a few times to test the elasticity, and asked me,
“Can we really play with this?”
I replied with the PE teacher’s words,
“Yeah, it’s the same. Come on, let’s make it a match—winner gets an ice pop.”
After hearing that, he tossed the ball back to me for the serve.
“Alright.”
That day, after all the ups and downs of scoring, he ended up winning two ice pops off me.
Since the snack stand was a bit far from the playground, I only managed to buy two ice pops during the following week’s activity class and brought them to the field for him.
At the time, San Ye was talking with our classmate Xiao Wang. Speaking of Xiao Wang, from the front he looked like Tian Liang, but from the side he looked like Harry Potter—with his big, blinking eyes giving him that boyish look. It was only after I met him that I realized Tian Liang and Harry Potter actually looked pretty similar.
When Xiao Wang saw me hand both ice pops to San Ye, he was baffled. I explained that I had lost a match and owed him. Xiao Wang’s eyes immediately lit up, and he shouted that he wanted to join too. But instead of playing with me, he disdainfully grabbed my paddle and insisted on playing with San Ye.
San Ye stuffed both ice pops into Xiao Wang’s hands, took back my paddle, and said,
“Alright, I admit defeat. Both ice pops are yours.”
Then he handed me my paddle back and immediately started playing with me again.
I looked at Xiao Wang. He had already unwrapped the ice pop and was eating it happily while watching us play, clearly very satisfied with this arrangement.
5
I really loved talking. Even when the homeroom teacher arranged for the quietest girl in class to sit beside me, it didn’t work. Later, that girl’s mom actually went to our teacher and requested that her daughter be moved away from me… because her daughter had started talking a lot too (especially during class).
Our pretty young homeroom teacher called me out, sighed deeply, and I lowered my head to admit my mistake. Then, cautiously, I asked,
“How about… moving me to the last row to sit with XX (San Ye)?”
That young teacher had always liked both San Ye and me—I thought she had great taste.
But she glared at me,
“No. Our school strictly forbids boys and girls sitting together. Don’t worry about this. I’ll think of something else.”
After class, I ran straight to tell San Ye,
“The teacher said no one in class wants to sit with me, so I told her you would!”
Honestly, I thought the teacher was exaggerating, because at that time, everyone wanted to sit with me.
When San Ye heard, he just laughed and said,
“Sure, I’m willing to be your desk mate.”
I thought the homeroom teacher, who usually treated me well, would definitely grant my request. But that evening after dinner break, she told me to move my books to the very front row.
The first row had always been empty, so once I sat there, I became the first—and only—student in that row.
Actually, the lab desks were huge. Even if you shared with someone, you’d still be far apart, not like the regular desks later on that were crammed together. Still, it felt different. Sitting alone in the front row didn’t feel “cool” at all.
My friends came to help move my books, laughing the whole time.
I felt miserable inside, but I put on a strong front, pretending to be nonchalant,
“See? Special treatment!”
The treatment was so “special” that I didn’t even dare tell my mom, afraid she’d scold me. The next day, every subject teacher who walked into class saw me sitting alone and gave me a strange, meaningful smile. I could only give them a silly grin back—it was painfully awkward.
That day in Chinese class, maybe to comfort me, the homeroom teacher gave my essay the highest grade and even had me read it aloud in front of the class. But I didn’t even need to go to the podium. All I had to do was stand up and turn around, and I was already facing everyone.
By evening self-study, the sun was setting. I leaned on my chin, drowsy, staring out the window at the scenery. Downstairs, another class was having their activity period, the noise of their games sharply contrasting with the quiet scratching of pens in our room.
When I finally turned back to continue my homework, I noticed a pigeon’s shadow flapping on the yellow podium not far ahead. Curious, I turned around and saw San Ye in the back row, his hands clasped together, fluttering to create the shadow of the pigeon’s wings.
I stretched out my hand and saw my own shadow appear too. I made a gesture of a dog’s head and turned back to look at him while doing it. He was grinning at me, and I couldn’t help but smile too.
That was the first genuine smile I had after moving to the new seat.
And he did that because, in the essay I read that day, there was this line:
The sunlight casts hand shadows on the wall, and the days slowly age away.
6
That winter, San Ye and I left class together after school and unexpectedly ran into his dad in the corridor, who had come to pick him up. Even though our relationship was perfectly innocent, the sudden encounter with a parent made things feel oddly tense.
To be precise, it was San Ye who got nervous. He was so flustered he couldn’t even speak properly. He just pointed at his father and introduced,
“This is… my honored father.”
What the heck?! That sounded like something straight out of the Republic of China era!
His nervousness rubbed off on me, and I followed his lead with an exaggerated ninety-degree bow and said,
“Good evening, Uncle!”
Where we were from, you usually just called classmates’ parents “Uncle” or “Auntie.” My overly formal bow startled his dad, who just nodded back and said, “Hello.”
The next day, I asked San Ye whether his dad had said anything about me. San Ye replied,
“My dad said your black down jacket looked pretty dumb.”
I had a feeling that if you deleted the words ‘black down jacket’, what remained was probably his dad’s true impression of me.
And that impression, even nine years later, is still his dad’s basic evaluation of me…
