neglect

Lu Er didn't answer him. She ran into the stairwell, her white short-sleeved shirt with blue trim covered in raindrops. What a tragically ill-fated school uniform.

She sighed, thought, and went back to the classroom, pulled out a chair, took the T-shirt from her bag, and changed into it in the restroom.

There were still more than ten minutes before the next class. The students in Class 18 returned to the classroom with little enthusiasm, chatting and reading to pass the time.

Lu Er spread out the English materials on the table and copied them onto the draft while memorizing good words and phrases.

A rustling sound approached; Chen Xiang and Ruan Xiyan entered the classroom side by side. Chen Xiang spoke to Ruan Xiyan: "Leaving now? Aren't we going to have class with the teacher?"

Ruan Xiyan, holding an empty can of orange soda, walked towards the trash can. Lu Er caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye; her face was so low it almost touched the paper.

"Okay, I'm not going." Ruan Xiyan threw away the soda can, which hit the inside of the empty trash can with a loud "bang".

Chen Xiang said in a deliberately sour tone, "I also want to leave whenever I want."

Ruan Xiyan seemed uninterested, and unusually, he didn't reply to these words. He walked towards his seat, inevitably passing by Lu Er's seat once again.

Her hand, holding the pen nib, hovered for a moment; the hem of Ruan Xiyan's dress brushed against the corner of her eye like a salt-blue wind. The wind quickly died down.

The classroom fell silent for some reason. Lu Er heard the people behind her packing their bags, then slung one over her shoulder and left the classroom.

Lu Er wasn't initially so determined to distance herself from Ruan Xiyan. But it seemed like fate; two days before the start of the school year, torrential rain poured down, and the entire city of Huai'an was like a boat capsizing at sea.

Lu Er discovered that she and Ruan Xiyan did not swap souls again during those two days.

It became a dream, a dream limited to summer, and Ruan Xiyan and Lu Er were people who strayed into the dream.

Lu Er and Ruan Xiyan were originally two parallel lines, unrelated. Until this soul swap, the parallel lines were turned and intertwined into rays. Now, the rays have been moved and pulled back to their predetermined orbit.

Her relationship with Ruan Xiyan should also be brought back to its original track. Lu Er thought to herself repeatedly, as if this was a legitimate reason she had found to justify herself.

The rain was still falling, pattering down. Lu Er thought, "How annoying."

-

During the last evening self-study session, Chen Xiang avoided the gaze of the vulture-like director and focused on playing King of Glory.

Suddenly, a pair of legs appeared beside the table. Chen Xiang's hands trembled, and his phone fell to the ground with a dull thud. Luckily, his deskmate was quick-witted and coughed loudly to cover it up.

Chen Xiang looked up and saw it was Lu Er. He lowered his hand to pick it up while laughing to hide his embarrassment: "Haha... Class monitor, you almost scared me to death."

Lu Er saw his phone, but she didn't say anything. She handed out the math answers for the opening exam and went to hand them out to the next table.

Chen Xiang picked up his phone; a green bubble was popping up in the status bar. He swiped up; Ruan Xiyan had sent a message a minute earlier.

As soon as the bell rang, everyone flew out of the Third Middle School gate like birds returning to their nests. The entire campus soon became quiet.

Chen Xiang walked towards the playground, bent down to pick up the basketball that rolled towards his feet, dribbled it a few times, and then threw it back to its owner: "You still want to play basketball with me so late?"

"I remember you were still awake at midnight yesterday." High school seniors finish their evening self-study at 9:30.

Chen Xiang smiled but didn't say anything. He could tell that Ruan Xiyan was in a bad mood, so he didn't deliberately bother her.

The two argued back and forth, their debate even more intense than during the day. When Chen Xiang couldn't take it anymore, she collapsed to the ground, looked up at him, and gasped, "Tell me, what happened?"

Ruan Xiyan was breathing heavily, but her clear, dark eyes remained silent.

Chen Xiang had a vague idea: "Is it related to Lu Er?"

Ruan Xiyan remained silent. His face was turned towards the senior high school building, and Chen Xiang also glanced over—from the shadowy sycamore grove and the dimly lit corridor, someone walked out.

Chen Xiang's eyes only caught a glimpse of a shadow. But in his heart, he was certain that it was Lu Er.

"You and she broke up?"

This time, Ruan Xiyan answered, making a few ambiguous sounds in her throat: "I guess so."

"How did you break up?" Ruan Xiyan fell silent this time, only focusing on shooting the ball.

"..." Chen Xiang felt that the development of the relationship between the two was completely incomprehensible from beginning to end. "You two really got together inexplicably, and then broke up inexplicably."

Ruan Xiyan grabbed his collar and wiped the sweat from his neck. After a few seconds of silence, he said, "You don't understand."

"Okay, okay, I don't understand."

He and Ruan Xiyan sat on the stone steps under the tree. Chen Xiang turned to look at him: "So what are you going to do now? With her personality, if she really doesn't want to have anything to do with you anymore, she probably won't talk to you anymore."

Ruan Xiyan rested her cheeks on her hands, staring at her shoelaces, and murmured as if in a dream, "I don't believe it, she hates me that much."

It was lunchtime again. After lunch, Lu Er was on her way back to the classroom when Teacher Mina called her into her office to count the quizzes from lunchtime.

"It's on the third shelf, on the left, yes, that's it. The materials you ordered for summer vacation have arrived, take them back with you. There's a lot, you might not be able to carry them all..." Teacher Mina leaned back, aimed at someone passing by the office, and waved, "Ruan Xiyan, come here for a moment, help me count the papers to take back."

Lu Er was counting papers on the shelf when her back suddenly stiffened as if she had been acupunctured. The acupuncture quickly wore off, and her shoulders slumped again.

Ruan Xiyan stood beside her. There weren't many teachers in the office at noon. Teacher Mina seemed to have something to do too, and she walked out in her high heels.

The surroundings were eerily quiet; everyone was gone—the people in the office, the students walking past the window, all vanished.

The two counted the papers in silence, not disturbing each other. Lu Er's hands unconsciously quickened, as if someone was urging her from behind.

The bell rang, and Lu Er, clutching the test papers in her arms, deliberately slowed her pace, falling behind Ruan Xiyan. They walked a few meters apart in the deserted stairwell.

Ruan Xiyan stopped.

Lu Er also stopped, hesitating whether to go around him.

"..." Ruan Xiyan didn't give her a chance to hesitate and turned her body away. Lu Er subconsciously lowered her face.

Lu Er could feel that condescending gaze fixed on her face. A sense of unease settled in her heart, but then she heard Ruan Xiyan's soft voice: "I'll be leaving in six days."

Lu Er opened her mouth, but her lips seemed to freeze, and after a long pause, she finally managed to say, "Goodbye."

-

When Lu Er got home and opened the door, she found two extra pairs of shoes in the entryway cabinet. She looked up and saw Cui Feng and Lu Guoyang sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking at the sofa.

"Uncle, Aunt." After greeting them, she wanted to go back to her room. After evening self-study, Lu Er felt exhausted all over, dragging her feet as if she were a corpse.

Lu Guoyang stopped her, saying, "Xiao Er, don't go back yet."

Lu Guoyang showed her his phone; the screen displayed a person's WeChat profile. Lu Er remembered that it was Jiang Zhun's WeChat.

“You recognize this person, right? He said he’s your senior. He came to see you today, but you’re at school, so we entertained him while we were at it.” Lu Er pointed to a spot where the table was covered with nutritional supplements and gifts. “Your senior is a very nice person. Are you close to him? I’ve never heard you mention him before.”

Lu Er felt not only physically exhausted, but also mentally exhausted.

"We haven't seen each other in a long time," she said curtly, and went back to her room.

The phone on the table vibrated softly. Lu Er opened it and saw that it was indeed a WeChat message from Jiang Zhun. He had sent four messages in total: three at 11 a.m. and one just now.

Lu Er read through this long paragraph, which meant that Jiang Zhun was flying to the United States the day after tomorrow and wanted to ask her out for lunch tomorrow.

Lu Er typed "Okay," and Jiang Zhun sent her another message telling her to go to bed early. Lu Er replied "Okay" again, exited the chat window, but did not exit WeChat.

Staring at the few rows of simple and clear WeChat interface, Lu Er clicked on the cartoon rabbit avatar as if possessed.

Her chat history with Ruan Xiyan was the one with the most messages among Lu Er's WeChat friends.

Scrolling up, all I could hear was Ruan Xiyan talking, albeit intermittently. Since we became friends in early July, the white bubbles on his end had been floating on the screen like cotton candy.

The timeline jumps to August, the day Lu Er decided to distance herself from him; she stopped replying to his messages.

The message Ruan Xiyan sent her has changed to this.

Did I do something wrong?

I'm sorry, please don't ignore me.

Aren't we friends?

...

The latest comment, posted three days ago, reads: "Can't we even be friends?" Ruan Xiyan asked.

Lu Er was ruthless; she wouldn't give up until she got to the bottom of something. She didn't reply to that statement.

Everything about the two of them seemed to have been completely dissolved with that one sentence.

"I'm sorry, Ruan Xiyan," Lu Er said silently in her heart.

But for some reason, a sour feeling rose in her throat, as if it could melt her entire stomach. Lu Er didn't dare to look any longer, immediately exited WeChat, afraid that her hand would unconsciously tap again, and threw her phone onto the bedside.

"As long as these six days pass, everything will be alright." Lu Er rested her head on one arm and slowly slumped onto the table.

Once Ruan Xiyan leaves, everything will return to normal.

Lu Er tilted her head, her lonely gaze falling on the Usachi on the draft.

It was the apology drawing Ruan Xiyan had made for her. Lu Er held the paper, looking at it with nostalgia for a while. After that short while, she put the paper in the drawer.

The moment Lu Er opened the drawer, she froze in shock. Inside lay a Chiikawa comic book.

It was Ruan Xiyan who left the comic book with her.

Lu Er sat there for a while, picked up the comic book, and put it in her bag. She sat on the bed, retrieved her phone, and reopened WeChat.

In the input box, a few words appeared: "Your comic books are with me..." Without thinking, Lu Er deleted them all at once. She exited WeChat, locked her phone, turned it face down, and tossed it back onto the bed.

This is the last time; all I need to do is return this book to him. Lu Er told himself this.