Intersecting trajectories

The chirping of cicadas streamed into the classroom through the half-open glass windows, and Gu Hanzhi's fingers, gripping her mechanical pencil, felt a little sore. She looked up at the clock above the blackboard. There were still seven minutes until class started. The edges of the crossed-out function graph on her draft paper were stained with a faint smudge of eraser crumbs.

"Hanzhi!" Jiang Wanning's voice came from the back door, her ponytail swaying lively over her shoulders as she ran. The girl slammed a bottle of iced orange soda on the desk, and water droplets from the outer wall of the plastic bottle slid down the edge of Gu Hanzhi's textbook. "I saw orange soda when I passed by the canteen at noon today, so I bought it for you. I know you like it the most!"

Gu Hanzhi was stunned for a moment, watching the man pull out an orange soda from his canvas bag like a magician. The sweet aroma of oranges permeated the icy soda, and it vaguely overlapped with the orange juice her mother used to make. She lowered her eyes to hide the emotion in them, and whispered, "Thank you for remembering this."

"Why are you being so polite?" Jiang Wanning casually sat astride the empty front seat. Suddenly, she leaned in to examine her profile. "But honestly, you've really been different lately." Her voice suddenly softened, and her fingertips unconsciously stroked the lid of her thermos. "Ever since the second-year junior high school teacher... left, I haven't seen you do your homework so seriously, let alone smile."

Chalk dust rustled onto the back of Gu Hanzhi's hand. She stared out the window at the swaying shadows of the camphor tree, remembering those afternoons spent huddled in her locker to avoid bullies, the drunken glass her father smashed, the endless IOUs she'd write under the desk lamp late at night. As her throat tightened, she heard herself say, "I just feel like it's time to move on."

Jiang Wanning suddenly reached out and hugged her, her ponytail brushing against her nose: "Hanzhi, you must always remember..." Before she finished speaking, the class bell rang suddenly. The girl rushed back to her seat in a hurry, leaving behind the words "I will always be by your side!"

Gu Hanzhi lowered her head to stir the orange soda. Her reflection in the amber drink had a faint smile on her lips.

Ever since the day the monthly exam report card was posted on the bulletin board, the classroom has been filled with the subtle sound of pens. Gu Hanzhi's draft book is densely scribbled with comments. Next to the wrong questions circled in red, there's always another line of neat blue-penciled explanations the next day. She doesn't even need to look up to know that the slender figure next to her is constantly glancing in her direction.

Shen Zhihe was indeed watching her. The sunlight tinted her profile a soft golden hue, and her eyelashes cast subtle shadows beneath her eyes. As she bit her lower lip, pondering a difficult problem, the tip of her pen tapped three times on the draft paper, just like in her first year of junior high. Back then, Gu Hanzhi would jump in front of him, holding up a perfect test paper, her eyes shining like stars on a summer night. During lunch break, she would push strawberry milk onto his desk, saying, "Even top students need vitamins."

Now, she was always quietly buried in her books, as if locked in a transparent cocoon. Only the sudden relaxation of her brows when she solved a difficult problem still lingered in the shadow of the girl she had been. Shen Zhihe twirled the pen in his hand, watching her highlighter the trigonometric formulas, and suddenly remembered the day of the monthly exam...

As the math teacher walked into the classroom, holding two answer sheets, sunlight brushed against the wisps of hair growing behind her ears. "For this final question, Shen Zhihe's solution was rigorous and standard, while Gu Hanzhi's approach was unique and ingenious." Chalk scratched two parallel lines on the blackboard. "Would you both come up and explain it to the class?"

Gu Hanzhi stirred up a gust of wind as she stood, her hair brushing against Shen Zhihe's desk. As she made her first stroke on the left side of the blackboard, the chalk scraped against the surface with a crisp sound. Her problem-solving steps were like a carefully choreographed dance, her leaping ideas always finding breakthroughs in unexpected places.

Shen Zhihe's writing on the blackboard was like precise gears, each formula and derivation fitting perfectly. When they both put down their chalks, the classroom erupted in applause. They stared at each other across the blackboard filled with the problem-solving process. The moment their eyes met, sparks flew.

"Have you heard? The teacher is going to launch some kind of 'assistance program'." Jiang Wanning lay on Gu Hanzhi's desk, shaking the bag of potato chips. "The first place student will help the last place student, and the second place student will help the second place student..." Her eyes suddenly widened. "Wait, doesn't that mean..."

"Shen Zhihe is going to tutor Lu Chenzhou." Gu Hanzhi couldn't help but laugh as she watched the tall figure standing by the basketball court outside the window. Lu Chenzhou, who had gotten himself into some trouble, was spinning a basketball between his fingertips, intending to show off his skills, when the ball hit the passing dean on the head.

Shen Zhihe had walked over to the desk at some point, tapping his fingertips lightly on it. "As for the second-to-last student..." He glanced at Jiang Wanning. "Although he scored two more points than Lu Chenzhou, his approach to solving the problem was a disaster."

"Hey!" Jiang Wanning jumped up, potato chip crumbs scattered all over the floor. "That's called unconventional!"

Gu Hanzhi smiled as she picked up her dropped student ID card. On the cover was a photo of Jiang Wanning high jumping at last year's sports meet, her ponytail lifted high like a butterfly. She suddenly remembered the video call last night, when the girl had held up her math test and wailed, "Why is the graph of a function more complicated than my life?"

The afternoon sun grew thick and sticky. Gu Hanzhi flipped open Jiang Wanning's notebook of errors. The quadratic function problem on page 27 was circled in red, completely distorted. The solution even included an answer like "Because I feel like I chose B." "First, we need to determine the relationship between the variables..." she began, when she heard a soft gasp beside her.

Jiang Wanning held her chin, staring at her with scorching eyes. "Hanzhi, you look so bright when you're studying so seriously!" Seeing her shake her head helplessly, she leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Honestly, Shen Zhihe just looked at you three times in the corridor. Are you two really not secretly in love?"

"Don't talk nonsense." Gu Hanzhi paused, drawing a crooked parabola on the draft paper. She remembered the night before, during self-study, when Shen Zhihe pretended to borrow an eraser but actually pushed a note saying "Auxiliary lines can be drawn from here" towards her. The tips of her ears flushed unnaturally.

Elsewhere, Shen Zhihe was on the verge of tears, tormented by Lu Chenzhou's questions. "Why is the sum of the interior angles of a triangle 180 degrees? Can't it be 179?" the boy twirled the basketball. "Just like my life, it's always off by that one degree."

"Because mathematics is not your life." Shen Zhihe pulled over the draft paper, "Look, we're using a protractor..."

"Wait!" Lu Chenzhou suddenly held his hand and nodded towards the classroom. "Look, the way Gu Hanzhi explained the problem to Jiang Wanning is completely different from when she explained it to you." He deliberately dragged out the last word. "We're all idiots, why are we treated differently?"

Shen Zhihe's pen tip smeared ink on the paper. He recalled how, in first grade, Gu Hanzhi would explain geometry problems to him, folding colored sticky notes into small arrows, pointing to shapes and saying, "Here's the breakthrough." Now, when she explained problems to Jiang Wanning, her tone was more indulgent, as patient as if she were coaxing a child.

As the setting sun dyed the classroom a honey-colored hue, Gu Hanzhi finally finished sorting out Jiang Wanning's mistakes. The girl lay on the table, pretending to be dead: "My brain has crashed. Please enter the restart command." She suddenly looked up, her eyes sparkling. "But Hanzhi, I noticed that you are really happy lately."

Gu Hanzhi looked at Shen Zhihe quietly and said with some joy: "Maybe he was influenced by someone!"

Jiang Wanning followed Gu Hanzhi's gaze and said "Oh~" as if she understood everything, "By someone..."

The camphor trees outside the window rustled. Gu Hanzhi gazed at the figures chasing each other on the distant playground. Suddenly, she felt that the gloom weighing on her heart was really dissipating bit by bit. Perhaps, as Jiang Wanning said, life is like the graph of a function. Even if there are twists and turns, it will always find its own path.

In this learning competition, she and Shen Zhihe are quietly getting closer in more than just scores.