tulip
As the iron gate of the abandoned roller skating rink creaked open, Yu Chen was stuffing red boxing gloves into his backpack.
The moonlight slanted in, first falling on a faded canvas shoe, then upwards on the hem of a school trouser—the navy blue of Linxia No. 1 Middle School—swaying slightly in the night breeze like a small flag of surrender.
Sheng Shuo stood at the door, holding a transparent takeout bag containing two cups of chilled cheese strawberry drinks. The cups were covered with water droplets, which looked like two tiny fog lights in the moonlight.
He had grown three centimeters taller than he had in junior high school, and his 194cm shoulder line almost touched the door frame. Strands of hair on his forehead were stuck together by sweat and hung above his eyelashes, swaying gently with his breathing.
"The security guard said he saw you walking towards the back of the mountain." His voice was low and steady, like background music on a late-night radio show. "I guess you probably haven't had your midnight snack yet."
Yu Chen didn't move. His right hand was still gripping the end of the bandage that Xiao Wei had just wrapped. Half of the black bandage was sticking out from between his fingers, like a tail that refused to hide.
Sheng Shuo's gaze swept over her, then over the black canvas bag on the ground, and finally stopped at the side pocket of the backpack—where a section of bright red hair was visible, like a signal flag for escaping from a fire.
He didn't ask anything, but simply bent down and placed the takeout bag on the cement steps. The bottom of the cup touched the steps, making a soft "ding" sound, like a referee ringing a bell.
"Sugar-free, less ice," he added, his voice as soft as if he were reciting a fill-in-the-blank question without a standard answer.
Yu Chen then lifted her foot, stepped across the dividing line between the moonlight and shadow, and walked up to him.
She was so close she could smell his familiar scent, a mixture of laundry detergent and sunshine—the same scent that had lingered in the sleeves of his school uniform jacket when she was hospitalized in her third year of junior high.
"Sheng Shuo," she said, her throat dry from the night wind, "even the second-highest scorer in the whole school stays up all night?"
He smiled, and the corners of his eyes curved into tiny creases, like the marks left when a scoreboard is folded into a paper airplane.
"I've taken leave." He raised his hand, his fingertips lightly touching the brim of her baseball cap, just like when he used to apply iodine to her with a cotton swab in the sports school clinic. He would always lightly touch it above her brow bone first to make sure she wouldn't flinch before putting it down. "Tomorrow is the monthly exam awards, and I'm too lazy to go pick up that old notebook."
Yu Chen chuckled, his canine teeth pressed against his lower lip. "Afraid I'll tear up your certificate while I'm standing in the audience?"
“No.” He paused, his gaze falling on the bandage on her right hand, his voice lowering slightly, “I was afraid you wouldn’t be looking at me from the audience.”
Suddenly, Xiao Wei's motorcycle in the distance emitted a very soft "beep" sound—the remote control locking sound—like someone coughing in the night.
Sheng Shuo was drawn back to his senses by the voice and looked directly at the center of the roller skating rink for the first time—Xiao Wei was leaning against the seat, arms crossed, the collar of his black leather jacket etched with a cold white line by the moonlight, like the back of a knife.
Two people, ten centimeters apart in height, met each other's eyes from ten meters away, neither of them blinking first.
Yu Chen, caught in the middle, suddenly felt the air become thick, as if a bucket of wet latex paint had been poured into it.
She bent down, picked up a cup of strawberries from the steps, inserted a straw, took a big sip, and felt the ice crystals slide down her tongue and into her throat, making her eyes shrink from the cold.
Looking up again, she said to Sheng Shuo, "Walk back with me?"
He then gestured with his chin towards Xiao Wei: "I'll return the bandages to you once they're washed."
Two sentences, like cutting the night in two, one for the past, the other for the future.
—
The way back to the dormitory requires crossing the entire playground.
At one o'clock in the morning, the grass blades were covered with dew, and when you stepped on them, they made a "crunching" sound, like crushing a pile of glass candy.
Sheng Shuo took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders, the cuffs covering the bandages, like a blanket covering the black tail.
The two stood side by side, their shadows stretched long by the streetlights, their ends touching but their ends diverging further and further apart—194 and 172, the difference like an unbridgeable gap.
“I saw An Yi’s test paper.” Sheng Shuo suddenly spoke, his voice mixed with the scent of grass, like a delayed breeze. “148 points. He used L’Hôpital’s method on the last question, which is beyond the syllabus.”
Yu Chen bit down on the straw, the pearls breaking between her teeth, cloyingly sweet. "Hmm, I'd give it a 5 out of 10."
“I’ll teach you.” He stopped, turned around, and looked down at her. The streetlight cast a fuzzy golden ring on his eyelashes. “Starting from the assembly, ten days is enough for you to get 20% out of the 30% in the selection test.”
Yu Chen neither said yes nor no, but simply raised her hand and poked his chest with the straw.
There, below the second button of the school uniform, is a line of extremely fine silver thread embroidery:
"SS 2023"
It was during her third year of junior high that she skipped training to accompany him to the small shop near the school gate, where they bought cheap couple pens for ten yuan, which the shop assistant embroidered for them for free.
The pen is long gone, but the line remains, like a note forgotten by time.
"Shengshuo." Her voice lowered, mixed with the cool sweetness of strawberries, "If I make it into the provincial team, I'll really be going to play professionally."
"I know."
"I might get injured, I might lose, and I might get criticized by the media."
"I know."
“Maybe…” she paused, the straw scraping harshly against the cup, “that she might leave Linxia, go to the national team, go abroad, go very far away.”
Sheng Shuo didn't reply immediately, but simply reached out and gently tucked the strand of bright red hair that was hanging outside her hat brim behind her ear.
My fingertips brushed against her earlobe, cooler than dew, yet leaving a trail of tiny sparks that crackled and exploded into her heart.
"Yu Chen." He called her by her full name for the first time, his voice like the entire night itself being blended into his throat. "Go forward, don't look back."
"I'll be waiting for you at the finish line."
What if I'm not at the finish line?
"Then I'll move the finish line forward another ten meters."
—
Downstairs in the dormitory building, the access control light emitted a stark white "beep—"
Yu Chen took off her coat, handed it back to him, and turned around to swipe her card.
Just before the iron gate closed, Sheng Shuo suddenly reached out and slipped something through the crack in the door—
It was that unopened strawberry drink, with a sticky note on the side:
Sugar-free, less ice, buy one get one half price!
Remember to wash the bandage before returning it to her.
Strawberry seeds will stain her skin; don't let them get on her black color.
The handwriting is neat and tidy, like a test paper that has been corrected to a perfect score.
Yu Chen stood in the elevator and saw herself through the stainless steel mirror.
The baseball cap was pulled down to the lowest point, and the bright red hair ends popped out from behind the cap like a cluster of flames that refused to go out;
The black bandage on his right hand reflected a dim light under the streetlights, like a bowstring that had not yet been drawn taut.
In my left hand, I hold a cheese and strawberry drink. Water droplets cling to the cup's walls, sliding down my fingers and landing on my shoe tips, like a delayed meteor shower.
In the upper right corner of the mirror, the time jumps to 01:27, and the date is displayed:
Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
There are exactly ten days left until the provincial team selection.
The elevator dinged as it reached the top floor. The doors opened, and the night wind, carrying the smell of rubber from the playground, rushed in, like a whistle blown in advance.
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