When school was over, the leaden sky was very low and raindrops as big as beans began to fall.
Chen Yanbai, carrying a schoolbag on one shoulder, had just walked out of the teaching building a short distance when he was blocked by a figure that suddenly emerged from behind the holly bushes nearby.
Lu Zhaoran was soaked, his hair stuck to his forehead, and raindrops flowed down his lenses.
His lips were frozen white, but he stubbornly stretched out his hand. On his palm lay a Band-Aid—printed with a chubby cartoon rocket spewing flames and rushing towards the starry sky.
"New... newly bought." He spoke, his voice trembling slightly in the cold rain, his eyes fixed on Chen Yanbai's bandaged hand.
"I heard... I heard that this pattern can help people escape from the earth." He tried to force a relaxed smile, but failed.
Chen Yanbai's heart seemed to be hit hard by the cold rain, and it felt dull and painful.
His Adam's apple rolled, and in the end he just turned his face away, pushed past Lu Zhaoran without saying a word, and strode into the rain.
The icy rain instantly soaked through his school uniform. At the corner of the street, he couldn't help but stop abruptly, leaning against the damp brick wall.
Just a few steps behind him, there was a muffled, heavy thud, as if something had hit the ground softly.
He turned around suddenly.
Lu Zhaoran squatted in the corner of the water, his glasses thrown carelessly into the muddy water.
He buried his face deeply in his bent knees, his shoulders shaking violently and silently, and rain and tears mixed together and dripped along his pale jawline.
At that moment, he was no longer the always calm top student, but just a child who was lost in the heavy rain and couldn't find his way home, and was extremely fragile.
At the end of the sweltering summer vacation before the start of senior year, Chen Yanbai locked himself in his room.
A thick sketchbook lay open on the desk, the halo of light from the desk lamp casting a shadow over the pages.
He held the pencil, and the tip of the pencil scratched across the rough paper, making a slight rustling sound.
On the last page, he wrote the same name over and over again, using different fonts and with different strengths - "Lu Zhaoran".
The three words were densely packed, like some kind of secret spell, or like worries that had nowhere to be vented, covering the entire piece of paper, and the edges almost overflowed the page.
He even learned without any instruction how to outline the outline of Lu Zhaoran's drooping eyelashes or the faint mark of the small red mole behind his ear at the end of the strokes of several names.
He planned to secretly put this notebook containing all his worries into the side pocket of Lu Zhaoran's dark blue schoolbag, which was always kept neatly organized, on September 23, Lu Zhaoran's birthday, while he was not at his gymnastics class.
That morning, the autumn sun was exceptionally clear and bright. Chen Yanbai, carrying the heavy sketchbook, was walking toward the school gate when his steps suddenly stopped.
He saw Lu Zhaoran surrounded by several carefully dressed girls, with shy and excited blushes on their faces, and holding beautifully wrapped gift boxes in their hands.
The sun shone on Lu Zhaoran. He tilted his head slightly, a gentle curve at the corner of his mouth, and listened politely. His smile was just right, but it also carried an invisible, insurmountable sense of alienation.
What was even more eye-catching was that half of a thin silver bracelet was revealed under the ironed cuffs of his white shirt, sparkling delicately in the sunlight - it was obviously a decoration specially prepared for his birthday.
A cold, bitter disappointment instantly washed over Chen Yanbai. He clenched the hard sketchbook in his pocket, his knuckles turning white with the force.
Without any hesitation, he turned around and walked towards the large green trash can next to the school gate that emitted a faint odor. He opened the lid and threw the notebook with "Lu Zhaoran" written on it into the can as if he was throwing away some disgusting garbage.
The lid closed with a dull thud.
What he didn't know was:
The thin silver chain on Lu Zhaoran's wrist had the three letters "SYB" engraved in tiny cursive on the inner circle.
Lu Zhaoran returned those beautifully wrapped gifts one by one, intact, politely and firmly that day.
Deep inside Lu Zhaoran's desk, in a small locked drawer, were seventeen unsent letters neatly stacked.
Each envelope was blank, and the beginning of each letter was neatly written: "Today's classmate Chen Yanbai:"
April 18th was Chen Yanbai's seventeenth birthday, a day that should have been ordinary.
The last period of the morning was a boring politics class. Chen Yanbai twirled his pen in frustration, but ultimately couldn't help himself and slipped out the back door while the teacher turned around to write on the blackboard.
He just wanted to quickly go to the specialty store in the city center and buy the new pair of headphones he had been longing for for a long time as a birthday present for himself.
The mall's massive glass dome cast a dazzling, almost blinding light. Chen Yanbai stood on the slowly ascending escalator, his gaze aimlessly scanning the crowds below.
Just then, he saw a familiar figure - Lu Zhaoran.
He was holding a dark blue gift bag tied with a silver ribbon in his arms, looking a little hurried. He was standing on the escalator going down opposite, rising quickly against the flow of people.
The two people's eyes suddenly met in the air, separated by the huge space and noisy voices.
Just one second.
Lu Zhaoran seemed stunned for a moment, and then an extremely clear and dazzling smile bloomed on his face, like sunlight suddenly shining through the haze.
He even slightly raised the hand holding the gift, opened and closed his lips, and across the long distance and noise, he mouthed something clearly to Chen Yanbai.
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