Daytime meteor
As the bell rang to signal the end of evening self-study, Luo Yan practically dashed out of the classroom at the last note, her backpack straps slapping loudly on her shoulders. Her rented apartment wasn't far from the school, but she felt inexplicably uneasy tonight, a sense of urgency that she needed to get home before it got completely dark to feel at ease.
Until my fingertips touched my pocket—it was empty.
"The key!" Luo Yan cursed under her breath, her heart feeling as if it were being gripped by an invisible hand.
I touched my keys before leaving home this morning and kept telling myself, "Don't forget today," but I still messed up.
"Just accept it." She took a deep breath and turned to walk towards the teaching building. The evening breeze rushed into her collar, cool and refreshing, which actually calmed down the restless heat a bit.
The teaching building was mostly dark, with only the emergency lights casting a pale green glow in the corridor. Luo Yan groped her way to the classroom door and, relying on muscle memory, began rummaging deep inside the desk. The moment her fingertips finally touched the cold metal, she almost burst into tears.
I grabbed the keys and turned around, only to bump into a warm embrace with a thud.
The expected stumble didn't happen; she was firmly supported. One hand held her arm, the pressure light but undeniably steady.
"Luo Yan?"
A clear, slightly teasing female voice rang out above her head. Luo Yan looked up abruptly, and in the dim light coming in from the corridor, she saw a face very close to hers—short hair as neat as a knife, eyes as bright as if they had been tempered with stars, it was Yu Qing, a senior in high school.
"Senior," Luo Yan's tone softened instantly, "What are you doing here? Aren't senior students still in get out of class?"
Yu Qing shushed her, then furtively waved a phone card in the air: "I sneaked out to have a long phone call with my boyfriend."
Luo Yan's lips twitched: "You'd better watch out for another punishment."
"Get lost," Yu Qing playfully punched her, her gaze sweeping over the class sign at the door. "You transferred classes? Class 3 is a science class, right?"
"Um."
"Tch, what's so great about science?" Yu Qing pouted, her tone full of regret. "Then I'll have to go up two floors to come find you in the future."
Just as Luo Yan was about to complain, the senior high school bell suddenly rang, and the entire school building instantly became as noisy as boiling porridge. She quickly moved towards the stairwell: "I'm leaving, you can keep cooking your porridge."
"Hey, wait a minute!" Yu Qing grabbed her arm. "I'll go back to my dorm to make it. You come with me."
Luo Yan said helplessly, "Then hurry up."
Stepping out of the teaching building, the night was like thick, indistinguishable ink, splashing across the entire campus. Students, like birds returning to their nests, flocked to the dormitories and school gates, the cacophony of voices mingling with the clanging of bicycle bells and backpacks. Yu Qing energetically recounted gossip about the "secret romances" of the senior students, while Luo Yan responded only half-heartedly, her gaze involuntarily drifting towards the dark sky.
The stars came out, one after another, densely embedded in the sky. As she looked at them, the "breathtakingly beautiful" profile from midday unexpectedly jumped into her mind.
She asked, almost as if possessed, "Senior, are there any particularly handsome seniors in your year?"
Yu Qing paused for a moment, then thought seriously: "Handsome? Are there any good-looking guys in our grade?" She counted on her fingers, then shook her head, "It seems like there really aren't any."
Luo Yan gave a reluctant "Oh," and the little bit of secret expectation in her heart burst like a bubble that had been popped.
After dropping Yu Qing off at her dormitory, Luo Yan practically fled to her rented apartment. Opening the door, the entryway light was on, and there was a note on the table—left by her mother, Ren Qin: "[I have to work overtime. Dinner is in the fridge; heat it up yourself.]"
Another person. Luo Yan twitched the corner of her mouth, crumpled the note into a ball, and threw it into the trash can.
After showering, wrapped in a towel, Luo Yan curled up in the hammock. She grabbed her laptop and her fingers flew across the keyboard: [Xiao You, I feel like my future is completely bleak. So sad.]
He Xiaoyou replied almost instantly: 【What's wrong, my Miss Luo?】
I typed and deleted the sentence, then typed and deleted it again. In the end, I didn't send it. I just felt a heavy sense of powerlessness creeping up my spine.
A few seconds later, He Xiaoyou sent another message: [Hmph, serves you right for not listening to my advice. Now you're all lonely and cold, aren't you? Do you still remember Song Tian by the Daming Lake?]
Luo Yan stared at the name "Song Tian," her finger hovering over the delete key, before finally replying: "You'd better not mention Song Tian to me."
"Okay, okay," He Xiaoyou said tactfully. "How have you been? Nobody's been talking to you these past few days?"
Luo Yan looked at the chat window, feeling annoyed. She closed the chat window, opened her browser, and typed: "Can you see shooting stars during the day?"
She was stunned when the search results popped up.
—A daytime meteor.
It really exists. The light produced by atmospheric friction is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye even during the day.
It wasn't a hallucination after all.
Luo Yan's heart skipped a beat for no apparent reason. She stared at the explanation of "daytime shooting star," and the face of that person from noon flashed through her mind again. If it really was a shooting star, why didn't she think to make a wish then? Like… wishing there was someone in her new class she could talk to?
She sighed, closed the browser, and threw herself into bed. The aroma of sleep-inducing tea lingered in the air, but sleepiness, like a mischievous child, was impossible to grasp.
These past few days have been like this. During the day, in an unfamiliar classroom surrounded by a room full of unfamiliar faces, she feels like a shadow that has been muted; at night, she returns to her empty rented room, without even a pillow to complain to.
She even considered opening each name in her contacts and sending a message like "Are you asleep?", but with her finger hovering over the screen, she ultimately locked the screen silently.
"Luo Yan, you're so incredibly considerate." She chuckled to herself, looking at the ceiling, and pulled a sachet from the drawer, hanging it on the bedside lamp. In the dim light, with the faint scent of lavender, she lay there with her eyes open, watching the sliver of nightlight filtering through the curtains, waiting for dawn.
What's crueler than insomnia is the alarm clock.
At 5:30 a.m., the sharp ringtone shattered the silence like a knife. Luo Yan turned off the alarm with her eyes closed, mentally torturing it a hundred times before struggling to get back to sleep for another five minutes.
And then—I slept through it all.
She was woken up by Ren Qin's phone call. Her mother's voice on the other end of the line was anxious: "Aren't you up yet?! You have to run laps today."
Luo Yan jumped out of bed with a start and glanced at her phone—6:15.
Before she could even utter the word "damn," she had already jumped out of bed at breakneck speed, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and changed into her school uniform—the whole process was seamless and took less than ten minutes. The only downside was that she was on an empty stomach.
The drowsiness of the morning reading session was shattered by the whistle for morning exercises. Luo Yan mingled in the line, mechanically swinging her arms and lifting her legs along with the rest of the group. The late autumn wind whipped at her face like pebbles hitting her skin, making her shiver. The side effects of skipping breakfast quickly became apparent; her chest felt like it was stuffed with cotton, breathing became increasingly difficult, and every step felt like walking on cotton.
Finally, the music stopped on the last lap. Luo Yan's vision went black, her knees buckled, and she almost collapsed to her knees.
"Excuse me, are you alright?"
A gentle female voice sounded from beside her, and a hand reached out to help her up. Luo Yan waved her hand, braced herself on her knees, and slowly straightened up. The girl in front of her had her hair tied in a high ponytail, her bangs damp with sweat, and her eyes sparkling with pure concern.
"Hey classmate, you're Luo Yan, right? The one who transferred to our class." The girl said with a smile, revealing two shallow dimples. "My name is Pan Yue, and I sit diagonally behind you."
Luo Yan nodded, her throat so dry she couldn't make a sound, and could only manage a very faint smile.
Pan Yue didn't mind and still smiled: "You don't look too good. Did you not have breakfast? I have some bread here, do you want some?" As she spoke, she took out a small bag of packaged toast from her school uniform pocket.
Luo Yan was about to refuse when her stomach rumbled loudly. She blushed, took the bread, and said in a slightly hoarse voice, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Pan Yue waved her hand and followed the group towards the teaching building. "You can ask me any questions you don't understand in the future."
Luo Yan held the bag of bread, which was still warm from her body, and a corner of her heart seemed to soften a little from the warmth.
After the third period in the morning, the class monitor came to call her: "Luo Yan, Teacher Xu wants to see you."
Xu Ying is her new homeroom teacher, who teaches geography. She wears thin-rimmed glasses and always has a serious expression, like a contour map with precise latitude and longitude markings.
In the office, Xu Ying pushed up her glasses and began to talk at length about her entrance exam scores and the special characteristics of geography learning in the science class... Luo Yan had heard those words countless times, and her ears were practically calloused from hearing them.
She stood in front of the desk, listening half-heartedly, her gaze unconsciously drifting towards the window.
Downstairs was the activity area for the first-year high school students, who were running around like a flock of sparrows, making a noisy commotion. Luo Yan's gaze swept aimlessly, and suddenly, a particularly conspicuous figure caught her eye.
The stunningly handsome man wore a white tennis cap, the brim pulled low, obscuring most of his face. He wore a bright purple sun-protective jacket, zipped all the way up, completely covering his neck. His lower body was clad in black knee-length athletic pants, revealing sleek, toned calves that looked meticulously sculpted.
He walked unhurriedly, his steps as steady as if he were stepping on a ruler, each step perfectly measured. Sunlight fell on his purple shoulders and back, like a hazy halo, giving him an air of aloofness yet dazzling brilliance.
Luo Yan stared, somewhat mesmerized. Not for any other reason than that... her figure and the way she walked were inexplicably beautiful, like a dynamic, perfectly proportioned human figure sketch.
Luo Yan slowly withdrew her gaze, her thoughts still lingering on him.
"...Did you hear that?"
Xu Ying's voice rang in her ears, tinged with displeasure. Luo Yan snapped back to reality and saw her homeroom teacher waving her finger in front of her.
"ah?"
"When you get back, take some time to look at the atlas, thoroughly understand the terminator and climate type maps, and keep up with the class pace," Xu Ying said earnestly. "Geography is the humanities subject within the sciences; memorization and understanding are both indispensable."
"Understood, teacher." Luo Yan nodded hurriedly, wanting only to escape this suffocating "teaching" as soon as possible.
When she returned to the classroom, the bell had just rung. Luo Yan glanced at the timetable—PE class.
The classroom was a mess. A few boys, carrying basketballs, were already walking arm in arm toward the stadium. Most people were still lingering in their seats, either catching up on sleep or chatting amongst themselves, making as much noise as a marketplace.
Luo Yan hesitated, wondering whether she should go to the stadium to gather, or... take advantage of the chaos to lie down for a while?
Just then, there was a knock on the classroom door.
The noise vanished instantly. All eyes turned to the doorway.
A figure appeared in the doorway, backlit, making it difficult to see clearly.
"Class is starting."
A deep, magnetic voice rang out, not loud, but seemingly penetrating, steadily reaching everyone's ears.
Luo Yan's heart skipped a beat.
That voice... it sounds so familiar.
She looked up.
The person at the door stepped in, and the sunlight finally illuminated his face.
He wore a bright purple sun-protective suit, zipped all the way up, sealing it tightly from the neck down. A silver whistle hung around his neck, and a roster was tucked under his arm.
It's him!
The man I bumped into that day.
Luo Yan was completely dumbfounded.
He wasn't some "amazingly talented" senior, nor was he just a random passerby... He was a teacher?!
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