nineteen
“If only I had asked you a few days earlier,” Lu Yunian said, a little annoyed, as he scribbled circles on his notebook with a pen. “I could have prepared a gift for you.”
"It's okay, it's not important."
"Who said that?" Lu Yunian sat up abruptly. "Yanyan, every birthday of yours is important, especially your 18th birthday. You should cherish it even more. If anyone says it's not important, tell me, and I...I'll go...make trouble for them." He even pretended to roll up his sleeves a couple of times.
“Lu Yunian,” Ning Yi’en said, feeling both helpless and amused, pressing his shoulders with both hands to make him sit properly in the chair. “I’m nineteen this year.”
“Ten…nineteen. Then it doesn’t matter. Nineteen is just as important…If only you could have told me sooner.” Lu Yunian’s voice trailed off. “Next time it’s an important day for you, please tell me sooner…even just one day earlier, okay?”
“I really don’t want to miss out again,” he said, his tone sounding as if he had suffered some great injustice.
"Okay, sure."
"I'll make it up to you with your birthday present once I've thought of it." Lu Yunian held out his hand to pinky swear with Ning Yi'en, "You can't refuse me."
"Then I'll keep looking forward to it."
"I asked for leave from evening self-study to have dinner with my grandmother."
"Then I'll have to figure out who to grab for dinner later." After passing the weekly English test paper forward, Lu Yunian stretched.
"Why don't you walk to the school gate with me later?" Actually, the gate and the cafeteria are not on the same route, and Ning Yi'en didn't know if he would agree, but he didn't want to use the word "accompany". There was no reason why, it just felt awkward.
"What? Brother Yanyan wants to skip school with me?" Lu Yunian joked.
"I'm not going..."
“I never said I wouldn’t go,” Lu Yunian said before Ning Yi’en could speak. “I’m willing to have dinner later in exchange for Yan Yan being happier on her birthday, and of course, the same goes for her birthday.”
“I was thinking about that handsome guy from last night again,” Lu Yunian said, tucking his neck into his collar and speaking in a deep voice. “But it’s nothing, I just feel like his girlfriend must be very happy.”
Why does it have to be a girlfriend?
"have no idea."
“Perhaps it’s a subconscious desire,” Ning Yi’en analyzed for him. “However, Lu Yunian, one shouldn’t be too sex-obsessed.”
“Yes, that’s true, it needs to be changed.” Lu Yunian kicked a pebble on the road. “But I have to argue… well, let me explain, this is just my longing for a better lifestyle and beautiful love. I never think like that when I see couples at school.”
"Actually, I don't think you'll have trouble finding a girlfriend if you want to." A pebble rolled to Ning Yi'en's feet, and he kicked it lightly. "After all, he's handsome, has a good temper, and his grades aren't bad either."
Hey! Ning Yi'en, such a handsome guy, actually praised me for being handsome!
This was Lu Yunian's first reaction upon hearing Ning Yi'en's words. It didn't even feel so cold today.
—To be honest, Lu Yunian sensed a strong sense of boundary when he only found out about the other person's birthday on the day itself, much like what Senior Yu Cong had said about Ning Yi'en's "detachment." He knew he had no reason or right to be unhappy, but his mood still became somewhat down.
Although Ning Yi'en wasn't the type to publicize these things to everyone, she should at least post something noticeable on her WeChat Moments. Lu Yunian thought to himself, "Right, I haven't had time to check my Moments today." Ultimately, it was his own fault.
"I don't know either." The stone had been kicked somewhere, and Lu Yunian started stomping on the fallen leaves again. "Wenxi and the others said it's because I'm too straightforward and a bit inflexible in this regard. Maybe I just haven't met the right person. I really don't understand why some people can be so happy and in love in such a stifling environment as school."
Wenxi's analysis makes a lot of sense. Probably no one else in Jiannan would put all the love letters they receive in the lost and found—especially since the envelopes would have "To Lu Yunian, Class 3" written on them in very elegant and eye-catching handwriting.
"So, do you want to talk?"
"Maybe." Lu Yunian didn't realize that his answers had been ambiguous all along. "Sometimes I get really inspired by watching videos of other people's crazy youth. But I don't force it. If I could date before I turned 18 and experience what adults call puppy love," Lu Yunian joked, "that would be pretty good too."
When is your birthday?
June 17th.
"There's still time."
"But Yanyan, I feel that some emotions don't need to be obtained through romantic relationships. Like my simple happiness and contentment, being friends with you is enough. People don't necessarily have to be in a romantic relationship, right? However..."
He paused for a moment, then said, "It would be really nice to receive a surprise like that from the handsome guy last night sometimes."
However, it would be even better if you could treat me more like a friend and not be so distant.
"Ning Yi'en—A boy was standing outside the school gate, but because he was wearing a scarf and hat, Lu Yunian didn't recognize him as the handsome guy from last night. 'Hurry up!! Don't waste any more time, it's cold!!'"
Actually, Song Moxiao originally wanted to say that they should stop talking about love, but he felt that he couldn't assume that everyone was gay just because he was... no, he used to have gay friends around him. So he swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.
"Your friend is waiting for you, so I'd better head back first."
"At the school gate."
"Fine." It's not like it's a matter of a few more steps.
"I have something for you," Ning Yi'en said.
Ning Yi'en took the paper bag from Song Moxiao from the railing next to the gatekeeper. The railing was quite high, reaching almost to their shoulders, and very close together, so the bag had to be held high to pass it to them.
Be careful.
"Which eye of yours saw me being clumsy?" Song Moxiao rolled his eyes at him. "I'm waiting for you outside. Hurry up, I'm freezing."
"Here you go." Ning Yi'en stuffed the bag into Lu Yunian's arms. "This is my friend's review materials for Chinese and Chemistry from his last semester of senior year. It might be of some use. He has a rather unorthodox way of solving chemistry problems, but if you learn it, your score will rise quickly."
“Chinese,” Ning Yi’en thought for a moment, “His previous bottleneck was similar to yours, so you can refer to it.”
"Thank you." Lu Yunian looked into the bag; it was indeed a thick stack of documents. "This next to it is... Can I pick it up and take a look now?" There was a white-topped box next to the documents.
"Yes, it's a cake."
"So beautiful."
It's apple-shaped, a little smaller than four inches, and very delicate and cute.
"For me?"
"Yes, one person. You can share the food with them if you want."
"No," Lu Yunian pulled her closer to his chest, holding her like a treasure. "I'll eat it all by myself." He smiled at Ning Yi'en. "But why... you gave me a cake for my birthday. Shouldn't I be the one giving it to you?"
"It's like cutting a piece off my birthday cake for you."
"It's a pity I can't eat the food you cut yourself." Lu Yunian lowered his head. "Happy birthday, Yan Yan."
"How about I take you to skip class?" Ning Yi'en joked.
"Really?" Lu Yunian's eyes lit up. "I've never done anything like this before."
“Of course it’s fake,” Ning Yi’en slapped his head. “Zhang Zixu has been cracking down on this a lot lately. Listen to me and go back to evening self-study.”
"Oh, okay, then you can go, bye-bye." Lu Yunian waved to him. "Um, could I take a look at your previous notes on wrong answers or something next time, so I can learn from them?"
Before Ning Yi'en turned to leave, he asked with a hint of hesitation and melancholy.
"Mine?" Ning Yi'en lowered her eyes and paused for a moment. "When I was at home in June, I didn't like these things, so I threw them all away."
It's not entirely about "losing".
The period immediately following the end of the college entrance examination was also the time when Ning Yi'en was in the worst condition. She locked herself in her room for almost all the time except when eating.
Even his eating habits were irregular; most of the time he would eat whenever he wanted, since his grandmother would leave him some food, which he could just heat up in the microwave.
The chaos of June was something Ning Yi'en never wanted to experience again. Every day, she would wake up and play video games, then spend the rest of her time staring blankly at the sliver of light peeking through the curtains. Occasionally, when her grandmother wasn't around, she would order a few bottles of low-alcohol liquor and sit alone in the dimly lit room to drink. She wouldn't get drunk, and she probably wouldn't even feel dizzy, but she just wanted to drink.
She would unconsciously pinch the base of her right fingers, and by the time she realized it hurt, the area was already covered in bruises.
I accumulated a lot of unread novels and popular science articles about majors that interested me during my three years of high school. I once confidently told my friends that I would definitely finish reading them all during the summer vacation, but in the end, they all just sat on the bookshelf collecting dust.
He didn't even want to turn on his phone. No matter which app he opened, topics about the college entrance exam flooded his mind like a tidal wave, each one trying to drown him.
After finally managing to get back into a good mood, he decided to tidy up his not-too-messy desk.
I felt particularly frustrated when I saw my notebook of wrong answers, so I grabbed a marker and filled in most of it in one go.
A basket of exam papers next to them also suffered the same fate. Although they escaped being scribbled over because their pens ran out of ink, Ning Yi'en tore them into countless small pieces one by one. Some of them she originally intended to burn, but considering it wasn't safe, she filled a bucket with water and soaked all the exam paper fragments in it.
The inferior paper gradually crumbled, and Ning Yi'en looked down at it, feeling a mix of emotions she couldn't quite describe.
He always felt that it was all a dream, but why couldn't he wake up from this nightmare? Even pain and alcohol had no effect.
What if I had left home two minutes earlier or a few seconds later that day? Would the outcome have been different...?
I struggled for an unknown amount of time in endless fantasies before finally returning to reality and accepting the pain.
At one point, reason returned, and he suddenly regretted it. Although he knew it was all in vain, he still fished out all the scraps of paper and dried them. He picked out some that were legible to make collage poems and kept them in his diary, and randomly took some from the other debris to put in a box. He then threw away the rest.
Ning Yi'en has never been one to readily express his emotions, and his feelings come and go quickly. By the time the college entrance exam results were released, he had largely come to terms with things. Although he was still feeling down, he no longer gave up on himself—he was still rational and clear-headed enough to know that such a state of mind would only make it harder for him to get into his ideal school.
At eighteen, along with the countless exam papers I had painstakingly written day and night, I was discarded.
"I'm sorry." Hearing Ning Yi'en's tone, Lu Yunian realized that he might have said something wrong.
“You didn’t mean it, you don’t need to apologize.” Ning Yi’en ultimately couldn’t force a smile. “I’m leaving now.” He pointed to Song Moxiao outside, who looked impatient.
Happy birthday, see you tomorrow.
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