Chapter 8
During lunch break, the cold sunlight barely penetrated the thin winter clouds, illuminating the empty playground. Zhao Jinglu, Su Xiaowen, Li Yuanyuan, and another close friend, Wang Yufei, linked arms and strolled around the track. It was a habit they had formed since school, euphemistically calling it a "hundred-step walk after dinner," but in reality, it was mainly to gather together to chat and gossip.
"I'm so cold, so frozen. Can we stop walking in winter?" Li Yuanyuan complained with half of her face hidden in her scarf.
"Didn't you persevere last winter? Come on!" Su Xiaowen sniffed, her eyes aimlessly scanning the playground. "Look, there are still people playing basketball on the playground. They're really energetic even in such a cold day."
The girls all turned their attention to the basketball court. Sure enough, there were several tall boys in tracksuits playing basketball, their breath puffs visible from a distance.
"Wow, that guy in white! See? Such cool moves!" Li Yuanyuan suddenly perked up, pointing at one of the figures. Ling Peng was dribbling the ball, pretending to break through, when he suddenly gathered the ball and leaped. The basketball arced through the air, plummeting perfectly into the net, shaking the hoop slightly. After landing, he casually high-fived his teammates, a confident smile playing on his face, a stark contrast to the reserved, restrained player he was in the rehearsal room.
Su Xiaowen stopped dead in her tracks, tightening her arm around Zhao Jinglu's. Her voice was filled with undisguised excitement and wonder. "Oh my God! That guy! The guy who shoots basketball! What's his name? Which class is he from? I need to know! I have to know!"
Li Yuanyuan and Wang Yufei both shook their heads: "I don't know him. He's from high school, right?"
Su Xiaowen's eyes were still fixed on the court, and her tone became firm, with the half-true and half-false declaration unique to young girls: "I don't care, from today on, he is the one I like! So handsome! You are not allowed to compete with me!" After she finished speaking, she giggled, and her cheeks were flushed, not sure if it was from the cold or excitement.
Zhao Jinglu's heart skipped a beat. She looked at Su Xiaowen's sparkling, unconcealedly passionate eyes, then at the white figure running on the court. Her throat felt as if something was gently blocking it, and she couldn't make a sound.
She knew his name, and was even familiar with the awkward yet effortful way he danced, the unconscious little movements when he frowned slightly - these subtle discoveries were like candies she had secretly hidden, with a hint of private sweetness. She instinctively wanted to share, to tell her everything to her best friend without reservation as she used to.
But at that moment, another, even stronger emotion overwhelmed her—a fear. She was afraid that this secret, held only by her, would become a public topic, that she would be the subject of ridicule, that she would be misunderstood as a competitor. And even more afraid…if Su Xiaowen really approached him, even her privilege to watch from afar would become awkward amidst her best friend's excitement.
"I..." She opened her mouth, her voice dry. The urge to speak that had just surged to her lips was swallowed back abruptly, like swallowing a piece of sharp ice, cutting her throat and causing pain.
"Jinglu, you have been going to the high school department frequently recently. Have you seen him? Do you know him?" Su Xiaowen immediately turned her head and looked at her expectantly.
The eyes of the other two best friends were instantly focused on her face.
In that instant, his stiff movements in the rehearsal room, his subdued nod in the stairwell, his profile as he was criticized in the physics lab... all sorts of fragmented images flashed through my mind. Do you know him? I think so. Are we familiar? Not at all.
An inexplicable sense of guilt mixed with an inexplicable, subtle sense of possession made her swallow back the words that were on the tip of her tongue.
"Uh... I've seen him before," she looked away and muttered vaguely, "Maybe... I've seen him during rehearsal, but I don't know him well." She subconsciously chose to conceal it, as if she was guarding a corner that belonged only to her, insignificant but inviolable.
"Oh, what a waste of joy." Su Xiaowen sighed exaggeratedly, then immediately cheered up and continued walking forward with Zhao Jinglu. "It doesn't matter! I'll find out sooner or later! Anyway, I've already made a reservation!"
Li Yuanyuan and Wang Yufei also laughed and said, "Wenwen is thinking about love!"
"How come you didn't notice it when you were walking around the playground every day? Walk around again and again!"
The four girls walked around several times laughing and joking, and then returned to the classroom contentedly.
Zhao Jinglu laughed along with everyone else, but her heart was a little confused. She couldn't help but glance back. Ling Peng was bending over to pick up a ball, his spiky hair looking fuzzy in the winter sun.
She suddenly remembered the first time she saw him, the playful way he stuck out his tongue and made faces at his teammates.
She also thought that look... quite handsome.
This thought stirred her heart slightly, like a pebble dropped into a calm lake, creating a circle of tiny ripples that only she knew about. She quickly turned her head and buried her face in her scarf, pretending to be blushing from the wind.
The secret of this afternoon was silently hidden in her heart.
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