The Fleeting Youth of Those Years

Time always seems to fly when we start valuing it-it becomes so fleeting, so precious. Of course, I wasn’t ignoring the importance of this exam. If I did well, there was a good chance I could end up sitting near Wen Youhan. However, I quickly realized I had far more to learn than I had initially imagined.

Bao Le’s grades were similar to Liu Yan’s, so they could continue sitting close to each other. On rainy days, Bao Le could easily grab a few packs of dry noodles for Liu Yan and leave them in her desk slot. Wang Bo, on the other hand, had grades close to Wen Youhan’s, so they’d likely end up sitting near each other again too. Leaning against the wall by the back door, I watched Wen Youhan and Wang Bo ahead of me, and my heart tightened with a dull ache.

Wang Bo still occasionally glanced back at Wen Youhan as she organized her notes. He was beginning to betray his earlier commitments and started chatting with her-sporadically but intentionally. I could tell Wen Youhan genuinely enjoyed talking to Wang Bo. From a distance, Song Manchao was eyeing Wang Bo with a sharp glare. I couldn’t help but think that Song Manchao probably wanted to strangle Wang Bo.

Our homeroom teacher, Liu Haijun, asked us to write down our preferences for where we’d like to sit and submit them. The time for the supposed seating rearrangement exam had already passed, yet the teacher hadn’t mentioned anything about it. The classroom had become restless. During the break, Wang Bo came to the back of the room, leaned over my desk, and hid us behind a stack of textbooks so high that neither the blackboard nor the front of the classroom could be seen unless you straightened up. Naturally, during class, even the teacher wouldn’t notice if we were fiddling with a fountain pen.

“Xiao Kai, I’ve got something to tell you,” Wang Bo whispered with a mischievous grin as he nudged me aside. Leaning over my desk, he began fiddling with the Roche fountain pen that Wen Youhan had given me. His drooping eyebrows and the spit gathering at the corners of his mouth from laughing too hard gave him an almost comical look.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you’re lovestruck again,” I scoffed in mock disdain, leaning on the wall as I looked at him. “Every time you’re in love, you start laughing like this. It’s gross.”

“No, it’s not that,” Wang Bo said in a hushed but gleeful tone. “I just saw Wen Youhan’s note earlier. She wrote down that the spot she hopes to sit in is the one I’m in right now, next to my current seatmate.” His excitement was barely contained-even in his whisper, the sheer delight was unmistakable.

My heart tightened slightly at those words, though I outwardly pretended to be indifferent. When you truly like someone, you often put on a facade of nonchalance, fearful that others might uncover the tiny secret you keep deep inside. Perhaps it’s a lack of courage, or perhaps it’s because, in the deepest recesses of your heart, you want to protect this rare sweetness, afraid that someone else might come along and try to share it.

Love is not wanting a third person to taste the candy-it should only be sweet to two.

“Oh,” I muttered under my breath and then stood up, asking casually, “Wanna go to the toilet?”

“Geez, why do you go to the toilet so often?” Wang Bo grumbled as he got up and followed me out of the classroom.

From the fourth floor down to the first, there are exactly 50 steps-no more, no less. I’ve counted them every single time. Wang Bo followed behind me silently. Neither of us spoke for quite a while. Sensing something unusual, Wang Bo merely trailed me, saying nothing. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks, turned around, and looked him straight in the eye.

“Wang Bo, do you… really like Wen Youhan?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, his gaze unusually resolute.

“Then go after her. If not, focus on studying and work hard to get into the same university as her.” With that, I quickly walked into the toilet.

“I will. I’ll definitely win her over,” Wang Bo said, his voice sharp and piercing, like a dagger plunging straight into my heart. The pain was immense. It turns out that there are things in the world capable of wounding you so deeply that they make you believe there is no beauty left in life.

In the end, our homeroom teacher didn’t test us on anything. However, the seating arrangement was still changed, as if it were all some kind of joke. Wen Youhan’s seat wasn’t anywhere near the spot Wang Bo had mentioned. Instead, she was back in the second-to-last row on the farthest south side of the classroom, just like at the beginning. My seat remained unchanged, and this put me and her in a position where we could still glance across at each other, parallel in view.

The new seating was based on the second-year final exam rankings. Wen Youhan’s ranking allowed her to choose a prime spot, but because Song Manchao, ranked right after her, picked the seat directly behind her, she made a different choice. Upon realizing this, she attended just one class before moving her desk to the second-to-last row on her own.

Song Manchao’s face turned ashen. Still, after enduring two years of setbacks, his heart had grown strong. He wasn’t wrong-after all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with liking someone.

But I, in turn, started acting like Wen Youhan’s personal assistant, dreaming every day of opening the back door of the classroom for her with my own hands. She would always step through that door so earnestly, and yet, the door to my heart was also wide open for her. But she never stepped into it. Not only that, but the door to her heart remained firmly shut. I kept searching, tirelessly, for the key to unlock it.

And just like that, our youth slipped away in the blink of an eye, leaving us with only a fleeting taste of it to look back on. Then suddenly, just like that, we were no longer young.