"I see that kid was quite reluctant to see you go," Chen Guangda said as he drove, glancing sideways at his son and joking, "I thought you wouldn't make any friends after three years here. I didn't expect this, you've got some of my style from when I was young."

"No way, I can't compare to you." Chen Chao took a bottle of water, twisted it open, and handed it to his dad. "If you're coughing, you should smoke less."

His dad took a sip from the bottle in Chen Chao's hand and said, "Ding Wei's son is exactly like him when he was young, 1.8 meters tall and two hundred pounds."

"He's not that fat, not quite two hundred." Chen Chao thought about Ding Wentao's sturdy build and corrected himself, "But it's close enough."

"His dad was two hundred and twenty back then. One time, the two of us were jumping over a wall, and he stomped on my foot. I thought my toes were gone." Chen Guangda recalled that time, laughing as he cursed, and added, "Damn it, I was laid up at home for two days, couldn't walk. I was limping for half a month."

People were tougher back then. Nowadays, you'd have to go to the hospital for an x-ray; it might have really been a hairline fracture.

"Then you should have dodged," Chen Chao was in the middle of speaking when his phone rang in his pocket. He took it out. "You were jumping over a wall, and you just stood there waiting?"

"I had just jumped down and didn't have time to move!" Chen Guangda said.

"Are we coming back next year?" Chen Chao asked, looking at his phone.

"If you want to come back, then come back," Chen Guangda replied nonchalantly. "It's up to you anyway."

Chen Chao looked down and replied: Maybe during the New Year.

Miao Jiayan had woken up early. Now that everyone was gone, he was lying prone on the bed, hugging a pillow, his eyes closed, feeling drowsy.

The phone vibrated twice briefly; a text message had arrived.

Miao Jiayan fumbled for it and held it up to his eyes to read.

After reading it, he rested his chin on the pillow. With both hands, he slowly pressed the keys; he hadn't used a phone much and wasn't very skilled at typing with a keypad.

—That’s still a year away.

Chen Chao looked at the new message on the screen, replied with an "En," and locked the screen.

"I think that kid from the Miao Family is pretty easygoing, not at all like his dad." Chen Guangda was bored while driving and kept trying to make conversation with his son.

Chen Chao said, "Good-tempered."

"The kid seems nice," Chen Guangda commented.

Chen Chao didn't respond. Chen Guangda looked at him and asked, "Isn't he?"

"He's great," Chen Chao answered calmly, as if it were a matter of fact.

"Well, I saw that you two weren't talking at first, so I thought you didn't get along," Chen Guangda said.

"We do," Chen Chao said, looking out the window. "He's my little brother."

Miao Jiayan hugged his pillow and slept for a while, nestling comfortably under the covers and having a soft, fuzzy dream.

When he woke up, he looked again at the few text messages Chen Chao had sent earlier. After reading them, he put the phone away, stretched his arms, and let out a yawn to fully wake himself up.

Chen Chao's brief return during the winter break seemed to have changed nothing, and yet, it felt as though it had imperceptibly changed many things.

When the spring semester started, Miao Jiayan got up early, got ready, tied his hair up, and left with his schoolbag.

"I'm leaving, Grandma," Miao Jiayan called out. "Going to school!"

"Go on, what do you want to eat tonight?" Grandma Miao asked.

"Noodles!" Miao Jiayan answered. "Hot noodle soup will be fine, you don't need to make anything else!"

"Got it," Grandma Miao replied.

The students had returned from break, and many of them spent the morning catching up on homework.

The boy at the desk behind him patted his back: "Let me copy your English homework!"

Miao Jiayan took it out of his schoolbag. The boy said, "Thanks!"

A female classmate greeted him. Miao Jiayan smiled and replied, "Good morning."

Miao Jiayan was someone who didn't have much of a presence. In elementary and middle school, this lack of presence was a state forced upon him—he was isolated and ostracized, forced to be a loner. Now, it stemmed from his quiet and composed nature. He often seemed to be an observer. Even though his environment was much friendlier to him now, Miao Jiayan still maintained this state.

However, starting this semester, Miao Jiayan smiled more than before, and he seemed less guarded and "cold."

It seemed like he was in a good mood every day, a noticeably more positive state.

"Do you know how to do this problem?" the girl at the desk in front of him asked, turning around with her physics test paper.

Miao Jiayan said he did and asked her what part she didn't understand.

"I've never been good with acceleration. I always get gravitational acceleration problems wrong."

Miao Jiayan showed her the steps on his own answer sheet, saying, "Take a look at this first."

The girl glanced at his paper, and her expression froze. "Your handwriting is too..."

Miao Jiayan laughed and said, "It's pretty messy."

"It's a huge contrast to your image," the girl said, handing the paper back to him. "You should write more delicately."

That was a bit hard to respond to. Miao Jiayan just smiled and didn't reply.

"You're really pretty," the girl praised with genuine feeling. "Very... different. You must never change."

The seating had been rearranged this semester. Miao Jiayan had never spoken to this girl before. She was a transfer student from the city, a very lively girl.

Miao Jiayan wasn't really used to chatting with people like this, but the obvious friendliness and goodwill from others still made him feel grateful.

"I'm serious," the girl emphasized earnestly, then asked him, "Has anyone ever told you that you're good-looking?"

Miao Jiayan had been about to say that only a few elders in his family had, but before he could speak, he thought of something and said, "Yes, someone has."

"They have good taste." The girl gestured vaguely around them with her finger and said in a low voice, "I thought people here were all... um, unable to accept people who are different."

Their eyes met, and the girl didn't continue. Miao Jiayan knew what she meant; it was a tacit understanding between them. With a smile in his eyes, Miao Jiayan said, "He's not from here."

During this time, Miao Jiayan kept his phone on every day, checking it when he got home from school. Although he hadn't received any more messages from Chen Chao, Miao Jiayan obediently never turned it off again.

The phone was kept in a drawer. Occasionally, there would be useless text messages and wrong numbers, but Miao Jiayan never answered calls from unknown numbers.

The thing was really useless to him; every time Miao Jiayan turned it on, he didn't know what to use it for.

Chen Chao's next message arrived in April.

Miao Jiayan had gotten used to the text notification tone always being spam, so when the message arrived, he didn't open it right away and continued to focus on his homework.

The phone's ringtone suddenly blared from inside the drawer. Miao Jiayan's homework was interrupted, and he wondered who was calling the wrong number this time. He sighed with a bit of helplessness, pulled open the drawer, and took out his phone.

But the brightly lit character "Chao" on the screen made Miao Jiayan freeze.

"...Hello?" Miao Jiayan pressed the answer button and spoke uncertainly.

"It's me," Chen Chao said on the other end.

With a faint, almost unnoticeable tremble in his breath, Miao Jiayan said, "I know."

"Were you looking for me?" Chen Chao asked him.

"Huh?" Miao Jiayan said in confusion. "No, I wasn't..."

Chen Chao said, "I thought something happened to you."

Miao Jiayan was completely bewildered. He sat at his desk, staring blankly out the window, but it was already pitch black outside at this hour. Chen Chao's room wasn't lit either, so when Miao Jiayan looked out, he could only see his own reflection in the glass.

Chen Chao sounded like he was walking; his breathing could be heard as he moved.

Miao Jiayan said, "Nothing's wrong with me... I'm doing my homework."

"You didn't reply to my text," Chen Chao said. "Don't you guys have evening self-study?"

"We do," Miao Jiayan replied. "I don't go. It's too late when I get home, and I don't want to make Grandpa Miao pick me up so late every day."

After hearing this, Chen Chao hummed in agreement and said, "Then don't go. Head home early after school."

They all remembered the incident when Miao Jiayan was cornered on the road and taken advantage of. Miao Jiayan was a bit older now, taller and sturdier than back then, but as he aged, he had also become even prettier.

He no longer looked like a child at all; the childishness had faded from his height and features. The cuteness of his childhood had gradually transformed into a different kind of beauty. His tapered double eyelids drew a soft arc to the outer corners of his eyes. His nose was subtly defined, with a slight, shallow bump on the bridge. His lips weren't the extremely thin type; the bottom lip curved into a faint, rounded line.

At this age, Miao Jiayan looked seventy percent like his mother when she was young.

"Did you just get out of school?" Miao Jiayan asked softly, hugging his knees.

"Yeah, evening self-study ends at ten-thirty." Chen Chao spoke as he walked, his voice sounding quite relaxed. "Ding Wentao said someone was looking for me, so I thought it was you."

Miao Jiayan quickly said, "It wasn't me, Brother Chao."

On the phone, he simply answered the questions, sounding very obedient.

Chen Chao's voice held a hint of a smile as he said, "Alright, it wasn't you, I get it."

Miao Jiayan heard the tone in his voice and scraped the fabric on his knee with his fingertip, not knowing what else to say. But it was a rare phone call, and he was reluctant to hang up.

"Do you get out of class at this time every day?" Miao Jiayan asked again.

"Yeah." Chen Chao greeted someone, said "Bye," then said to Miao Jiayan, "We practically live in the classroom. If they didn't have to let us go back to sleep, they'd probably lock us in here."

"You guys work so hard," Miao Jiayan remarked with a sigh.

"It is what it is, everyone's like this."

Two months had passed since Chen Chao left. Other than the two text messages on the day he left, the two of them hadn't contacted each other again.

But this phone call tonight wasn't distant like their meeting during the New Year; instead, they talked as if they were very familiar with each other. Chen Chao had called because of a misunderstanding, so they just went with it and started chatting. Miao Jiayan asked many questions, and each one could lead to a few minutes of conversation.

It normally took Chen Chao about fifteen minutes to walk home from school, but today, while talking on the phone, he walked for over twenty minutes and still hadn't arrived.

"You're still not home?" Miao Jiayan said. "It's really far."

"I'm downstairs now." Chen Chao looked up. Chen Guangda was home; the lights were on.