Social Navigations and Unexpected Gifts

“What on earth? So you were just so out of your mind from being scared by a cockroach that you started manhandling Student Yi.” Mei Ruolan retrieved her personal mug from the drawer of the table by the window – one of those tempered glass cups you could buy for twenty yuan – and filled it from a pre-prepared hot water kettle. Holding the filled mug, she settled into a nearby seat, then looked at Dorothy with a face full of disappointment. “I actually thought you were planning to make your move while Tianman was away, seizing the opportunity.”

“Why would I ever make a move on such a boring man?” Dorothy retorted, her smile not quite reaching her eyes as she looked at Mei Ruolan. “Stop telling such brainless jokes.”

‘Though I couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of ‘make a move’ in their context, I certainly recognized the adjective ‘boring.’ After all, it was undeniably true of me.’

“Not at all, Student Yi is quite an interesting person,” Mei Ruolan countered, pouring me a cup of water in a disposable cup.

“Thank you.” She returned my polite words with a smile.

Mei Ruolan turned to Dorothy and said, “See? This reserved demeanor, this calm expression even when surrounded by girls—don’t you think it’s kind of cool?”

“Haha, he’s just well-behaved, it’s the other boys who are too noisy,” Dorothy dismissed, pulling a book from her bag and starting to read. “If you’re talking about not speaking much and lacking expression, all the shut-ins in our class are like that. It’s less ‘cool’ and more simply ‘cowardly.’”

“Like whom, for example?”

“They see a pretty girl and think she’s from a different world, so they don’t dare speak to her; they encounter a field they excel in but fear standing out too much, so they choose silence; they could clearly speak up for themselves or others, yet they hesitate and remain motionless. Always waiting for others to make the first move, always waiting for things to come to them—that’s the kind of socially timid bunch they are.”

“Well then…” While Dorothy was speaking, Mei Ruolan retrieved another dark red plastic cup, emblazoned with a black cat, from the table. She filled it with water and handed it to Dorothy. “Do you think Student Yi is that kind of person?”

Dorothy’s eyes, previously fixed on her book, flickered towards me for a moment. Then she said, “He… he’s alright, I suppose. At least he’ll initiate conversations.” She then changed her tone. “But he’s still pretty annoying. He keeps saying he wants to build good relationships with us, yet he hasn’t shown any initiative. You don’t actually think just sitting there every day will foster camaraderie, do you? At least bring some snacks when you come to the club room.”

“Bringing snacks into school to eat is against the rules, you know,” Mei Ruolan, as a disciplinary committee member, reminded her.

“Of course I know that,” Dorothy clicked her tongue. “I just want him to put his money where his mouth is.”

“It’s only the first day; don’t be too hard on him. Student Yi will take his time and do things at his own pace.”

Dorothy’s critiques of me were sharp and biting. Mei Ruolan, on the other hand, was incredibly understanding, consistently speaking well of me despite Dorothy’s incessant nitpicking. She truly lived up to her first impression: beautiful, generous, gentle, and dependable. Yet, Dorothy wasn’t entirely wrong. I had indeed spoken without much thought, saying those things without considering how to act on them. Having never proactively made friends, I had taken the concept of social interaction for granted. But I knew that socializing was a complex affair, and maintaining a relationship between individuals was incredibly difficult. I ought to do something, anything.

“Do you two want anything recently?” I asked.

Dorothy cast a sidelong glance at me. “What’s this? Are you actually going to get us something?” The amusement in her voice was hard to distinguish as either genuine pleasure or mockery.

“As long as it’s within my means.”

“Oh really? Then I’ll have to give it some serious thought,” Dorothy mused, leaning back in her chair, covering half her face with her book, and closing her eyes in contemplation.

While Dorothy pondered, I turned to Mei Ruolan. She shrugged. “I don’t really want anything,” she said. “If you really want to give a gift, just something small to show you care would be fine. But I have to say, you won’t earn much goodwill just by giving gifts.”

“Hm, I know,” I replied. But I felt Dorothy had a point. “I haven’t truly initiated closeness with anyone before this, so I thought I’d start with gift-giving, as a way to learn to proactively interact with people.”

‘Come to think of it, I genuinely don’t recall ever giving anyone a gift before, largely because I rarely bought anything for myself. It sounded quite logical, didn’t it? I hadn’t possessed much, so I hadn’t given much, and consequently, hadn’t received much. Even if it was for the smallest change, I believed I should try to give something, to begin forging connections with others.’

“Ah, I’ve got it!” Dorothy exclaimed, sitting upright in her chair, resuming a poised posture. “Get me a copy of *Love in the Time of Cholera*. I’ve been meaning to read it.”

“Well, that’s a rarity,” Mei Ruolan said, surprised. “You’re actually breaking tradition and wanting to read a romance novel. Last time you read *Wuthering Heights*, you kept complaining about how melodramatic and drawn-out it was.”

“*Wuthering Heights* isn’t just about love. Though, I admit, I really disliked some of the characters in it.” Dorothy decided not to elaborate further on the topic, turning her head to me instead. “Anyway, get me a copy of *Love in the Time of Cholera*. Not only will it show me your determination, but it’ll also significantly boost my good impression of you in one go. No objections, right?”

‘Hearing those words come from her own mouth felt a bit jarring, yet observing her inscrutable smile, I apparently had no right to object. So, I nodded in agreement.’

There was a Xinhua Bookstore on the way from my house to the pedestrian street. And the book Dorothy mentioned was, to my recollection, a classic. I should be able to buy it with a trip there tonight. Her clear request was manageable. Mei Ruolan’s “anything is fine” was, paradoxically, more difficult. If I wanted to show goodwill, I ought to cater to her preferences, but I didn’t know her at all. How could I possibly know what she liked or needed?

“Sorry, I’m late,” Yu Tianman said, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

“You’re a bit late today,” Mei Ruolan noted. “Was there something going on in class?”

“Well… I was helping the teacher grade the last quiz papers, it took a while.” She pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down. She first smiled at me, then turned back to the others and asked, “So, what were you all just talking about? It sounded quite lively.”

“The newcomer is going to give us gifts,” Dorothy chirped playfully. “He says he wants to show his sincerity and let us make requests.”

Yu Tianman looked at me, as if seeking confirmation. I nodded, indicating that Dorothy’s words were true.

“So I get one too?” she exclaimed, both surprised and delighted. “Hmm, what should I have Yi Chang get for me~”

Yu Tianman began pondering with great enthusiasm, her raised eyebrows slowly lowering as excitement transformed into vexation. Her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed, adding a mix of indecision and bewilderment to her distress.

“I can’t think of anything I want right off the bat,” she said. “So I’ll hold onto my gift request for now. I’ll tell you later when something comes to mind.”

I nodded. ‘If it were me, asked what I wanted, I wouldn’t be able to say what I needed either. It felt like I already had everything I might use.’

“Let’s put that topic aside for now,” Yu Tianman said. “I was thinking yesterday. While I don’t really like serious or formal atmospheres, I still hope you could do a simple self-introduction, so everyone can get to know you better.”

‘A self-introduction, huh? How did I even introduce myself back when school started?’

“My name is Yi Chang, I’m 16 years old, and I live in the Beiling Road area.”

And that was it.

“That’s all?” Dorothy questioned, her brow arched. “What, can your entire life story be summed up in one sentence?”

‘It seemed it really could. If I thought about it carefully, how many words would it truly take to describe me and the time I’d lived?’

“Oh, don’t be like that, Xiao Tao. Student Yi isn’t very good at socializing; let’s take it slow.” Yu Tianman was speaking up for me again. ‘Had I done something wrong to make Dorothy so unhappy, and Yu Tianman so protective of me?’

‘I didn’t understand. I couldn’t possibly know what others were truly thinking. What they wanted to hear, what I should say—it was completely beyond me.’

“Then let’s try a question-and-answer format,” Mei Ruolan suggested.

She sat directly opposite me and cleared her throat. “So, Student Yi, how many people are in your family?”

“My parents and I, and an older sister who lives elsewhere.”

“And what do your parents do for work?”

“My father is a driving instructor, and my mother is a piano tuner.”

‘Why did this feel like déjà vu…?’

“Are you on a blind date?” Yu Tianman quipped.

“Speaking of which, Student Yi, you have an older sister?” Tianman’s seat seemed to have moved a little closer to mine. “That’s so nice. Xiao Tao and I are both only children, so it’s always quiet at home. Xiao Mei has a younger brother, but there’s a big age gap, so she mostly takes care of him.”

“No, my sister and I don’t really communicate much,” I recalled, thinking about her. “And we don’t see each other often… for various reasons.”

“Ah… is that so?” Yu Tianman looked a little awkward, unsure of what to say.

“Now that you mention it,” Dorothy interjected, having observed the scene for a while, “back in elementary school, Tianman used to frequently ‘adopt’ older girls as her sisters.”

“Oh, now that you say that, it’s true,” Mei Ruolan chimed in, picking up the topic. “Whenever she met a really mature senior girl, Tianman would actively cling to them and ask,” she mimicked Yu Tianman’s sweet tone, her voice slightly pinched, “’Um, excuse me, can I call you big sister~’”

Yu Tianman, beside me, turned crimson. “Don’t go on about it! I was just a naive kid back then, it doesn’t count!”

“So, do you have some kind of sister complex?” Dorothy asked. She never lifted her eyes from her book when speaking, as if conversing while simultaneously reading.

“I can’t really explain what happened back then,” she pondered, tracing her memories and emotions from that time. “How do I put it? I guess I was always clumsy as a child, unable to do anything right, so I really looked up to those mature, intellectual older sisters who could handle all sorts of troubles with such composure.”

‘Because I couldn’t do it, I envied those who could. Was that feeling a desire to become them, or to use them to compensate for my own shortcomings?’

“Haven’t you already done quite well for yourself?” Dorothy remarked. “You get confessed to by boys once a week, consistently rejecting them with different excuses and methods. You’re very mature, Miss Popular.”

“Don’t tease me! Every time I have to find a way to politely refuse and save their face, and some of those persistent boys, I even have to…” She glanced at me, then suddenly looked startled. “Um, that, that, let’s change the topic. Xiao Mei, have you been going to the girls’ basketball club recently?”

“Oh, I’d completely forgotten until you mentioned it,” Mei Ruolan said, picking up her phone. “I guess I’ll make an appearance there after a long while.”

“Does Student Mei belong to other clubs?” I asked.

“Mhm,” Yu Tianman nodded. “It’s just that Xiao Mei has excellent athletic ability, so other clubs often ask her to be a sparring partner.”

“More than just athletic ability,” Dorothy added. “She barely studies, yet her grades are incredibly good…” She tore her gaze from her book and stared at Mei Ruolan for a long moment. “It’s really annoying,” she said. “Being good at either sports or academics is enough. What’s the deal with you monopolizing both?”

“What can I do about it…”

“What annoys me even more is that someone as multi-talented as you has hobbies that are just so…”

“Cough, cough, it’s a bit rude to talk about that in front of Student Yi, don’t you think?” Mei Ruolan interjected, a warning in her tone. There were clearly some things the girls didn’t want me to know about their conversations.

During the girls’ brief chat and banter, I couldn’t interject a single word. It wasn’t until Mei Ruolan’s phone chimed with a notification that she confirmed the message and rose from her seat.

“Well then, I’m off to help the basketball club.”

“Alright, take care.” Yu Tianman waved goodbye.

For the remainder of the time, Dorothy remained completely silent. Yu Tianman, meanwhile, was constantly replying to messages on her phone, her body slightly angled, presumably to prevent me from seeing the chat content. I used this idle, uninteresting period to do some homework.

Dorothy occasionally glanced my way; although she was always reading her book whenever I looked up to check, there were a few times I caught her gaze. Yu Tianman, on the other hand, cheerfully helped me with my homework and chatted about school matters. However, each time her phone rang, a troubled expression would cross her face as she turned to reply to her messages.

This atmosphere persisted until the sun dipped in the west, and the sky and land began to glow with a soft yellow hue.

“I’m heading back,” Dorothy announced, packing her belongings into her backpack and leaving the club room.

After watching Dorothy depart, Yu Tianman turned to me. “Well then…” she began softly, her eyelids lowered as she smiled. “Shall we head back too?”