The Shadow of Seventeen

A cold raindrop fell onto Lu Jinnian’s finger.

The man before him fell silent after speaking, closing his mouth. He couldn’t see Chu Nian’s eyes, but judging by the tactile sensations transmitted through his palm, the other person’s heart was just as heavy as his own.

He didn’t understand why Chu Nian would suddenly ask that. Had his recent actions crossed the line so much that it had sparked suspicion?

A gust of humid evening wind swirled around them. Lu Jinnian looked down at the person in front of him, his gaze lingering on Chu Nian’s lips.

He couldn’t even remember exactly when he had first started noticing Chu Nian.

When Chu Nian passed by him in high school, Lu Jinnian couldn’t help but steal extra glances at his profile. When Chu Nian answered a question, Lu Jinnian would look up and stare at him unblinkingly. Sometimes, while lost in thought, he would find himself dazing off at the other’s back.

Once he realized what he was doing, he would lower his head in annoyance, embarrassed by his own inexplicable behavior.

It was a feeling Lu Jinnian had never experienced before. Chu Nian’s face, his silhouette, his voice—it was as if they were carved into his mind, disrupting Lu Jinnian’s once empty and perfect dreams.

He had tried to find ways to struggle against it, telling himself not to pay attention to Chu Nian anymore.

But every time the other turned his head unintentionally, his eyes accidentally sweeping over Lu Jinnian’s face, a racing heartbeat and burning ears would warn Lu Jinnian: he couldn’t look away.

The other person seemed to possess a magnetic field that attracted him, making it impossible to stop himself from drawing closer.

Lu Jinnian had never told Chu Nian that he used to follow him secretly. He would intentionally walk past him, his arm lightly bumping Chu Nian’s shoulder, just so he could deliberately say “sorry.”

After all, Chu Nian never saw him.

That was right. Beside Chu Nian was someone who was his polar opposite. That person’s light was so blinding that Chu Nian couldn’t see him.

So Lu Jinnian could stand in a place Chu Nian would never reach, unscrupulously and greedily locking Chu Nian’s silhouette into a cage of his own making.

“If you ask me, you’re just in heat,” He Xing had remarked, nodding as he evaluated Lu Jinnian’s behavior.

Lu Jinnian remained silent, holding his phone, but his gaze was fixed on the notebook under his palm.

In heat?

But he and Chu Nian had met in the peak of summer.

He picked up his pen and continued to sketch and doodle on the pristine white paper.

“Or rather, it’s love.”

He Xing’s voice rang in Lu Jinnian’s ear, tinged with a teasing smile.

Love?

He had never felt such a thing.

Lu Jinnian frowned at the unfamiliar word. “What nonsense are you talking…”

He thought about it. After hesitating for a long while, he asked the shy, classic question that often plagues high schoolers:

“What is love?”

On the other end of the line, He Xing laughed unreservedly. It sounded like he had jumped up from his chair, boldly broadcasting his insights: “Love? It’s thinking about them every second, missing them when there’s nothing to do, even seeing them in your dreams…”

“That sounds more like a monomania,” Lu Jinnian couldn’t help but curl his lips. “Who would think about another person for no reason…”

His clear voice stopped abruptly.

Lu Jinnian lowered his head, looking in disbelief at the notebook beneath him. The hand holding the pen froze in mid-air.

The once-clean notebook was now covered in messy, irregular shapes drawn in black ink. Within those shapes, amidst the black and white, Chu Nian’s name was written everywhere.

Lu Jinnian’s hand shook, and the pen dropped onto the desk.

“Hello? Why’d you go quiet, kid?” He Xing asked from the other end.

Lu Jinnian slowly came back to his senses. He lifted his lashes bit by bit and, in a voice as soft as a mosquito’s hum, spoke the truth he had long known but had forcibly buried.

******************************************

A few rumbles of muffled thunder echoed in the night sky.

Lu Jinnian’s eyelashes trembled as a falling raindrop dampened his eyelid. He relaxed his pursed lips, as if having reached a firm resolution, and slowly began to speak: “I…”

His voice was strangely raspy. He had only uttered that one syllable when, in the next second, Chu Nian suddenly broke free from his grip. Chu Nian raised both hands and pressed them against Lu Jinnian’s lips, muffling the unspoken words against his palms.

Lu Jinnian froze. He looked down at Chu Nian, who was knitting his brows. The light in Chu Nian’s eyes flickered as he looked at him, yet it couldn’t hide the fear buried deep in his pupils.

He’s afraid.

Lu Jinnian knit his brows in confusion. What is he afraid of?

[Chu Nian…?]

Chu Nian snapped out of it. His fingertips were pressed against Lu Jinnian’s cheek, his palms touching the other’s soft lips. Chu Nian was trembling slightly, struggling to control this strange emotion. He opened his lips and spoke cautiously: “It… it’s raining.”

Having said that, he quickly withdrew his hands and hid them behind his back. Chu Nian turned around and ran inside with a few quick steps.

He practically fled into his room. After closing the door, he leaned against it, gasping for air. The lights weren’t on, and the heavy darkness wrapped around him tightly. He covered his face.

Once he had calmed down, Chu Nian crept to the window. Lu Jinnian was still standing in the same spot, head lowered as if in a daze.

He didn’t know what Lu Jinnian was thinking; perhaps the man hadn’t even processed why Chu Nian had suddenly run away.

The glow from the porch light spilled over Lu Jinnian’s head, stretching his shadow infinitely. Watching him from the window, Chu Nian saw a sense of loneliness and helplessness about him that made a sudden pang of guilt well up in his chest.

Chu Nian bit his lower lip.

At that moment, the man really seemed like he wanted to confess something. In Lu Jinnian’s eyes, there was a love he himself hadn’t even fully realized yet.

The moment he realized this, an inexplicable sense of fear surged within him, and Chu Nian’s instinct was to retreat. He was the one who had asked the question, yet he was the first to flee when Lu Jinnian was about to speak those words.

The wind outside grew stronger, and heavy raindrops began to fall. Lu Jinnian came inside before the rain worsened. Rain hit the windowsill, and the tiny splashes dampened Chu Nian’s skin.

He raised his right hand and gently unbuttoned his cuff. On the inner side of the arm hidden beneath the long sleeve, if one looked closely, there was a faint trace of a scar.

The scar was about as long as a finger. Much time had passed, and the original wound had long since healed and faded. But because of this inconspicuous scar, he had almost bled to death at the age of seventeen.

***********************************

“Senior, I like you.”

Chu Nian used to hear that sentence often.

The girl before him was small, wearing a pretty plaid skirt. Even with her head lowered, Chu Nian could see her cheeks flushed red from shyness. She bit her lip nervously, and her hands shook as she handed him a love letter.

Chu Nian took the letter. The thin envelope had even been lightly sprayed with perfume. The girl looked up in surprise, her eyes bright as she watched him.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Those two short words caused the light in the girl’s eyes to extinguish completely. It was the sign of a rejection.

Chu Nian frowned slightly as he saw her eyes turn red. At that moment, a tall figure suddenly lunged out from behind him and draped an arm over his shoulder. Feeling the warmth of the body drawing close, Chu Nian didn’t even have to look back to know who it was.

“Ooh, another confession.” Pei Yu glanced at the letter in Chu Nian’s hand and teased him intentionally. “With popularity this high, I might get jealous.”

“What are you saying?” Chu Nian frowned at him. The person beside him was much taller, so Chu Nian had to tilt his head up.

He looked back at the girl. She had wiped away the tears in her eyes when Pei Yu appeared, but after accidentally meeting Pei Yu’s gaze, her face turned even redder.

Chu Nian sighed inwardly. He received various confessions all the time, but for at least half the people who came for him, it was actually a way to get close to Pei Yu.

Chu Nian returned the letter to the girl and gently said he was sorry. The girl nodded understandingly, but her gaze lingered on him and Pei Yu with a peculiar expression.

After a few seconds, the girl asked tentatively: “Excuse me… does Senior Chu like Senior Pei?”

Hearing this, Chu Nian was stunned.

“Ah… I didn’t mean anything else!” the girl explained quickly. “It’s just that you’re always stuck together…” Her voice trailed off.

Chu Nian thought about it. It was true that he and Pei Yu were practically inseparable. After all, having lived under the same roof for so many years, Chu Nian instinctively relied on the person he was most familiar with.

Like him?

Chu Nian looked at Pei Yu’s profile.

No. An answer formed naturally in his heart. He didn’t like Pei Yu.

The person beside him reacted faster. The hand on his shoulder tightened, and Pei Yu leaned into his ear, his tone full of mockery: “Oh, right. You wouldn’t actually like me, would you, kid?”

Chu Nian shoved him away.

“Who likes you?” His face turned cold.

Chu Nian’s public image was always one of being good-tempered and gentle, but in truth, he was quite cold deep down. Perhaps it was because he had been abandoned as a child, but he rarely opened his heart to others. Even from Liao Ling and Pei Yu, he kept many things hidden.

His tone didn’t sound friendly. Knowing she had accidentally stepped on a landmine, the girl fled on her tiptoes. Only the two of them remained in the corridor outside the classroom.

The setting sun dyed half the sky red. Behind them, classmates were quietly studying in the classroom.

Chu Nian glanced at Pei Yu. The other was still grinning at him, seemingly not noticing that Chu Nian was truly angry. He didn’t feel like saying more to Pei Yu and turned to go back into the classroom, but before he could take more than a few steps, Pei Yu grabbed his arm.

The other’s strength was much greater than his. Chu Nian had experienced it before; to avoid having his arm suddenly dislocated by a bout of madness, he cooperatively stopped walking.

He was grabbed by the shoulder and turned around. The smile on Pei Yu’s face vanished the instant he was turned; in his dark eyes now swirled obscure and unreadable emotions.

“Are you…” Pei Yu spoke in a low, suppressed voice. “…hating me?”

Chu Nian shook his head without hesitation. “No.”

“Then you’re afraid of me.” He said it with absolute certainty, as if he had already decided on the answer.

Chu Nian swallowed hard. Pei Yu’s gaze was ice-cold and somber, like a blade carving into him, creating a skin-crawling sensation. He stared at Chu Nian just as he did every night when he stood at Chu Nian’s door secretly watching him—silent, but with hands gripping Chu Nian’s shoulders so hard they nearly dug into his flesh.

Ever since witnessing Pei Yu abusing a cat, Chu Nian had been deliberately resisting him. He had always felt that Pei Yu was a monster lurking in the darkness, and he himself was the prey Pei Yu constantly coveted.

He couldn’t escape.

“A pity.”

After a long silence, Pei Yu suddenly let go. The gloom in his eyes disappeared completely. He smiled, and his upturned lips were brighter than the sunlight. Compared to a moment ago, he was a completely different person.

“I like you.” Pei Yu said those four words calmly.

“You know…” Pei Yu’s ink-like pupils reflected Chu Nian’s silhouette. “I won’t let someone I like escape easily.”