Chapter 7 – just right
Her intuition told her there was a trap in that question.
“He doesn’t like coffee.” “It’s too far from here.” “He’s been pretty busy with work lately.”
Any of these could be used to turn the trap back on him.
As for the “he” in the sentence, she could say it was a male colleague, a male friend, or something along those lines.
If Meng Ou misunderstood, that was his fault.
But why did people have to make things so complicated?
The person sitting across from her was not her enemy, not her rival, not someone she needed to scheme against at every turn just to come out on top.
Xiang You hoped she could behave a little more calmly.
So, as generously as she could, she shook her head. “Yeah, no.”
Strangely enough, the moment she became generous, it seemed that Meng Ou was the one who became awkward instead.
There was an almost imperceptible flicker in his eyes. As though trying to cover up the fact that he had been exposed, he pinched the stainless-steel straw and casually let out an “Oh.”
See? The problem had been so easy to solve after all.
And now it was Xiang You’s turn to feel sorry for his embarrassment.
He had dug a pit, only to jump into it himself. Poor thing.
Xiang You was not as mean-spirited as he was, and did not enjoy watching people squirm, so she took the initiative to change the subject.
“I went back to my hometown last month and saw Teacher Zheng.”
It had been her mother’s birthday last month, so she had specifically taken leave to go home and celebrate with her.
On the way home with the cake, she had happened to run into her high-school homeroom teacher.
It had only been a few years since high school, not all that long. Yet the Teacher Zheng before her seemed to have become haggard beyond recognition.
The gray at her temples, too late to be touched up, was white as snow, and the crow’s-feet around her eyes had blossomed into a pair of flowers.
Perhaps Teacher Zheng had not been lying back then. Every class she taught was always the most troublesome class, each new cohort wearing her down little by little.
Something inexplicably caught in Xiang You’s heart.
So much so that when they stood face-to-face, she even forgot to greet her first.
It was Teacher Zheng who recognized her and smiled. “Youyou, where are you working now?”
“Ah, hello, Teacher Zheng.” Xiang You put the question out of her mind and hurriedly greeted her first.
“Good, good!” Teacher Zheng smiled until her eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re still the same as you were back then, always spacing out. You’re always half a beat slow when you talk.”
Xiang You awkwardly scratched at her hair and gave two dry laughs.
Teacher Zheng waited a few seconds. Seeing that she had no intention of answering the question from before, she simply asked a new one herself. “What did you come back for?”
“It’s my mom’s birthday. I came back to celebrate with her.” Xiang You finally came back to herself and answered in a stiff, matter-of-fact way.
“Oh, then give her my regards too.”
The atmosphere of small talk suddenly seemed to become a little awkward.
Xiang You felt she could not keep letting the other person ask all the questions. She should come up with a topic too.
Her mouth moved a step faster than her brain.
“Teacher Zheng, is this year’s class still hard to teach?”
As soon as the words came out, both of them burst into laughter.
The two stood by the side of the road, laughing so hard they bent backward and forward, drawing sidelong glances from passersby.
Teacher Zheng finally managed to stop laughing and said, “Hard to teach. The hardest class yet!”
“Then compared to them, I guess our class was actually pretty good.” Xiang You continued the joke with a smile.
“Yes, your class really was quite good.” The smile on Teacher Zheng’s face gradually softened, taking on a hint of nostalgia. “It was the class with the best grades, after all. You all really made me look good.”
Xiang You smiled along in agreement.
She certainly was not the one who had made Teacher Zheng look good the most. At best, she could say she had shared in the glory.
That year’s college entrance examination, the highest score in their class belonged to Meng Ou.
Actually, Meng Ou’s grades had been very unstable. At his worst, he had ranked thirtieth in the class, and at his best, second.
It was like a roller coaster, except the only people whose hearts were racing were everyone else’s. His own mentality had always been excellent.
For a student, the most important thing was studying.
But for him, it seemed like nothing mattered.
It did not matter if he fell behind, it did not matter if he was criticized, it did not matter if he got hurt.
The thing that mattered most, perhaps, was Xiang You ignoring him.
The two of them had a hard time giving each other the silent treatment, because Meng Ou would not agree to it.
The colder Xiang You became, the hotter he became.
He would bother her, bother her endlessly, pestering her nonstop, both in and out of class.
He would not let Xiang You bottle things up inside. He insisted that the two of them drag everything out into the open and argue it through properly.
If it was his fault, he apologized. If it was Xiang You’s fault, he apologized too.
In Xiang You’s tone of voice, no less, and then he would cheerfully forgive her.
Sometimes Xiang You was very frustrated. Even though it had been her fault, she did not want to apologize yet.
But Meng Ou would not let it go. He would say, “I’ve already forgiven you. Don’t be mad at yourself anymore, or my heart will ache.”
After delivering such a self-righteous speech, he would somehow manage to completely confuse Xiang You.
Xiang You really was angry, but... she was not angry at herself.
Still, for the sake of getting some peace back, even if the whole matter remained one big mess, the two of them could muddle their way into making up first.
This was actually a bad habit, because both of them always felt that once they had made up, the matter was over.
But it was not. It would only pile up, growing deeper and stickier.
Until one day it came pouring down over their heads, suffocating them.
Meng Ou was lucky.
In the two years after they were assigned to different classes, he had never once come in first.
Yet in the year of the college entrance examination, the person who always came in first performed abnormally, allowing Meng Ou to take the top spot.
Maybe that was fate. Who could say?
When they returned to school to fill out their university applications, Meng Ou was positively basking in his triumph.
Xiang You was in a good mood too. She was the type whose grades were steady, and her college entrance examination score had even improved slightly.
Meng Ou caught Xiang You at the stairwell as she arrived at school.
She was wearing a ginger-yellow dress, with the watch her parents had just rewarded her with around her wrist.
She walked at an unhurried pace, looking this way and that.
She did not look like a graduate at all. She looked more like a freshman who had just arrived at school.
She tilted her head up and was about to climb the stairs when she suddenly heard a burst of footsteps behind her. Her wrist hurt, and the watch was gone.
Xiang You lowered her head in bewilderment, staring at the red ring around her wrist.
To brazenly rob someone in school, what kind of person would do that...
Meng Ou awkwardly waved the watch at her.
“Couldn’t you wear it tighter?”
She had already fastened it to the very last notch. It was obviously because he had grabbed too hard, and on top of that, her wrist had gotten a little sweaty.
“Blame me, I guess.”
“Mm, blame you.” Meng Ou softly echoed her, then grabbed her wrist again.
His movements were much gentler than before.
Xiang You did not struggle, simply letting him hold her.
He undid the watch, then carefully put it back on her.
While Meng Ou was putting the watch on her, Xiang You looked him over idly, bored out of her mind.
His hair had grown a little longer. He had probably run all the way here like a madman, because it was sticking up in every direction, an absolute bird’s nest.
When he bent over, the wide neckline of his shirt dropped down completely unguarded, and Xiang You saw at a glance the drawstring at the waist of his pants. And between the neckline and the drawstring...
Later, Xiang You would lie against it, lean against it, touch it, but she still found it hard to forget that hurried glance that summer when she was eighteen, the one that startled even herself.
The sunlight slanted down through his neckline, as though it had brushed a stroke of oil paint across him.
Taut, vigorous, not something sculpted out of anaerobic exercise and protein powder, but carrying a kind of natural vitality.
And the boy’s face still retained its youthful awkwardness. As he concentrated on fastening the strap through one of the tiny holes, his brows drew together ever so slightly.
A bead of sweat trickled down from his temple, gathering all the way to the tip of his chin, crystal clear.
Xiang You was a step too slow in pulling her hand back. The bead of sweat landed in her palm with a soft plop, cool to the touch.
She hated the smell of sweat on boys.
But unexpectedly, she did not hate this sudden drop of sweat.
Because once Meng Ou finished fastening the watch, he lifted his face and looked at her, his eyes bright and sparkling.
“When you get a chance, take it to the watch shop and have them punch another hole for you.” As he spoke, Meng Ou easily circled her wrist with his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Look how skinny you’ve gotten. Where did all the food go?”
Xiang You’s wrist bumped back and forth against the web between his thumb and forefinger.
She blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe you secretly ate it.”
Meng Ou tilted his head and looked at her, giving a soft laugh. Then, mimicking her tone from just moments ago, he said, “Blame me, I guess?”
Really, it was hard to say whose fault it was.
Senior year was stressful. Xiang You could barely eat, and over the course of one semester she lost nearly ten jin. She had become impossibly thin.
Sometimes Meng Ou would bring her snacks, but after she got caught secretly eating snacks in class twice, he started secretly stuffing them into her bag after school instead.
So whether she ate them after she got home, Meng Ou had no idea.
Oh, right. The self-criticism she had to write for getting caught secretly eating snacks had been written by Meng Ou too.
Because Xiang You had argued with complete conviction that if Meng Ou had not brought the snacks, she would not have been punished. Therefore, he was the real culprit.
Meng Ou, exasperated that she could not seem to learn, called her stupid. He had been in school for more than a decade, sneaking food in class whenever he felt like it, so how had he never once been caught?
He said all that, but he still obediently wrote it for her.
Perhaps thanks to that earlier incident with the movie, Meng Ou had become remarkably adept at writing self-criticisms.
In the end, their homeroom teacher held up her self-criticism and said with a smile that did not reach her eyes, “Your handwriting is looking more and more like Meng Ou’s.”
Xiang You stiffened her neck. “Is it? I wouldn’t know.”
Later, when Xiang You told Meng Ou about it, he laughed and said she was learning bad habits from him.
“It’s all your fault!” Xiang You said as she reached into his pocket and fished out a piece of chocolate.
It carried his body heat and melted the moment it touched her tongue.
•
The classroom was bustling. Everyone was talking about their college entrance examination scores, their university applications, their majors.
The moment Meng Ou appeared, the whole class started cheering in unison.
“Here comes the Number One Scholar Meng!”
Actually, Meng Ou had only come first in their class. His school ranking had not even made the top ten.
Eleventh.
Meng Ou simply had no idea how to spell modesty. When people called him that, he answered to it, drawing out a long “Aye” over and over.
He was not embarrassed. Xiang You was.
Because he was still holding her wrist and had not let go.
Everyone knew about their relationship, and their faces were filled with knowing smiles.
Xiang You angrily twisted Meng Ou’s arm with her other hand.
The twist left a whole patch of red marks. Meng Ou let out an “Ow!” and shamelessly grinned at her. “Show some respect to the Number One Scholar!”
So annoying!
Dating him was so embarrassing!
Thinking this, Xiang You swung her leg and kicked him again. But the moment her foot landed, she started laughing herself.
To be honest, Meng Ou’s smug, self-satisfied look...
Was pretty handsome.
Someone suddenly patted Xiang You on the shoulder. She turned around and nearly jumped out of her skin.
Teacher Zheng, unusually dressed in a skirt, was looking at the two of them with a stern smile.
Stern and smiling sounded like somewhat contradictory descriptions, but on most teachers’ faces, they were actually a remarkably fitting combination.
Even though she had already graduated, Xiang You was still scared out of her wits.
She desperately tried to pull her hand free from Meng Ou’s, but he only tightened his grip and loudly greeted Teacher Zheng.
Teacher Zheng returned his greeting, then looked at Xiang You’s hand, which she could not seem to free no matter how hard she tried, and smiled.
“All right, the teacher can’t manage you two anymore anyway. But you both did pretty well this time.”
Xiang You dejectedly gave up struggling and muttered, “Thank you, Teacher.”
“Meng Ou, with your score, you’re definitely going to A University, right? What about you, Xiang You? Do you want to go to City A?” Teacher Zheng asked.
City A was somewhat far away, but it really was a good place.
Xiang You had spent a long time discussing it with her parents at home, and they had all taken a liking to several universities in City A.
“I’m considering it,” Xiang You said.
Hearing that, Meng Ou turned his head and looked at her in delighted surprise.
A University was in City A.
Xiang You had originally wanted to tell him that she was not going to City A because of him.
But after thinking it over, she decided not to spoil his excitement.
“Not bad.” Teacher Zheng looked at the two of them with considerable approval. “Study hard, and... love each other well too.”
It was rare to hear something like that from a teacher, and Xiang You was so shy that she lowered her head.
Meanwhile, Meng Ou, completely shameless, called out loudly, “Teacher, I’ll invite you to our wedding banquet someday!”
His voice was so loud that nearly all the students in the front rows heard him.
The classroom erupted. One after another, they shouted for him to invite them too.
“Everyone’s invited, everyone’s invited!” Meng Ou laughed, turning around and waving at them with the air of a leader.
Back then, Xiang You was both shy and a little sweetly happy.
A girl at the tail end of adolescence always had somewhat unrealistic, beautiful fantasies about marriage.
She longed to trade her school uniform for a pure white wedding gown, to be led by the hand of the boy she loved deeply as the two of them walked together down the red carpet.
But Meng Ou had never proposed to her, nor had they ever formally talked about it.
They had happened to break apart just before they needed to seriously face that question.
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