Yexiaobai stole glances at Zhaomingming, his gaze flitting like a sparrow; the girl stared straight ahead, a reed pointing north, never sensing his eyes.

Her dark circles hung like bruised moons, her face pale as winter porcelain; her small frame swam inside a black-and-white coat like borrowed night.

The sleeves swallowed her hands, only her fingertips peeking out like frost; her steps skimmed the ground like feathers, as if one breeze could carry her away.

Some guys love this type, the porcelain-in-mist kind; the frail-girl trope can be its own quiet charm.

Strip away that eclipse under her eyes and the eternal sleepy mask, and Zhaomingming would glow like a lotus rising from shade.

This girl has shared a desk with Yexiaobai for three years, like two leaves pressed into the same book.

Three isn’t exact, he admits; minus brief seat shuffles, they’ve sat side by side from freshman through the split, now into senior year, like a steady river.

Even when not desk mates, their chairs drifted in the same constellation, near as neighboring lanterns.

By rights they should be familiar, like neighbors sharing a low fence and morning dew.

Yet he feels a small gap in the bridge, a span hanging over water; you could call them “easy” and “friends,” but not “close.”

Like just now—running into Zhaomingming on this road startled him, a fish finding a new current; does she live nearby, or walk this route?

He knows none of it; her likes, her idols, her shows, her parents—fog stretching over a pond; he asks, she sidesteps like a cat avoiding puddles.

He realizes, with a prickle, that his three-year desk mate is a riddle wrapped in mist from head to toe.

“Got a problem?”

Her voice rang out of the blue, a bell flicking the fog he’d hung on her.

“Whoa.” Yexiaobai blinked. “Did I just talk with sheer thought?”

“You talked with your face.” Zhaomingming yawned like a sleepy cat. “Your eyes just raked me head to toe; even desk mates would call that creepy.”

“C-creepy?” He froze, his heart knocking like a trapped moth; her blank face was a mask, unreadable for anger or jest.

“Joking.”

Relief washed him, warm as tea; still, he thought the real weirdo might be this mind-reading magician, pulling thoughts from a sleeve.

Talking carried them to the school gate, a wide mouth breathing students; they drew out their chest cards like talismans and let the current sweep them through.

Past the gate, they pocketed the cards in rhythm with the crowd, coins back into cloth, the motion smooth as a practiced bow.

“Forget me.” On the campus path, pebbles ticking underfoot, Zhaomingming said, “Shouldn’t you be thinking how to apologize to Mu Xiaowei?”

“I planned that last night,” Yexiaobai replied with a lantern-smile at dusk, his mood floating like paper on water.

They crossed the basketball court, bright as a lake, followed the red track, a flowing ribbon; ahead stood the “White Island,” the senior building alone and pale among brick-red others.

“Really?”

“Yep.” Yexiaobai nodded, light as wind. “I’ve apologized to Mu Xiaowei a thousand times since we were kids, easy.”

“If the gaokao tested apologies, I’d score full marks with flair,” he said, stacking sorries like origami cranes. “Maybe straight into Qingya University.”

“…Hey.” Her side-eye pricked like a pin; his smug grin flashed like sun on puddles. “You two—are really not together?”

“Together as in what?”

“Dating.”

“Pfft—” Yexiaobai spluttered, almost choking on air; his eyes popped like coins as he stared at Zhaomingming. “How—why ask something that weird?”

“It’s not weird,” Zhaomingming said, face solemn as a seal; watching you two is what makes that question normal.

“Our daily life?” He shook his head, like a branch denying wind. “Just ordinary childhood friends.”

“Lovers? Impossible; romance? Impossible.” His words fell like stones, firm and dry.

As if to persuade himself, he added, “If we were going to be together, it would’ve happened already; why wait till now?”

“After this long, we’re fixed in family mode—brother-sister mode,” he said, like tracks set in steel. “It won’t change. It won’t.”

“Really?” The girl’s gaze held him, pins on silk. “Why so sure?”

He stalled, the cord in his chest tying itself. “No real reason. Just a feeling.”

“A feeling we can’t be a couple, or that being a couple would feel off,” he said, the words thin as rain threads.

She looked ready to pry more; Yexiaobai thrust out a hand like a stop sign. “Topic STOP! We’re about to enter class.”

“If someone familiar hears, we’re toast,” he whispered, glancing at the doorway like a cave mouth. “Besides—don’t you read minds, Zhaomingming?”

Her reaction surprised him; she flinched, a sparrow startled off a branch, then spoke with a clarity that cut.

“Even if it’s mind-reading—”

Zhaomingming paused; her always-narrowed eyes opened a sliver, light sliding through like a blade’s gleam, sketching a shadow he couldn’t read.

“—it can’t see through the heart of [love], both knotted and crystal, river and glass.”

…

…

They’d wasted time at the crossroads, then walked and talked; when they reached class, five minutes remained before the morning bell.

At his desk, Yexiaobai found Mu Xiaowei chatting with her seatmate, Qi Qi, a big-hearted, big-bodied guy; their faces carried a spark, like coals just stirred.

Mu Xiaowei’s smile blazed bright as noon; seeing that sunlight, Yexiaobai exhaled, his chest loosening like a snapped thread.

“What’s got you two so happy?” He set down his bag like a stone and slid into the talk, easy as warm water.

Qi Qi lifted a hand, greeting like a fluttering flag. “Oh, Xiaobai, we were—”

“What’s it to you.” The cold line cut Qi Qi’s words like a knife; her smile, a candle, snuffed the instant she saw Xiaobai.

Qi Qi had never seen her face turn that fast, pages flipping in a gust; timid in social squalls, his cheeks quivered like jelly.

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “I—I thought Xiaobai was talking to us, s-so I answered.”

Mu Xiaowei’s icy mask cracked a little, thin as glaze; she meant the glare for Xiaobai, not to spear a bystander.

But the arrow was already nocked; she couldn’t explain mid-flight, so she huffed and raised her book like a shield, cutting off Yexiaobai’s gaze.

Yexiaobai couldn’t help a soft puff of laughter; he told Qi Qi, “It’s fine. She was talking to me.”

“You two—are fighting?” Qi Qi leaned close like a conspirator in a crowd, whispering with eyes wide as bowls.

No wonder his shock; everyone who knows Xiaobai and Mu Xiaowei sees their bond, close as siblings under one sun.

Lovers fight and split, sure; these two may bicker, but their spats vanish like chalk dust after one class, leaving air clear.

Mu Xiaowei is big-hearted and fiery, a summer storm that laughs and rages, fast to arrive, faster to pass; simple and bright, the kind you can’t help liking.

She wears messy short hair and shuns makeup, yet beauty bones show through like jade under clay; her popularity reaches across class and year.

Beside her, Yexiaobai is slender and plain, a reed in the field; next to Mu Xiaowei’s small sun, his presence thins like shade at noon.

Even so, to outsiders, they fit “childhood friends” perfectly, two saplings grown from the same yard, roots touching under soil.

So when a real quarrel sparks, Qi Qi’s stunned stare makes sense, the look like a dropped bowl not yet broken.