“Overthinking is the gateway drug to terminal cringe, Xiaobai,” she said, tossing the line like a pebble across water.

“Colle—... Teacher, why’re you saying the same line as them?” he blurted, words tripping like shoes on stairs.

“You were about to call me a ‘college girl,’ weren’t you? You itching for a beating?” Her smile curved like a cat’s tail.

“Absolutely not. You misheard,” he said, deadpan as a still pond.

Their exchange happened after the last period, when the day exhaled like a cooling kettle.

In an office tinted pale rose by the sunset, only Yexiaobai and Xu Yanfang sat, two figures in a watercolor frame.

They lounged in chairs, casual as wind-bent grass, chatting while fencing with toothpicks over a small yellow box of takoyaki.

If an outsider saw it, jaws would hit the floor like dropped chalk; the beautiful yet strict Ms. Xu showed zero teacher aura around her student.

But in truth, when no one else was around, their air slipped outside the chalk lines like feet over a boundary.

There was a backstory between them, a page dog-eared where others couldn’t read.

Though Xu Yanfang became Yexiaobai’s homeroom teacher only in senior year, they’d met on the ink-dark night of freshman orientation.

It all started with a tiny girl, barely third grade, who shouldered a backpack and ran from home like a sparrow bolting from a cage.

From that night on, at school, Yexiaobai became Ms. Xu’s favorite chew toy, a fish she’d tap in the bowl just to watch it ripple.

She wasn’t even his class teacher then, yet she’d summon him to the office under the teacher banner, as if waving a flag over water.

And when Xiaobai asked why, she would smile like spring sunlight and say, “Ah, nothing much. I’m tired of class. I want to see your sulky face.”

She said that nonsense with the righteous calm of a judge, her “college girl” face solemn as a temple bell.

“Ha! Mine!” Her toothpick skimmed like a dragonfly, flicking aside his and spearing the last takoyaki with playful precision.

She stole the final octopus ball from her student without a blush, steam curling up like morning mist as she slid it past her lips.

“Hey. I went off campus to buy those,” Yexiaobai said, his glare flat as glass while her smug gaze shone like polished copper.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. Look at us—what are we?” Xu Yanfang laughed, her voice ringing like windchimes.

He straightened and shot back, “Teacher and student, thanks,” crisp as a snapped twig.

“What student calls their teacher a ‘college girl’?” she asked, eyebrows lifting like sails in a breeze.

“And what teacher bullies her student for fun?” he countered, the words landing like cards on a table.

“Too much,” she said, smiling with crescent-moon eyes. “Between teacher and student, that’s called education.”

Yexiaobai sighed, the breath thin as smoke, and eyed the clock pointing toward evening self-study like a finger at dusk.

“Teacher, I’m here for business,” he said. “We ate the takoyaki. That’s enough, right?” His tone settled like dust.

“Seeing that wronged little face of yours—enough,” she said, and her thanks fell light as confetti. “Thanks for the treat.”

Silence stretched between them like a string, humming with unspoken notes.

Sometimes, being with Xu Yanfang felt like dealing with a second Sister Kong—both teased him for sport, and he got wrecked every time like a paper boat in rain.

It was like having two older sisters, both with claws tucked in velvet, both delighting in pouncing.

What a lousy life experience, he thought, the words sour as unripe fruit.

If he could choose, he’d pick a kid sister instead, yet that door had been bolted by an old accident like a gate sealed with rust.

“So—business. What is it?” she asked, voice smooth as tea.

“I think I’ve invited Suzhiaoyao. I’ll need you to give Senior Year Class One’s homeroom teacher a heads-up,” he said, feeling the words wobble like a new bridge.

“Oh, that’s—wait—who?” Xu Yanfang almost sprayed her water like a startled fountain.

“Suzhiaoyao, Senior Year Class One,” he said, the name dropping like a stone in a pond.

“Huh?!” Her shock flared like a struck match, bright and brief.

“Why do you all make the same face?” Yexiaobai asked, helpless as a leaf in wind.

“Got a fever?” She reached for his forehead, fingers cool as rain.

He slapped her hand away, the motion sharp as a wingbeat. “I didn’t hallucinate.”

“Then why ‘think’?” Her gaze narrowed like a slit of light.

He sighed again, the knot in his chest tightening like a rope. “Why’s your question the same too?”

“You’ve been sighing a lot today, student Xiaobai,” she said, eyes keen as a hawk’s. “Still not resolved with Xiaowei?”

He flinched, then sighed once more, breath caught like a fish in net. “Resolved, I guess… but it tied itself again.”

Time rolled back a few hours, like a film rewinding with a soft whir.

“Strange attitude?” Mu Xiaowei’s eyes lit up like stars popping out at dusk. “Maybe you hallucinated, dummy Xiaobai.”

“Because your heart was too urgent but had nowhere to vent, so you made it up! Wow, secondhand embarrassment! I so sympathize,” she declared, hands flapping like fans.

“Thanks for the sympathy. I’m fine, not sick,” Yexiaobai said, pushing her face away like a curtain.

He told them what happened during P.E. with Suzhiaoyao, skimming the surface like a stone, while a certain notebook hid deep in his bag like a secret shell.

“That’s it?” Zhaomingming asked, brow lifting like a dawn ridge.

“Definitely a hallucination,” Mu Xiaowei said, sure as winter frost.

“Hey, you two!” Yexiaobai protested, his voice cracking like dry wood.

“Xiaobai, did you know Suzhiaoyao before?” Zhaomingming asked, the question placed gently like a cup.

“Uh, no. I just know of her,” he said, words thin as paper.

“Then Suzhiaoyao knows you,” Zhaomingming nodded, calm as a nodding reed.

“Im—impossible,” Mu cut in before he could answer, her tone snapping like a twig. “Xiaobai isn’t famous. He’s painfully average.”

“The distance between him and Suzhiaoyao is like a whole Qinghai City,” she added, flinging the measure down like a yardstick.

“Sorry for being so average,” Yexiaobai said, slicing the air with a hand, as if cutting the topic like rope. “Not the point, okay?”

“It is the point,” Mu shot back. “It’s this year’s key exam question, okay! We must rigorously prove how many light-years separate you and Suzhiaoyao.”

Yexiaobai glared, his eyes hard as flint. “Hey! Mu Xiaowei! You’re picking a fight today. You’re off.”

“Mmph—” Their gazes collided like flung marbles, and for once, she didn’t glare back; her eyes slid away like a fish.

A flicker of panic crossed her face, swift as a bird’s shadow, and she stumbled over her words. “I—I’m not off.”

He’d only been teasing, but that twitch twisted his doubt like a screw; still, he didn’t press it and lifted a hand to her forehead like checking a lamp.

“You’re the one with a fever, Xiaowei,” he said, smiling lightly as a drifting petal.

“Don’t—”

It was a familiar motion between childhood friends, a daily rhythm like breath, but today it detonated in her head, a muffled boom like thunder under snow.

Something huge and crowded jammed into her chest like a sudden flood, and her heart missed a beat as if the drumstick slipped.

Color rushed up her face like spilled wine; her breath hitched like snagged silk; pain bloomed sharp as a thorn.

She slapped his hand away on reflex, and a line not born of her heart burst out like a startled bird.

“Don’t touch me!”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but the impact hit the room like a dropped bell.

Classroom noise froze in an instant, a lake under winter’s first ice, and every eye swung toward them like sunflowers to the sun.

It was too abnormal; they were used to this childhood pair handing out sugar like street vendors, and they joked about marriage as if it were a summer rain.

Some even guessed they’d get the license right after the gaokao, a future sketched like chalk on a board.

No one had ever seen them clash like swords, bright and sudden.

Yexiaobai went still, his thoughts scattering like birds, staring at his slapped-away hand as if it weren’t his.

Then he looked at the “strange” Mu Xiaowei, familiar face veiled like a moon behind cloud, and he couldn’t find his voice.