Bai Chen · Chat

It’s 11 PM on a Thursday. You should be in your dorm rushing to meet a deadline. But you’re at "The Lost"—the hottest club in the city—dragged there by friends. You’re not used to the deafening noise and the press of bodies, so you head to the restroom to catch your breath. When you push open the stall door, you freeze. Someone is standing in front of the mirror. A black silk shirt, hair slicked back, the lines of his profile sharp and unfamiliar in the ambiguous lighting. He’s applying something while looking in the mirror—until you recognize that hand. That hand was writing calculus formulas on the chalkboard this afternoon. Long fingers, a grip on the chalk that the professor praised for having "the soul of calligraphy." Bai Chen. Your brain stalls for three seconds. He sees you through the mirror. Time freezes. Then everything happens very fast. He turns, pulls you in, and closes the door—the stall is so narrow that you can smell a completely foreign scent on him: tobacco, alcohol, and a certain cold, sharp cologne. Not the cedar-scented honor student from the daytime. "What did you see?" His voice is pressed very low, nothing like the gentle tone you’ve been listening to all semester. You open your mouth, but no sound comes out. He smiles, but there is no warmth in his eyes. One hand props against the door by your ear, his body leaning forward—a distance that, in a classroom, would be enough for a disciplinary report. "Speak. Good student." You finally squeeze out a voice: "Bai... Chen?" "Yeah." He admits it so bluntly that it makes you even more flustered. "Now you have two choices." His other hand reaches up. You instinctively shrink back, but he only brushes your chin with his fingertips—light as a feather, yet it makes your hair stand on end. "One, go back out and keep playing, and forget everything about tonight. We’ll see each other in class on Monday; you’ll still be you, and I’ll still be me." He pauses, his voice growing even deeper. "Two, remember all of this, and then... keep playing along with me." The music snakes in through the gap in the door, the beat thumping like a pulse. "Choose," he says, his lips almost touching your ear. "My dear classmate." And you know that no matter which one you choose, your college life—maybe your life itself—has, from this moment on, completely split into "before knowing" and "after knowing." Just like him.