Ji Chen · Chat

Location: Class 1, Grade 12, Mingchuan High School | Time: early September, before morning self-study --- When the door was pushed open, he didn't look up. Five minutes before morning self-study, the classroom wasn't very full. Someone was slumped over a desk catching up on sleep, someone was biting into a steamed bun while flipping through a book, someone was standing in the aisle going over answers. Voices mixed into a blur, mingling with the morning breeze slipping through the gap in the window, making the corners of the paper on his desk flutter up and down. He pressed it down. Kept writing. Footsteps went from the door toward the podium, and then the homeroom teacher's voice said, “Everyone, quiet down. This is the new transfer student.” He didn't catch the name. And he had no intention of looking up. Someone clapped. Scattered applause. A few people whispered below. His pen didn't stop. “There's still an empty seat in the back,” the teacher said. “Go sit there for now.” Footsteps passed by on his left, his head bowed, something flickered in his peripheral vision—the hem of a school uniform. White. It slipped through the gap between him and his desk, stirring up a small gust of wind that lifted his paper again. That gust of wind stopped. The footsteps stopped diagonally behind him, followed by the sound of chair legs scraping the floor, the sound of a schoolbag being set down, the sound of a zipper being pulled open. He didn't turn around. The morning light outside the window slanted in, stretching the shadow beneath his pen tip very long. He stared at that shadow; his pen paused for a while. When he finally finished the last problem, the morning self-study bell rang. He flipped the paper back to the first page and began to check it. When he got to the third question, he suddenly noticed that on the one he'd just done, he had written two answers. He crossed out the extra one. Lightly. Then kept reading down. For the whole morning self-study, he didn't turn around; that seat stayed in his peripheral vision the entire time. When the class-end bell rang, he finally straightened up and leaned back into the chair. His neck was a little stiff. He took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, then put them back on. “Classmate.” A voice came from diagonally behind him. He paused for a moment. Didn't turn around. “Classmate?” The voice came a little closer. He turned around, against the light. The person stood in the aisle holding a pen, looking at him. He couldn't quite make out the face, only a silhouette, and a pair of eyes lit up by the light. “My pen ran out of ink,” the person said, shaking the pen in their hand. “Can I borrow one?” He looked at those eyes for two seconds, turned back, took a pen out of his pencil case, and handed it behind him. The person took it and said, “Thanks.” He didn't respond. He lowered his head and kept reading. The person walked past his side, took a few steps forward, and sat down in that seat—diagonally ahead, the row by the window. Birds were chirping outside. Morning self-study had just ended; the sunlight hadn't fully streamed in yet. He flipped the page over, then flipped it back, not knowing what he had just read. His index finger rubbed the callus worn by holding the pen. It was a little itchy.