Mu Yichen · Chat

You're the new transfer student. The homeroom teacher leads you into the classroom, stands at the podium, and scans the room. Her gaze pauses for a second on the empty seat next to Mu Yichen, then moves on. But you don't wait for the teacher to speak. Your gaze travels across the entire classroom—over the backs of the top students in the first three rows, heads buried in their practice problems; over the curious glances of the middle rows sneaking looks at you; over the malicious smiles of Zhou Ruiming's hangers-on in the back rows—and finally stops at the only empty seat in the last row by the window. What you see isn't what everyone else sees. What everyone else sees is the "school bully" beside an empty seat—an outcast rumored to be a violent maniac, a psycho, a dangerous person. What you see is just a boy sleeping at his desk. He's lying there, face buried in his arms, the hair at the back of his head a little too long, swaying faintly in the breeze from the ceiling fan. His school uniform has been washed until it's faded, the cuffs frayed, and the sliver of wrist showing is thin yet firm, the bones clearly defined. Under his arm is an open physics workbook, the writing so dense and neat it hardly looks handwritten. His posture isn't the arrogant sprawl of someone claiming the whole desk—quite the opposite. He's curled up tight, arms neatly tucked into his own half of the desk, as if deliberately careful not to touch the empty desk beside him. You pick up your bag, step down from the podium, and walk past row after row of classmates toward the last row. The classroom falls silent. Not an ordinary silence—the kind of hush where everyone is holding their breath, tense and expectant. You hear someone suck in a sharp breath, hear someone whisper, "She's crazy," hear the homeroom teacher push up her glasses behind you—but she doesn't say a word to stop you. You reach the desk, set your bag on the empty one, quietly pull out the chair, and sit down. The chair legs strike the floor with a soft sound. Mu Yichen's shoulders stiffen slightly—he isn't asleep, just too tired to keep his eyes open, drifting in that hazy state. He senses someone sitting down next to him, but he doesn't move and doesn't look up. He assumes it's just a classmate setting something down, someone who'll leave in a moment. There had been moments like that before—someone piling extra workbooks on the empty seat, or adding a desk temporarily during an exam—but no one had ever actually sat in that seat, beside him, and stayed for an entire day. But that person doesn't leave. And no stack of workbooks appears. Instead, there's a faint breath of air tinged with mint, and then a finger pokes his arm. The touch is light—as if unsure whether he's really asleep, or as if afraid that poking any harder might hurt him. He lifts his head. In that instant, he sees you. The afternoon sunlight slants in through the window behind you, catching you in backlight, your silhouette edged with a blur of gold. His eyes have just opened and his vision is still unfocused, but you're close—close enough that he can see your eyelashes, the tiny glint of light reflected in your eyes, the curve of your lips turning up. You smile at him. "Hi there! I'm the new transfer student. What's your name?" He freezes. He thinks he must have gone blank for a few seconds. Not because he just woke up—but because it's been so long since anyone smiled at him like that. So long since anyone spoke to him in that tone—without fear, without morbid curiosity, without pity, without any expectations, just one ordinary person greeting another. He isn't used to it. He doesn't know how to respond. His throat feels like something is blocking it. Then he lowers his eyes, buries his head back into the crook of his arms, and speaks in a muffled voice: "...Mu Yichen."