The December air was cool but not sharp, carrying the faint sweetness of roasted sweet potatoes from a vendor outside the school gate. Students lined up for snacks before evening study, their laughter puffing in little clouds.
Si Yao stood in line with two of her roommates. One of them tugged her sleeve. "Your genius brain needs sugar, don't argue."
She didn't. When her turn came, she bought two—one for herself, one for the boy who always forgot to eat when he was buried in notes.
---
Classroom
Evening self-study was the hardest hour. Fatigue pressed against eyelids, pens slowed, the world outside the windows already wrapped in night.
She slipped the warm paper bag onto his desk.
He looked up, surprised. "For me?"
She tilted her head, pretending to be indifferent. "You'll think better with it."
He broke into a rare smile, the kind that reached his eyes. "Then I'll eat it all and win against you in the next mock test."
She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips curved. "Dream on."
They bent over their papers again. Between the rustle of pages and the scratch of pens, a warmth spread—quiet, fragile, but steady.
---
Dorm Life
Back in the dorm, she unpacked her bag. Her notebooks were full of equations and annotations, but in the margins, she sometimes scribbled little thoughts:
"Sunny made tangyuan for me."
"He smiled today. It was… distracting."
"I'll study harder, so I can stand tall beside them."
Her roommates often joked that if anyone stole her notes, they'd get both formulas and fragments of a love story.
"You're secretly romantic, aren't you?" one teased, holding up a page where Si Yao had drawn a little star beside a solved proof.
She flushed and grabbed it back. "That's just a star for correct answer."
But when she tucked the notebook under her pillow, she traced that tiny star with her fingertip, as if it glowed.
---
With Friends
On weekends, her friends dragged her to the campus courtyard where student clubs set up stalls. She wasn't one for crowds, but she followed, carrying a paper cup of milk tea that was too sweet.
They watched a performance by the school band. The boy was there too, standing among the crowd, hands in pockets. He caught her gaze briefly, then mouthed: study after this?
She nodded without thinking.
Her friends elbowed her. "See? You do like him."
Her cheeks heated, but she didn't argue. She just sipped her milk tea, letting the warmth spread through her chest.
---
Letters
That night, she opened a new notebook—not for equations, not for practice essays. For words.
She wrote in English, carefully, sentence by sentence:
"I want to stand on my own. But sometimes, I also want to be held."
She paused, then added in Chinese:
"One day, I'll tell him. One day, I'll tell Sunny."
The pen hovered. She closed the notebook quickly, hiding it under her blanket as if it were a secret too fragile for air.
---
Phone Call
Later, she called Qing Yun again.
Her sister's voice was steady, warm as always. "Did you eat properly today?"
"Yes. Even roasted sweet potato," Si Yao said softly.
Qing Yun laughed. "Ah, I can almost smell it through the phone. You'll come home for the festival, right? I'll cook the tangyuan I practiced."
Si Yao hugged her pillow. "Then I'll eat a dozen."
They chatted until the dorm monitor called for lights out. Before hanging up, Si Yao whispered, "Sunny… don't worry about me. I'm happy here."
Her sister's pause was long, but her reply was bright. "As long as you're happy, I'm happy."
That night, Liangcheng's sky was unusually clear. From her dorm balcony, she could see a scattering of stars above the faint glow of the city.
She clasped her hands together, childishly, as if making a wish.
Let my sister smile more.
Let me keep this feeling in my heart a little longer.
Let the future be kind, just once.
Her eyes closed. For a moment, the world was only her breath and the quiet of the night.
When she opened them, she smiled faintly, whispering to herself:
"I'll win, in math, in life, in love… so Sunny can be proud."