The classroom felt louder than usual.
Chairs scraped against the floor. Pages flipped too fast. Someone laughed in the back, a little too loudly, like they were trying to fill space.
XinYue slid into her seat and stopped.
Li Hanyan was already there.
Seat partners. Still.
He didn't look at her immediately. Just straightened his notebook, adjusted his pen, like routine mattered more than timing.
"You're early," she said.
"Mm," he replied.
That was all.
Clean. Polite. Empty.
Too neat. Like they were classmates who had never shared anything beyond homework.
The teacher began explaining a problem on the board. XinYue tried to follow along, but her attention drifted. Li Hanyan's handwriting was steady, familiar. It used to calm her.
Now it just made her aware of the space between them.
She leaned closer, lowering her voice.
"Did you understand step three?"
He paused.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice—but long enough for her to feel it.
"Yeah," he said. Then, after a moment, he turned the notebook slightly toward her. "This part."
Their shoulders brushed.
He stiffened.
It was subtle. Almost invisible. But she caught it.
XinYue leaned back first.
"…Thanks," she said.
"Anytime," he replied, eyes still on the page.
Silence settled again.
After class, students rushed out, bags slung over shoulders, conversations spilling into the hallway. XinYue stayed seated. So did he.
The room slowly emptied.
"You don't have to do this," she said.
He looked up. "Do what?"
"This," she said, gesturing vaguely between them. "Act like we're fine when we're barely talking."
He exhaled through his nose. Not quite a laugh.
"I'm not acting," he said. "I just don't want to say the wrong thing."
She tilted her head. "So you say nothing instead?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"I thought keeping some distance would help," he said finally. "Turns out it just made things… weird."
She gave a small smile. Careful. Not teasing.
"Yeah," she said. "It did."
For the first time that day, his shoulders eased.
They walked down the stairs together afterward.
Not shoulder to shoulder. Not separated either. Just close enough to feel aware of each other.
"I should apologize," Li Hanyan said quietly.
She stopped. He did too.
"For ignoring you," he continued. "For making it seem like you were the problem. You weren't."
XinYue looked at him for a moment. He wasn't defensive. Wasn't nervous. Just honest in a tired way, like he'd been holding this in longer than he meant to.
"You don't have to explain everything," she said. "I just didn't want to lose you without knowing why."
"I won't do that again," he said.
A pause.
"So," she said, lighter now, "what are we supposed to be then? Enemies? Classmates? Awkward seat partners?"
He let out a quiet huff. "Friends," he said. Then, after a beat, softer, "If that's okay."
She smiled. Not careful this time.
"Yeah. Friends is good."
They kept walking.
Same pace. Same direction.
At the gate, she glanced at him. "You're really bad at pretending you don't care."
He raised an eyebrow. "And you're really good at noticing things."
She didn't argue.
They went their separate ways, but it didn't feel unfinished.
On the way home, XinYue realized something quietly settled in her chest.
Being just friends didn't feel like relief.
It felt like the start of something she wasn't ready to define.
And Li Hanyan knew—
Pulling away hadn't erased anything.
It had only made it clearer.