An Old Sweet Story About Rebirth

Tyler sat up in bed, eyes still hazy with sleep. “What? No—he’s not.”

“Shane’s just a… regular friend.”
Even though they were legally married—at least on paper—he had no intention of telling anyone that. Not now. Not ever, if he could help it.
But his denial didn’t seem to convince his roommates.

Xu Rui leaned back with a teasing whistle, while Zhou Peng actually burst {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} out laughing. “Sure, sure. Just a ‘regular’ friend, huh?”
Tyler had never lived with other people before—not like this. He had no idea how to handle the way they teased, or why they found this funny at all.
Flustered, he kept repeating, “Seriously, we’re just friends. There’s nothing going on!”

The more he denied it, the more the other two grinned like they were in on a secret.
Zhou Peng tried to smother his laughter and played along. “Okay, okay. Our bad. We misunderstood. No big deal.”
Tyler, inexperienced with this kind of banter, took the words at face value.

He tugged the blanket up to his chest and mumbled, “We should sleep. Training starts tomorrow, right? I heard there’s a surprise drill in the middle of the night or something. No one’s getting sleep then.”
That shut them up.
Zhou Peng and Xu Rui groaned in unison. They started swapping stories about high school boot camps—endless drills, sunburns, and instructors who seemed to take pleasure in yelling. The chatter faded gradually, until the room fell quiet.

Only the occasional footsteps echoed down the corridor now, along with the soft splash of water from the communal sinks.
Tyler lay still, staring at the ceiling.
Zhou Peng really had it wrong.

Outside the contract, Shane Xie was just… a friend.
A good one, maybe.
And if there was anything Tyler could offer him in return, it was this: doing his part. Keeping up the role. Getting the grades. Being the version of himself that Shane had invested in.

There wasn’t much else he could do.
 
****
Two days after training ended, the results of the placement test came out.

Less than one-eighth of the entire freshman class had made it into the advanced English track. Tyler’s dorm room was the only one in their department where all three roommates had made the cut.
Their young advisor made a point of announcing it, beaming like it was a personal achievement.
Zhou Peng took the opportunity to shout, “It’s all thanks to our resident genius here! Guy dragged us into the smart zone!”

And just like that, Tyler’s status as the dorm’s “straight-A student” was cemented. When the class needed someone to take on the role of academic monitor, it was no contest. The title went to him.
That evening, Zhou Peng was still buzzing.
He slapped Tyler’s shoulder and declared, “We’ve gotta celebrate. What do you say? Hotpot tonight?”

But Tyler had already noticed something.
Xu Rui, usually cheerful and relaxed, suddenly looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. His smile was still there, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
It hit Tyler immediately.

Xu Rui didn’t want to spoil the mood—but the cost of going out clearly made him uneasy.
He was quiet when he called home. When they ate at the cafeteria, he never got two meat dishes. The fruit he bought was always the cheapest apples. Unlike Zhou Peng, who swiped his card like it was Monopoly money, Xu Rui counted every cent.
Zhou Peng never noticed.

But Tyler did.
So he smiled and said casually, “We don’t need to eat out all the time. Let’s hit the sixth dining hall. We can each grab an extra dish, call it a party. Better to save the cash for books, right?”
Zhou Peng laughed. “Fair point. Let’s go! I’m getting the stir-fried pork!”

Xu Rui didn’t say anything—but he gave Tyler a quiet, grateful look that said enough.
At the sixth hall, the three of them each grabbed three dishes—some meat, some veg, a decent mix of red and green. They spread the nine plates across the table, added big bowls of rice and steaming free soup, and for a while, it really did feel like a celebration.
They were laughing, mid-bite, mid-story, when a voice came from behind Tyler—cool, mocking, and unmistakably familiar.

“Well, well. I thought that face looked familiar. Tyler, right?”
The smile on Tyler’s face froze, then dissolved.
His hands stilled on the chopsticks.

He lowered them to the tray and turned slowly.
The voice belonged to someone with a long, horsey face. Standing beside him was a square-jawed guy with the uptight vibe of a student council candidate, dressed like he was born to give speeches no one wanted to hear.
Tyler felt his stomach turn.

Even though they’d both changed—grown taller, older—he recognized them instantly.
Middle school.
He hadn’t seen either of them since.

The one with the long face was Xu Chengjia. The other—Mr. Clean-Cut—was Lei Sihai.
Lei Sihai. The same Lei Sihai who’d once tried to force his way into their house in the middle of the night. His father had been Tyler’s school administrator, the one who smiled as he pushed people into corners. Xu Chengjia’s dad used to be Lei’s subordinate. Now the kid followed him around like it was still middle school and hierarchy was the only language that mattered.
These two hadn’t just mocked him—they’d humiliated him.

They’d laughed the loudest when his books were tossed out the window.
When he’d been cornered outside the bathroom.
When the classroom joined in the taunting and the teacher had just pretended not to hear, Tyler had sat still, eyes on the desk, hands clenched—his silence the only weapon he had left.

That silence returned now.
He didn’t move. Didn’t look away. Didn’t say a word.
“Oh, c’mon,” Xu Chengjia pushed, “you’re not gonna say hi? Aren’t we old friends?”

Zhou Peng’s laughter stopped. He frowned, setting his chopsticks down. Xu Rui looked over, eyes narrowing.
Lei Sihai stepped closer, hand slapping the back of Tyler’s chair with a practiced air of authority. “Tyler. It really is you.”
“My dad said you got into Greenville, too. I wondered if we’d run into each other.”

He grinned, all charm and politician polish.
“Well, look at that. Fate, huh?”
Still, Tyler didn’t speak.

Lei didn’t seem to care. He smiled like someone doing a PR tour. “Enjoy your meal, yeah? If you ever need anything, just come find me. I’ve got connections.”
With that, he turned, leading his little shadow out the door with a proud tilt to his chin.
 

****
Tyler finished every bite of rice.
But the food sat like lead in his stomach.

He couldn’t make himself smile again. Not even to pretend.
It was as if, in the moment those two had appeared, everything he’d buried had clawed its way back up—the past, sharp-edged and filthy, reaching out with skeletal hands from the mud.
He could almost hear Lei Sihai’s father again, with that oily voice and ever-smiling face:
You think you’ve escaped?
You think I’ll let you have a good life?

His chest felt tight. He couldn’t breathe right. Couldn’t shake it off.
Back in the dorm, the mood was subdued.
After a few attempts to lighten the air, Zhou Peng finally asked, “Who the hell were those guys?”

Tyler sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders stiff. “Middle school classmates. We didn’t get along.”
It was all he intended to say.
He didn’t want to talk about the rest. Not to anyone.

Xu Rui, normally quiet, dragged his chair next to Tyler’s and looked at him with a rare seriousness.
“Fish,” he said gently. “Tell me if I’m wrong, okay? Just say the word. But…”
“Did those two used to mess with you?”

Tyler didn’t answer right away.
But the silence was louder than anything he could’ve said.