Notes of Youth

The late autumn sunlight filtered through the windows like golden silk, spreading across the classroom floor in quiet patches. Lin Keqing stared at the notice board in the hallway for a long time. A newly pinned sheet caught her attention: "Annual School Literary Contest – Theme: If Only I Could Say It."

Something about the title lingered with her, as if someone had written it directly into her chest.

"You should enter," came a quiet voice behind her.

She turned to see Gu Yuyan standing at a polite distance, his hands in his pockets, gaze not quite meeting hers.

"You think so?" she asked, surprised. He wasn't the type to encourage things openly.

"I read your note," he said simply.

Keqing blinked. "Which one?"

He didn't answer, just gave a small nod toward her bag, where a corner of a folded paper peeked out like a secret that wanted to be found.

Back at her desk, Keqing stared at a blank notebook page. Her pen hovered above the lines, unmoving. Writing had always come easily to her, but now, with meaning pressing on her, the words refused to come.

She scribbled a sentence. Then scratched it out.

Again.

Again.

A quiet knock on her desk pulled her out of her frustration. She looked up.

Gu Yuyan didn't say a word. He handed her a folded piece of paper and walked away.

She opened it.

"Write like you're talking to someone who stayed behind. That way, it always matters."

Her breath caught. She looked at him across the room, but he was already turned back to his notes.

That night, she began to write.

"If only I could say it—how sometimes silence is the loudest thing in the world. That you made me want to be heard, just once, fully. That you made the quiet feel like home."

She wrote past midnight, the words flowing like an old river rediscovered. And when she finished, she didn't know if it was perfect, but it felt true.

The next day, she brought the essay to school, folded carefully inside her sketchbook. After class, she approached Gu Yuyan.

"Would you…" she hesitated, "take a look?"

He nodded and took the pages without a word.

Meanwhile, in the art room, Le Yahan was cleaning out the old supply cabinet. Chen Yuke had offered to help after she nearly dropped a box on her foot.

"Careful," he said, catching the falling sketchpad before it hit the floor.

"Thanks," she muttered, brushing her hair back.

He glanced at the open sketchpad. On one page were random doodles, but on the opposite—neatly taped in—was a handwritten paragraph. It looked like a diary entry.

He read the first line before he could stop himself.

"Sometimes I wonder if quiet people ever know how loudly they exist in someone else's world."

He paused, heartbeat catching.

She noticed and snatched it back, cheeks flushed. "You're not supposed to read that."

"I didn't mean to," he said quickly, but something in his eyes had shifted.

"You think it's about you?" she asked, deflecting with a smile.

He didn't answer.

"I won't confirm or deny," she added playfully, then walked away, her steps light, but her heart heavy with questions.

Later that day, Keqing received her draft back.

Gu Yuyan had annotated it lightly—tiny pencil marks, circled words, suggested phrasing. But more than that, at the end, he had written:

"You made it feel like someone was listening. That's rare. Keep this voice."

She folded the paper carefully, holding it like something fragile and precious.

The classroom buzzed with talk of the upcoming competition. Posters went up, submission boxes appeared near the entrance, and for once, even the usually indifferent students began drafting poems and essays.

During lunch break, Keqing caught a glimpse of Bai Andui sketching in his notebook near the window. His expression was serious, almost troubled.

"Not drawing ghosts again, are you?" she teased lightly.

He looked up, amused. "No. Just… trying to draw what can't be said."

"Isn't that what writing is, too?" she said.

He tilted his head. "Then maybe you and I aren't that different."

She paused. "Maybe."

That evening, as the sun dipped behind the school buildings, Keqing stood in front of the submission box.

She clutched the envelope tightly. Around her, students came and went, chatting and laughing. But she only heard the sound of her own breathing.

She placed her story inside, shut the lid, and stepped back.

Behind her, Gu Yuyan spoke.

"You submitted it."

"I did," she said without turning around.

"Was it for the contest?"

She looked over her shoulder. "No," she said softly. "It was for me."

He looked at her, long and searching. Then nodded.

"Good," he said.

That night, in her room, Keqing wrote a single line in her notebook:

"Sometimes the loudest confessions don't need to be said. They just need to be shared."

Outside, the wind rustled through the leaves again, and in the distance, someone practiced piano with a song that sounded a little like memory.

The bridge between hearts wasn't always built with words. But tonight, hers had found a way across.