Notes of Youth

Monday morning arrived cloaked in a kind of stillness that didn't belong to the weather. It wasn't cold, but the air felt quiet—unsettled. As if the school was collectively holding its breath.

Outside the faculty office, students crowded around the bulletin board. The results for the school's representative to the city-level literary competition had been posted early that morning.

But Lin Keqing didn't join them.

She lingered by the classroom window instead, arms wrapped around her sketchbook. The light filtered softly through the glass, painting pale streaks across the floor. She didn't look at the board—not because she didn't care, but because she did. Too much.

Behind her, familiar footsteps echoed.

"You're not going to check?"

Gu Yuyan's voice was as quiet as ever, but the way he stood—half-turned toward her, waiting—held something more.

She turned slightly. "I thought I'd wait a little."

He tilted his head. "Why?"

She looked down at her sketchbook. "Because once I know, it becomes something different. Right now, it still belongs to me."

A pause. Then his voice, steady:

"Your name's on the list."

She looked up. "Really?"

He nodded. "They marked you as the representative for the city round."

Her lips parted slightly, then curved into a faint, stunned smile. Not joy, not disbelief—just something warm and quiet, like sunlight you didn't expect.

Elsewhere, on the second-floor corridor, Liu Tianxue stood with her back against the railing, arms crossed, watching the crowd below.

Her gaze lingered briefly on Lin Keqing, who was now being congratulated softly by Diệp Hàn and a few classmates.

She turned back toward the courtyard.

"So she's the one," she murmured.

A classmate came over. "You saw the results?"

She nodded.

"Honestly, I thought your entry was one of the strongest."

"That's what I thought, too," she said mildly. "But I guess they preferred something more... emotionally expressive."

There was no sharpness in her tone. No bitterness. Just a calm, clinical detachment—as if she'd already done the math and accepted the variable.

During break time, Keqing sat at her desk, quietly flipping through her notebook. Her fingers hovered over a half-written page. She'd jotted something there the week before:

"Not everyone writes to be understood. Some write because the silence becomes unbearable."

Before she could finish reading, a voice interrupted her thoughts.

"You wrote that before or after you submitted?"

She looked up. Liu Tianxue stood across from her desk, her posture poised, voice even.

"Before," Keqing replied.

"Interesting," Tianxue said. "I submitted one too. Top ten. But not selected."

Keqing's throat tightened. "I didn't know. I'm sure yours was—"

"It was sharp," Tianxue interrupted, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Structured. Analytical. Maybe not... tender enough."

There was no resentment in her words—only observation.

"Still," she added, "congratulations."

Keqing met her gaze. There was something unreadable in Tianxue's eyes—respect, perhaps, or curiosity. Or maybe a quiet challenge.

"Thank you," Keqing said softly.

After lunch, Keqing returned to the library. It had become something like her sanctuary. She headed straight to her favorite seat by the tall windows. The light there always seemed gentler.

To her surprise, Gu Yuyan was already there.

He didn't say anything as she sat down across from him. Just slid his notebook slightly aside and glanced at her.

"How does it feel?" he asked.

She blinked. "To be selected?"

He nodded.

She thought for a moment. "Like I'm standing in a place I didn't know I wanted to reach… and now I'm not sure what to do next."

He considered her words for a while before responding.

"Sometimes," he said, "getting what we wanted doesn't feel the way we imagined. That doesn't mean it isn't real."

She smiled faintly. "You always say things like that."

"Like what?"

"Like they were written before I arrived."

He looked away, but the corner of his mouth lifted.

Meanwhile, back in Class 11A1, Yahan leaned against the chalkboard, arms folded, watching Chen Yuke sketch a simple border for the new class bulletin board.

"She got in," Yahan said suddenly.

"I know," Chen Yuke replied without looking up.

"You didn't even check the list."

"Didn't have to."

She narrowed her eyes. "You believe in her that much?"

He looked up. "Don't you?"

She smiled, but it faded quickly. "It's funny, isn't it? How people who don't seek recognition sometimes end up finding it."

"Maybe that's why they deserve it more."

After school, in the shade of the hallway near the stairwell, Liu Tianxue stood waiting. Not for anyone in particular—at least not that she would admit.

But when Gu Yuyan passed by alone, she stepped forward.

"Got a minute?"

He looked at her. Hesitated. Then nodded.

"I read the winning entry," she said. "Yours wasn't among them."

"I didn't submit," he replied evenly.

"Why not?"

He didn't answer right away.

"Because I didn't write for that," he said finally. "Not this time."

Tianxue's eyes narrowed slightly. "So you did write something."

"Yes."

"And she read it?"

He didn't respond, but she caught the silence and understood.

"She writes like she's afraid the words will disappear if she doesn't hold them tightly enough," Tianxue said.

Yuyan's gaze flicked toward her.

"That's not a flaw," he said. "That's what makes them stay."

That evening, Lin Keqing sat at her desk, the official document from school lying flat on the surface:

"Selected Representative for the City-Level Literary Competition: Lin Keqing (Class 11A1)."

Her grandmother knocked gently before stepping into the room with a plate of fruit.

"I heard something good happened today," she said, eyes twinkling.

"They selected me," Keqing murmured.

"For what?"

"A writing competition."

Her grandmother sat beside her, placing a warm hand over hers.

"You always had something in you, child. Even when you didn't speak it out loud."

Keqing's eyes stung for a moment.

"I didn't write it to win," she confessed.

"I know," her grandmother said, smiling gently. "But sometimes the world hears when we least expect it."

Later that night, Gu Yuyan sat at his desk, the lights dim. He flipped through an old notebook, finding a page dated from months ago.

"When words fail to reach others, we write not to escape the silence—but to make it bearable."

He closed the notebook.

In the dim quiet of his room, he finally understood what he'd been writing toward all along.

In another part of the city, Lin Keqing opened her own notebook and added one last line beneath the entry she had started that morning:

"Some beginnings don't arrive with a bang or a spark. They come in the form of a glance that chooses to stay."

She closed the cover gently and turned off the light. The air was quiet, but her chest felt full—like something soft and certain had finally taken root.