The Little Yellow Flowers of My Story

Passing by the bubble tea shop near the school after work the other day, I heard a song playing inside. The moment the intro started, I froze.

It was Jay Chou’s Sunny Day.

When I was seventeen, on this same road and in this same season, he used to give me rides on his bicycle. The back rack was rock-hard and made my backside ache with every bump, but I couldn't bring myself to get off. He would hum this song while pedaling, and when he reached the lyrics, "The little yellow flowers of our story have been drifting since the year I was born," he’d suddenly turn back and flash me a smile.

To be honest, if I close my eyes now, I can still see that smile.

Over a decade has flashed by. I still think of him occasionally—of that time that felt neither long nor short. It’s not that my life now is bad; quite the opposite. I’m doing well. I have a stable job, a family that loves me, and a life that is quiet but grounded. It’s just that some people are like imprints on the heart—no matter how much time washes over them, they never quite fade away.

We were high school classmates and had known each other since tenth grade. He was your typical "science-stream boy"—not a man of many words, but with a smile that was incredibly easy on the eyes. I can still picture him clearly: tall, lean, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with his school uniform always buttoned up neatly.

Back then, we all lived in the dorms. Our classrooms were on the same floor; he was in the elite Science Class 1, and I was in Liberal Arts Class 3. Ordinarily, our paths wouldn't have crossed much, but I couldn't help it—my best friend was his desk mate. Every time I went to find her, he’d be there, quietly working through problem sets. Once, I couldn't resist sneaking a peek at his exercise book. Good grief—it was a sea of formulas I couldn't even begin to decipher.

"Are you, like, really good at math?" I asked, sounding a bit silly.

He looked up at me, pushed up his glasses, and said, "It’s alright."

Only later did I find out that his "alright" meant ranking in the top ten of the entire grade. As for my math—don't laugh—if I could scrape a 60 out of 150 on a test, I was thanking the heavens.

Feelings at that age aren't usually some grand, earth-shattering drama. It’s just that in the midst of ordinary days, you slowly realize this one person has become different from everyone else in your heart.

I started finding every excuse to visit his classroom. Borrowing books, returning books, asking about homework—I used every trick in the book. My best friend teased me: "You’re a liberal arts student, why are you borrowing physics notes?" I told her I just wanted to see how hard physics really was.

Looking back, I was actually pretty brave.

He wasn't stupid; he eventually caught on to how I felt. One night after self-study sessions ended, I was waiting for him in the corridor. When he walked out and saw me, he paused, then pulled a can of Wangzai Milk from his backpack and handed it to me.

"For you."

"Why?"

"Didn't you say you wanted some last time?"

I was completely a goner right then. You see, girls are so easy to move—it wasn't about the milk; it was that he remembered something I’d said in passing.

And so, we ended up together. There was no formal confession, no flowers, no gifts. It was just one day while walking home after school, his hand accidentally brushed mine, and he simply took hold of it.

His hand was large, warm, and his knuckles were prominent. When he held my hand, I felt like the whole world had gone quiet.

Our days together were actually quite plain. The school was strict, so we couldn't be high-profile. At most, we’d sit together during meals or walk a few laps around the track after evening self-study. He was quiet and I was a talker; most of the time it was me chattering away non-stop while he listened peacefully, chiming in with a word or two.

I remember once I bombed an exam—I got something like a 40 in math. I was so upset I just slumped over my desk, refusing to speak. He found out, and during evening study, he slid a notebook to me. I opened it to find pages and pages of math notes, all in his handwriting.

"Take it slow. If there's something you don't get, I'll teach you."

During that period, he really did set aside half an hour every day to tutor me. He was incredibly patient, writing out every step. If I didn't understand, he’d find another way to explain it. Sometimes I was so slow I got frustrated with myself, but he never once lost his temper.

When the National College Entrance Exam (Gaokao) finally came, I scored a 105 in math. The moment I saw my results, he was the first person I wanted to thank.

But the thing about "youthful" love is that most of it can't escape one reality: graduation.

After the Gaokao, he got into a top-tier university in Beijing, while I stayed in our home province. Back then, we were naive enough to think that long-distance was something we could just power through. When university first started, we called and messaged every day, wanting to share every little detail of our lives.

But distance is a very real thing. Our social circles grew apart, and our common topics dwindled. He was busy with experiments and papers; I was busy with student clubs and internships. Gradually, the daily calls became weekly, and messages went from being replied to in seconds to being left on "read."

The last time we were in touch was the winter of our sophomore year. He sent a very long message. The gist of it was that he felt we were drifting further apart, and dragging it out wasn't doing either of us any favors.

I stared at that message and cried all night under my covers in the dorm. My roommates didn't know what was wrong; I just told them I was fine, just feeling miserable from a cold.

Later, I folded my old school uniform jacket and tucked it into the deepest corner of my closet. I didn't delete his contact info, but I never reached out again. He, with a mutual understanding, never contacted me either. We just quietly exited each other's lives, like two intersecting lines that meet briefly and then travel further and further away in their own directions.

Now, when I occasionally think of him and that time, my heart still flutters a little. It’s not regret, nor is it bitterness—it’s just a very subtle, indefinable feeling. It’s like on a rainy day, when you suddenly catch a scent in the damp air and for a split second, you think you’ve gone back in time.

A while ago, while clearing out some old things, I stumbled upon that notebook. The pages have yellowed a bit, but his handwriting is still so clear—every stroke written with such care. I flipped through a few pages and found a sentence he’d written in tiny script in the corner of the very last page: "I hope you get into your dream university, and I hope you are happy every single day hereafter."

When I saw those words, my nose suddenly went sour. It wasn't because I still loved him, but because I suddenly realized that the person who once treated me with such sincere kindness had truly vanished from my life.

I’ve seen recent photos of him on WeChat Moments. He’s changed quite a bit—put on some weight, lost some hair. He wears a suit and tie now, looking every bit the corporate professional. I stared at the photo for a long time, trying to find a shadow of that boy in his face, but I couldn't find him anywhere.

To be honest, I can no longer remember the sound of his voice or how he smelled. But that feeling of your heart racing, that warmth of being cared for, and those days we walked together—those are etched into my bones, impossible to forget.

Sometimes I think the reason first love is so beautiful isn't because it was perfect, but because it happened when we were at our purest. Back then, liking someone was just liking them, untainted by any practical factors. You didn't think about whether they had a house or a car, or consider their family background or social status. You liked them simply because they were who they were.

Back then, emotions were simple too. A cup of bubble tea, a bag of snacks, a look, a touch of the hand—that was enough to be happy all day. There weren't so many twists and turns, no need for guessing games. Liking was liking; being unhappy was being unhappy.

We can't go back, and there’s no need to. That relationship, that person, they’ve already become a part of my life. He taught me what it means to like someone, and he taught me what it means to let go. He let me know what it feels like to be treated seriously by someone, and he made me understand that some people are destined to only walk a segment of the road with you.

I’m grateful for that youth, and grateful for that boy. Grateful that when I was seventeen, he rode his bike with me through that tree-lined path, the wind blowing through his white shirt as he turned to smile at me, the sunlight spilling over his face, looking impossibly handsome.

That image will probably stay in my heart forever.

Sometimes when I’m chatting with friends and we talk about our first loves, everyone laughs and says how silly we were back then. And yeah, it really was silly. But it was also so incredibly real.

So real that even decades later, thinking about it still makes my heart soften.

I suppose that’s the beauty youth leaves behind. Not every relationship needs to have a "result," and not every person has to stay until the very end. Some people, some things—the fact that they existed is already enough.

Like the song says, "The end of the story was still saying goodbye." But that’s okay. At least the story itself was real.