(1)
Ever since that day at Chenhui's place when he told me he was transferring schools, I hadn't brought it up again. It was like, as long as I didn't say it out loud, the longer time went on, the more it might not be real. Even Lili and Yun only found out near the end of the semester, when our homeroom teacher casually mentioned it in class.
"Chenhui's transferring next semester? Did you know?" Lili didn't even wait for class to end and texted me secretly.
"I did," I replied, and added a crying face emoji.
The rest of the semester passed in a blur, busy and uneventful. Our teachers, worried that we'd slack off over the summer, made the final exams extra difficult, trying to push us into full study mode before the last year started. The result? Pretty much everyone bombed at least one subject. And if you didn't hit the passing lines teachers had set, you got extra homework over the summer vacation.
For me, that meant extra math work. Not that I was surprised. Chenhui comforted me by saying that, since he didn't have to do any of our school's assignments anymore, he'd have time to help me with math.
It wasn't a bad offer, but honestly, I didn't need another reminder from him that he was leaving.
After the parent-teacher conference, our summer vacation officially started. On the first day of break, I met up with Chenhui at school to help him take his stuff home.
"I'm not even sure if they'll be using these workbooks at the new school," he muttered to himself while sorting through the textbooks on his desk.
Meanwhile, I'd already packed up his gym clothes, calculator, and all the other random stuff he kept in his storage compartment and stuffed them into my backpack.
"Just take them home anyway," I said, zipping up my bag and slinging it over my shoulder.
"Oh right. I wanna give you this." Chenhui fished around in his pocket and pulled out a photo. In it, the two of us were standing outside The Joker's. He looked excited, while I was frowning, clearly not thrilled to be in the picture.
"You actually had this printed?" I asked as I took it from him. "I don't even know where people print photos these days."
"Turn it over," he said.
On the back, he'd written:
If I turnslobbish, I owe Yang 1 million.
"You remembered that?" I was a little surprised. "I was totally joking when I said that. I'd almost forgotten about it myself."
"My memory's always been great," Chenhui said, clearly proud. Then he stuffed the last few workbooks into his bag and continued, "I was planning to give this to you when we graduate, but… I don't really know what things will be like then. So, I figured I'd give it to you now."
What he said gave me this feeling of loss. Yeah, we were still in the same city. And sure, if you said the city was small, you wouldn't be wrong. There were only so many spots where you could actually have fun and cut loose – just the same few theaters, cafés, and restaurants on repeat. But if you said the city was big, that also made sense. After graduating from elementary and middle school, there were friends I had been really close with that I never saw again. It was like, after a certain point in time, our paths just never crossed again.
Next semester, we would be starting the last year in high school, the most important year of our school lives. I still couldn't say for sure how busy things would get, because none of us had gone through it yet. But I could already picture my life slowly slipping back to how it was before that day, when Chenhui and I were alone in the classroom and he turned to look at me and said, "Hey. You never go to PE class. Right?"
"You've got a point. Then I'll keep the photo," I said, stuffing it into my pocket. "I'll be checking up on you every now and then, you know. One million's not a small number."
"I won't let you down!" Chenhui saluted me dramatically.
I'd never been to school during vacations before. Without the students, the place felt so open, almost too big. Chenhui suddenly pulled off his backpack and tossed it onto the track, then sat down facing the main school building. The setting sun stretched his shadow far to his right. Even though it was late in the day, the heat still clung to the air. If not for the occasional breeze, it would've been unbearable.
"I don't think I've ever looked at the school from this angle," he said, staring at the building.
I set my backpack down beside him and sat cross-legged. "Kind of weird if people just sat around staring at the building during school, don't you think?"
Chenhui chuckled. "Every time I walked into this building, I felt this wave of dread. It just meant a mountain of questions to solve and an ocean of poems to memorize, until you finally dragged yourself out in the afternoon. But now… looking at it, I feel kind of reluctant to leave."
"You're just going from one school building to another. What's there to be reluctant about?" I shot back. "You talk like you're leaving school life forever."
"That's different," he insisted, turning to look at me and pointing at the building. "Someone in that building makes me worry."
"Who?" I asked. I figured he meant me, but what was there to worry about?
"Someone who never wins an argument with Yun," he teased. "What's he gonna do after I'm gone?"
I burst out laughing. "Like you ever helped me out when you were here. All you ever did was laugh silently while I got roasted."
"Hey, I always cheered you on, in my heart!" Chenhui said, cracking up.
"Cheered or cursed? Why else do you think I never won?"
By now he was laughing so hard he bent over. On the back of his white T-shirt was a faint sweat mark left by his backpack.
(2)
Usually, I didn't feel anything special about one worksheet after another; it was just something I had to bite the bullet and get through. But during the vacation, that extra math homework truly felt like a nightmare. All the student discounts at restaurants during the summer, the flood of Taiwan idol dramas on TV, and the various art exhibitions – all of them seemed to be locked in a tug-of-war with my homework, fighting for every bit of time.
Luckily, Chenhui kept his word like he had promised before the break. Two or three times a week, we met either at one of our homes or at The Joker's, which had better air conditioning, so he could help me with math. Normally, he didn't seem like the kind of top student who treated every minute like gold, but when he explained math questions to me, he always made everything so clear. Honestly, he explained things even better than our math teacher did.
When I finally finished the last solid geometry question on the final math worksheet, with his help of course, there were only two days left of the vacation. As we walked out of the bar for the last time that summer, I quietly made two promises to myself: one, to take math seriously in the new semester, just in case I ended up with extra math homework again over Chinese New Year; and two, to not drink another cup of coffee anytime soon. That summer alone, I felt like I had already drunk a whole year's worth.
Looking back, it actually made sense why Chenhui's mom had transferred him to a different school. His new school really was stricter when it came to academics. They didn't even give Saturdays off. Just one week into the first semester of the last year, and they had already scheduled a full day of tests for Saturday. Because of that ridiculously strict rule, I didn't dare to contact Chenhui much during the week. I especially didn't ask him to hang out on Sundays, since that was the only day when he could rest.
So, it wasn't until more than half a month after the semester had started that I saw him for the first time. It was a Saturday afternoon. I had finished my homework at home and went to his new school to meet him. It was my first time there. Although it was only eight or nine kilometers away from my place in a straight line, the subway didn't go directly there, so I had to take two buses, which was a hassle.
At Chenhui's new school, students weren't allowed to leave campus during school hours, so we arranged to meet at the fence next to the garden beside their main building. Chenhui told me there were ginkgo trees planted along the fence, and it would be cooler in the shade. When we set that meeting spot, I imagined the scene in my head. The more I pictured it, the more it felt like I was going to visit someone in prison.
When I got there, Chenhui hadn't finished his physics exam yet, so I just stood around and took a look at this unfamiliar campus. Since class hadn't ended, there weren't any students in sight. But the huge basketball court in the distance, the brand-new track, and chin-up bars at various heights all made it clear that this school definitely had better facilities than ours. What even made me a little envious was that the area around their school was much livelier than ours. Behind me seemed to be a food street, lined with all kinds of restaurants, and further down the road, there was even a brand-new movie theater. At that very moment, some restaurant owners were already standing not far from me, holding packed meals, waiting for the students to finish class and come pick up their lunches.
After the bell rang, students started trickling out of the building. More and more people appeared. Just as I started to worry that I might not be able to recognize Chenhui and began watching the crowd more carefully, I spotted him the instant he slipped out of the door. Turns out, all that worry had been for nothing.
His hair had grown a bit since the last time I saw him at the end of the vacation, and he was wearing the same blue-and-white summer uniform as his classmates. He bounced lightly down the steps and looked in my direction. When he saw me, he waved and jogged over.
"Not bad, the new uniform suits you," I said, handing the two cans of Diet Coke through the fence. "Here you are."
"I still think our pale green T-shirt looks better. Seriously, this uniform is even uglier than my elementary school one!" He took the drinks and pouted. "And can you believe the cafeteria here doesn't even sell Diet Coke? I'm truly disappointed."
"Maybe you should cut back. It's not exactly the healthiest drink."
Chenhui laughed and cracked one open, taking a big gulp.
"Getting used to the new school?" I asked.
"It's alright." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The teachers are strict, but my classmates are quite nice. They've been really welcoming to me. And guess what? Their soccer team just happened to be one member short this semester. What a coincidence, isn't it?"
"That's good." I nodded.
"How about you? How've you been?"
And me? What could I say? What did he think?
No one dropped by during breaks to talk about lunch plans, no one listened to Robbie Williams CDs with me, and no one gave me rides on his bike after school just to aimlessly wander around. And what was worse, no matter what I talked about, whether with Lili, Yun, or anyone else, the conversation always circled back to him in the end.
"I've been fine too. Same teachers. Nothing really changed in the class, other than you not being there anymore," I said with a casual shrug. "And I feel sorry for our soccer team now."
"Wenfei didn't bother you again, did he?" Chenhui asked.
"No." I shook my head. "He…"
I wanted to say that he skipped class most of the time, but before I could finish, someone shouted from a distance, "Chenhui!"
He turned around and waved to the two boys in the distance.
"Let's go! Time for lunch!" one of them yelled again.
"I gotta go. We've got an English test this afternoon. Total nightmare," Chenhui turned to me and said. "If Wenfei gives you any trouble again, you'd better tell me. I'll skip class if I have to and go settle it with him."
"Alright, got it, Mr. Bodyguard." I waved him off. "Now go eat."
"Cool. If anything comes up, just message me." He shook the unopened can of coke and said, "Thanks for the drinks!" Then he turned and ran off.
I watched him grow smaller in the distance, and a strange feeling washed over me. He was still the same Chenhui I knew: the same look when he saw me, the same way of talking, even the same drink preference. But now, he was wearing a school uniform just like all those students around him that I didn't really know, walking toward a cafeteria that didn't sell Diet Coke, and probably didn't have our school's fried noodles either.
I didn't know if Chenhui had fully adjusted to all the little and not-so-little differences at his new school. But knowing how adaptable he was, I figured I didn't need to worry.
But what about me?
How long would it take before I got used to it?