Can't Catch the Summer - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I pulled myself out of the memory.

As for my roommates’ questions, I brushed them all off with, “We just look alike.”

And right in the middle of the storm, Chi Yi was actually doing a livestream.

He was on vacation by the sea.

He wore a floral shirt and was still devastatingly handsome.

“So the girl in the photo was just someone you had a crush on in high school?” the host asked with a smile.

He gave a soft mm-hmm.

“Teacher Chi is quite the devoted type.”

Chi Yi stretched out his long legs. His sunglasses covered his face, making it impossible to read his expression. For a long while, he said nothing.

The comments were all sighing over it.

“That girl must be the one he could never forget, right?”

“I’m so jealous. Imagine being cherished by Chi Yi like that.”

“Now that he’s become a huge star, she must regret it if she sees him.”

…

The tree shadows were mottled, the light scorching.

The host asked again, “What first made you want to become an actor?”

He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were as captivating as ever.

“Because I wanted to stand in the most visible place.”

“Why?”

Chi Yi didn’t answer.

He reached out. The tendons on the back of his hand stood out clearly, his five slender fingers waving lightly through the air.

After a long silence, his lonely voice finally sounded.

“I couldn’t hold on to summer.”

I stared blankly at the screen.

Chi Yi, which summer were you trying to hold on to?

Chapter 5

Seventeen was the dazzling age when first love began to bloom.

A young boy and a young girl hid from the teachers and the dean, walking lap after lap around the sports field hand in hand.

The dust circling our fingers in the faint morning light, the morning glories wilted under the blazing afternoon sun, and the gorgeous clouds in the western sky at dusk that made countless students stop and stare…

It seemed like I could never get tired of looking at any of it.

Back then, nearly half the girls in school had a crush on a guy named Chi Yi.

He was proud, flamboyant, a vivid stroke of color no matter where he stood.

That summer, I gradually became familiar with his friends at the arcade.

Only then did I learn that Yellow Hair was named Shen Ze. He was actually one of the top students at No.2 High School.

Before the high school entrance exam, he’d stayed up all night playing games. He bombed the test, and that was how he ended up at No.2 High School.

Every time I saw them, the moment Shen Ze spotted me, he would immediately take the cigarette tucked behind his ear down.

I waved a hand. “Go ahead and smoke. I don’t mind.”

Shen Ze pointed at Chi Yi. “Brother Chi won’t let us smoke in front of you.”

Chi Yi lowered his eyes, hiding the smile in them. “What do you know? Everyone from No.1 High School is a good little kid.”

I muttered under my breath, “You’re not.”

He propped his chin on his hand and stared at me. “How am I not? Am I not good?”

“What part of you is good?”

“If I wasn’t good, how did you notice at a glance that I was special in a crowd?”

Of all the things he could bring up, he had to bring up that.

I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. “Chi Yi, you’re so annoying.”

He laughed until he collapsed onto the table, his shoulders shaking.

The group of boys around us were laughing so hard they were falling all over themselves too.

Shen Ze narrowed his eyes in a smile and rubbed my hair. “Zheng Xia, if it weren’t for… I really would chase you. You’re too cute.”

I didn’t understand what he meant.

But he was very good-looking, and it made me a little embarrassed.

Chi Yi shot him a sidelong look.

He smacked Shen Ze’s hand away, then reached one arm over and loosely draped it across my shoulders.

“She’s from No.1 High School. You’re not good enough for her.”

The two of them traded jabs back and forth.

All I could feel was the place Chi Yi had touched starting to burn.

And along with it, my face burned too.