Jian couldn't sleep.
The room was dark except for the pale glow of moonlight slipping through the curtains.
Outside, the city had gone quiet hours ago.
The old wall clock continued ticking steadily.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Jian turned onto his side.
Closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
Sleep refused to come.
Every time he drifted close, a voice returned.
Soft.
Calm.
Familiar.
"Do you think we'll still meet after this?"
Wei's question.
The words replayed endlessly inside his mind.
Jian stared at the ceiling.
The darkness above him felt endless.
Why couldn't he answer?
It had been such a simple question.
Normal.
Ordinary.
The kind of thing friends asked.
Yet sitting in that empty classroom, with sunset filling the room and graduation suddenly standing so close, Jian had felt something twist painfully inside his chest.
Because he didn't know.
And because he was afraid of the answer.
He shut his eyes again.
Immediately another memory surfaced.
The market.
The mountain trip.
Kai arguing with a vendor over five yuan.
Rui threatening to leave him behind.
Dev laughing.
Chen pretending not to know any of them.
And Wei.
Standing beneath rows of paper charms swaying in the wind.
Laughing quietly at something Kai had said.
The memory lingered.
Jian could still see it clearly.
The sunlight.
The movement of the paper charms.
The way Wei's eyes narrowed when he laughed.
The slight curve of his smile.
Jian opened his eyes again.
His chest felt strangely tight.
Why was he remembering that now?
It wasn't important.
Just a random moment.
Yet he remembered it perfectly.
The next memory arrived before he could stop it.
The classroom after school.
Wei asleep beside him.
His head resting on folded arms.
Golden sunlight spilling across his desk.
Jian had spent nearly twenty minutes pretending to study while secretly making sure the papers beneath Wei wouldn't crumple.
The memory made him smile faintly.
Then the smile disappeared.
Because normal people didn't remember things like that.
Did they?
He rolled onto his back again.
The room remained silent.
"Do you think we'll still meet after this?"
The question returned.
Jian rubbed a hand across his face.
Then another memory surfaced.
The convenience store.
Rain against the windows.
Warm fluorescent lights.
Steam rising from cups of noodles.
Wei handing him a drink without asking.
The exact one he always bought.
"You remembered..."
"Of course."
"You always pick it."
Jian stared into the darkness.
Back then, he hadn't known why those words stayed with him.
Now he did.
Because Wei remembered.
Tiny things.
Stupid things.
The kind of details nobody was supposed to notice.
Yet somehow Wei always did.
The thought left him feeling strangely vulnerable.
As if every small moment he had dismissed was suddenly demanding to be seen clearly.
His gaze shifted toward the desk across the room.
Toward the drawer.
The drawer opened with a soft sound.
Jian sat there for a moment.
Then reached inside.
His fingers found it immediately.
The button.
The small button from Wei's shirt.
The one he had picked up at the temple.
The one he had never returned.
Moonlight reflected faintly against its surface.
Jian stared at it silently.
The memory returned instantly.
The temple steps.
The quiet prayer.
The wind moving through the trees.
Wei standing nearby.
Months had passed.
Yet he still kept it.
Carefully.
Protected.
Hidden.
His grip tightened slightly.
People didn't keep things like this.
Not for months.
Not unless they meant something.
The realization settled quietly between his ribs.
Slow.
Unavoidable.
His gaze drifted toward his school bag next.
Another memory.
Another secret.
The folded paper.
Wei's handwriting.
The cat doodle.
The faded blue ink.
The page hidden carefully inside his notebook.
He had kept that too.
Without hesitation.
Without questioning himself.
Without ever planning to throw it away.
Jian lowered his head.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
Not because anything was funny.
Because suddenly everything felt obvious.
Painfully obvious.
The signs had been there for months.
Maybe longer.
He simply hadn't wanted to look directly at them.
The room grew quieter.
The clock continued ticking.
Somewhere outside, a scooter passed through the empty street.
Jian sat motionless.
Then his thoughts drifted somewhere more dangerous.
More personal.
Wei's eyes.
He knew them.
Not generally.
Specifically.
The exact way they softened when he was tired.
The way they disappeared slightly whenever he laughed too hard.
The way sunlight reflected in them during the mountain trip.
Jian swallowed.
Then came the mole near Wei's lips.
Tiny.
Easy to miss.
Yet Jian knew exactly where it was.
Then his smile.
The slight point of his teeth when he laughed.
The way he tilted his head when confused.
The way he pushed his sleeves up absentmindedly while studying.
The way he said—
"Jian."
The name echoed softly inside his memory.
And suddenly that hurt most of all.
Because he had heard thousands of people say his name.
Teachers.
Classmates.
Relatives.
Neighbors.
Yet somehow he always recognized Wei's voice immediately.
Even in crowded hallways.
Even across noisy classrooms.
Even without looking.
The realization left him breathless.
Why?
Why did he know these things?
Why had he memorized them?
Why did he care?
The answer stood directly in front of him now.
And for the first time, Jian couldn't look away.
The future.
Graduation.
Universities.
Different cities.
Different lives.
The thought felt unbearable.
Not because he feared change.
Because he feared losing Wei.
That truth struck harder than anything else.
Jian lowered his gaze.
Slowly.
Carefully.
As if admitting it required courage.
He didn't want graduation to separate them.
He didn't want their afternoons to end.
He didn't want to stop waiting after class.
He didn't want to stop hearing Wei say his name.
He wanted tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
He wanted Wei to remain part of his life.
The realization made his chest ache.
Not softly anymore.
Deeply.
Honestly.
Jian closed his eyes.
A final truth rose quietly to the surface.
One he had been avoiding for far too long.
He wanted to stay beside him.
Not as a memory.
Not as someone from high school.
Not as a person he used to know.
Beside him.
The thought came naturally after that.
Terrifyingly naturally.
He wanted to hold him.
The silence in the room deepened.
Jian's heart pounded.
Because friendship couldn't explain that anymore.
Neither could nostalgia.
Neither could habit.
The answer had been there all along.
In the button.
In the paper.
In the convenience store.
In the mountain trip.
In the empty classroom.
In every moment he had chosen to remember.
Jian thought of Cheng Wei's smile.
The mole near his lips.
The slight point of his teeth when he laughed.
The way he looked at sunset.
The way he asked—
"Do you think we'll still meet after this?"
Jian closed his eyes.
But the truth remained.
Clear.
Certain.
Impossible to deny.
"I can't deny it anymore."
The whisper disappeared into the darkness.
A moment later, another followed.
Softer.
More honest than anything he had ever said.
"I love Cheng Wei."
The room remained silent.
But for the first time, Jian wasn't running from the truth anymore.