The shadows in the gym storehouse grew long and skeletal as the afternoon light bled into a bruised purple. Lin Yichen remained curled into a ball, tucked behind a stack of moth-eaten wrestling mats and rusted hurdles. He had lost track of time. The bells for the final periods had rung like distant alarms, but he hadn't moved. The air here smelled of dust, old rubber, and the damp chill of his own soaked trousers.
Every time he heard a footstep in the distance, his breath hitched, his lungs seizing in anticipation of another camera lens, another mocking laugh. He felt like a wounded animal waiting for the forest to go silent before it dared to crawl back to its burrow.
Finally, the long, low chime of the dismissal bell echoed through the vents.
It's over, he thought, though he knew better. I just need to get to the bus stop. I just need to get home.
Leaving the storehouse was like stepping onto a battlefield after the primary explosion. The rain had intensified, turning the manicured grounds of Qinglan into a grey, misty labyrinth.
Yichen kept his head down, his bangs damp and clinging to his forehead. He hugged his backpack to his chest—it was his only shield now. As he moved toward the main gates, he saw the usual fleet of luxury cars idling by the curb, their headlights cutting through the gloom like the eyes of predators.
He hoped the rain would hide him. He hoped everyone was too busy rushing to their warm cars to notice the scholarship boy with the stained pants.
But as he approached the wrought-iron gates, he saw a crowd gathered under the massive stone archway. They weren't leaving. They were waiting.
"There he is!"
The voice was high-pitched and sharp. Yichen's heart plummeted.
A group of girls from the drama club and several boys from the soccer team were standing under large, colorful umbrellas. In the center of the circle, leaning against the cold stone pillar of the gate, was Gu Jianyu.
He was holding a black umbrella, the handle gripped in a leather-gloved hand. He wasn't laughing like the others; he was just watching. He looked like a king watching a peasant being led to the stocks.
"Wait, wait!" one of the boys shouted, pulling out a megaphone—a prop, likely, from the equipment room. "We need a final statement from the star-crossed lover! Lin Yichen! How does it feel to be the most famous person in school for a day?"
Yichen tried to walk past them, his eyes fixed on the pavement. The water was rushing into his shoes, but he didn't care. He just needed to reach the bus stop.
A soccer player stepped in his path, blocking the exit. "Hey, don't be rude. The President is standing right there. Aren't you going to say goodbye to your 'boyfriend'?"
The crowd erupted in a chorus of "Oooohs" and whistles.
"I... I just want to go home," Yichen whispered. His voice was raw, cracked from the hours of silent crying in the gym.
"What was that? We can't hear you over the rain!" The boy with the megaphone thrust it toward Yichen's face. "Tell us, Yichen. Was the 'I like you too' worth it? Did you really think you were in a k-drama? Did you think the Prince was going to take you away from your poor, scholarship life?"
Yichen looked up then. His glasses were speckled with raindrops, blurring his vision, but he looked directly at Gu Jianyu.
Jianyu's expression remained terrifyingly neutral. He didn't tell them to stop. He didn't join in. He just stood there, a silent spectator to the cruelty he had initiated.
"Why?" Yichen asked. The word was small, but it carried through the megaphone's proximity.
The crowd went quiet for a heartbeat.
"Why what?" the soccer player sneered.
"Why me?" Yichen's voice grew steadier, fueled by a sudden, cold spark of despair. "I never did anything to you. I never spoke to you. I stayed out of your way. I worked hard. Why did you have to take the one thing I had—my privacy—and turn it into this?"
He wasn't just looking at the boy with the megaphone. He was looking at Gu Jianyu.
Jianyu shifted his weight. For a fraction of a second, his eyes narrowed, a flicker of something—annoyance? guilt? boredom?—passing through them. Then, he spoke.
"It wasn't personal, Lin Yichen," Jianyu said, his voice cutting through the rain with clinical precision. "You were just the easiest target. You're so quiet, so... invisible. Everyone wondered if you even had a pulse. The dare was just to see if you were human enough to fall for it."
The crowd laughed, but it was a nervous laugh this time. The coldness in Jianyu's voice was unsettling even to his friends.
"I see," Yichen said. He felt something in him go numb. It was a strange, hollow feeling, as if his soul had packed its bags and left his body behind. "I'm just a laboratory animal to you."
He stepped around the soccer player. This time, no one stopped him. The weight of his words had dampened the mood of the 'show.'
He walked out of the gates. He didn't stop at the bus stop. He was too afraid that some of them would follow him onto the bus to continue the recording.
He walked down the main boulevard of Yunhe, the neon signs of the city reflecting in the puddles. The rain was drenching him now, his canvas bag becoming heavy and sodden, the ink in his notebooks probably bleeding into illegible stains.
Every person he passed on the sidewalk felt like a threat. Did they have kids at Qinglan? Had they already seen the video?
He walked for an hour. His legs ached, and his chest felt tight, the cold air lunging into his throat. By the time he reached the cramped, crumbling apartment complex where he lived with his aunt, he was shivering violently.
He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. The hallway smelled of fried onions and damp concrete.
He stood outside his door, his hand on the key. He looked down at his reflection in a small puddle on the landing. He saw a boy who looked like he had been drowned and brought back to life—pale, haunted, and utterly broken.
He realized then that the "same day" fallout wasn't just about the laughter. It was about the fact that tomorrow would be the same. And the day after. The video was on the internet now. It was permanent.
He opened the door and slipped inside the dark, quiet apartment. His aunt wasn't home yet; she was working her double shift at the hospital.
Yichen didn't turn on the lights. He went straight to the bathroom, stripped off his ruined uniform, and stepped into the shower. He turned the water to scalding hot, letting it turn his skin red, trying to wash off the feeling of the hallway, the feeling of the cafeteria, and the phantom sensation of Gu Jianyu's shoulder brushing against his.
But as the steam filled the room, he realized he couldn't wash away the sound of his own voice.
I like you too.
He sank to the floor of the shower, the water pelting his back, and finally, he stopped fighting. He let the weight of the day crush him completely.