Rise

A new girl had joined Senior Class 7! Her name was An Xin and she’d told everyone about her nickname! That could only mean a single thing in the minds of the guys. She wanted to be their friend! “Bunbun, it’s nice to meet you!” some of them shouted, eager to showcase their friendliness. Of course they wanted to cozy up with An Xin. She was beautiful in every sense of the word. Ren Rou and Tang Bingyao were every students’ dream, until now. Bunbun was new, she was exotic, she was exciting. And now she was their number one. They didn’t even look at the other two girls, because only Bunbun deserved their attention right now.

There were four students who weren’t concerned with welcoming An Xin to the class. It wasn’t that they disliked her or anything like that. Rather, they stared at her, dumbstruck. Bunbun. They’d heard the name before. It was the name Lin Feng had given to a childhood friend of his. Almost collectively, from where they sat, they turned towards Lin Feng. Bunbun? Is she THE Bunbun? They saw Lin Feng look up from his notebook. Is she really… Is that really his Bunbun?

Ren Rou tried to remember the picture of Bunbun that Lin Feng had shown her. That picture was from four year ago, with the girl looking a lot younger than she did now. The girl in that picture had pigtails and was standing off in the background. They do look similar though…

Tang Bingyao didn’t need to think like Ren Rou did. She stared at An Xin and pursed her lips. There was a look in her eyes that revealed far more of her thoughts at the moment than she would’ve liked. Fortunately, everyone was looking towards Bunbun and no one was looking at her.

✹

Lin Feng was working on his latest idea for the match against Shanghai International when the homeroom teacher announced a new student was joining the class. He didn’t really care. It didn’t have anything to do with him. So he didn’t even bother to look up, scribbling down the ideas that formed in his mind before they disappeared again. Then he looked over the notes, but the letters were hard to read. He blinked his eyes and tried to ignore the pain that he felt in his head. The words on the page made sense again. This won’t work—

Then he heard the new student introduce herself. It was a voice Lin Feng recognized, one that he would know anywhere. His pen fell from his fingers on the table, then rolled off his desk and dropped to the ground. But he didn’t notice. He could only hear that voice that he knew so well. He lifted up his face and for the first time took a look at the new transfer student. Bunbun? The world was spinning before his eyes. He started worrying that it was his sleep deprivation and that he was seeing things. So he rubbed his eyes and looked again. There she was, smiling and sticking her tongue out at him. He barely moved his lips and the sound was almost inaudible as he said, “Bunbun.” She’d grown a lot since he last saw her, but she still looked the same. To him she did, anyways. She was Bunbun. She was one of his best friends growing up.

“An Xin, you can sit…” The homeroom teacher looked around the classroom. Most seats were taken, except for a few at the back of the class. He hesitated for a few seconds but then pointed towards a desk in the last row and said, “You can sit over there for now. Sorry, we don’t have that much space. We can maybe look into reshuffling the seating arrangement some other time…”

An Xin looked at the desk the teacher was pointing at. There was no one else sitting at that desk. Then she looked at the desk next to where she would be sitting. Two guys sat there. One of them was Lin Feng. She smiled at the homeroom teacher and said, “It’s fine. That seat looks perfect!” She then walked over to it and sat down on the side closest to Lin Feng. There was only the aisle separating them.