(1)
Ninety-six out of 100. I skimmed over the test paper front and back as soon as I got it to see where exactly I'd lost those 4 points. Luckily, Lili got 98, so my score wouldn't be described as "incredibly higher than that of the rest of the students in our class" again. However, when Ms. Yin gave the paper to me, she still had that seemingly skeptical look on her face, which I didn't really bother to look into, though, because at least Chenhui believed I never cheated. Chenhui. We hadn't even talked that much or been on familiar terms like we are now, just two weeks before. Why on earth did his opinion become important to me in the blink of an eye?
After the English class was dismissed, Ms. Yin was still talking with Lili by the door. When Lili's eyes met mine by chance, I beckoned her over, wanting her to explain one more time how to use participles as non-finite verbs, which I always had trouble understanding. She nodded slightly while trying to stuff a slip of paper Ms. Yin had just given her into her pant pocket.
"What's that?" I pointed at her pocket when she sat down beside me.
Lili threw a resigned glance secretly at Ms. Yin, who was still standing by the door discussing some questions on the test paper with students, and mumbled, "Detention."
"Again?"
Every time we'd taken an important English test, Ms. Yin would ask those students who didn't get a satisfactory score to stay in the classroom after school with the intention of helping them figure out the problems. It wasn't compulsory, but most students would choose to stay and take it as a free tutorial class. Sometimes, however, it was hard and took too long for her to do it on her own. As a result, Lili was always asked to be there as well, assisting her most of the time. I'd always thought Ms. Yin was responsible, for I'd never heard of any teachers who'd do it after work, until Lili told me Ms. Yin was always nowhere to be found after the first 10 or 20 minutes, so it was Lili who had to stay there until the last student left. That was why I liked to call it the "helping hand group," while Lili just called it "detention."
In that case, the slip in Lili's pocket must be the name list.
"Yeah. Again." Lili sighed, burying her face in her arms on the table. "I was gonna go watch The Forbidden Kingdom with Yun tonight."
"Sorry. Had I known it earlier, I would've asked you to watch it with me last Sunday." I liked going to movies alone, so I hardly ever asked anyone to go with me.
"Was it any good?" She turned her face to me, but her eyes were still closed.
"It was not bad. I like Jackie Chan and Jet…"
"Did you watch it alone?" She suddenly jumped.
"…and Jet Li. Yes. As always. Why?"
"Why didn't you watch it with…" Then she turned her head in slow motion and nodded in the direction of Chenhui, who was busy scribbling something on the test paper at his desk.
"Lili! We're not dating! Alright? We're not even that close!" I cupped her cheek, turning her face back to me. Sometimes I was undeniably frightened of Lili knowing me too well, because the fact that I was reluctant to tell her was that I'd wavered over whether I should call Chenhui up until the moment I eventually made up my mind and said, "One ticket, please." at the box office, comforting myself with the thought that I should at least know what types of movies he liked before sending him an invitation.
"Then you guys should be closer. Ms. Yin!" She put her hand up. "Can I have Yang help with the tutorial this time? I have some plans tonight, so I want to leave school earlier."
"What?" I burst out. How had I become involved in this? I, too, had plans!
Ms. Yin looked back and forth from Lili to me, then she said hesitantly, "Sure."
"Thank you, ma'am." Lili put her hand down with a satisfied smile on her face, slight but still noticeable.
"Why did you do that?" I demanded, half quizzically and half angrily, after Ms. Yin had gone. "And what did you thank her for?"
Lili fished the slip out from her pocket, threw it onto my desk, and buried her face in her arms again as if nothing had happened in the past two minutes.
I unfolded the slip. It was the name list.
And Chenhui's name was on it.
"You're welcome," she said.
(2)
"How did he end up here?" I leaned toward Lili and stealthily asked the question that had confused me for the last three periods of the day. Chenhui might not be as good at English as Lili was, but he was always among those top students in the class. Even Mom knew his name, for he was always mentioned in the parent-teacher conference as a perfect example of students being able to balance study and gym well. Some people were just more intelligent. What could I do about it? Anyway, Mom would have felt proud if she'd known I was going to tutor him.
"Go use that question as your conversation starter, sweetheart," Lili answered perfunctorily without looking at me. Instead, she was busy running her eyes along everyone else one by one in the classroom. Every now and then, she glanced at the slip in her hand, taking attendance at the "free tutorial." When she finished, she added, "But don't make yourself sound like you're criticizing or complaining. You're friends, not father and son."
"Sure, Mom."
Hardly had Lili started to glare at me when Ms. Yin came into the classroom with a pile of paper in her hand. She'd changed into a long red dress, the little owl pendant on her platinum necklace shimmering in the evening sunlight. I didn't really know how old she was. Despite the rumor that she was over 35, she honestly looked much younger this way.
"She's going on a date," Lili mumbled.
"How did you tell?" I didn't think she was the kind of teacher who'd share personal stuff with students.
"She re-did her make-up," Lili seemed absolutely positive.
I squinted my eyes at Ms. Yin's face but still didn't find anything different. Maybe I wouldn't register anything unless she wore Ichiban, lipstick for men. Imagining Ms. Yin wearing Joey Tribbiani's lipstick was so much fun that I didn't even notice she'd walked to our seats until she put all the paper in front of Lili, asking her to hand out these extra exercises and supervise the students doing them because she had to "go off on some errand." Then she smiled and left after Lili said, "Sure."
"Sure. School always sends teachers on errands after work. That's completely believable," Lili muttered to herself when Ms. Yin went out and shut the door. Lili whispered in my ear before she got up to hand out the exercises, "Go ask him to sit beside you."
I turned my head and beckoned to Chenhui, who was sitting three rows behind me, hands propping his head and elbows resting on the desk, waiting for the exercises. He grabbed his paper and came to me.
"How did you end up here?" I asked him after he'd settled back in the seat next to mine. I hoped I didn't sound like a parent scolding his kid.
"Because I suck," he answered without a second thought, "as I always do."
I didn't know what to say for a second since I couldn't tell if it was just a joke or some serious self-cognition on reflection. Seeing me speechless, he smirked, "Oh. Come on. I was kidding. I was just taken with diarrhea during the test yesterday."
Maybe for him, we'd already come to a phase where this kind of spontaneous self-mockery was acceptable, while I was always a slowpoke. For me, I thought I was still going through the phase where it was still hard to find a decent subject to keep our conversation going. Chenhui was a talker anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem that bothered me that much.
"That explains why. Then how come you didn't tell Ms. Yin so that you don't have to be here now?" However, if he had, I couldn't imagine when the next time we talked would be, since PE class had been taken up by our teachers of main subjects for all sorts of pop quizzes and tests for more than two weeks.
"How did you know I didn't? I did explain what happened yesterday to her," he gave me a wry smile, "but Ms. Yin is not at all a trusting person. I guess you know it better than me."
"Tell me about it." I nodded while bowing down to Ms. Yin's distrust in my heart of hearts, or should credit also go to Lili for having set all this up?
After Lili had done the line next to ours, she came to us and tossed two small stacks of stapled paper onto my and Chenhui's tables.
"Why the hell do I have to do these?" I demanded, "I'm here to help you. Don't you remember?"
Of course I knew I was here mainly for something else, but the way Lili took her actions was too mysterious for me to follow. We should've had a rehearsal for this ahead of time.
Lili kept handing out the paper to the classmates behind us and talked to me without even facing me, "Ms. Yin said all the students in the classroom should finish the exercises."
"Including…"
"Except for me." I felt certain I sensed a hint of pride in her tone.
"Now what?" asked Chenhui. The look on his face was precious. He must be trying his very best to look sympathetic to me and, simultaneously, trying equally hard to resist the temptation to laugh out.
"Who knows? There's nothing left for me to do but do them, I guess?" I said with a shrug. Then I drew the stack a bit closer to see what the questions were. The first page was full of multiple-choice questions, which wouldn't be very hard. Over the page was grammatical error correction. When I turned to the third page before I could figure out the type of the questions, the words in light grey scribbled away with a pencil at the foot of the page drew my attention.
BE A MAN AND ASK HIM OUT!!!
Though totally aware that Chenhui had no time to look at my stack, I still crossed out the words with the gel pen in my hand as quickly as I could, leaving myself no pause to think if an eraser would be a lot more efficient.
"What are you doing?" Chenhui stopped writing to ask me.
"To… to express my rage." No sooner had I lifted my head to see him than I found Lili standing by us, arms crossed over her chest. She must've seen what I'd done. So I shook my head slightly to her, vetoing her suggestion.
She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat, "Before I forget, Yang. Where exactly is the restaurant you told me about last time? I wanna try that out this weekend."
"Did I?" Was this the beginning of another brand-new story she improvised?
Lili clicked her tongue and continued, "The one that has the best dumplings in the world."
"I told you my mom made the best dumplings in the world." We happened to talk about it the other day, but if my memory served me correctly, she didn't seem intrigued at all, so I had no idea why she had to bring this up.
"That's right! Geez. Pardon me for my poor memory." She shook her head bashfully, one hand covering up her eyes. "So can I go to your place for lunch this weekend by any chance?"
"Sure. I mean… sure." I gave Chenhui a quick sidelong glance, only to find him looking at me, a puzzled frown on his forehead.
"How about…" Lili turned her face to Chenhui as if she just remembered he was around as well, "we go together?"
What a twist.
"We?" Chenhui sat bolt upright, pointing back and forth from himself to Lili.
"Are you free this weekend? Let's say… Sunday?" It was funny that Lili was fixing a time with Chenhui for a meal at my place without asking my opinion. I was, nevertheless, never bold enough to do this on my own, so I just let her.
"That sounds like a great plan. I love dumplings," said Chenhui, and then he turned to me, "I mean, if you don't mind my going along."
"Of course not." Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Lili give me a knowing wink.
(3)
Before Chenhui walked his bike to the bus stop across from the gate of our school with me, Lili had already rushed there and hopped on a bus, excusing herself by saying that the movie was about to start. When the bus went farther and farther until it was no longer within our eyeshot, Chenhui mounted his bike but then put his hands into his pant pockets. So I leaned against the bus stop kiosk quietly, pondering whether to fill the silence before it became too long and awkward. However, I thought I'd used up all the pleasant subjects with him and Lili during the one-hour tutorial.
"It's beautiful," he suddenly said out of nowhere. Though curious, I didn't even know if I should respond because he might be just talking to himself. Then he looked at me as if he was waiting for me to say something.
"What?"
He took out a hand and pointed his finger in the direction of Lili's bus. I squinted, trying hard to find out what he was talking about but failed.
"What is it?" I asked again.
"The sky."
I looked up, and my breath was taken away instantly. I was afraid that at no point in my life had I ever stopped walking to admire the afterglow left by the lingering sunset.
"Do we always have this?" The question slipped out before I appreciated how weird it was.
He flashed me a faint smile, "Yeah. Most of the time in summer, I guess." He put his hand back into the pocket and turned to look at me, "But it's just… there. We can never have it or reach it."
"Fine." I was confused. I was never good at deciphering the hidden meaning of a sentence if any. "So when it's there, let's just… admire it?"
"Or, as an ancient Greek philosopher once said," he took out his phone, "for those good things you can't have, take a photograph."
I was about to nod my acknowledgment before realizing he almost had me fooled. "Say sorry to ancient Greek philosophers."
"You believed it." He grinned, the hand that held the phone still looking for a good camera angle. "I'm sorry."
At the moment, I couldn't help imagining how different his photo albums were from mine. Those good things you can't have. I really wondered what they were. But asking to see one's photos abruptly might sound super stupid, so I thought I'd better not satisfy my curiosity until the day we were close enough not to feel weird about it.
"OK." He put away his phone and asked me, "How do you usually go home?"
"I also take the bus here." I stole a glance at my watch. "It should be here at any minute now."
"Alright." He put his hands on the handlebars, right foot stepping on the pedal. "Oh, don't forget to tell your mom we're going to your place this weekend. I hope I don't cause her any trouble."
"I sure will. Mom will be very delighted to let the world know how well she cooks."
"That's great." He gave a little chuckle. "Let's assist her with the goal – So… see you tomorrow?"
"Sure. See you tomorrow."
He nodded with a slight smile lifting the corner of his mouth and rode off into the evening sunlight.
It had never occurred to me before that "see you tomorrow" was something worth counting down to – until then.