Chapitre 4: Confession
Thunder rumbled again as the rain came down in sheets. This was it. Wang Jingyuan tried in vain to calm her pounding heart. The butterflies in her stomach were making her sick.
"Yeah. Um…I…" Her mind was blank. She had wrote down an entire script of what to say, perfected it with Du Jiahui, and memorized it, but now she couldn't recall a single word. A lump formed in her throat. She tore her eyes away from Shao Wenbo's inquisitive gaze and looked down at her steaming coffee instead as her mind raced to piece together a coherent speech.
Shao Wenbo's brows creased with slight worry. Wang Jingyuan looked a little pale. He noticed that her fingers were twitching slightly and remembered that whenever she was panicking during their competition—usually because she couldn't remember the answer to a question—she would see-saw her pencil rapidly between her thumb and forefinger. But here, as she was panicking again, there was no pencil for her to hold. The question was, why was she panicking?
Kracka-boom! A loud thunderclap startled everyone in the café. Shao Wenbo took this chance to break the awkward silence by commenting: "Woah. That was really loud."
"Yeah. It was." Wang Jingyuan looked through the glass window at the rain hitting the asphalt and creating rivers on the road. She saw more lightning flash in the clouds and briefly wondered if someone, or something, might get struck by lightning in this freaky weather.
Stop. She was getting sidetracked. Shao Wenbo was still waiting for an answer. Wang Jingyuan closed her eyes, took a deep breath to steady her heart, and steeled her resolve. Script or no script, she was going to tell Shao Wenbo how she felt about him.
"Wenbo-ge, do you remember how we met?" Wang Jingyuan asked him.
Shao Wenbo's mind flashed back to one rainy afternoon five years ago, when he was in the eighth grade. He was on his way to take the annual try-out test for his Knowledge Bowl Club events. It was really just walking through the motions; everyone knew that the young captain of the team and undefeated champion of the middle school Knowledge Bowl Club was going to ace the tests with flying colors. A girl with water dripping down her ponytail was sitting by the door of the classroom the tests were held in, looking down at a binder in despair. Shao Wenbo recognized her as one of the students who had attended all the meetings and was competing for a spot on the competition team.
"Why are you out here?" Shao Wenbo had asked. The girl looked up at him, and Shao Wenbo was surprised to see that she had been crying. "Is something wrong?"
"I didn't bring an umbrella and got caught in the rain. My backpack got soaked, and now my notes are ruined." The girl held out her binder, and Shao Wenbo saw how the once neatly colored coded notes were now a wet mess of blurs. "I stayed up all night to finish them, and now I'm going to fail the try-out test. I'm not going to make it onto the team."
Maybe it was because Shao Wenbo had seen her studying hard in the school library, or maybe because she reminded him a little of himself when he was young and tried very hard, but Shao Wenbo felt compelled to help. "Which events are you testing today?"
The girl told him. Two of the three events overlapped with him. Shao Wenbo unzipped his own backpack and fished out his binder. "Here. You can use my notes."
The girl stared at him with wide eyes. "But then what are you going to use?"
Shao Wenbo smiled and tapped his temple. "Don't worry; they're all up here. You're going to have to just try your best on the last event because I'm not trying out for that event."
Even so, it took a bit of coaxing and convincing for her to accept the notes. Shao Wenbo liked that the girl had high morals and did not want to take others' hard work for her own, or to inconvenience others for her own success. "I've seen you at every meeting. What's your name?"
"My name is Wang Jingyuan, but all my friends call me Jing-Jing." Wang Jingyuan carefully took Shao Wenbo's binder. "You're Shao Wenbo, the captain, right?"
"That's me. You can just call me Wenbo." For some reason, Wenbo was happy that she knew his name. To his surprise, Wang Jingyuan shook her head.
"You're older than me, so I should call you 'Shao Xue Zhang' [1]." Wang Jingyuan hesitated before carefully asking, "Or maybe, I call you 'Wenbo-ge' instead?"
Shao Wenbo smiled. "'Wenbo-ge' is fine with me. Good luck on your tests today, Jing-Jing."
* * * * *
"How could I forget?" Shao Wenbo found himself smiling at the memory. "I lent you my notes that day."
"If it wasn't for you, I definitely would have failed the tests and not make it onto the team. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be where I am today," said Wang Jingyuan, remembering how she felt like her world fell apart when she discovered her notes were ruined, and how Shao Wenbo fixed it with one kind gesture. She owed him. Big time.
Shao Wenbo shook his head. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Jing-Jing. Even without my notes, you would've aced the tests. Remember how I only had notes for two of your events? For your last event, you had the highest score out of twenty-five applicants. I think having my notes just gave you a peace of mind."
Wang Jingyuan smiled slightly. "Regardless, the reason why I brought this up was because this was the incident that showed me how kind you are. Especially as I interacted with you more through the club, this impression only solidified more. I know people say you are cold and indifferent, but I want you to know that to me, you are the warmest sun." She carefully watched Shao Wenbo's expression as she spoke. His eyes were locked onto hers, but she couldn't decipher what he was thinking. Wang Jingyuan kept talking before her courage faded.
"Because you are one year older, the only time I can see you is in Nerd Club. I look forward to seeing you smile at me as I walk in the door, every day. I love studying with you. I love listening to you explain hard concepts and talk about the subjects you're passionate about. Did you know your eyes shine when you speak about poetry and history? I could spend all day just watching you smile and listening to you talk.
"Wenbo-ge, to me, you're the nicest and most considerate person in the entire world. You're always so patient with me. You explain the same concept multiple times until I understand. You always let me take the sections that are more straightforward when we compete. Even when I mess up, you never get mad at me. Instead, you're always comforting me that it's okay and encouraging me to do better next time. And it means so, so much to me.
"You probably don't even realize, but your simple actions are the sweetest gestures. I don't know if you do nice things like lend people your glasses or carry heavy boxes for them for everyone, but I like to think that you did them only for me. I want to be your special case. Every time you smile at me, it takes entire minutes for my heart to stop fluttering. I've come to the conclusion that I…I like you. More than a friend. I've felt this way for all five years we've known each other."
The words came out all in a rush. Wang Jingyuan couldn't hold Shao Wenbo's gaze anymore and dropped her eyes to his coffee cup. He remained silent, and she was afraid to look at his reaction, so she kept talking.
"I know I'm nowhere as pretty as other girls, or as accomplished, or even know you well beyond Nerd Club. I know that you're the star of the school and I'm just another girl who has a crush on you. But you're going to graduate in a few months and we'll never see each other again, so I wanted to tell you this before I lose the opportunity forever.
"Wenbo-ge, will you give me a chance to know you better?"
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
SkyEmpress
SkyEmpress [1] Xue Zhang: meaning “elder student”, this term is commonly used to refer to male students above one’s current year. The female equivalent is Xue Jie, or “elder sister student”.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone