Oral period

"Are you okay?" It was almost three o'clock after coming out of the infirmary, and it was the quietest time in the school. Under the hot afternoon sun, Xia Jingzhe raised her hand to loosen her hair and tie it up again, not to let her The broken hair was sticking to the temples, and he asked casually.

"It's okay, I'm not afraid of pain," Zhen Xiao looked at him thoughtfully, "I don't feel it anymore."

"Really, you were not like this when you were young..."

Zhen Xiao didn't hear his soft murmur: "Huh?"

Realizing that he accidentally confused the other party with the childhood playmate in his memory, and said it like a fool, Xia Jingzhe scratched his hair in annoyance, and said quickly: "No, it's nothing."

How could it be the same, that little thing would be tearful and helpless if he pinched his cheeks twice, if he really fell and broke his knees on both sides, he would probably cry out of control...

"Xia Jingzhe."

Suddenly being called out by name, Xia Jingzhe was taken aback for a moment. He came back from his wild imagination and looked at him for no reason—this was the first time Zhenxiao called his name in his memory, emphasizing it with a nice nasal voice. , the tone is clear and cool, like a round mint on the tip of the tongue.

Under his unexplained gaze, the young man raised his hand, without saying hello or explaining, he patted the top of his head twice like a kitten or a puppy, the heel of his palm fell on his forehead, it was cold, the residual heat of early autumn was still there The coolness in the sun made him feel dizzy.

"Promise me," Zhen Xiao withdrew his hand, unable to make any expression due to the gauze stickers on his face, but there was a bright and triumphant smile in his eyes, "Go back after class, I don't want to be taken for granted. Monster look."

In fact, he didn't mind, it didn't matter to him whether he walked into the classroom under the eyes of everyone, or stood at the door to accept the teacher's questioning - but Xia Jingzhe should mind quite a bit, he thought.

It was a hit-and-miss, and temporarily offset the discomfort of being touched like a small animal.Xia Jingzhe nodded and asked him where he wanted to go.

"Take me, a transfer student, around the school, for example, where is the cafeteria?"

"Forget it," Xia Jingzhe glanced at his knees, "I'll talk about it when your legs are better—I know a place to sit, there's no sun, come with me."

He was talking about the abandoned fountain sculpture behind the teaching building, where he picked up the commission letter.

There is indeed no sun, shrouded in the shadow of the teaching building, and blocked by a few tall plane trees, making this small deserted place shady and shady.

Bending the knees would tear the wound, Zhen Xiao simply sat horizontally on the stone around the statue, with his legs stretched out, placed between several piles of old books, without speaking, looking at the fountain sculpture with a blank expression, not knowing what he was thinking.

Xia Jingzhe sat on a stack of books that he used to sit on, slightly taller than him, and his eyes naturally fell on him, sweeping over the brown gauze that was faintly oozing from his cheeks, wondering whether it was iodophor or a wound of blood.

After getting along for a few days, he also gradually figured out the other person's temperament—Zhou Xiao is quiet most of the day, doing questions quietly or in a daze quietly, with a cold expression, and the whole person seems to be caged The fog in the mountains is cold and heavy, making it difficult to see clearly.

But his brows and eyes are gentle, his eyelids are thin and drooping, and there is a shallow mole on the lower edge of the eye, exuding an innocent youthful air that has not been deeply involved in the world, even if his eyes are cold, he will always provoke love for no reason.

A few times when he was restless, he would talk to him and try to tease him with a little bit of energy. There were all kinds of smiles in those eyes, real, fake, real, innocent, cunning, tricks succeeded It may be an occupational disease. Xia Jingzhe is used to observing others and is also good at it, but he can't see through the person in front of him. Sometimes he feels that he is very simple and can obediently say thank you to others. The childish trick was successful and he smiled, and sometimes he felt that the innocence was covered with a heavy layer, like the gauze stickers on his face, densely covering the past, but he could see the underside at a glance. It's a scar.

I don't know why he is so keen on teasing himself, like the kid who was always clinging to him when he was a child, so disgusting that his teeth itch, but he can't hate...Xia Jingzhe looked at the tree that fell between his eyebrows and eyes and was divided into different parts by leaves. The sunlight of regular fragments connects the autistic teenager in front of him with the same quiet playmate in memory, and I don’t know how many times I feel that they are really similar.

Sensing his sight, Zhen Xiao came back to reality from aimless fugue, and said casually: "I found something."

"Huh?" Xia Jingzhe was startled, "What?"

"You talk a lot," Zhen Xiao looked at the leaves above his head, paused and added, "When I saw you on the first day of school, I thought you didn't like talking."

The contrast between the front and the back of this person is clearly greater than his. When we first met, it was as cold as a block of ice. Who knew that there was bad water that was keen to tease people underneath, and it might not be so cold... Xia Jingzhe was speechless for a moment, feeling that this topic When he mentioned it, he felt somewhat ignorant: "You are the same."

"Really." Zhen Xiao said softly, noncommittal, "But I really don't like talking."

——I just made an exception for you inexplicably, as if from the very beginning, all the fresh emotions under the ice, eccentricity and tenderness, patience and stubbornness, were reserved for you.

Xia Jingzhe didn't hear clearly: "Huh?"

"It's nothing...Speaking of which, this commission is so troublesome, do you have to accept it?"

If he didn't happen to know him, Xia Jingzhe was probably busy collecting the schedules of each class at this time, trying to find out all the classes that had physical education classes at [-] o'clock that afternoon.

"It's not a rule that you have to pick it up. It's okay if you don't pick it up. But when they come to me sincerely, they usually have nowhere to go. They are idle and idle, so I try to help." Xia Jingzhe paused, his voice A little lower, making the second half of his sentence sound more like a soliloquy, "And... I have done stupid things like losing friends' gifts."

"Huh?" Zhen Xiao didn't hear clearly.

It's all happened a long time ago, so it's okay to tell him—Xia Jingzhe thought, took a deep breath almost imperceptibly, and asked the wrong answer: "Do you know why I...are so socially repelled?"

"Isn't it because I was rejected by others first..."

"Not all," the young man shook his head, keeping a strand of hair behind his ear falling with the movement, covering up the emotion that might be revealed at the corner of his mouth, "When I was young, I had a very good friend who I met by chance Yes, I saw a lost child on the street that day, he looked pitiful, and I happened to know the roads nearby, so I took him home... he was a little fool, he couldn't remember the way, and he couldn't point in any direction That's right, I couldn't say anything when I asked his parents, and finally went around a lot, only to find out that his home is in the neighborhood next door to mine."

"and after……"

"Later, he got stuck with me later," Xia Jingzhe lowered his head, seemed to smile, and his tone became much softer, "He doesn't have many friends, and he does homework all day long. I feel sorry for him. Before his mother came home, I sneaked into the backyard of his house, brought him snacks, played hide-and-seek with him, and then helped him out, and then took him to the park I often go to... …At that time, I thought we would always be on good terms like this.”

Realizing the disappointment in the other party's tone, Zhen Xiao tasted a little nervousness for the first time in his life, and unconsciously clenched his hands in his pockets. I don't know if it was because of Xia Jingzhe's words, or his abnormal emotion itself.

"But one day he disappeared, moved, changed his phone number, left without warning, and just disappeared from my world-it's ridiculous to say that after playing together for so many days, I didn't until I don’t even know his name now, because his mother is very strict and doesn’t let him tell others his name,” Xia Jingzhe twitched the corners of his mouth as if mocking himself, and the toe of his shoe was pressed against a piece of gravel back and forth, not lightly He kicked it out lightly, "He gave me a present, a bear, the kind of plush doll that a child can just hold in his arms, wearing a small wedding dress - the day I found out he left without saying goodbye, I threw it away Yes, in the river, I ran downstream and searched for it for a long time but couldn’t find it, now that I think about it, it’s really stupid, one yard counts for one yard, why don’t you think about it for yourself.”

Zhen Xiao looked at his eyebrows and eyes hidden under the shadow of his hair, and seemed to find some clear emotions from them, but found nothing, and after a long time of deliberation, he said: "Then... what you said that day, do you want to keep it for him? "

Then he punched him hard, and it was written off again.

"Well, but these are for you now," Xia Jingzhe stood up and looked at him, with a little ambiguous smile in his eyes, "Sometimes I feel that you are very similar, just thinking about it makes me angry."

There was a throbbing pain in the temple, as if the nerves deep in the brain were twisted together, and a sharper pain was involved.Zhen Xiao frowned, raised her hand to rub her forehead, and casually concealed the unexplainable strange emotion in her heart: "I won't pester you to play."

"Really, what are you doing all day long?"

"Have a good relationship with long-term meal tickets..." This is another cunning and grandiose excuse.

The bell for the end of class just rang, interrupting the boy's unfinished words. Zhenxiao's lips were tightly pressed together. He couldn't understand why this headache came on violently and without warning, so he had to attribute it to the hard fall not long ago—he heard Xia Jingzhe said "Let's go", subconsciously heaved a sigh of relief, and also stood up, followed behind the person as if nothing had happened, and walked towards the teaching building.

For some reason, he always felt that he had heard the story Xia Jingzhe told just now. thought of rebuttal.

No, it's not like that - so what?He couldn't answer such a question at all.

The answer is not no, it's just too absurd to be better than nothing. "Mother is very strict", "I can't remember the way", "I do my homework all day long"...It's so similar, like another him in the world, according to Xia Jingzhe, probably not only these characteristics, they even They all look alike.

Is it the part of his memory that he happened to lose...

"The probability of two strangers meeting is 0.0487", this is what he read in a popular science book, if it is true as he guessed, the chance of being separated by chance and meeting again under the condition of amnesia, then this is less than 5.00% One more square must be added to the probability—less than one percent probability, is it really such a coincidence?

So, when the two walked into the teaching building, with some subtle guilt, Zhen Xiao still bit the zipper lightly, and asked vaguely, seemingly unintentionally: "Then do you hate him?"

"Who?"

"That...someone who resembles me."

"To some extent, it's not all because he left without saying goodbye, the main reason is... Forget it," Xia Jingzhe glanced at him, and said, "Anyway, I don't hold grudges, it's been so long, and I don't hold grudges that much anymore, almost It’s the level where one punch can clean up.”

Zhen Xiao nodded and breathed a sigh of relief.

The sycamore leaf fell quietly, impartially, and landed on Xia Jingzhe's shoulder. He lowered his gaze, picked up the orange "uninvited guest", and placed it on the railing of the corridor.The little episode was short and romantic, and it hid his barely spoken words back to the bottom of his heart.

Just tasted that taste once, and I probably will never have a close friendship with anyone again.

Looking at the fallen leaves mixed with red and yellow, the young man thought silently.