Not Yet Brilliant - Chapter 2

He Pingyi didn’t know whether or not he and that boy could now be considered to be acquainted with each other. Although he technically said hello to him the other day, he didn’t even know the very basics about him, like his name, and the boy probably didn’t know where he came from either. He was continuously waiting for the day they would run into each other again and he could talk to him and get to know him, but strangely, after a long time had passed, and he came and went many times, he still hadn’t met him again.

During the physical education class that day, He Pingyi originally planned to lie on his desk in the classroom and catch up on sleep. However, there were several boys in each class who liked playing basketball, and P.E. class was the one time when all the classes gathered together, so they could enthusiastically let loose and create a hubbub. As soon as the math teacher said that class was over, Wang Xiaowei immediately reached one foot under his desk and drew out a basketball, then he fished it up into his embrace and urged He Pingyi to quickly go to the basketball court.

3v3, half court, for He Pingyi it could be considered an easy, effortless match. Coupled with the fact that there were several classmates in the class whose skill level was truly pretty good, He Pingyi played smoothly, in a relaxed manner. When he aimed at the basketball hoop to shoot, his heart unexpectedly surged with an excitement that he hadn’t felt in a long time. But in the second half, when He Pingyi’s condition became even better, the rhythm of a few people on the court suddenly became very abnormal. For example, Wang Xiaowei could lose the ball when dribbling, he didn’t look at the basketball hoop when he was shooting, and he didn’t even know where he was aiming. During the break, He Pingyi stepped forward and asked Wang Xiaowei in a perplexed manner, “What are you doing?”

The expression on Wang Xiaowei’s face was unnatural, and his eyes were dodgy and evasive, not at all like his usual faceless and skinless appearance.

He Pingyi’s gaze followed the direction of Wang Xiaowei’s stealthy glance, and he saw a girl sitting on the third step of the grandstand. Long curly hair draped over her shoulders, and she wore a polo shirt, which was very common to wear in summer. Even He Pingyi should sincerely praise her for her beauty.

He Pingyi indifferently glanced at her, then used one hand to slap Wang Xiaowei on the back of his head: “Don’t get distracted, play basketball properly.”

But when he turned around, he found that, at that moment, Wang Xiaowei was not the only one on the court who was stealing glances.

He Pingyi held the ball with both hands and tilted his head, anticipating that the second half of the game might not be so smooth.

“Hey,” Wang Xiaowei suddenly caught up with him and whispered in his ear apprehensively, “You don’t know her ah? I’ll tell you, Wen Xiangying, from Class 8…”

“Class 8?” He Pingyi stopped and immediately became energetic. He turned around in a circle and swept the sports field with his eyes.

Where’s that little smiling face?

“He Pingyi!”

His teammate suddenly called out to him, but He Pingyi’s reaction was somewhat sluggish. As soon as he looked in the direction of his teammate, the basketball had already passed over his head and flew out of the court. He looked at the basketball that had already rushed far away, then he turned back to face his teammate and raised his hand, apologizing for his mistake.

He Pingyi trotted to catch up to the ball, then he picked it up and held it in his hand. He hadn’t given up on searching the huge sports field for the boy. A crowd of people gathered in front of the rock climbing wall on the other side of the sports field. He couldn’t see the people on the rock climbing wall clearly, but he could already hear the rowdy jeers and laughter of the people below.

“Girls are faster than you!”

“You can’t even come down!”

He Pingyi couldn’t quite hear the exact content of their heckling, but he squinted and saw two people hanging on the rock climbing wall, one on the left and the other on the right. One of them was a thin boy, and his small fair arms were exposed.

He Pingyi turned and ran a few steps towards the basketball court. He threw the ball over and shouted to Wang Xiaowei, “Let Da Xiao go first!”

When he turned back again and walked towards the direction of the rock climbing wall, the boy had already climbed up a short distance in the brief time that he was away. In fact, this rock climbing wall wasn’t very high. To He Pingyi, it was more like a toy for children to play with. However, He Pingyi could see the boy’s dilemma, he had no room to advance or retreat. He guessed that the boy ran out of strength and was just holding on, unwilling to come down.

He Pingyi shook his head slightly, sighed, and started walking over there.

The girl on the other side had already reached the top, and the boys around the bottom seized the opportunity to talk again. Their jokes started to become more and more unforgiving, and they asked the person above if he could climb to the top.

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The physical education teacher also figured that he wouldn’t be able to climb to the top, so he hurriedly looked for steps for the person above to come down. But the boy didn’t seem to hear him. While shaking, he raised his hand up to the next climbing hold.

He Pingyi didn’t study hard and wasn’t an Internet addicted youth, so he was lucky enough to still have excellent eyesight. On a campus where the myopia rate was soaring, he still had perfect 20/20 vision. He was already standing in the crowd of noisy people and from his current viewpoint he could even clearly see the blue veins on the back of the boy’s hands that were raised due to physical exertion.

The sun was still very big. He Pingyi thought that the boy must feel very uncomfortable at the top of the rock climbing wall.

The boy slowly moved his hands and feet, and finally, he barely reached the top.

He Pingyi stood quietly, facing the dazzling sunlight, and he kept his head tilted up the entire time. It wasn’t until he watched the boy get down from the climbing wall safely that he breathed a sigh of relief, and raised his leg to walk to the bathroom.

His spirit separated from his body due to the nerve-racking situation, and he walked very slowly. He Pingyi began to carefully recall what the others called the boy just now. Jingcai? Jing Can?

He Pingyi turned his head to look back and saw that the boy didn’t join the group standing below the rock climbing wall, rather, he continued to walk forward with his head slightly lowered. He was already about to walk under the shade of the trees on the side of the sports field. There was a blocky advertising billboard over there. By the time He Pingyi walked to the door of the bathroom, the boy had already hidden behind the billboard. He Pingyi once again stood still for a moment, but his sight was blocked by the big brand‘s advertisement. No matter how he looked, he couldn’t see anything except two shoes occasionally moving, and he didn’t know what the boy was doing.

He Pingyi estimated that the boy wouldn’t be able to run away for a while, but also, he hadn’t really thought about how to approach him and get to know him, so he went to the bathroom, washed his hands, put his hands in his pockets, and started to walk over there. Halfway back to where the boy was, He Pingyi felt that something was still wrong. He pondered for a moment, then he ran to the equipment room and borrowed a basketball.

He lightly tossed the basketball back and forth between his hands, pretending to be careless. He Pingyi quickly walked back, and when he was about to reach the shade of the tree, he put a little force into his left hand and staggered his right hand, and the basketball was “accidentally” pushed out.

The boy was squatting on the ground, and the basketball accurately rolled right in front of him and stopped.

He Pingyi trotted after the ball and raised eyebrows in his heart: three points, match point.

“I’m sorry, uh…” He Pingyi hesitated and one of his hands unconsciously patted the side of his leg. “I wasn’t careful.”

The boy raised his head, and when he saw He Pingyi, he seemed to be stunned. He Pingyi looked down below the boy’s arm, only to find that he was not tying his shoelaces, but rather, he was pulling up his pants leg to examine the wound on his ankle.

“Are you hurt?” He Pingyi asked immediately.

The corners of the boy’s mouth moved, but he just continued to look straight at him without opening his mouth or even making a sound.

“Did you get hurt on the rock climbing wall just now?” He Pingyi asked very naturally, as if he didn’t care about the boy’s silence at all.

This time, the boy pulled down his pants leg and stood up.

In fact, He Pingyi was really not someone who was easy to get along with, but now he had switched with someone else. He Pingyi had already left long ago and this aspect of himself would definitely never come back. But quite strangely, at that moment, He Pingyi’s mind was completely full of what to say next, so much so that he didn’t even bother to think about why the boy ignored him, let alone why he was angry.

He Pingyi lifted his hand, extended his index finger, and pointed to himself: “Don’t you remember me?”

The first time they met was in the corridor, and the second time was on the sports field. In just a few short seconds, those two brief, fragmented episodes had already played out thousands of times in He Pingyi’s head.

The boy didn’t pay attention to him at all, but He Pingyi also couldn’t make out the slightest bit of dislike for himself from his eyes. When he was about to tell the boy where they met, the boy opened his mouth.

“Have we met?”

Calm, hesitant, from his experience, this was He Pingyi’s understanding of the boy’s manner of speaking.

This was the first sentence he said to him, and also the first time he heard his voice, the first time he heard him say, “we”. For a very long time to come, this sentence would make He Pingyi’s heart stir every time he thought about it.

“Yes, we have.” He Pingyi said.

The boy listened, used his hand to push up his glasses, and lowered his eyes and his head. He Pingyi immediately tilted his head, leaned forward slightly, and continued to look at his face. He Pingyi found that the boy’s eyelashes were surprisingly extraordinarily long. Just now, his eyeglasses were worn low, so He Pingyi hadn’t noticed yet. With this one look, He Pingyi discovered that his eyelashes seemed to have swept to the lenses of his glasses.

“On the basketball court,” He Pingyi patronized others’ eyelashes and lost his ability to speak. “Oh no, on the stairs, I wasn’t careful and accidentally hit you, and I said hello to you during the running exercises.”

He Pingyi couldn’t breathe or swallow. After saying this, he could only try to sound the boy out, so he asked tentatively, “Do you remember?”

Sunshine flew on top of the boy’s eyelashes and they quivered.

He Pingyi gathered enough patience and waited for a sufficient amount of time. Unexpectedly, the boy who smiled at him a few days ago shook his head and said, “I don’t remember.”

This time, He Pingyi was completely stunned and he froze. However, under the boy’s attentive gaze, he very quickly nodded and said, “It doesn’t matter. My name is He Pingyi, Class 21. Just now… I heard them call you, but I couldn’t hear them clearly. What’s your name? I’m afraid I misheard it.”

He Pingyi tried his best to recount what happened a short while ago without bringing up anything bad. In his heart, he sweated profusely for himself, he was afraid that even so, the boy would still avoid him completely. He Pingyi had never taken the initiative to make friends like this. He never expected that he would get off to a bad start on his first attempt. He looked down at the basketball he had purposely taken to mess with. He thought it was the same. He insisted on meeting and getting to know people in such an awkward way. It was like a blind date. Who could bear it?

“Jing Can.”

Before he had time to despair, He Pingyi heard a clear voice.

He lifted his head to look at the boy, just in time to meet his gaze. This look gave him a familiar feeling. It was just like the other day in the corridor, and like during the second lap of the running exercise, he smiled at him in the same way. Combined with this same smiling expression, his gaze softened He Pingyi’s heart.

At this time, He Pingyi was sure that the boy must have been on guard against himself, during the running exercise and just now.

“En,” He Pingyi was suddenly satisfied by his bravery and he felt a sense of accomplishment. He looked into his eyes and savored his name. He was trying to restrain himself, but he couldn’t help the corner of his mouth from lifting into a smile. If Wang Xiaowei saw He Pingyi’s smile at that moment, he may not believe that that was his deskmate who can only smile lazily.

“Which Can?”

“The one with a lot of strokes.”

Unlike before, after Jing Can said his name, he was much less silent. He didn’t continue to ignore He Pingyi, who was previously basically talking to himself. This also verified He Pingyi’s guess about whether or not he was on guard.

“Oh… a lot of them.”

He Pingyi murmured repeatedly, turned his eyes carelessly to the direction of the sports field, and saw groups of students playing various sports. It was really strange. It was obviously very noisy over there. He Pingyi stood together with Jing Can, but he felt very peaceful, and very comfortable.

“Our class is going to reassemble.”

What broke the silence was the silence itself. After hearing this voice, He Pingyi immediately nodded.

Seeing that he still had no intention of leaving, Jing Can asked again, “I’m leaving. Are you not going to play basketball?”

“Ah,” He Pingyi at last regained his consciousness. “Going, going.”

He took a step forward and bent down to pick up his basketball. When he stood up, he saw that Jing Can‘s gaze was fixed on the basketball.

“Are you good at basketball?”

“Me?,” He Pingyi thought for a moment and decided to be modest. “Not bad, do you want to play basketball? I’ll teach you.”

Jing Can smiled this time, and, compared to the first time He Pingyi met him, his smile was even more open. Just like before, it was very beautiful.

“I’m too short.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyone can play basketball, what’s so important about height,” He emphasized again, “If you want to learn, come and find me. I’ll teach you.”

He didn’t know whether it was because of the urging of Class 8’s physical education teacher’s whistle, or Jing Can really wanted to learn, in any case, Jing Can smiled, nodded, and said, “OK.”

With this answer, He Pingyi held the basketball and planned to leave.

“Oh, that’s right,” turning around and glancing at Jing Can’s ankle, He Pingyi recalled the damaged skin and the purple bruise he saw. “Your ankle’s injured. Do you want to go to the infirmary to take care of it? If you don’t deal with it, it’s easy for it to get inflamed, especially since it’s summer.”

“It’s OK,” Jing Can didn’t care much about it. He even raised his foot and let it hang for a while. “It’s not serious. I’ll apply some medicine after school.”

He Pingyi nodded.

He Pingyi then held the ball in his arms and ran a distance away. He looked back again and found that Jing Can was still standing beside the billboard, looking at himself fixedly. His expression seemed to have once again returned to an undisturbed state. He Pingyi’s heart trembled. He turned around, went back towards Jing Can, and waved.

Jing Can didn’t respond. He Pingyi soon stopped, cocked his head, and furrowed his brow, but then looked at Jing Can with a smile.

Until Jing Can finally smiled back at him and waved gently.

——————–

A/N: I’ve been waiting for a long time~

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