The morning the Board Exam results were released, the air in the school courtyard felt like a live wire. One by one, the "Seven Stars" gathered under the old banyan tree, our usual sanctuary.
Su Lan was the first to arrive, staring at her phone with an expression so blank it was terrifying.
"Well?" Jia Yi asked, clutching her throwball as if it were a stress ball.
"96.8%," Su Lan said, finally letting out a breath that sounded like a deflating balloon. "I guess I don't have to live in the mountains after all."
A cheer went up as the rest of us checked our portals. Zhang Wei shouted a victory cry—92%. Mei Ling and Jia Yi were hugging, both clearing the 90% mark. Even Lin Chen, the "Lazy Polyglot," had pulled off a staggering 94% despite sleeping through half of Physics.
Then, there was the "Top Two."
I looked at my screen. 98.2%. My heart soared. I had done it. I looked up, searching for the one person whose score mattered as much as my own. Li Yan was standing a few feet away, leaning against a pillar. He wasn't cheering. He wasn't even smiling.
"Li Yan?" I stepped closer, my competitive fire momentarily eclipsed by worry.
He turned his screen toward me. 98.2%.
A perfect tie.
"Still fighting for the top spot, Xiao Xing?" he murmured, and for the first time in weeks, his eyes weren't cold. They were shimmering with a rare, genuine warmth. "It seems even the Board of Education couldn't decide between us."
The "Group of Seven" erupted. We were the legends of the year. The teachers emerged from the staff room, led by the Principal, who was beaming so hard he looked like he might burst. We were called to the stage, honored in front of the juniors, and given medals that felt heavy with the weight of our shared history.
But as the sun began to set on our final day as school students, the high of the victory began to fade into a hollow ache.
The Last Boba Run
We sat at our favorite corner table at the boba shop. Seven cups, seven futures.
"I got into the Tech Institute in the North," Su Lan said, her "IDGAF" mask cracking just a little. "I leave in two weeks."
"I'm headed to the Sports Academy across the border," Zhang Wei added, stirring his pearls sadly. Mei Ling and Lin Chen shared a look—they were going to the same Arts College, but it was three cities away.
The map of our lives was being redrawn, and none of the lines overlapped.
"What about you, Li Yan?" I asked, my voice small.
"The National University of Science," he said. It was the best school in the country. It was also eight hundred miles away. "I've already been accepted into the Advanced Coding Program."
My heart dropped into my stomach. I was staying local to help with my family's business while studying at the city university. The distance wasn't just miles; it was a canyon.
"We're the Seven Stars," Jia Yi said, her voice trembling as she raised her cup. "Stars are far apart, but they're part of the same constellation, right?"
"Right," we all whispered, clinking our plastic cups.
But as the others started reminiscing about our mischievous pranks—the time we hidden the Principal's keys or the time Zhang Wei accidentally cooked a 'science experiment' in the home economics lab—I felt a desperate, reckless urge.
This is it, I thought. The clock is at 11:59.
I looked at Li Yan. He was watching the streetlights, his profile sharp and beautiful. He looked like a masterpiece I was about to lose.
"Hey," I said, my voice cutting through the laughter. "I have a confession to make."
The table went silent. Su Lan narrowed her eyes. She knew.
"I've had a secret for six years," I said, forcing a playful, 'mischievous' grin onto my face, even though my lungs felt like they were collapsing. "Li Yan... I've actually had a massive crush on you since middle school. Crazy, right?"
I laughed. It was a bright, brittle sound. I wanted to give myself an out—a way to take it back if he looked disgusted. A "prank."
The silence that followed was agonizing. Lin Chen stopped sketching. Zhang Wei put down his drink.
Li Yan didn't laugh. He didn't even blink. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his gaze as cold as a frozen lake in mid-winter.
"Xiao Xing," he said, and my name sounded like a sentence. "I thought you were smarter than this."
My smile faltered. "It's just a joke, Li Yan! A graduation prank—"
"It's not funny," he interrupted, his voice flat and clinical. "I have no interest in you that way. I've never seen you as anything more than a rival and a teammate. Don't ruin our last night with something this... desperate."
The word 'desperate' hit me harder than any karate strike ever could. I felt the blood drain from my face. Around the table, our friends looked away, the air thick with secondhand embarrassment and shock.
"Gotcha!" I forced another laugh, though my eyes were stinging. "See? I told you guys he'd react like a robot! Look at his face!"
I stood up, grabbing my bag. "I need to go. My parents are waiting for a '98%' celebration dinner. See you guys... around."
I didn't look back. I ran. I ran until the boba shop was a blur of neon and my lungs burned.
That was the last time the "Group of Seven" were all together. No goodbye texts, no university visits. Li Yan went north to become a genius, and I stayed behind to bury the girl who loved him.
Our story ended at the 90% mark. Or so I thought.