It was the next day when Hou Lin broke up with Da Shang just before the graduation ceremony.
"What? But why! Isn't everything going perfectly?"
"It's not. We are very different. I am not the guy who can keep up with your loud and dazzling life."
"That's not true! Didn't you accept my confession because you like me too?"
He shook his head. "I told you that I don't know if I like you or not so we should give ourselves a chance. After spending time with you, I realized that we should part ways."
"That's ridiculous!" Da Shang's face flushed red with embarrassment. "You never liked anyone. That's why you never accepted anybody's confession this whole time! But you accepted mine. Doesn't that mean I am special to you?"
"But I never received anybody's confession till now. Yours was the first one."
She burst into laughter. "You cannot be serious. All the girls swoon over you and you say you never got a confession? Some might be too shy to say out loud but I don't believe that none of the girls reached out to you before. Last year, I heard a floating rumor that Suyi from Class E was going to confess to you."
Hou Lin blankly stared at her. "I don't know anything about that."
Da Shang widened her eyes but then it dawned upon her. "Don't tell me that Zhan Yahui interfered with your confessions?"
"What?"
"The girl you keep hanging around with! Honestly she is a nuisance and has too much attitude. Everybody hates her. Hah! If you never got a confession then I am pretty sure she purposely didn't let any of them reach you."
Hou Lin's brows creased in confusion. "Why would she do that?"
"Because she likes you! That's why she selfishly did this! Even now…it's because she fed something in your ears that you are breaking up with me, right?" She trembled in fury.
"No," he stared at her unblinkingly, "I realized myself that we are very different. I am a quiet person and you are someone who likes attention. That's why it's better to-"
"Y-You…are you saying I am a show off?" She couldn't believe her ears.
"I guess that's the word," he plainly said, remembering what the boy near the vending machine had said yesterday.
"Hou Lin! How dare you humiliate me!"
He slightly widened his eyes. "I am not."
"You are!"
He couldn't understand the source of her anger. "Isn't that why you like to take so many pictures and upload them on social media and take me to your large groups of friends because you want the other people to know that I am your boyfriend? You like the attention you get because of me."
Hou Lin didn't mean it in a condescending way but the words reached loud and clear to Da Shang.
"I am not comfortable at such places. I did try to tell you many times but you didn't listen. I feel tired and if I feel tired then I don't like you because I don't think that a person feels tired around the one they like."
"That is wrong!" She lashed out. "You are wrong…How dare you say that I tire you!" She bit her lip hard.
"I don't know how to say it any other way."
"You cannot break up with me Lin! Tomorrow is the graduation ceremony! I will become a joke if everybody comes to know that we broke up!" She paled.
Hou Lin frowned. "But I don't want to lie and I won't."
She gnashed her jaw. "It's all because of that bitch Zhan Yahui, right! She felt jealous of all the girls who like you. That's why she is meddling with your life! I won't forgive her for this! And you too! You did the wrong thing by breaking up with me and I will prove this to you!" She stomped and ran her way out with tears and fury reddening her face.
Hou Lin walked back, her words ringing deep in his ears.
'You did the wrong thing!'
If I don't like her then I should break up with her. Isn't it only right?
Near a plum blossom tree on the school grounds, Hou Lin spotted Zhan Yahui, who was lazily peeling an orange. She whistled as she saw him. "How did the breakup go?"
"She was very angry."
She snorted. "Who cares?"
"But why was she so angry?"
"Because she lost her ticket to her spotlight. She is the campus belle. Imagine the rumors that you broke up just after a few weeks and tomorrow is literally the graduation. That's gonna hit hard on her image," she shrugged. "Show off."
"That's why you asked the first thing yesterday why I did not reject her already? You knew we wouldn't match."
"That and she doesn't really like 'you.' She likes the attention the people around her give her because of you. Not you as a person," she popped an orange piece inside her mouth.
Hou Lin said, "She also said that you meddled with all the confessions until now. That's why I didn't get any."
Zhan Yahui stopped eating her orange and raised her brow at him as if giving a dramatic effect to his statement. "And what if I did?"
He looked away for a moment thinking about it. Then he looked back at her. "Do you like me?"
"Not as a lover."
"Do you care about me?"
"Only because you were my ticket to my survival for seven years."
He paused to think again. "Were all those girls like Da Shang?"
"More or less."
"Is that why you didn't let them confess to me? Because you didn't want me to potentially like any of them and then get hurt?"
She smiled and dusted her skirt as she jumped on her feet. She handed him the remaining orange and yawned. "My part time job is calling me. Ba Bye."
"Wait. Am I right?" He quickly asked, seeing her retreating back.
"Figure it out yourself," He could hear her chuckling as she said that.
---
Hou Lin immediately sensed the distress in his home as soon as he returned from school.
Hou Luli exclaimed, facing her husband, "What the hell! How can they fire you like that!? This is ridiculous!"
Hou Fa had his temples pressed in stress. "I don't know either! The director, Da Pei, suddenly said that I wasn't fit for the company and sent me to HR to collect my last paycheck. We never even met personally before nor did I offend him in any way so why would he do this to me!?"
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