Chapter 21: The Way Warmth Begins
The school remained quiet under snow.
Days passed.
Midterms approached, and tension filled the air.
Even the usually talkative students fell silent in the hallways,
carrying notes, muttering formulas under their breath.
But in the back row of Class 2-B,
the silence between two students had begun to change.
It no longer separated them.
It linked them.
Like two lanterns glowing at the same rhythm in different corners of a darkened room.
On Tuesday morning, Mu Yichen brought two cups of warm barley tea.
He placed one silently on his desk.
Then—without looking—he reached and set the second one just over the invisible line
between his desk and hers.
Han Seri blinked.
She stared at the cup.
She didn't speak.
But she took it.
Took one careful sip.
And then, her voice, barely above a whisper:
"Thank you."
He nodded.
Still facing forward.
But his grip on the cup eased.
As if the warmth had finally reached his fingertips.
They didn't speak again that day.
But during lunch, when she reached into her bag and unwrapped a homemade steamed bun—
she tore it in half and slid one half across the table.
No eye contact.
No words.
He took it.
And when their fingers brushed this time—
neither pulled away.
The next day, she sneezed quietly during literature class.
Only once.
But Yichen, without a word, took a small tissue pack from his coat pocket
and placed it gently on her desk.
She looked at him.
He didn't glance back.
Just kept taking notes.
But she smiled into her scarf.
And for the first time…
she felt warmer than the heater beside her desk.
By Friday, they had spoken five full sentences to each other.
Two about tea.
One about snow.
One about forgetting homework.
And one—
about nothing at all.
"Do you think silence is heavier in winter?" she asked.
"Only if no one's near," he said.
And that was it.
But she remembered that sentence for the rest of the day.
That night, Mu Yichen didn't draw.
He sat with his pencil poised for hours.
Then wrote one word in his sketchpad:
"Near."
And Seri, on her bed, finally wrote a journal entry again.
Only three lines;
He doesn't talk much.
But he listens like the world depends on it.
And sometimes, I think… I'm not alone anymore.