Two weeks after Photo Day, the class teacher walked into the classroom holding a large envelope.
Immediately, everyone started talking.
"Is that the photos?"
"Already?"
"I look bad in photos, I don't want it."
Zhao Ming turned around in his chair.
"If I look ugly, I am blaming the photographer."
"You always look ugly," Su Ran said.
"That is very rude," Zhao Ming replied. "I am emotionally hurt."
Jiang Chen didn't say anything, but he looked at the envelope too.
Passing the Photos
The teacher opened the envelope and started calling names one by one, handing out the photos.
When Su Ran finally got hers, she immediately looked at it.
The whole class was there, arranged in rows, everyone in neat uniforms, some smiling, some looking serious.
She found herself in the second row.
Then she looked behind her in the photo.
Jiang Chen was standing slightly behind her, looking calm as usual.
And Zhao Ming… was slightly leaning sideways and smiling like he was in a comedy show.
She started laughing immediately.
"Zhao Ming, you look so stupid!"
He grabbed the photo from her.
"Let me see!"
He looked at it and nodded seriously.
"I look handsome. I don't know what you're talking about."
"You are literally leaning out of the line," she said.
"That is called having personality," he replied.
The Back of the Photo
Su Ran suddenly remembered something.
"Wait," she said, taking a pen from her pencil case.
"We said we would write something on the back."
She flipped the photo over and wrote:
Last Row Trio
Seat: Last Row
Year: (school year)
Goal: Stay friends for a long time
Then she passed the pen to Zhao Ming.
He wrote:
Future Goal: Become rich and buy everyone food.
Then he passed the pen to Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen looked at the photo for a long moment before writing something slowly.
When he finished, Su Ran leaned over to read it.
He had written:
Remember these days.
She read it again quietly.
"Remember these days…"
She didn't know why, but that sentence felt heavier than the others.
Zhao Ming looked at it too and said,
"Why do you write things that sound like the ending of a movie?"
Jiang Chen replied calmly,
"Because we won't always be here like this."
Su Ran looked at both of them and said quickly,
"Then we just have to make sure we don't forget."
A Quiet Afternoon
That afternoon, the teacher was late, so the class was noisy and everyone was talking.
Su Ran placed the photo inside her notebook carefully.
"Don't lose yours," she said to both of them.
"I don't lose important things," Jiang Chen replied.
Zhao Ming said,
"I lose everything except my appetite."
She laughed a little, then rested her chin on her hand and looked out the window.
"Do you think we'll still talk like this in five years?" she asked suddenly.
Zhao Ming answered immediately,
"Yes. Because you won't find better friends than us."
"That's very confident," she said.
"That's very true," he replied.
She looked at Jiang Chen.
He thought for a moment and then said quietly,
"I don't know what will happen in five years… but I think when we see this photo again, we'll remember exactly how this classroom felt."
She didn't reply, but she smiled slightly and looked back out the window.
The classroom was noisy, the sun was coming through the window, Zhao Ming was talking too loudly, and Jiang Chen was quietly doing homework like always.
It was just a normal afternoon.
But somehow, it felt like one of those moments that would become a memory later.
And none of them knew yet that one day,
they would look at that photo again and wish they could go back to that classroom,
to the last row,
to the days when everything was simple and they were always together.