After returning to school, Pu Yu immediately plunged into the stressful rush of finals.
The difference was that, before, she had buried herself in studying alone. Now, her phone was always propped up beside her, earphones plugged in, with a video call on the screen.
Most of the time, neither of them spoke.
On her end, Pu Yu worked through practice questions and memorized dry literary theories.
On his end, Yuan Su might be in the office going over invoices, or in the warehouse taking inventory.
Sometimes, when Pu Yu grew tired of memorizing, she would quietly lift her head to sneak a look at the screen.
He was utterly focused when he worked, his profile clean and sharply defined. Occasionally, he would press his lips together slightly as he thought.
"This is so hard..."
Pu Yu slumped over her desk, hugging the thick volume of A History of Foreign Literature, and couldn't help grumbling softly into her earphones. "Why are all these Russian writers' names so long? I can't remember any of them..."
A very soft chuckle came through her earphones.
"Were you memorizing names?"
The pen in Pu Yu's hand stopped.
"Not sneaking looks at me?" he asked again, his tone level, though the faintest curve touched his lips.
Pu Yu's face flushed bright red.
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"...You didn't even look up. How would you know?"
Yuan Su finally raised his eyes and looked at her through the screen.
He didn't answer.
He simply watched her quietly, a faint smile in his eyes.
Pu Yu felt as though she was about to catch fire.
She bit her lip, then decided she might as well throw caution to the wind-
"Then do you miss me?"
Only after asking did she realize how direct the question was.
But