Age 15
New City, New School
The high school was like all the others.
Gray concrete. Long hallways. The smell of floor wax and too many bodies in too small a space.
Gu Chen walked through the front doors on his first day and felt nothing.
No nervousness. No hope. No dread.
Just nothing.
The office gave him a schedule. Homeroom. Literature. Math. Science. Lunch. History. English. The same classes he'd taken in three different schools across two cities. He could have taught them by now.
He found his homeroom. Sat in the back. Window seat.
Invisible by design.
—
Literature class was second period.
The teacher was young—mid-twenties, maybe—with glasses and an enthusiasm that would fade within five years. "Welcome to Literature," she said. "I'm Ms. Chen. This semester, we'll be exploring poetry, short stories, and one novel. Any questions?"
No one raised their hands.
"Great. Let's start with poetry. Who can tell me what makes a poem different from prose?"
Silence.
Then a hand went up.
Gu Chen didn't turn to look. He didn't care. But the voice that spoke was bright, confident, unafraid of being wrong.
"Rhyme?"
Ms. Chen smiled. "That's one element. Anyone else?"
The same voice: "Feelings?"
"Also important. What kind of feelings?"
"I don't know. The kind that don't fit in regular sentences."
Someone snickered. The voice didn't waver.
Ms. Chen nodded thoughtfully. "That's actually a very good answer. Poetry is often where we put feelings that are too big for ordinary words. Thank you…"
"Lin Yue."
"Thank you, Lin Yue."
Gu Chen stared out the window.
—
Lunch came.
He found a table in the corner of the cafeteria—small, round, out of the way. He sat alone and ate the sandwich he'd packed. Rice and vegetables. Simple. Cheap. Invisible.
Footsteps approached.
"Is this seat taken?"
He looked up.
A girl stood there. His age. Dark hair pulled back. Eyes that were curious, not pitying. She held a lunch tray.
"No," he said.
She sat.
"I'm Lin Yue. We're in Lit together. You're the new guy, right?"
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
"Gu Chen."
She smiled. "Gu Chen. I like it. It sounds old. Like from a story."
He said nothing.
She didn't seem bothered. She ate her lunch and talked about the school, the teachers, which classes were hard and which were easy, which corners to avoid and which hallways were shortcuts.
He listened.
He didn't mean to. But her voice was easy. Not demanding. Not waiting for him to perform.
When lunch ended, she stood.
"See you in Lit."
She left.
He sat there for a moment, staring at the empty seat.
She talked to you, the Orphan whispered.
She's just being nice, the Beggar said. Doesn't mean anything.
Gu Chen stood and dumped his tray.
—
The next day, Lin Yue found him again.
Not at lunch—before school. She was waiting by the front gates when he arrived.
"Gu Chen! Hey!"
He stopped.
"You don't know your way around yet, right? I can show you. Before class starts."
He looked at her. Tried to find the angle. The thing she wanted. There was always something.
She just smiled.
"Come on. I'll give you the grand tour."
She walked him through the school.
The library—"best place to nap between classes, but don't let Mrs. Zhou catch you." The gym—"basketball court, volleyball nets, and that one corner where everyone hides during drills." The art room—"I'm terrible at art, but the teacher is nice, so it's okay."
She talked constantly.
He said almost nothing.
She didn't seem to mind.
"Are you always this quiet?" she asked at one point.
"Yes."
"Hmm." She considered this. "That's okay. My mom says I talk enough for three people. I guess we balance out."
He didn't know what to say to that.
At the end of the tour, they stood outside the literature classroom.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asked.
He blinked. "What?"
"The tour. We didn't finish. There's still the science wing and the courtyard."
He hadn't realized there was more.
"Okay," he said.
She smiled. "Great. See you tomorrow, Gu Chen."
She walked into class.
He stood there for a long moment, trying to understand what had just happened.
She's not gone, the Orphan whispered. She came back.
It's one day, the Beggar said. One day means nothing.
Gu Chen followed her into class.
—
She came back the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
Every morning, she was at the gates. Every lunch, she sat at his table. Every tour, she showed him something new—until there was nothing left to show, and still she came.
He started to expect her.
That was dangerous.
He knew it was dangerous. Expecting meant hoping. Hoping meant hurting. That was the only rule. The only truth.
But when she wasn't there one morning—sick, he learned later, just sick—he felt something in his chest twist.
See? the Beggar said. You're already lost.
He ignored it.
When she returned the next day, he didn't say anything. But something in his posture shifted. A fraction. A hair.
She noticed.
"Did you miss me?" she asked, teasing.
He didn't answer.
But he didn't look away.
Age 15
Late Autumn
They sat in the courtyard, on a bench near the dead fountain. She was eating an apple. He was doing nothing.
"Gu Chen."
He looked at her.
"Can I ask you something?"
He waited.
"Your family. Where are they?"
The question hung in the air.
There it is, the Beggar said. Now she leaves.
"No," Gu Chen said.
She tilted her head. "No, you won't answer? Or no, you don't have family?"
The second one. But he didn't say it.
She watched him for a moment. Then: "Okay. You don't have to tell me."
She went back to her apple.
He stared at her.
She didn't leave, the Orphan whispered.
Not yet, the Beggar said. Not yet.
Age 16
Early Spring
They were in the courtyard again. The fountain had been fixed—water trickling, birds bathing at the edges. Winter was finally over.
Lin Yue was nervous.
He could tell. She was talking faster than usual, bouncing between subjects, not quite meeting his eyes.
"Lin Yue."
She stopped.
"What's wrong?"
She took a breath. Looked at him. Really looked.
"I like you."
The words sat between them.
He said nothing.
"I mean—I really like you. I know you're quiet and weird and you never talk about yourself, but I don't care. I just… I want to be with you."
He stared at her.
The voices exploded.
Say yes! the Orphan begged.
It's a trap, the Beggar snarled. She'll leave. They always leave.
Maybe not, the Orphan whispered. Maybe this time—
There is no "this time." There's only now and then gone.
Gu Chen's cracked core pulsed. Warm. Alive.
"Why?" he asked.
She blinked. "Why what?"
"Why me?"
She stepped closer. "Because you're real. Everyone else is pretending. They pretend to care, pretend to listen, pretend to be your friend. You don't. You're just… you. And that's enough."
He didn't understand. But the warmth in his chest didn't fade.
"Okay," he said.
Her face broke into a smile. "Okay? Okay as in…?"
"Okay."
She laughed—bright, relieved, happy. "You're impossible, you know that?"
He didn't know what that meant either.
But when she took his hand, he didn't pull away.
Age 16
Spring to Summer
They were together.
Not officially—neither of them cared about official. But together.
She walked him home after school. He sat with her at lunch. They shared headphones in the library, listening to music he didn't know and she loved.
He learned things.
Her favorite color was blue. "Like the sky in summer. Not too bright, not too dark."
Her dream was to be a doctor. "My grandmother died when I was little. No one could help her. I want to help people so that doesn't happen."
Her fear was that she wasn't good enough. "What if I try and try and still fail? What if I'm just… average?"
He listened.
He didn't know what to say. He'd never learned how to comfort. But he stayed. That was something.
She noticed.
"You're really bad at talking," she said one day.
"Yes."
She laughed. "That's okay. I talk enough for both of us."
She never pushed about his past.
The other foster kids, the homes, the abandonments—she sensed it, maybe, the wall he'd built. But she didn't try to knock it down. She just sat beside it.
She stayed, the Orphan whispered. Every day. She stayed.
For now, the Beggar answered. But even his voice was quieter.
For the first time in sixteen years, Gu Chen started to believe.
Maybe not everyone leaves.
Maybe he wasn't cursed.
Maybe—
He stopped the thought before it finished. Hoping was dangerous. He knew that.
But when she smiled at him across the courtyard, he couldn't help it.
He hoped.
—
Outside the school gates, a woman in white stood beneath a tree.
She watched them. The boy who was learning to hope. The girl who had no idea what she was part of.
"Two down," Su Wan whispered.
"Seven to go."
Her hand pressed against the bark. The tree groaned.
She did not move for a long time.