Seventeen-year-old Winter Chu has seen it all. Shrivelling sleep schedules, diets, his picture perfect mentor's booger, a fat zero in maths. You name it, he has seen it. Or that's what he likes to believe.
Exactly why Winter cannot fathom how he failed to see how he could go from walking shoulder to shoulder with his best friend - scratch that, his ex-best friend - on the busy streets of Seoul while playfully burlesquing their mentor to running away from said best friend in the span of a single day. Or, how on the same day, he ended up moving in with three other kids who were as confused as him in a dorm that was whipped out by the mentor he had just burlesqued.
Fast forward two years and Winter has made countless decisions in the span of it, some good and some equally bad. Bad being: completely erasing Liu Xuejun, his ex-best friend and everything that had to do with him from his life.
So when Xuejun, now a rising star, slips back into his messy life from the shadows of busking crowds and in old sauna rooms, Winter has no choice but to go with the slippery flow. Even when his own debut is right around the corner. Even when his heart beats the wrong way for Xuejun every single time. Even when he knows none of this is a good idea.
Listen, dreams are tricky things. But you know what, so are friendships.
- rankings -
#36 nanowrimo 17.03.2022
#36 talkthepoc 17.03.2022
To cover the traces of his depravity, Gu Xiao constricted himself to the role of a jester while being torn between the idealisation of others and reality.
Gu Xiao was a slacker in school, constantly truanting and playing around. Unknowingly, when he gets glued to sitting next to Lan Yuning, the school's top student, a linked past that they never knew they shared, gradually came back to haunt them.
These students weaved their way through the tangling threads of familial relationships, financial issues, examinations, and identity while enjoying most of their last high school year.
[You killed him.]
[If you didn't ignore him that time, then he wouldn't have died.]
[It's in the past. If you keep thinking about it, it's only going to do you harm.]
[Sometimes I wonder... if you would be happier if I was the one who died back then instead.]
__
[I like you.]
[Why... Why would you like someone like me...?]
___________________________
Warning: mentions of suicide, homophobia, and domestic abuse
THIS IS A SLOW BURN so if you want to read something fast and spicy then this book isn't for you :')
Cover: @CASZETTES