Yu Yan stayed quiet throughout the morning classes, and for once she didn't go to sleep. First of all, she could feel Xiao Yu staring at her and secondly, she kept thinking about him - which probably made her paranoid into thinking he was staring at her from behind. She sighed as the thought of his gentleness and kindness created butterflies in her stomach. She touched her hair that Xiao Yu helped her brush that morning and she smiled, remembering how his fingers felt running through it. For some reason, she liked to keep her hair out now. She liked how it felt.

But then she sighed after remembering the fortune teller. Why can't I forget that fortune teller? she asked herself, Why can't I just brush her off like anyone else?

"What is love?" Tian Xin asked her class as she wrote the character for 'love' on the chalk board. "What does it mean to you?"

"It's a load of crap," Yu Yan muttered, with a small huff.
Xiao Yu looked at her as everyone else also looked at her because she was the only one who answered.

"Yu Yan, thank you for volunteering to give us your answer!" Tin Xin beamed, "Please stand up!"
Surprised, Yu Yan's eyes widened, "What? When did I volunteer?!"
"Yu Yan stand up," Da Dong chuckled.
Slowly and nervously, Yu Yan stood up, "What am I supposed to say?!" she grumbled.

Tian Xin smiled as she created a mind map around the world 'love'. She drew an arrow and wrote 'a load of crap' at the end of the arrow head. "Why do you say love is 'crap'?" she asked, turning to her.
"Because it is," she grumbled, "It's all nonsense."
"Can you elaborate?" the teacher replied, "Is there anyone you love? Do you have a family member you love? A friend? Someone you like romantically?"
"Can a blind person even love?" Sha Jie scoffed with a laugh.
"Please, even a blind person wouldn't love you," Yu Yan spat.
"I doubt a cold blind person like you can even love someone," Sha Jie retorted.
"Girls, please-" Tian Xin was cut off by classical music starting to play.

Ya Se smirked as he stood up confidently, "Shakespeare said: 'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,’" he announced proudly.
Both Sha Jie and Yu Yan turned to face Ya Se and gave him weird looks.
Tian Xin instead clapped happily, proud of Ya Se, "Criss Jami also said: 'If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it'," she added as the classical music continued to play.
Yu Yan scowled, "What the hell?! What point are the two of you trying to prove?!" she hissed.

"Yu Yan, for the sake of our learning, do you have anyone you love?" Tian Xin asked, going back to the chalkboard.
Yu Yan kissed her teeth, "Why wouldn't I?"
"Then can you describe why that person makes you feel as though love is a load of crap?" she continued.
"Because they're annoying," she found herself replying. Her eyes then widened when she realised that the person she was thinking about wasn't her father or Yu Ting but Xiao Yu. Quickly, she gritted her teeth to stop herself stuttering.

Tian Xin wrote 'annoying', under what she had previously written on the board, "Why are they annoying?" she continued.
Everyone looked at Yu Yan, anticipating her answer as she never contributed to lessons. She was someone who didn't talk about feelings so this had everyone's curiosity levels blowing out of the meter.
Yu Yan thought of Xiao Yu and she didn't know what to say. She was thrown off by her own words and now she was lost for words. Did she just admit that she liked Xiao Yu romantically in a roundabout sort of way?

"They pop up everywhere and it's annoying," she huffed, trying to ignore her rising body temperature.
"So they're always around you?" the form teacher asked.
"Why do you want to know?" Yu Yan barked, "It's my personal life, it's none of your business!"
Sha Jie laughed, "Oh, don't tell me Jiang Yu Yan is actually crushing on someone!"
Tao Zi and Lin Da laughed as well, "I bet it's Ding Xiao Yu," they add in unison.
Both Xiao Yu and Yu Yan's eyes widened and Xiao Yu felt his heart beat faster all of a sudden. He felt his face warming up and his cheeks redden. He felt his body tingle and he found himself blinking several times to try and control his emotions. He breathed in and out slowly to try and cool himself down but now he couldn't tear his eyes away from Yu Yan. Why am I feeling like this...? Does Yu Yan like me? That's impossible... or is it?

Before Yu Yan could reply, Sha Jie spoke up, "Please Ugly Jiang, Xiao Yu would never like someone so ugly and aggressive like you," she laughed, "He likes soft and quiet girls like An Qi! Someone who's nice and neat, not someone cold and scruffy like you. Plus, you're so useless, what could you possibly do for anyone?" she and her friends laughed. Liang Zhi and Xia Ba covered their mouths to hide their amused smiles.
"How do you know what type of girl I like?" Xiao Yu asked, speaking up, "I don't remember us being so close, Sha Jie."
Da Dong looked over at Xiao Yu surprised.

"But who'd be stupid enough to like her anyway?" Jin Bao San asked, laughing.
Sha Jie smirked and turned back to Yu Yan, "Why don't you use this chance to confess your love to him, hm? We're all here waiting to hear your answer, I'm sure he's interested to know as well," she dared.
Tao Zi and Lin Da began clapping their hands and chanting, "Confess" over and over again.
"Sha mei, stop this," Da Dong urged but everyone began chanting, pushing Yu Yan to 'confess'.
Xiao Yu held his breath with a rapid heartbeat. He felt anxious but he didn’t really know why – did he want her to like him?

Yu Yan was quiet for a couple of seconds before a smirk bloomed on her face, "Yeah, I do like him," she announced confidently.
Xiao Yu's eyes widened and the class erupted into a loud and long 'OOOOOOHHHHH'.
Yu Yan scoffed, "And Ya Se and Da Dong," she continued with her smirk shining brighter than ever, "They appear everywhere, even when I don't want them to bother me and it's so annoying - but they're still my friends and I like all my friends," she finished before sitting back down with a feeling of triumph.
A look of disgust spread across Sha Jie's face before it turned into a pissed off scowl.
The trio of brothers smiled at Yu Yan's response, proud that she did not give in to Sha Jie.

Yu Yan put her feet up on her desk, You might be the class weed, but did you really think you could trap me in a corner? Ha, you're funny. I'm too smart for you.
"Ah, so Classmate Jiang has given us the example of love between friends!" Tian Xin beamed as she added it onto the mind map.
"Friends?" Sha Jie spat under her breath.
"Yes, 'friends', did you really think I'd like a stupid fish like him?" Yu Yan laughed as a result.
Xiao Yu smiled, despite feeling something hurt in his chest.

"Okay, attention please," Tian Xin spoke up, "We are going to do a class activity!" she exclaimed, holding up a stack of post it notes, "I'm going to give each of you a post it note, and on it I want you to write anything about love. It could be a person, a feeling or an emotion, what it means to you - anything. I want you to write at least a sentence and then come up to the board and stick it around the mind map. You have five minutes," she explained as she walked over to everyone and handed them a sticky note.
"Why are we doing something boring like this?" Jin Bao San complained as he began writing whatever on his post it.
"You will see soon," the form teacher answered, "It's all for your learning."
"Ban Dao, this is a weird lesson, isn't it supposed to be a Chinese lesson?" Da Dong asked as Tian Xin placed a post it note on his desk. He got up to sit over at his desk.

"Why am I getting one? I'm illiterate and blind," Yu Yan said as Tian Xin stuck down a sticky note on her desk.
"You can pair up with Xiao Yu," she replied, "Tell him and he'll write for you, how's that?"
Yu Yan turned around to face him and he looked up at her.
She released a sigh, "Uh... sure..." she mumbled, turning her chair around so that she was now sitting at Xiao Yu's desk.

The two sat in silence, awkwardly. "What are you writing?" she asked him to break the silence.
Xiao Yu looked up to her and put his pen down. "I'll read it to you after I write yours," he answered.
"I don't have anything to say," she muttered with a yawn.
"What is love to you?" Xiao Yu read the question Tian Xin had just written on the board aloud.
"A burden," Yu Yan responded as she put her head down on his desk.
"A burden?" Xiao Yu repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"It's unwanted," she added, "Who wants to love someone else anyway? You won't die if you don't have a significant other. Isn't your family just enough?"
"Loving someone is something more than that," Xiao Yu replied, "The happiness you feel when you with a loved one who feels the same-" he was cut off.
Yu Yan laughed, "It's a waste of time. What if they don't like you back, then what?"
"You have to be brave enough to confess to know how they feel," Xiao Yu answered, "If they don't, then at least you tried right?"

Yu Yan sighed, "But what if you don't want to love someone in the first place and then are burdened with your own feelings for them?"
"Why wouldn't anyone want their feelings? Liking someone is happiness in itself isn't it?" Xiao Yu asked.
"Forget it, I don't like anyone - how would I know?" she tried to brush it off casually, "Just write 'love is a burden of your own feelings on yourself.'"
"That's pretty sad," Xiao Yu chuckled, writing it down, "What difficult love have you been in in the past?" he joked.
"It's the first time I've actually met other people and gone to school - I don't know how to love anyone besides my father and sister. But even then, I say I love them, but do I know how to?" she muttered, despite the jokes.
Xiao Yu's smiled fell as her lost but serious tone, "Are you okay?"
She smiled at him, "Why wouldn't I be? Now hurry up and tell me what cringey thing you wrote, Little Fish."

Xiao Yu nodded and looked at his sticky note, "Love is when you thought her appearance in your life was nothing special. You thought she was just like everyone else. But then you found yourself intrigued by her and wanted to be around her more. Love is when you got distracted by her and noticed her more than others without even knowing why. Love is when the idea of loving her was absurd but made your heart warm. You were in denial and hoped to go back to how things used to be. Love is when you fail to do that because you realise that you have loved her all along," he breathed, finishing his reading with pink tinted cheeks.

Yu Yan's eyes widened in amazement, "Wow Little Fish! You're a poet and you didn't even know it!" she laughed as she pushed his shoulder playfully, "How did you even fit all of that onto such a small piece of paper?" she asked.
Ya Se and Da Dong were suddenly surrounding them.
"Xiao Yu! When did you become such a romantic person?!" Da Dong exclaimed, "You're like Shakespeare 2.0! No, Narcissist 2.0!"
Xiao Yu's face reddened, "You were listening?"
"Of course we were!" Ya Se replied, "Now tell us, are those your true feelings for someone or imaginary feelings for an imaginary person?"
"Yeah Xiao Yu!" Da Dong exclaimed as he leaned onto his desk, "Ah, you're a romantic, I should've known - you play piano so of course you'd know some sweet words."
"Da Dong, that's not-" Xiao Yu was interrupted.
"Of course they would be his feelings for An Qi!" Yu Yan laughed, "Who else would they be for? Why would he waste so much time on writing a stupid poem?"
"For An Qi? Xiao Yu, you still like her?" Da Dong asked slowly.
Xiao Yu's eyes widened, "No- that's not- I-" he stuttered, embarrassed.

"Okay you've had enough time! please stick your post-it notes on the board!" Tian Xin chimed, cutting Xiao Yu off his explanation. He quickly got up and headed over to the chalk board where he stuck on Yu Yan's sticky note over his own, to hide it. Once everyone had put up their sticky notes, Tian Xin skimmed over a couple of them and a few chuckles escaped her lips. She picked up one and read it aloud, "’Dong Ge is love. Love is Dong Ge. Dong Ge is life’," she giggled, "Jin Bao San, is Da Dong all that comes to mind?"
Da Dong felt the sudden urge to throw up.
"Ban Dao~!" Jin Bao San whined, "How could you expose me like that?" he wailed, "Didn't you say to write about love?"
"I'm sorry Jin Bao San, I didn't know you were serious," she responded with an apologetic smile.
Ya Se smirked, "Egomaniac, I don't object to this relationship."
"Shut up!" Da Dong barked before he turned to his teacher, "Ban Dao, why are we even discussing love?"

Tian Xin then ducked beneath her desk before springing back up with a stack of anthologies. "Because we are going to study love poems!" she announced, earning groans from the class.

Yu Yan turned her chair back to her desk, leaving Xiao Yu at his desk. He watched her, ignoring the lesson. A small smile spread across his face, Jiang Yu Yan, that was no poem. That was how I feel about you.