First Love Memories
After apologizing, and after Jiang Zhuoye generously said he’d forgiven him, Bo Yun still didn’t leave.
Jiang Zhuoye, irritated, scrolled through movies on the tablet. After being startled earlier, he didn’t feel like watching horror anymore and wanted something light—maybe a comedy.
But after a while, he sensed something off. He looked up and realized Bo Yun was still sitting at the other end of the sofa, watching him.
The gaze was complicated—not hostile—but it swept over him from head to toe, like a collector appraising a priceless piece of blue-and-white porcelain, trying to find flaws to verify its authenticity.
Jiang Zhuoye felt goosebumps rising.
“What are you staring at?” he snapped. “Why aren’t you leaving?”
Bo Yun rested his head on one hand, his posture slightly relaxed, but his dark eyes were still fixed on Jiang Zhuoye.
“Nothing. I’m just a bit curious how you’ve never been in a relationship—not even once.”
For once, his tone lacked aggression, casual as small talk.
Huh?
Jiang Zhuoye nearly laughed in helplessness. “What, you still don’t believe me? Whether I’ve dated anyone is none of your—”
But before he finished, Bo Yun gently shook his head.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said softly. “I’m not questioning you. It’s just that, looking the way you do, there were plenty of people who had crushes on you back in high school. Once when I visited your home, a pursuer even showed up at the door. So I find it strange—did you really never feel tempted even once?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “So all those rumors I heard before… they were fake too?”
Jiang Zhuoye: “……”
Bo Yun had phrased it tactfully, but Jiang Zhuoye chose to take it as a compliment.
He chuckled. He’d heard variations of that line plenty of times over the years.
“What about it?” He shot Bo Yun a sideways glance. With his naturally flirtatious eyes, the look carried amusement and teasing—reckless and charming without being obnoxious, tugging at the heart without trying. “Just because I look like this, I’m not allowed to be pure and innocent?”
Bo Yun didn’t argue. He replied calmly, “You don’t really look like it.”
Jiang Zhuoye laughed louder. He shifted on the sofa into a more comfortable position, guessing full well what kind of absurd rumors Bo Yun must have heard.
“Let me guess,” he said, casually tapping on a movie to play as background noise. “You heard that I ran away from home for love in high school? Or that people were constantly fighting over me—Liu Yuanzhou liked me, Fu Xuming liked me too, fights breaking out every other day? Or that some girl chased me to my school and slapped me because I toyed with her feelings…”
As he spoke, even his own face darkened.
To be fair, just rattling off a few of those made his reputation sound impressively terrible.
Forget Bo Yun—even if he didn’t know himself, Jiang Zhuoye would think he sounded like a total heartless playboy.
Bo Yun listened in silence. He lifted an eyebrow slightly, then lowered it again. After a few seconds, he said quietly, “I haven’t heard the last one.”
If Jiang Zhuoye hadn’t spilled it himself, he really wouldn’t have known.
But that remark also meant he was admitting that the earlier rumors had indeed reached his ears.
Figures.
Jiang Zhuoye rolled his eyes. “First of all, I did not run away from home for love in high school, okay? I was doing a good deed. I ran into a classmate who’d run away from home and looked like he was about to kill himself. I followed him for two days, skipped school and everything, and finally talked him into going back. He was too scared to tell his family, so I told them it was my idea to drag him out to play. Next thing I knew, the school was spreading all kinds of nonsense. The guy looked gentle and scholarly, and somehow it turned into me chasing him and kidnapping him for two days. The one good thing was that no one bullied him after that, so I didn’t bother clearing it up.”
“As for people fighting over me—yeah, that part’s true. But what does that have to do with me? I wasn’t dating any of them. What, am I supposed to control who has a crush on me? Besides, Fu Xuming and Guan—whatever—ended up dating each other later. I even suspected they were using me as a smokescreen. Liu Yuanzhou is completely fake. We just lost a bet and pretended to be a couple for a week.”
Thinking about it still made Jiang Zhuoye snort.
“The third one’s even more unfair. Some idiot used my photos to catfish a girl online. She later came to my school to confront me. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, she apologized, and we beat the crap out of that idiot.”
“Now tell me—hand on your conscience—which one of those is my fault? Is it my fault I’m good-looking and charming?”
When he said that, Jiang Zhuoye turned to look at Bo Yun. His chin was slightly lifted, his youthful face wild and unrestrained. Even in the dim screening room, he shone like a diamond—dazzling and impossible to ignore.
His eyes were a shade lighter than Bo Yun’s, clear as amber. When he looked at someone, it was as if they hid countless intimate whispers, secret and tender.
No wonder people kept throwing themselves at him like moths to a flame.
For a brief moment, even Bo Yun thought so.
His lashes fluttered faintly as he answered, “It’s not your fault.”
“Exactly.”
Satisfied, Jiang Zhuoye shrugged and turned back to his movie.
On-screen, the female lead slapped the male lead hard. The impact was so fierce his face swelled almost instantly.
Jiang Zhuoye hissed softly, reminded of the slap he’d taken in high school.
Thinking about it, he really had been unlucky. He was the one who got slapped, yet he still ended up treating the girl to dinner and a movie just to comfort her.
“What else could I do,” he muttered. “It’s not like I want to look like I’m surrounded by romantic trouble. It’s just my family’s genetics.”
Beside him, Bo Yun couldn’t help but curve his lips slightly.
But as he continued to watch Jiang Zhuoye, his expression grew more complicated. He asked softly, “So… the kiss I gave you at the wedding—was that actually your first kiss?”
That was a bombshell.
Jiang Zhuoye had been sprawled lazily on the couch, even half-absorbed in the movie for a few seconds. At those words, he sat up straight without realizing it.
His first instinct was to deny it—but he couldn’t find any evidence, because it was his first kiss.
If he really wanted to argue, he could say there was no tongue involved, so maybe it didn’t count. That would be pure sophistry.
Jiang Zhuoye narrowed his eyes, displeased.
What now—was Bo Yun going to laugh at him for being naïve and pure?
His first kiss, ending up in the hands of the person he hated most.
Fueled by his long-standing bad impression of Bo Yun, he bristled like a hedgehog, defenses fully raised.
But Bo Yun remained calm, his gaze resting on Jiang Zhuoye’s full, vividly colored lips.
He still remembered that day.
The way Jiang Zhuoye’s lashes trembled, how his amber eyes went wide in a flash of panic and helplessness.
Bo Yun said quietly, “I’m sorry. If I’d known you’d never even had a first love, I would’ve suggested the officiant cancel that part.”
That only made it worse.
Jiang Zhuoye’s face darkened. He wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into Bo Yun’s throat.
It wasn’t mockery—but it was worse than mockery. As if he were some innocent, pitiful high schooler, inexperienced in the world, whose sky collapsed just because he’d been kissed once, silently sobbing inside.
Who was he looking down on?
“No need,” Jiang Zhuoye sneered. Any momentary sense that Bo Yun had seemed more tolerable earlier now felt idiotic. “It was just a kiss. No big deal. At worst, I’ll treat it like being bitten by a dog.”
That was the truth.
It was just a kiss. He wasn’t some bubblegum-pink high schooler who believed a first kiss or first love had to be given to the one true person, or else it didn’t count.
“And anyway,” Jiang Zhuoye continued coldly, “just because I’ve never had a serious relationship doesn’t mean I’ve never had an ambiguous fling. Who are you looking down on? Who says I’ve never had a first love?”
Now Bo Yun reacted. He tilted his head slightly, looking at Jiang Zhuoye. “What do you mean?”
Jiang Zhuoye turned his face back toward the screen, avoiding Bo Yun’s eyes.
“Exactly what it sounds like. Everyone’s had their awakening, okay?” He was restless now, unsure whether it was because of Bo Yun or the mention of that former ‘first love.’ “I’ve had a first love too. We just never actually got together.”
As he spoke, even he himself felt a bit dazed.
He’d only meant to retort—to stop Bo Yun from treating him like some emotional rookie.
Crushes, first stirrings of love—everyone had them.
But staring at the constantly shifting screen, talking about that unseen person who’d appeared in his life at eighteen, who’d made his heart race and then disappointed him, a quiet, indescribable sadness crept into his voice.
Bo Yun wasn’t sure whether to believe him.
He glanced at Jiang Zhuoye and asked casually, “Oh? What was your first love like?”
He assumed it was probably a classmate—someone Jiang Zhuoye’s age. Passionate, radiant. Ambiguous for a while, then drifting apart after graduation.
Jiang Zhuoye stared at the screen, silent for several seconds.
Strictly speaking, his relationship with Bo Yun didn’t really qualify for this kind of conversation.
But thinking of the person who’d once folded him a thousand paper cranes, who’d played a piece of piano just for him, it felt as though the rain from when he was eighteen had started falling again outside the window.
He caught the faint scent of incense on Bo Yun—light, tinged with green bamboo.
In the letters of his eighteenth year, a similar scent had once lingered.
As if possessed, Jiang Zhuoye spoke softly. “He was very good. Very gentle. Always patient with me. No matter what I said, he took it seriously. If I mentioned liking something, he’d remember and send it to me later—like Doraemon. On my birthday, he played a piano piece he’d composed himself just for me. He was clumsy, but he folded me a thousand paper cranes because I said the girls in my class did that for the boys they liked, and I wanted one too.”
At that point, Jiang Zhuoye even chuckled softly.
The paper cranes were still in his cabinet, never seeing the light of day—but he couldn’t bear to throw them away.
“He was really smart. Sometimes he helped me with homework. He knew several languages and even taught me Spanish. He was kind too. Even though he was allergic to cat fur, he still rescued a kitten. He couldn’t keep it, so he gave it to someone else.”
That cat should be three years old by now.
Jiang Zhuoye had named it Pineapple, because of a patch on its back that looked like one.
Falling for someone like that—as a first love—was completely understandable.
He was that good. That gentle. That indulgent toward him.
The only bad thing was that he never met him—and that person never loved him.
Bo Yun’s back stiffened for a split second.
He could guess that, given Jiang Zhuoye’s personality, even that so-called ambiguous relationship had its limits.
Otherwise, he would’ve openly said he’d had an ex.
He was never someone who hid things.
But now, hearing the clear nostalgia in Jiang Zhuoye’s voice as he described those details, Bo Yun felt something lodge painfully in his throat.
The air in the room grew thick and oppressive, like invisible, pitch-black liquid flowing through the space, wrapping around them tighter and tighter, squeezing the breath from their lungs.
Without realizing it, he leaned slightly toward Jiang Zhuoye.
His gaze drifted, unfocused, to Jiang Zhuoye’s pale, beautiful face.
Jiang Zhuoye’s long lashes trembled faintly, fragile, as if shielding a buried teenage secret.
“That person… was he really that good?” Bo Yun asked quietly.
Lost in memory, Jiang Zhuoye hummed in response.
“Of course,” he smiled faintly, then quickly snapped back to himself and shot Bo Yun a glare, the mockery returning. “Compared to someone as cold-hearted and mean as you? One’s in the heavens, the other’s in the gutter.”
Even if that person didn’t love him, he was still thousands of times better than Bo Yun.
Bo Yun didn’t speak for a long while—maybe he’d been choked by Jiang Zhuoye’s words.
The air in the screening room remained suffocating.
The silence pressed down heavily.
On-screen, the dull romance movie continued. The leads were breaking up in the pouring rain. Tears mixed with raindrops as the woman demanded to know why he’d never told her he loved her.
Jiang Zhuoye let out a soft breath. Even at twenty, talking about a love that had faded without ever beginning made him feel like he’d aged several years.
Listening to the argument in the movie, a deep weariness rose in his chest.
He thought it was all Bo Yun’s fault—for bringing up first love out of nowhere.
He hadn’t thought about that so-called “first love” in ages, centuries even. And yet, provoked by Bo Yun and driven by petty pride, he’d talked about him again, letting all those old memories flood back.
Ruining his mood completely.
Worse still, Bo Yun seemed especially tactless today. Probably thrilled to hear gossip about him for once, he even asked softly, “So how did you meet?”
“None of your damn business.”
Jiang Zhuoye’s face darkened as he bluntly issued a dismissal.
“Are you done prying? Can you leave already? I want to watch a movie by myself.”
Maybe the room was too dim. Maybe the screen’s light was too cold.
At that moment, Bo Yun’s face looked strangely pale, his eyes dark as a deep lake, hiding unseen monsters beneath the surface.
He blinked lightly, as if realizing he’d overstepped by probing someone else’s past.
After a brief pause, he stood up smoothly.
“All right. I won’t disturb you.”
Bo Yun reached the door of the screening room, hand resting on it, then turned back to look at Jiang Zhuoye once more.
Jiang Zhuoye was curled up on the sofa, dressed in a white tracksuit. Young, striking, flamboyantly beautiful—arrogant in a way that made it seem as though he was born to be favored by the entire world.
But now his eyelashes were lowered, his gaze absentmindedly fixed on the screen. A trace of loss and helplessness showed on his face, like a cat inexplicably pushed out of its home and left standing in the rain.