Notes of Youth

The sun had begun to rise later.

Mornings came in slow gold, with breath visible in the air and frost on the library windows. Students walked briskly through the courtyard in layered scarves and coats, hands wrapped around warm soy milk or steamed buns. The air smelled of ink, tea, and late-night cramming.

Finals week had arrived.

"Why does physics hate me?" Chen Yuke muttered, forehead pressed dramatically against the cafeteria table.

"You hate physics first," Le Yahan replied, not looking up from her history notes. "It's just self-defense."

"I was trying to bond," he grumbled.

Keqing laughed softly from the other side of the table, her own pile of English flashcards half-organized, half-forgotten. Her hands were cold, but her heart felt... calm.

The past few weeks had been heavy. But now, something had lifted. Lin Wanzou's name had been cleared. The red notebook had been returned to its rightful place. And while not everything was resolved, it felt like they could finally—truly—breathe again.

"Here," Gu Yuyan said quietly, setting a hot milk tea in front of her.

Keqing blinked. "You got me one?"

"I owed you," he said. "From the literature exam. You looked like you needed it."

She wrapped her hands around the cup. "Thank you."

He didn't sit down immediately. Just stood there a second too long, as if unsure whether to stay or leave.

Then Yahan slid over slightly on the bench. "There's room."

He sat.

No one said anything, but no one had to.

The school had shifted into exam mode.

Desks were rearranged in neat, single-file rows. Classroom walls were cleared of posters. Even the most talkative students seemed quieter now, heads bent over notes, calculators, and highlighters.

Keqing's English teacher, Mr. Zhao, handed out practice papers with a sigh.

"If you get below 60, you owe me three New Year postcards," he said. "Extra cute ones."

The class groaned.

Gu Yuyan finished the entire paper in thirty minutes and went to sleep with his head on his arms.

Keqing stared at the reading comprehension section like it was written in Greek.

Beside her, Liu Tianxue tapped her pen. "If you mess this one up, Lin, you're sitting in the front row with me next term."

Keqing rolled her eyes. "Then I'll ace it just to stay far away from you."

Tianxue smirked. "We'll see."

Outside the classroom, the trees had begun to shed their last leaves. The wind smelled like the edge of snow. Birds had grown quieter, and the sky turned dark before six.

It felt like the whole world was curling inward, preparing to sleep.

But inside the library, a different kind of energy burned.

Stacks of textbooks. Scribbled notes. Whispered group study sessions. Laughter breaking out between problem sets.

Keqing, Gu, Yahan, Yuke, and Zichen sat at their usual corner.

"Okay," Yahan said, flipping through a physics book. "Why do I need to know the resistance of a copper wire in Siberia?"

"You'll need it if you want to survive in a spy thriller," Yuke offered.

Gu passed her a solved example. "Or the final exam."

"Same thing," she muttered.

Zichen, doodling quietly in the margins of his math notes, looked up. "Do you think the holidays will feel different this year?"

Keqing paused. "How do you mean?"

"I don't know," he said. "After everything that's happened. It's like... I can finally enjoy it. Without guilt. Without ghosts."

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

Then Keqing nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

The night before their first exam, Keqing sat by her window with the red scarf her grandmother had knitted years ago draped across her lap.

Her phone buzzed.

[Gu Yuyan]: "Don't forget your ID tomorrow."

Keqing: "Thanks. You too."

[Gu Yuyan]: "Sleep before 11."

Keqing: "You're assuming I sleep."

He didn't reply immediately. Then:

[Gu Yuyan]: "I'll be at the gate at 7:20."

Keqing stared at the message for a long time.

Then typed:

And smiled.

The morning of the exam was sharp with cold.

Keqing met Gu at the gate, both of them holding steaming buns from the same vendor.

They didn't talk much—just walked side by side across the courtyard, their footsteps echoing off the stone tiles.

Inside the exam hall, everything was quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your breath sound too loud, your heartbeat feel like a drum.

Keqing sat down at her assigned seat, clutching her pens a little too tightly.

She glanced across the room. Gu Yuyan caught her eye.

He didn't smile. Just nodded once, firm and steady.

She exhaled.

She could do this.

The first exam passed. Then the second. Then the third.

Some went well. Some didn't.

There were mistakes, moments of panic, stupid grammar errors, and one multiple-choice question that might haunt Yahan forever.

But in between the anxiety, there were also:

hot sweet potatoes from the campus vendor,

group photos under the bare cherry trees,

music from Tran Vuka drifting through the empty hallways as he played quietly before his art final,

a surprise care package of snacks and notes from Madam Qiao to "the brave ones."

And at the end of it all—

came snow.

It fell slowly one afternoon, while Keqing was in the library returning her borrowed materials.

She stepped out, arms full of books, and paused.

White flakes drifted gently across the courtyard. Students ran past shouting, some throwing loose handfuls at each other, others simply stopping to look up.

She didn't move at first.

Just watched.

Gu Yuyan found her like that—standing still, books in hand, eyes lifted to the sky.

"You'll get wet," he said.

She didn't look at him. "It's beautiful."

He stepped closer, took the top book from her stack without asking.

"It's cold," he added.

"I don't mind."

He glanced up. "Me neither."

For a moment, they stood there together, snow in their hair, breath fogging in the fading light.

Then Keqing said, softly, "Do you think we'll remember this?"

Gu looked at her.

"Some days," he said, "I think we'll spend our whole lives trying not to forget it."

That evening, the school lights dimmed one by one as the halls emptied.

Keqing sat in her room, curled in her red scarf, flipping through the planner she had nearly abandoned in September.

So many pages now full. Names, quotes, reminders. Scribbles and stickers and tiny paper cranes.

At the very back, she wrote:

Finals are over.Winter has arrived.And for the first time in a long time—the future doesn't feel like a storm.It feels like snow.

Soft. Silent. Bright.

She closed the planner and let her head fall gently to the desk.

Outside, the snow kept falling.