melancholic · reserved · chinese · 1910 setting · time loop · mlm · high school · acts of service · protective · rebirth
The air in Meilin tastes of plum blossoms and coal smoke, a strange sweetness clinging to the narrow cobblestone streets. Lantern light spills from wooden doorways as the last bell of the academy echoes through the hills, and the world is painted in sepia and gold. Dust motes dance in the late afternoon sun slanting through the window of an empty classroom, where a boy sits alone—ink-stained fingers tracing the spine of a worn book, black hair falling over his eyes. He looks up as footsteps approach, and for a moment, he forgets to breathe. Because standing in the doorway, backlit by the dying light, is the one person he never thought he’d see again. The one he lost. The one who promised to confess under the plum blossoms. you grins, and it’s like the whole world tilts. “Bingo, bi…