Curate, connect, and discover
As He Tian steps onto the campus he suddenly feels very, very small. It’s nothing like his high school back home, it looks more like a college.
“You could probably fit 30 of my schools in this one..” He mutters to himself as he tries to find his own class room. The paper with the map of the campus and all the classroom numbers that they had given him would probably help him a lot if he was able to speak or read any Chines other than “please and thank you”, “yes and no”, and “where’s the bathroom?” He now found himself wishing he would have taken that only line class about Chines that He Cheng had bathered him so much about.
He Tian would consider himself some type of smooth talker in Englsih, but trying it in Chines threw him completely off his game. He just hoped he didn’t meet any pretty girls here. But father wanted him to “be cultured”, and what father wants he usually gets with no questions asked. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, He Tian was happy to be away from that family. All the fight and secrecy was getting to be too much and wasn’t worth. The only one he’d really miss was his brother but he could call him whenever he wanted.
BaM! “嘿!”
He hadn’t been paying attention and had run smack into some other student. Suddenly all of He Tians papers were on the floor and so were the other kid’s. “Great He Tian. Great job.” He thought to himself.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t- I should’ve been watching-“
“什么? Oh you don’t speak Chinese do you?” The boy says in almost perfect English (which dazes He Tian for a bit).
“No..”
The blond boy laughs a little and helps him gather his disarray of papers and binders. He’s wearing the schools uniform, a blue collar shirt with khakis and some old sneakers. Apparently shoes aren’t a part of the uniform because his are in awful condition... the edges are all worn out and for a second He Tian swore he could see a pink sock poking out of the toe of the shoe. In fact, the closer He Tian looks the boy seems to get dirtier. His khakis look to have stains on them that he can only hope is ketchup and mayo, his hair is greasy and unkept, and his shirt is untucked in certain parts and crumpled into his pants in others.
“I’m Jian Yi. And you?” Jian Yi says with a smile as he now turns his attention to his own fallen papers.
“He Tian.”
“So what class are you going to?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.”
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So I did it! Probably gonna continue this. I really like it. Hopefully it’s not too bad XD I’ll get better though.