"And.. Begin!"
Ms. Khlรถe clicked the timer in her hand and set it down on her table.
Yingfei quickly flipped the turned over quiz paper and scanned the contents. There were only five questions, which seemed simple enough, but some of them had an answer space of more than half a page. Obviously the answers were not as straightforward as initially thought.
She took a deep breath and with a focused gaze, began reading the first question. It was actually supposedly quite difficult but she realized that she had just finished a question like this in her textbook earlier this morning. In fact, it was a type of question that didn't use the standard solution but rather a roundabout way that isn't mentioned enough in their lesson. If it wasn't for Xiaolang blackening out the other topics surrounding the particular case, she may not have remembered or noticed it at all.
"Hihi," she giggled to herself happily after realizing she could sort of answer question one.
Xiaolang heard the small giggle beside him and glanced at the merry girl. She appeared extremely focused on answering the quiz, and had a silly grin plastered on her face the whole time. It was really amusing.
He on the other hand could care less about the quiz. But with him somehow having the identity as a nerd, it was best to just keep up appearances for now. He didn't answer too laxed but neither did he give it a hundred percent. If he performed too well, the opposite effect wasn't welcomed either. Better to be slightly above average at best.
Forty minutes later, Yingfei let out a soft groan. It really wasn't as easy as she fantasized it to be. One way or another, she managed to answer question 1 and 2 but had to skip question 3 immediately. Xiaolang advised her, she was pretty sure, that if you knew you couldn't answer it, don't even try, at least not until you've finished every other question. So she wasted no time and skipped straight to question 4. She was able to understand the gist of it and even solve it halfway, but grudgingly got stuck in the final section. She forgot which equation she was meant to apply to it.
Downcast, the girl sighed in her seat and decided to look at Xiaolang for some inspiration instead. She was so focused on the quiz that she was hardly aware of her surroundings. It was time she took a breather. However, the moment she took a look at him, she was stunned.
Xiaolang was asleep.
Or at least half asleep. He didn't look like he was taking the quiz seriously at all, even though it counted as a percentage of their final grade. His right elbow was holding up the weight of his head that was soundly resting on his hand, facing towards her. His eyes were definitely closed and the only indication that he wasn't asleep being his left hand constantly spinning his pencil.
Xiaolang was left-handed and always wrote his notes at the edge of the table. She wondered if he did that every time so that she could read them. He was always very helpful and she was thankful for that. But even now as they're answering the test, the paper was at the corner of his table and obviously visible by her. If this was him offering her to cheat then that was definitely just a little ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฐ kind.
Yingfei was just about to look away when something caught her eye on his paper. He had already closed the paper so only the first and second question on the first page was visible to her but even then she could clearly see that both questions were only... half answered!?
If it was question four or five maybe it would have been a bit more believable but for question one and two?? Even she could answer them!
She looked at the expression on his face for some kind of explanation, but he looked the exact opposite from worried. Instead he seemed pretty relaxed and nonchalant. The look on his face and the way he twirled the pencil around between his fingers was a key indication of that.
๐๐ด ๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ณ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐ญ๐บ ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฎ?
Suddenly, Xiaolang opened his eyes and the first thing that popped into his view was Yingfei glaring at him confusedly. Scared to death, he jolted in shock and dropped the pencil to the floor.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of the pencil falling echoed throughout the silent classroom like thunder, causing heads to turn in his direction immediately. Dazed and embarrassed by the sudden incident, he picked up the pencil and mumbled softly, "My bad.."
Everyone briskly ignored him and continued with their tests while Ms. Khlรถe gave him a single glare before ignoring him.
After settling back into his seat properly and taking a deep breath, he glanced at Yingfei.
'Sorry!' she mouthed. She really didn't mean to surprise him like that.
'It's okay,' he mouthed back calmly as if it didn't faze him. He opened his test sheet and checked all the pages randomly as he waited for the time to finish. The entire time his right eye unnoticeably twitched.
She knew she shouldn't but the curious girl couldn't hold herself back from sneaking another peek at how he had answered the other questions. The more she saw, the wider her eyes became.
Every single question was answered unfinished.
.....
"Time's up!" Ms. Khlรถe tapped her desk.
Everyone put down their pencils while letting out either sighs or moans. Yingfei quickly passed her paper to the front before returning to her seat to interrogate the boy sitting to her right.
"Hey, Xiaolang.."
"Mmm?" he answered lightly.
She asked him in a low voice, "Why didn't you answer all the questions completely?"
"What? He didn't finish?" Aiyan with her sharp ears, suddenly looked behind to get into the conversation. She stared at the boy in question skeptically.
"Oh.." Xiaolang was surprised by the question. It wasn't his intention for her to see that. His habit of writing at the edge of the table for her during class must have backfired this time. This was a bit of a pickle. He was considering saying that he didn't know the answers but the look on the two girls' faces made him understand that they would never believe it. "I.. didn't want to.."
"What?" the girls exclaimed in sync.
"But why??" Aiyan demanded with her eyebrow raised high. She didn't understand, and his reply was hardly an answer.
Yingfei on the other hand stayed quiet with her mind deep in thought. If he didn't want to, there must be some reason why. Maybe it wasn't appropriate for them to ask about it. When she thought about it, the only people that knew he was a math genius were actually only Aiyan and herself. He never actually showed his smart side in class.
"You're obviously a math whiz. The questions must have been a breeze for you!" Aiyan continued with her confrontation.
Xiaolang made a troubled face, obviously thinking of an answer. But unexpectedly, Yingfei butt into her best friend's questioning.
"Aiyan, that's enough," she patted her friend's shoulder gently.
The girl turned towards her friend in surprise.
"If he doesn't want to answer them.. he probably has his reasons.." she said understandingly, her voice soft and polite. "Maybe it's best if we don't push him to tell us."
"But.. but.. Now I'm so curious," Aiyan whined.
"Aiyan.."
"Fine! Fine!" the girl gave in. "I'm curious but not that curious.. Okay maybe I am, not gonna lie. But it's fine. I can hold back."
Overwhelmed, Xiaolang smiled appreciatively at the two and uttered a, "Thank you.."
"No problem!" the girls answered.
They continued chatting as they waited for the next class. During that time, Xiaolang decided to himself, ๐๐ฆ๐น๐ต ๐ต๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐'๐ญ๐ญ ๐ง๐ช๐ฏ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ฆ๐ด๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด... ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ช๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ช๐น๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ธ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด...
He also couldn't help but notice, although Yingfei was more polite, silly and naรฏve, somehow she was the one that led and made most of the decisions when it came to the headstrong Aiyan...
But maybe it was a best friend thing, he assumed.
.....