Zhuang Yi parked the car along the curb beneath the shade of a row of tall campus trees. The engine quieted, and for a brief moment neither of them moved. The late afternoon light stretched long across the pavement, catching dust in the air and turning it golden.
They went upstairs together.
The hallway of the dormitory was narrow and dim, the overhead lights flickering faintly with an exhausted hum. The walls carried the faint scent of detergent and something stale, like paper and old carpet that had absorbed too many seasons of student life.
When they reached the door, Xun Yuming stopped.
"Wait for me outside for a moment," he said softly, adjusting the strap of his backpack as if to justify the pause. "I'll go get the keys for you."
He didn't look directly at Zhuang Yi when he said it.
The meaning was subtle but unmistakable. He wasn't inviting him in.
Zhuang Yi didn't question it. "Okay."
He leaned casually against the wall across from the door, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed. Through the thin door panel, he could hear movement, drawers opening, something sliding across a desk, fabric rustling. It sounded hurried, slightly disorganized.
After half a minute, concerned that Xun Yuming might not remember what the key looked like, Zhuang Yi knocked lightly.
"Are you looking for it?" he called through the door. "It's a Volvo key with a heart-shaped charm on it..."
Before he could finish, an irritated voice cut in sharply from inside, in English.
"Didn't I tell you not to come back before seven? It's only six-thirty. Who's out there? Don't people know others are sleeping?"
The annoyance was open, unfiltered.
Zhuang Yi's expression stilled.
Through the door, he heard Xun Yuming's voice, lower now, stumbling slightly.
"I'm sorry… I came back early today… I won't make noise…"
His apology was instinctive. Immediate. There was no defense in it. No hint that this was his own room.
Just guilt.
Zhuang Yi's brows knit faintly. He could picture the situation without seeing it: a graduate student exhausted from lab work, using the afternoon to sleep. It wasn't unreasonable. But neither was Xun Yuming returning to his own dorm.
After a brief pause, Zhuang Yi pushed the door open.
Inside, a tall white student lay sprawled across the bed to the left, half-covered in a blanket, eyes narrowed in irritation. The air inside the room felt thick and dim, curtains drawn.
Zhuang Yi nodded politely. "Excuse me. I'm just borrowing something from him."
He stepped inside without hesitation. Xun Yuming stood awkwardly near the desk, hands hovering as if unsure what to do.
Zhuang Yi bent slightly and reached into the narrow gap between the mattress and the wall near the corner. His fingers found the cold metal quickly.
The Volvo key.
The small heart-shaped charm glinted faintly in the low light.
He straightened, lightly patted Xun Yuming's shoulder, and smiled as though nothing uncomfortable had happened.
"I'm leaving," he said easily. "Thanks for dinner."
Xun Yuming followed him out immediately, closing the door carefully, carefully—as though afraid the click of the latch might disturb someone again.
"I'm sorry," he said at once in the hallway. "Just now… he didn't mean it. I came back early."
Under the corridor's yellow light, his eyes looked overly bright. Not teary exactly, but fragile. His lips pressed thin. His lashes trembled almost imperceptibly.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't even embarrassed.
He was apologizing for existing.
Zhuang Yi hadn't planned to comment. It wasn't his place to interfere in dorm dynamics. But seeing that expression, something in him shifted.
"If someone bullies you," he said calmly, voice steady, "you should know how to push back."
Xun Yuming didn't lift his head.
"People are distributed normally," Zhuang Yi continued. "That means unreasonable ones exist everywhere. If you always endure it, they'll just take advantage of you more."
Patience, he knew, often only invited further pressure.
Silence stretched.
The hallway light buzzed faintly overhead.
Then, unexpectedly...
"Can we be friends?"
The question came out small but clear.
In the present, Chen Linlin leaned slightly forward on the screen.
"Why did you ask that?"
Xun Yuming sat propped against the headboard, glasses reflecting the light from his laptop. He adjusted them absently, eyes unfocused as if replaying an old recording in his mind.
"I don't know," he said after a long pause. "Maybe…"
Chen Linlin waited. "Maybe?"
"Maybe I was timid back then," Xun Yuming admitted quietly. "A bit withdrawn. American culture favors outgoing kids. Loud ones. Confident ones."
He let out a slow breath.
"When I saw another Asian person… maybe I felt closer. Maybe I wanted someone familiar."
Chen Linlin smiled faintly. "You don't seem like someone who actively makes friends."
"That's true." Xun Yuming nodded. "And Zhuang Yi wasn't withdrawn."
He paused again, searching for language.
"I've never seen anyone like him," he said slowly. "He was… I don't know how to describe it."
He frowned slightly, frustrated. Surgical terminology came easily to him. Emotions did not.
Chen Linlin guided gently. "What kind of person did you think he was?"
Xun Yuming's gaze drifted toward the corner of the room.
After a long moment, he said quietly, "Probably the warmest person I'd ever met."
Even as he said it, he felt the word lacked weight. "Warmth" had been overused, diluted by repetition. But he couldn't think of anything better.
The memory surfaced clearly.
That day in the hallway, under dim dorm lights, when Zhuang Yi had smiled at him—casual, unbothered, sunlight still lingering in his expression—Xun Yuming had suddenly felt a sharp awareness of his own loneliness.
He was fifteen when he entered university. Skipped grades. Always the youngest. Always the smallest in the room. On a campus spanning thousands of acres in a foreign country, he had felt like a misplaced dot on a vast map.
And in that moment, he had wanted something solid.
He had never asked anyone to be his friend before.
But the words came out.
Zhuang Yi hadn't hesitated.
"Why not?" he had replied lightly.
It sounded effortless.
But Xun Yuming knew how much courage it had taken him to ask. And he sensed, instinctively, that if Zhuang Yi had rejected him even gently, something inside would have closed permanently.
Instead, Zhuang Yi's answer left the door open.
Xun Yuming hadn't laughed loudly. He hadn't jumped with excitement. But his eyes had brightened instantly, as if light had been switched on behind them.
Back then, Zhuang Yi had glanced toward the dorm door.
"Why don't you come watch the game with us?" he'd asked.
"Can I?"
The question had been genuine.
Returning to the dorm meant darkness. His roommate required blackout conditions for experiments and often forced the room into near silence hours before lab time. The thought of sitting there alone until ten o'clock felt suffocating.
"I'm a substitute player," Zhuang Yi had said with a shrug. "Getting one more person in is easy."
That was enough.
"Wait for me," Xun Yuming had said, rushing inside.
He emerged minutes later with his backpack already slung over his shoulders.
They went downstairs together.
Zhuang Yi unlocked his bicycle first, then walked with him toward the campus main gate to retrieve his car. His stride was long, unhurried, confident. Xun Yuming had to quicken his steps to keep up.
"Why are you carrying such a big bag?" Zhuang Yi asked casually. "Isn't it heavy?"
"It's fine," Xun Yuming replied seriously. "I have a water bottle. Books. Tissue paper."
They crossed the central quad. The grass glowed under the setting sun. Students lounged in clusters, laughter drifting through the air. A group played tennis nearby.
"Hey, Zhuang! Come play!" someone shouted.
Zhuang Yi waved them off with easy familiarity. "Not today. We're watching Red Tide versus Golden Bears!"
"Why bother?" someone called back. "Golden Bears won't win in a hundred years!"
"Don't be so sure," Zhuang Yi laughed. "Miracles happen."
He slung an arm loosely around Xun Yuming's shoulders as they walked.
From beneath that arm, Xun Yuming looked up at him.
"What were you talking about?" he asked honestly.
He didn't understand rival teams. He didn't understand chants or rankings. He didn't even know the rules of basketball well.
But as they walked across campus, surrounded by noise and light and easy conversation, he realized something quietly profound.
For the first time since arriving in America...
He wasn't walking alone.