Chapter 2 : President, You Don’t Really Think I Forgot, Do You? (Part 2)

My hands clenched into fists under the desk.

My voice remained flat.

“What exactly is different?”

My desk-mate tilted her head and studied me for a few more seconds, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as if she were trying to capture something intangible.

I waited tensely.

“I can’t really say. It’s just… a feeling.”

Then she let out a long yawn.

“Maybe it’s because I didn’t sleep well. I stayed up until 2:00 AM watching a show last night, and this morning the alarm had to ring three times before I finally got up.”

I let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“Wake me up when class starts,” my desk-mate said before flopping onto the desk, burying her face in her arms.

Within seconds, she was out cold.

My desk-mate—the person who sat beside me every day, who chatted with me constantly, and who I had known since our first year of high school—didn’t remember that I used to be a boy either.

In her memory, I had probably always been like this:

A high school girl with glasses, someone who didn’t talk much and loved looking at the stars.

I leaned forward on the desk and buried my face in my arms.

The entire world had been rewritten.

In everyone’s memories, I had always been the high school girl named Han Hanhan.

Not a single person remembered my identity as a boy.

I was the only one trapped in this unfamiliar body, guarding a story that no one would believe and that I had no idea how to tell.

—

The bell for the first period rang.

I sat up and stared at the glass window beside me, not hearing a single word of the lecture.

The light reflected off the surface, allowing me to see my own image:

Messy long hair, soft facial features, and the glare on my glasses hiding my eyes.

Just like that, the entire morning passed.

Everyone had forgotten.

Everyone acted as if this was completely natural.

When the bell for the end of the fourth period rang, my desk-mate woke up right on time.

She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and readjusted her glasses.

Then, she pulled a pack of crackers out of her desk, opened them, and handed one to me.

I took it and tentatively bit off a small piece.

She leaned against the desk, munching away.

“Junior Xiao Yan seemed to be looking for you again. I saw her downstairs earlier.”

My hand froze.

“Looking for me?”

“Doesn’t she come to find you all the time? Bringing this or that.”

My desk-mate made a loud crunching sound as she chewed.

“Last time it was an application form, the time before that it was observation records, and the time before that… I think she came to borrow a book?”

“That’s because she’s the successor to the Astronomy Club.”

“Oh… the suc-ces-sor…”

My desk-mate put on a look as if she were witnessing a romance, nodding meaningfully.

“Hanhan, are you interested in her?”

“No.”

“Really? Then why does she come over every single time? You aren’t the only person in the club.”

“She’s the successor to the President. It’s normal for her to look for the President.”

“Fine, fine.”

My desk-mate finished her crackers and brushed the crumbs off her hands, looking unconvinced but deciding to let it go.

I didn’t respond. I stood up and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some water.”

—

I walked out of the classroom and headed toward the water dispenser at the end of the long hallway.

The corridor was quiet since most people had already headed to the cafeteria.

Halfway there, the sound of light, brisk footsteps echoed from the stairwell.

Someone was coming upstairs.

I glanced down.

It was a girl in a school uniform wearing white-framed glasses.

She had a graceful figure, tall but not overly thin.

Her face behind the glasses was slender and quite cute.

She was walking with a serious expression, carrying a blue folder in her hands.

Her ponytail swayed behind her as she moved.

The name tag pinned to her chest displayed her name: Xiao Yan.

She was climbing the last few steps, her head down as she watched her footing.

She didn’t see me yet.

I stood still, my heart suddenly racing at an illogical speed.

This was the first time I had seen her since my transformation.

I clenched my palms, forgetting even to breathe.

Xiao Yan reached the top step, looked up, and saw me.

Her footsteps stopped.

It was a very brief pause.

So brief that if I hadn’t been focusing all my attention on her, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

But I did notice.

Her eyes lingered on my face before dropping to the name tag on my chest.

For a split second, her pupils dilated.

Her slender fingers instinctively gripped the blue folder tighter.

Her knuckles turned white, and the folder began to slightly deform under the pressure.

I saw her lips part slightly as if she wanted to say something, only to swallow the words back down the moment they reached her throat.

Then…

“Hello, Senior!”

Her smile was brilliant, and her voice was enthusiastic.

It was exactly the same as usual.

The same as yesterday, the same as the day before, and the same as every other time we had met in the past.

Senior.

She called me “Senior.”

Something inside me settled.

It wasn’t just relief; there was also a faint trace of disappointment.

Xiao Yan stood one step below me, looking up at me.

We were very close.

The height difference of that single step brought our eyes almost to the same level.

I nodded stiffly, trying to steady my trembling voice.

Feeling exceptionally guilty, I replied, “Good afternoon.”

“Senior, this is the activity plan for next month. I’ve finished organizing it.”

She handed the folder to me.

As I took it, her fingertips brushed against the back of my hand.

I clearly felt her warmth.

Her finger visibly trembled for a fraction of a second.

I flipped through it—it was very detailed.

The schedule, personnel assignments, and equipment list were all clearly written.

It was exactly her style: serious, meticulous, and thorough.

“Okay.”

Xiao Yan didn’t leave.

She stood there, occasionally looking straight at me.

I looked up.

“Is there something else?”

“No!” She squeezed out an even wider smile.

“I just wanted to ask if Senior would like to go get lunch together?”

“No, thank you.”

“Alright! I’ll be going now then!”

She turned and headed back downstairs.

Her ponytail swung behind her, and the corner of her school uniform flashed past the stairwell corner and vanished.

The sound of her footsteps quickly faded away.

I stood at the top of the stairs, staring down the empty flight.

Normal.

Her reaction was completely normal.

She called me “Senior” too.

Her memory had been rewritten as well.

I should have felt relieved.

But I didn’t.

There was a tiny, unidentifiable sensation stuck in my mind.

It was like accidentally swallowing a small fishbone; I couldn’t swallow it down, and I couldn’t cough it up.

I couldn’t put into words what it was.

—

When I walked back into the classroom with my cup, my desk-mate was still eating crackers.

Seeing me return, she offered one.

“Want one? It’s strawberry flavored.”

I took it and took a bite.

It was sweet.

‘I didn’t used to like sweets much, but this body seems to love them.’

The sky outside the window was a brilliant blue.

The November sky looked high and distant.

A few clouds hung far away, drifting slowly.

A few students were running on the field, the red track looking sharp and bright under the sunlight.

I looked out the window, my mind replaying the scene from earlier.

The pause when Xiao Yan saw me.

The moment her pupils dilated.

The half-sentence she had swallowed.

Then, I remembered something.

I pulled out my phone and opened our chat history.

Last night, she had sent a message:

“President, the Venus Conjunction with the Moon was so beautiful tonight! Did you see it? I watched it from the rooftop!”

I had replied: “I saw it.”

She had replied instantly: “That’s great! Goodnight!”

I stared at those lines.

She had sent a message about the conjunction last night.

She didn’t know what had happened last night.

She didn’t know anything.

I locked the screen and shoved the phone back into my pocket.

The clouds outside continued to drift.

The students on the field finished their lap, slowing down and leaning over with their hands on their knees to catch their breath.

I withdrew my gaze and flipped open my textbook.

There were still classes this afternoon.

I had to get through this day normally.

As my fingers touched the edge of the textbook, I looked at my hand again.

It was a slender, unfamiliar hand.

I pulled it back, clenched it into a fist, and stuffed it into my uniform pocket, trying not to think about what had just happened.

The phone vibrated.

I was concentrating so hard that it made me jump.

It was a message from Xiao Yan.

“President, Saturday at 12:00 PM, the observatory. I have the keys!”

It was followed by a smiley face emoji.

I stared at the screen, my finger hovering over the keyboard.

The observatory.

12:00 PM.

I thought back to that strange dream from this morning.

She was asking me to go to the observatory.

It was just the observatory.

…Right?