Chapter 38 "I Know Exactly Who You Like."

Chapter 38 "I Know Exactly Who You Like."
Class 3 was pure chaos after the morning study period.
Julie had just finished eating breakfast and wandered back to her desk. The exhaustion was setting in again. She refused to force herself to stay awake. Pulling her U-shaped neck pillow out of her desk, she prepared to take a massive ten-minute power nap.
Just as she was about to close her eyes, Andrew Cantu, the class committee member, materialized out of thin air with a small notebook in his hand. He asked in a hauntingly soft voice, "Julie... are you thirsty? Can I buy you an iced tea?"
"..." Julie nearly jumped out of her skin. She clutched her chest, glaring at him. "Why do you walk completely silently?!"
Andrew flipped through his notebook, his face pulled into a long, miserable grimace. "When a man is dead inside, his footsteps make no sound."
If he had known this was going to happen, he never would have volunteered for the committee.
He never got any of the good jobs. Every year, organizing Field Day fell directly onto his shoulders. Even as a committee member, he couldn't just force students to compete against their will. He had to beg. These weren't his classmates; they were his demanding, terrifying ancestors.
Hearing his morbid tone, Julie's scalp went numb.
She desperately wanted to hide. She had no idea how she had drawn his attention.
She let out an incredibly dramatic, fake yawn. "Then you really need to take care of your health! Look at me, I'm incredibly weak. I can never get enough sleep."
High school was full of beautiful memories, but participating in Field Day was absolutely not one of them. She wasn't lying; in her current state, she was incredibly fragile. Asking her to energetically sprint and jump was pure torture. Plus, she had absolutely zero athletic talent. Even if she just signed up to make up the numbers, she would violently drag the class's overall score down. That was completely unacceptable! Class 3's honor was the most important thing!
Andrew let out two hollow, sarcastic laughs. "Julie, you have a radiant complexion and you're glowing with health."
If she's weak, I'm a literal corpse.
"I am not!" Julie argued.
Could he not see how the endless stream of subjects had physically drained the life out of her?!
Since the soft approach wasn't working, Andrew resorted to the hard sell. He tapped his pen against his notebook and said with deep sincerity, "I'm not asking you to run the 800-meter. How about this: since we're all family here, I'm treating you like one of my own. I'm giving you the shot put."
"I refuse," Julie instantly rejected him.
She had deep psychological trauma from the shot put. Seeing Andrew's face twist into an expression of pure agony, she thought about it for a second and offered a compromise. "If there's absolutely no other option... I'll run the 100-meter relay."
Andrew shook his head. "Those spots were snatched up instantly."
Warren Gale walked in through the back door. As he walked down the aisle, he saw Andrew blocking Julie's desk. Catching sight of the notebook in Andrew's hand, Warren instantly understood what was happening. He stopped and asked, "What's going on?"
Without exaggeration, both Andrew and Julie looked at him like he was their savior.
Julie was faster. She immediately snitched. "Warren! He's trying to force me to throw the shot put! I literally have no idea how to do it, and it's way too late to learn!"
Andrew refused to back down. "You have to contribute something to the class for Field Day, don't you?!"
"How am I not contributing?!" Julie was indignant. "I'm writing the motivational broadcast scripts! I'm going to cheer for everyone!"
No one could blow smoke and hype people up better than her, and absolutely no one had a louder voice.
Warren held out his hand. "Let me see it."
Andrew instantly handed the notebook over.
"Shot put is the only thing left?" Warren asked Andrew, though his eyes were fixed on Julie. "She definitely doesn't know how to throw a shot put."
Andrew was completely out of options. He had asked every single person in the class, and no one wanted it. "Then what am I supposed to do?! Someone signed up for it originally, but she came to me during morning study and said she tweaked her neck and can't compete."
Julie felt incredibly conflicted. She was debating whether she should just sign up to fill the empty slot, but she was terrified of coming in dead last. Which was a highly probable outcome.
Warren thought for a moment. "Go ask Lara. See if she's willing to do it."
Lara, their resident star athlete, was sitting a few desks away. She had absolutely no problem with it; shot put was a joke to her. "But the timing clashes. Tom and I are in charge of logistics and running supplies for the athletes."
"Then I'll take over logistics for you! Is that okay?!" Julie aggressively grabbed Lara's hand. "Absolutely no one understands logistics better than me!"
Lara had genuinely been dreading the tedious grunt work of running water and snacks to people. Thinking about it gave her a headache, and she had been trying to figure out how to pass it off. Seeing a willing victim throwing themselves at the job, she instantly agreed. "Deal!"
Andrew: "?"
He scratched his head. That works? It was that easy? He walked away completely bewildered. Lara got up to get some water. Within seconds, Warren was the only one standing in front of Julie's desk. She was sitting, he was standing, and she had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him.
Warren looked down at her. "Didn't you say you signed up for the long jump or the high jump?"
He knew exactly what was going on. He had reviewed the roster several times and her name wasn't anywhere near it. But he still wanted to tease her.
Ah, this...
Julie desperately wanted to lie, but she was terrified of ruining her image of absolute honesty and integrity. Looking up, she saw the teasing glint in his eyes. She broke character and burst out laughing. "Warren, if you see through the lie, you're not supposed to call it out!"
Warren couldn't hold back a laugh.
When he returned to his desk, he still looked incredibly relaxed.
—
The morning sun rose, the evening sun set, and the days flew by in the blink of an eye. Every single day of senior year felt exactly like a copy-paste of the last.
Julie and Tania ran into Sally Hoch at the cafeteria. The three of them chatted happily and walked back to the Class 3 room together. Julie couldn't tell if she was just imagining it, but Sally was acting incredibly weird today. The way she was looking at Julie was bizarre.
It made Julie wonder if she had something on her face.
While Sally secretly giggled to herself, she was mentally taking notes. I had no idea that kid was so obsessed with looks. A secret menace AND superficial? He's completely hopeless.
As they chatted, the incredibly enthusiastic Sally learned that Julie was currently struggling to improve her grades. Sally immediately offered some brilliant study tips, holding absolutely nothing back. Julie frantically took mental notes. Sally was a top-tier student in the humanities track, scored exceptionally well on the Gaokao, and eventually went to a prestigious teaching university in Beijing.
Even if the tips didn't work perfectly for her, writing them down couldn't hurt.
She listened with intense focus.
"Julie..." Sally suddenly stopped talking. She desperately wanted to reach out and aggressively pinch Julie's cheeks, but managed to restrain herself.
"Yeah?"
Just as Julie was about to ask what was wrong, she saw Warren walk into the classroom. "Warren's back," she told Sally.
The entire reason Sally had come to Class 3 was to interrogate Warren about his teenage heartache. She whipped her head around. Warren was walking in with his arm slung over Gary's shoulder, looking like the ultimate bros. Sally instantly waved her arm aggressively. "Warren! I need to talk to you! Outside, right now!"
Warren glanced over, having no idea what they had been talking about to make them smile so brightly.
He had no idea what Sally's angle was, but he still subtly shot a glance at Julie before following Sally out into the hallway. He looked at her flatly. "What is it. Talk."
"Oh, it's nothing major."
Sally had held this secret in for an entire day just to confront him. She couldn't care less about his perpetual, decade-long deadpan attitude. She gave him a massive, forgiving smile. "Kid... I know exactly who you like."
She held his greatest secret. The secret he was desperately trying to hide. The secret he had literally invented a fake friend just to cover up.
Thinking about it made her absolutely euphoric. Ha! The mighty Warren Gale finally falls!
When those words hit Warren's ears, his immediate, subconscious reaction was to look directly back into the classroom. His gaze shot through the window and landed straight on Julie, who was currently laughing with Tania. Almost as if she felt his eyes on her, Julie looked up, met his gaze, and smiled warmly at him.
Watching this exact sequence of events play out, Sally thought she was going to die from holding back her laughter.
How incredibly rare! It was a tragedy she hadn't anticipated this exact reaction, otherwise she would have shoved her phone in his face a minute ago and recorded this highly precious moment.
She lowered her voice, mocking him. "Ooooh, wow~~"
Someone's experiencing their first crush! Someone's falling deep into the web of love!
The bizarre, mocking noises dragged Warren back to reality. He tore his eyes away, refused to look at Julie for another second, and smoothly retracted his gaze. He looked at the still-squawking Sally and frowned. "Make that noise one more time. I dare you."
"Okay, okay, I'll stop." Sally winked exaggeratedly and cleared her throat. "But on one condition. Take me to the convenience store."
Warren shot her a cool glance and nodded in agreement.
Sally rubbed her hands together, determined to brutally extort him. When they reached the stairs, Warren stopped without warning. He pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet and shoved it toward her. Before she could even complain, he preemptively shut her down. "If you think it's not enough, don't take it."
"You are so cheap!" Sally snatched the bill anyway. But snacks weren't her actual goal today. Terrified he might snatch the money back, she quickly shoved it into her pocket and pressed the interrogation. "But seriously, what's the deal with Julie's boyfriend—"
She wasn't close enough with Julie to just straight-up ask her, and interrogating Tania felt too intrusive. Keeping the curiosity bottled up was agonizing.
"She doesn't have one," Warren instantly cut her off. "She doesn't."
Sally fell completely silent.
She genuinely wanted to hand him a mirror so he could look at his own face. He looked exactly like a man who had just chugged an entire vat of vinegar—eyebrows knitted together in pure, suppressed, agonizing jealousy.
Alright, fine. She decided not to stab him right in the most painful spot. She pivoted to a question that might actually give him a secret thrill. "So... are you guys... you know? Secretly dating?"
Warren froze. The word "dating" sent his mind reeling for several seconds. He rapidly snapped back to reality, frowning deeply. "Nothing like that is happening. Why is your head constantly filled with absolute garbage?"
Sally: "..."
Hold on. Who exactly is the one with garbage in their head?!
She was furious. "Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me the story you told me the other day wasn't about you and her?!"
Warren looked at her like she was completely psychotic. "When did I ever say it was me? And when did I ever say it was her?"
He spoke with absolute, unwavering conviction. "I told you. It was a story about my friend. Stop letting your imagination run wild."