Diary of exchange

Chapter 7

Gaze in the Mirror

The wish had come true, with a speed and force that far exceeded Lin Wan's wildest imaginings.

The rift between Su Xiao and Wang Rui was like a domino toppled in a chain, setting off a cascade of reactions. The tight-knit clique that had once orbited Su Xiao disintegrated almost overnight. They might have long chafed at Su Xiao's mercurial temper, or perhaps it was simply a matter of self-preservation—either way, no one sought her out during breaks anymore, and at lunch she often sat alone, the bustle of her former admirers ebbing away from her like the tide retreating from the shore.

Su Xiao tried to salvage it. She humbled herself, approaching Wang Rui with overtures of conversation, even bringing expensive imported snacks to share with the group. But once a fracture forms, it's no easy thing to mend. Wang Rui responded with cool detachment, and the others shifted awkwardly, keeping their distance.

Lin Wan watched it all unfold with a cold eye.

She saw the first hints of a placating, tentative smile creep across Su Xiao's face, saw the bewilderment and helplessness flicker in her eyes when no one paid her any mind. It was a far cry from the peacock-proud Su Xiao of old.

Did it feel good?

Yes. Like poison sliding down her throat, delivering a searing thrill. Look at her—the one who once ground you underfoot—brought low at last.

But more than that, there was a chill of kindred sorrow, and a deeper, gnawing fear.

She could feel it: the dark bruise on her arm, every time Su Xiao was shunned, every time her gaze dimmed, sending a faint, electric itch through the mark, as if it were feeding, swelling, thriving. It had spread across most of her forearm now, the color glossy and deep, like a venomous snake coiled around her limb.

And her own changes were growing ever more pronounced.

When she walked, she found herself lifting her chin a fraction higher, an unthinking mimicry of poise she hadn't even noticed adopting. When answering the teacher's questions, her voice remained soft, but now and then it carried that crisp enunciation so characteristic of Su Xiao. Once, when her desk mate accidentally knocked her eraser to the floor, Lin Wan frowned instinctively—the expression cold, impatient—and it left her classmate frozen for several long seconds.

Little by little, she was turning into the very person she despised most.

The realization sent a shiver of horror through her.

The last class of Friday afternoon was a study hall, the room hushed save for the scratch of pens on paper and the occasional rustle of turning pages. Lin Wan was stumped by a physics problem, lost in concentration, when she felt it—a sharp, insistent gaze pinning her in place.

She looked up, tracing the sensation.

It was Su Xiao.

She sat two rows ahead and to the side, not reading, not working, but turned toward Lin Wan, staring fixedly.

It wasn't the old look of disdain or challenge, nor the recent one laced with scrutiny and doubt. This was something far more tangled: a brew of confusion, probing curiosity, and a dazed incredulity that bordered on the absurd.

Her eyes seemed to bore through Lin Wan's face, straining to make out some hidden shape.

Lin Wan's heart clenched hard. She averted her gaze on impulse, ducking her head to feign focus on the problem. But her pulse hammered erratically in her chest.

Why is she looking at me like that?

What has she noticed?

Could it be... she feels this eerie connection too?

The thought made Lin Wan squirm in her seat. She couldn't focus anymore; the pen nearly slipped from her grip.

The bell rang at last. Lin Wan shoved her things into her bag in a frenzy, desperate to flee this suffocating space. Head down, she hurried toward the back door.

She was passing the water cooler when a figure stepped into her path.

Su Xiao.

They were close now—close enough for Lin Wan to see the faint red threads in Su Xiao's eyes, the dry cracks on her lips, the exhaustion pooling so thick in her gaze, mingled with... a manic hunger to uncover something.

"Lin Wan," Su Xiao said, her voice roughened by strain.

Lin Wan froze, fingers digging into her backpack strap, nails biting into her palm. "What is it?" Her own voice came out parched.

Su Xiao didn't reply right away. She scanned Lin Wan from top to bottom, her eyes like a scanner: hair, face, the wrist brace on her left arm, then back to lock on her eyes.

The stare was piercing, as if it might drill straight through her.

"You lately..." Su Xiao paused, brow furrowing as she groped for words. "Have you felt... like something's off?"

Lin Wan's blood turned to ice.

"What... what do you mean?" She forced steadiness into her tone, but a tremor betrayed her.

"It's just..." Su Xiao's gaze drifted to the wrist brace again, her expression unfocused, dreamlike in its bewilderment. "I've been having these weird dreams. In them... I turn into someone else. And sometimes, it feels like... parts of me aren't me anymore."

Her voice trailed off, laced with a bafflement she couldn't quite grasp herself.

"And," she lifted her eyes, pinning Lin Wan's once more, the look delving as if into her soul, "I keep thinking... you look... familiar. Not the way I know you. It's... something else..."

She trailed off, unable to finish, but her gaze held fast, unnervingly odd.

Lin Wan went cold all over, stripped bare and abandoned in a frozen wasteland. Su Xiao felt it! She really felt it! The dreams of becoming another, the unraveling of self, the uncanny familiarity she saw in Lin Wan!

Because they were becoming each other.

Panic crashed over her like a tidal wave. She couldn't bear that all-seeing stare any longer. She jerked her head down and practically snarled, "I don't know what you're talking about! Get out of my way!"

She shoved past Su Xiao with all her strength, her shoulder jolting the other girl off balance, then bolted from the classroom without a backward glance, escaping that gaze that left her nowhere to hide.

She ran until her lungs burned, then stopped, leaning against the chill of a roadside wall, gasping for air.

The setting sun stretched her shadow long and warped, solitary.

Su Xiao's words looped in her mind like a broken recording.

"I seem to have turned into someone else..."

"Like parts of me aren't mine anymore..."

"You look so familiar..."

It was over.

Lin Wan thought in despair.

This runaway exchange—Su Xiao had sensed it.

The secret was out.

And what came next?

She didn't dare imagine.

She only knew that the dark bruise on her wrist, in the dying light of the sun, seemed to emit a silent, mocking sneer.