Inexpressible Longing

When I first returned to the country, I never imagined I would fall for Shen Jibai.I, a lazy party animal who spends most of my time partying;He, the CEO of a publicly listed company, who spends his days managing the business.We were two completely different people, especially considering the eight-year age gap between us. We had known each other for eight years, and during that time, our relationship had been so pure it could be compared to unopened bottled water—there were barely any interactions, let alone sparks flying between us.At that time, I was 14, attending junior high school in China, while he was 22 and studying for his Master's in the UK.I grew up without a mother, and my father's business was at a high point, so he was always out chasing opportunities. I was left alone with the nanny at home, except for meals when we would exchange glances in silence.One day, due to a scheduling conflict with the nanny, my dad was worried about leaving me with a stranger, so he sent me to stay at the next-door Shen Jibai's house for a week.I was like luggage being sent to an unfamiliar place. Although I was already used to being alone without a family, when I first arrived, I felt uneasy and abandoned. The spacious living room smelled faintly of lavender. Everywhere, there were signs of the hostess's careful touch—roses in full bloom on the coffee table, their petals still dotted with water droplets, radiating an intense, almost intoxicating beauty.The same house design, but here it was much warmer than my own cold and empty home.Aunt Lin greeted me with a warm smile and gently embraced me, saying, “Hello, Jiang Li.”In that moment, it felt like we had known each other for a long time.Her scent was clear, gentle, and faintly fragrant, and when her clothes brushed past my nose, I unexpectedly felt a sense of belonging.The surrounding air seemed to soften, and the feeling of fear gradually faded. Was this the love people talk about?If my mother were still here, would I experience this feeling every day?Footsteps echoed from the stairs.I looked up timidly and met the cold gaze of a figure standing at the top of the stairs.Sunlight, like golden thread, poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting patterns on the stairs and illuminating his dark brown hair, creating a dazzling glow.He had a high nose, a tall and slender frame, like a young man who had stepped out of a painting, with narrow, deep eyes that seemed to swallow all emotions.Yet, there was a rebellious glint in his eyes, mixed with a touch of indifference and laziness. Even in casual home clothes, he looked strikingly clean and perfect.The purity of a young man, he embodied it perfectly.“Jiang Li, this is your brother, Jibai. He’s on summer vacation right now but will be going back to the UK in a few days!” Shen Jibai’s father, Uncle Shen, smiled warmly, introducing him before Jibai could say a word. “Your brother is a genius. If you don’t understand any of your schoolwork, you should ask him for help!”When our eyes met, I hastily lowered my head.He was too dazzling, his presence painful to my sensitive, adolescence-riddled self who had long lacked family affection.The eight-year age difference seemed especially glaring at that time.Shen Jibai, a boy who had already shed his youthful innocence, now appeared more mature, with a touch of wisdom in his gaze, as though he could see through people, but at the same time, his eyes screamed, “Stay away.”And me? I was still stuck in my rebellious phase, listening to my teachers' warnings every day: “No early dating allowed.”The first few days I spent at Shen Jibai’s house were tense. Every time I heard his footsteps, I would instinctively try to avoid him, fearing that I wouldn’t know what to say if we were face-to-face.But soon, I realized I was overthinking things.Shen Jibai didn’t care about my presence at all. He was too indifferent to even spare me a glance.For a whole week, we were like two parallel lines with no intersection.That is, until the night before the exam.At 9:30 p.m., a particular “key point” question from my teacher was driving me crazy.I had looked at the problem 800 times but still couldn’t make any sense of it.“Forget it, I don’t care anymore!” I threw my paper aside and jumped onto my bed.But then, a voice suddenly spoke in my ear, “If this question appears in the exam tomorrow, wouldn’t that be a huge loss?”Reluctantly, I climbed out of bed again.Even a hopeless student like me had to make an effort.I had struggled with it for at least five or six times, and my hair was about to fall out. Uncle Shen’s kind words came back to me:“Your brother is a genius…”I finally picked up my phone and opened Shen Jibai’s WeChat chat window.“Brother... can you help me explain...?”Wait, calling him “brother” suddenly seems awkward.Delete.“Shen Jibai, there’s a question I don’t understand...”No, calling him by his full name might sound rude.Delete again.“Are you there?”This casual phrase was a waste of space.“Are you busy?”It felt like I was hitting on him. I deleted it.Just as I was unsure how to phrase it, I received a message.The notification popped up on my phone, and Shen Jibai’s message read:“?”I tried to stay calm. “Hm? What’s up?”He quickly replied, “I’m typing.”What the heck? Was he staring at our conversation at this time of night?But that worked out, so I straightened my posture and said, “I don’t understand a question.”“Show me.”Gripping the test paper like it was a lifeline, I hurried downstairs.Before I could even knock on the door, Shen Jibai’s door swung open.His tall figure appeared before me, looking down at me with an overwhelming height advantage.I looked up; he was so tall.“Do you understand this? It’s junior high algebra,” I asked, carefully handing him my paper.He glanced at the question.“Yeah, come in.”For the next half hour, I got to know a different side of Shen Jibai, one that was still cold on the outside but surprisingly gentle when he explained the problems.Soon, I was captivated by his vast knowledge and calm demeanor.No matter how many gaps I had in my understanding, he noticed them and patiently explained everything from the beginning, without any condescension.Unlike the teachers at my tutoring center who would be shocked by a student like me, he calmly continued explaining.Under his soothing voice, I finally understood that question, which had previously been far beyond my level.Looking up at him, I was full of disbelief.“Don’t worry, as long as you perform normally tomorrow, you still have a chance… to pass.”He turned his face slightly, the words of comfort so perfectly timed.Then he went back to his work, adding, “I’ll go through the other key questions for you. The teacher’s right; these are the most likely to appear in the exam.”His desk was large, with a laptop and many books scattered across it, some with bookmarks, indicating he had been studying them recently.At that moment, he pushed some of the books aside to give me more space to sit closer.“Can you see it?” he asked, glancing up briefly as he wrote formulas.“Oh, yeah,” I replied quickly.The gentle yet serious man, even the small mole on his nose seemed charming.And his handsome face, which I had only noticed fleetingly when I was 14, suddenly became a subject of my strange fantasies.Why can’t Shen Jibai be our math teacher? Maybe I could skip class all the time if that were the case! Could he take my exam tomorrow instead?Of course, that was just a fantasy.But after this tutoring session, our relationship became much more natural. At least I didn’t avoid him as much.Still, with the age difference, we didn’t have much interaction, except when he helped me with my homework.In the end, he faded into the background most of the time.After that week, my nanny returned, and Shen Jibai went back to the UK to resume his studies.But I kept going over to his house.Not for anything else, but to “savor motherly love.”Although Shen Jibai was cold and distant, Aunt Lin’s warmth made me feel loved again.Aunt Lin was gentle to the core. Her eyes always reminded me of the depictions of mothers in the textbooks we studied.Determined, warm, patient, encouraging.Even when she spoke, her voice was soft, calm, and unhurried. Perhaps it was because her son had been away for so long, or perhaps we simply clicked, but since that vacation, she began treating me like her own daughter.In the following years, she attended all my parent-teacher meetings, bought me different sizes of underwear as I grew, and took care of everything my dad couldn’t even think of.