Chapter 1

Sha~. Crack. Pit-pat.

Rain. Thunder. The sound of raindrops beating against the school's rickety windows.

"Ahh.. How I love the rain."

"Shut up, Hou Yi," Chang'e mutters, eyeing as the boy stretches his arms, bent at the elbow. He winks when he sees her glance at his slowly lifting shirt. 'Disgusting,' Chang'e would like to say.

"Don't you love the rain, my lovely Chang'e?" Hou Yi drawls out in sickenly sweet tones.

"Oh, my dashing Hou Yi," she replies with the same energy before cutting it off coldly, "I don't. I prefer the sun because it reminds me of how you could be getting sunburn. Hasn't happened, sadly."

"You associate me with the sun because you think I'm so hot? Cute."

"That's not what I said," Chang'e protests in exasperation.

"Cute."

"Delusional."

"Cute," Hou Yi repeats again in that sarcastic lovey-dovey voice. It makes her want to scratch her ears off.

"Chang'e and Hou Yi, would you like to share your conversation with the class?" a shrill voice cuts through their conversation, prompting both of their heads to snap forward with horror-movie speed.

Their classmates laugh at them, and some remarks of the ancient Chinese folk tale regarding their names are whispered.

"Alright, alright. Let's continue," the teacher hushes. Chang'e breathes a sigh of relief. At least she took some mercy on Chang'e. And Hou Yi too, I guess.

'Curse my parents for giving me this name', Chang'e thinks before retracting the statement completely. 'Her parents wouldn't have known, and in truth, it was a nice name. Curse Hou Yi for having his name instead.'

Actually, she loved her name. She even thought the Chinese folk tale behind it was pretty sweet—bittersweet, more like. Hou Yi and Chang'e are a married couple, Hou Yi gains a pill that can turn a person into a god, Chang'e eats it for some reason and floats away to the moon, and the two lovers are separated for all eternity. Or just Chang'e because Hou Yi is still mortal and he dies.

There are many variations of the story. In some of them, Chang'e is the villain. In others, there's a third party who wants to steal the pill which forces Chang'e to eat it. If she's being honest, her favorite is the latter. Definitely not because it puts her in a better light.

But anyway, all that doesn't matter because when Hou Yi came along, she wanted to smite whoever wrote that story down.

"Anyone?" her teacher's voice rings out. Chang'e focuses in on the board, eyes skimming over the question. Easy enough.

She shoots up her hand quickly, almost sure she's the first one, but the feeling deflates when she doesn't hear the first syllables of her name.

"Hou Yi?" 'Oh, that evil man.' Chang'e turns to glare daggers at him as he stands up to recite, but they're simply repelled and bounce off of sparkling eyes and a smug smile. 'If we were in a Webtoon, he would have flowers and stars surrounding his frame.'

"..And that means x is equal to.." 'Square root 3,' Chang'e thinks. "..Square root 3, approximately 1.7." 'Showoff.'

"Good job, Hou Yi," confirms the teacher, nodding her head and writing the answer on the board, "As expected of one of our star students."

Hou Yi shakes his head, combined with a laughter of respect before sitting back down.

"The better one," he whispers to Chang'e.

"In your dreams," she retorts. And such is life for the two rivals, Chang'e and Hou Yi.

The rest of the class goes by smoothly—as smooth as it usually goes, at least. Hou Yi bags some recitation points, and she does too. Glares are traded, smirks are exchanged. But ultimately, as much as she hates to say this, Hou Yi scores one above her. 'Whatever, I won yesterday, and the day before that.'

She stares at the clock as she silently collects her things and places them in her bag while the last minutes are eaten away by the minute hand. Her classmates start to do the same, mimicking her actions.

"Students, how many times have I told you to stop packing in advance?"

Bzzz. Ring-ding.

Chang'e grins. 'Saved by the bell.' "Nuh-uh-uh. I dismiss you, not the bell." 'Nevermind.' She can see everyone visibly cringe in preparation, herself included, but her teacher must be in a good mood today because what comes next is not a lecture and rather a "I suppose it can't be helped. You may go now."

The class erupts in a celebratory woop-woop and the teacher only gives a tired smile. Those who managed to pack their bags faster than others practically flew up from their chairs and out of the classroom, rushed thank you's leaving their mouths.

"Race you to the Math test results?" Hou Yi asks, his backpack worn and his hands in its straps.

"Bet," replies Chang'e, her backpack worn and her hands in its straps, her pose practically a mirror image to his.

Hou Yi starts counting. He faces the door. "On 3, 2–" He bolts away. "SEE YOU IN THE HALL, LOSER!"

"WHAT HAPPENED TO ONE?! Hou Yi! GET BACK HERE, YOU CHEATER!" Chang'e shouts back, chasing after him.

"Oh my, star students.." the teacher mumbles while she shakes her head. Feeling guilty, Chang'e throws a small smile and a quick thank you before continuing her chase.

She turns a corner, and her face nearly collides with a sea of people bunched by the bulletin board.

"Excuse me, coming through!" Chang'e says, pushing other students aside to reach the board. She shoves aimlessly until she spies Hou Yi's brown-tinted hair popping over everyone else's and makes her way toward him.

"Hou Yi, how dare you cheat—" 'on something as simple as that,' she was going to say, but she caught sight of the mildly dejected look plastered on his face.

"I got higher again, didn't I?" Her eyes scan the board excitedly, landing on the top two of the batch.

'Top one, Chang'e Cai. 100. Top two,' she reads with some twisted form of glee, 'Hou Yi Wang. 99.5.'

"I WON!" Chang'e celebrates in a heavily silenced shout of joy.

"You won," Hou Yi reiterates, "Guess that means I'll have to treat you again?" He looks at her with something in his eyes, but it leaves as quickly as it came, and her mind is already filled with free food.

"Yes please!" she agrees with a chirp, practically jumping in place until Hou Yi chuckles, "—I mean, yes duh. You lost. Who's the loser now?" He tsks and rolls his eyes in reply. The two of them walk away from the board, and their spots are immediately taken by other students.

Now what was this lovely deal that enabled her to get free food? Or lose. Sometimes. Rarely, she clarifies in her mind, Hou Yi loses way too often for his wallet's sake. At least my wallet is still intact. Point is, the loser treats the winner to snacks, regardless of what kind or how much.

"Where will it be today, winner?" he says sarcastically, spinning around to ask her before continuing his walk the normal way.

"The milktea place down the road. Same as last time."

"Naicha? Again? Is this a phase?"

"What can I say?" she shrugs, "It's good. You should try it instead of some—" Chang'e pauses again and makes a vomiting motion, "—some fruit tea."

"If it's not your drink, don't complain about it~" he sings in a tune, turning around to wag his finger at her.

"Wait, this is my locker. I'm gonna get some books first," Chang'e says, already turning the numbers on her lock, "If you need to get your books too, go ahead. I'll meet you at your locker."

"Sure," is all that is given to her as a reply. Hou Yi starts his long journey to his locker, as lockers are sorted by last name and they're practically at opposite ends.

She looks back down at her padlock. 1. Click. Some more turning accompanied by tik-tik. 4. Click. And lastly, 3. Click.

143. That's the code her parents set the padlock to. 'Whether it was because they used it before and they're madly in love, or they want me to remember they love me, I don't know.'

Her locker swings open, revealing a family picture and several stickers of all kinds plastered on the inside of the door. She turns her gaze into the locker and contemplates on which subjects she needs to prioritize. 'Math, definitely. Science? Better safe than sorry.' She takes the two books out and adds them to the already growing collection in her backpack.

The rest comes to her as easy as clockwork. Slam the door shut, close the padlock, and shuffle the numbers so that no one will be able to violate her precious school books.

She walks over to Hou Yi who's just closed his locker door and is now doing some finger guns at her.

"Come on, let's go. My milktea can't wait," Chang'e puts a hand up to her forehead to make a little fainting action.

Hou Yi huffs. "You would do really great in the school's theater group, you know? Except no one would want to hear a syllable from you because of your screeching voice."

"At least I'm only screeching. Yours sounds like a pig in a butcher house." Hou Yi snorts at that comment.

"See? You proved my point," Chang'e says haughtily.

"Whatever," dismisses Hou Yi. He pushes the school's main doors open using his body weight. He holds it open for a moment before dashing out, leaving a slowly closing door in his wake.

"Seriously.." Chang'e grumbles, heaving the door open herself. She steps outside and into the rainy weather. 'Sha~', the rain sings again. 'Plip-plop,' the raindrops falling onto the shade above them whisper.

And pure unhinged laughter. Hou Yi, she thinks with disdain. The boy is cackling in front of her, and in response, she blinks once and stares blankly. He's bent over, wiping away imaginary tears for the extra effect.

"You are such a—" Chang'e starts to say. "A?" Hou Yi interrupts between his gasps of air. 'Jerk,' she was planning to say, but the picture in front of her left at a loss of words. Hou Yi, stomach clutched in laughter, cheeks red, and all his teeth on display. "Nevermind," is the reply she settles on.

"You should've seen your face. You looked like a surprised Pikachu."

"And you look like Garbador."

"Is that the trash bag pokemon?" Hou Yi asks in disbelief as he smothers down his chuckles and stands straight.

"Yup," she replies, making a popping sound with the p at the same time she opens her umbrella. She twirls it in her hand and sets it on her shoulder. "Let's go, Garbador."

"You're such a killjoy." In response, Chang'e turns around and squints her eyes at Hou Yi. "But I love it," he adds in a hurry, "Could we share your umbrella? My rain jacket is at the bottom of my bag."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere," declines Chang'e, "Hurry up and get it."

"Oh man, more minutes wasted which could've been spent walking to Naicha," mourns Hou Yi, sarcasm evident in his voice, "But it can't be helped."

"Okay, fine. Get under here."

"YES," he says, swinging an arm towards himself as a celebratory action. He skips towards the right, closer to the zooming cars passing by, and flashes a smile at Chang'e. She shakes her head before nudging it forward, as a way of saying 'let's go'.