Mia Waters swallowed, the fishy smell making him nauseous. He glanced at Raymond Carter, who looked back at him calmly.

"Then I'll go with him."

Mia Waters looked at Coral in surprise.

When Coral spoke, she didn't even look at him. She raised her hand, addressing the politics teacher, serious and casual at the same time.

"Alright, be careful on the way. Just take him to the nearby First Affiliated Hospital of the Medical University, have the dental department take a look. It seems pretty serious." The politics teacher waved them out.

Mia Waters picked up his bag and stood up, and Raymond Carter also stood to let him out.

"I..."

Mia Waters didn't catch what Raymond Carter had been trying to say with his repeated "I...". He just really wanted to retort, "Would it kill you to speak up like a man?"

"Do you ride a bike?"

Mia Waters was taken aback. After asking, Coral actually blushed a little.

"I'm just asking. I know you ride your bike home every day... The hospital isn't that close."

"So do you ride a bike?" Mia Waters asked vaguely, but his speech was really unclear, and Coral stared at him blankly.

"Wait here." Mia Waters rushed to the boys' restroom sink and started rinsing his mouth vigorously under the tap. Coral even followed to the doorway, a bit embarrassed as she peeked in at him.

"Don't you have any sense of hygiene? There's bacteria in tap water, you could get an infection doing that."

"Who cares." Mia Waters bared his teeth at the mirror—a row of small white teeth, no blood, but the left canine was half gone. When he inhaled or exhaled, the cold air rushed over the broken edge, making his face twitch in pain.

Mia Waters caught sight of Coral in the mirror, standing at the doorway behind him, her face full of concern, clearly conveying the central idea of "you're really dumb".

Mia Waters felt sorry for the half a canine he didn't know where he'd spat out, but also thought it wasn't a big deal.

"Maybe forget it. I'll just take the afternoon off, go home and take some painkillers. Don't let me hold you up, you go back."

Because he didn't want the wound exposed to the air, Mia Waters spoke slowly.

And very gently.

Coral shook her head in silence, saying nothing, but was very stubborn. The light in those clear black-and-white eyes was fully reflected into Mia Waters's eyes by the mirror.

They stood together in front of the mirror for a few seconds. Mia Waters smiled helplessly as he turned: "Alright, then I'll bike to the hospital. Do you ride a bike?"

Coral's sharp gaze softened a lot. She shook her head again.

"So what do we do? Maybe I won't ride either, we can take the bus or a taxi?"

Coral still shook her head.

"What do you want then! It's far to walk, you won't take a car, how am I supposed to... I... I give you a ride on my bike?"

His mountain bike did have a back seat.

Coral nodded.

Mia Waters was stunned. She likes riding on a bike?

What was this about? He didn't even get annoyed, and for a moment even felt she wasn't so bad.

At least she volunteered to go to the hospital with him. He didn't need it, but it was still pretty loyal of her.

Of course, maybe it was just to get a bike ride.

Riding a bike.

The hospital was between Mia Waters's home and the school. They rode along the sunny coastline for a stretch, then turned uphill, winding through a narrow path under dappled tree shadows into the old city full of brick-red houses, as directed by Coral.

At first Mia Waters thought it was odd, Coral sitting on the back seat, so light she was almost not there—and she didn't even hold onto his waist. He figured girls were shy, so he rode slower, afraid she'd fall off.

"Are you out of strength?"

Coral threw out the question bluntly, making Mia Waters fume. Without a word, he sped up. Just then they hit a long downhill stretch, he pedaled hard, racing down, feeling for a moment like a plane about to crash.

At that moment, Mia Waters felt a warmth at his waist.

Coral's arms gently wrapped around his waist, not too tight or too loose. The boy raised his eyebrows in surprise, opened his mouth to say something, but the wind rushed in, making his whole face scrunch up in pain.

They stayed silent like that. Coral, who was supposed to give directions, didn't speak either. When they needed to turn left, she'd tug his left arm; when right, she'd tug his right.

Mia Waters remembered the hospital was nearby, but after a few turns, Coral had him confused, and the road seemed to stretch on.

The doctor fitted Mia Waters with a temporary dental crown and told him to come back when he had time in the next few days, and that it would be best to get a porcelain crown.

"Kid, impressive. This is the first time I've heard of someone breaking a tooth on shredded squid, and it was a canine, too."

Mia Waters walked out of the hospital with slumped shoulders. Coral stood up from a chair in the corridor, looking at him questioningly.

"It's fine. I'll come back in a couple of days. This tooth..." With something foreign in his mouth, Mia Waters felt awkward, talking while constantly prodding the temporary crown with his tongue. "This tooth is really uncomfortable. By the way, can you help me lie? I can bike you back to school, but I'm skipping class this afternoon, don't want to go back. Just say my tooth hurts really bad, super serious, okay?"

Coral thought for a moment, then shook her head solemnly.

Mia Waters immediately realized—this was Coral, how could she help someone skip class by lying? He figured what he broke wasn't his canine, but his IQ.

"I don't want to go back to class either."

Mia Waters was snapped out of his complaints, staring in shock at Coral as she said this seriously.

Mia Waters noticed that Coral had also come out with her bag.

"I think our sea is really nice."

Mia Waters and Coral sat side by side on the rocks, silent for a long time. Mia Waters hadn't expected Coral to be the one to break the ice.

"What's nice about it?"

"It's hard."

"...What?"

Coral didn't want to explain, or maybe couldn't. Mia Waters frowned, pondering for a while.

The whole coastline was almost all rocks, even the sandy beaches seemed artificial, the sand gray-black and very coarse.

Definitely not a top spot for fun.

But it was certainly hard enough.

"Yeah," Mia Waters grinned, "just like you."

Coral looked at him in surprise, and Mia Waters turned to look at her too. They were a bit close, and for a moment Mia Waters felt like he was about to fall into her eyes.

Then Coral laughed.

It was the first time Mia Waters had seen Coral smile. An ordinary girl with delicate features, always with a stern face and glaring eyes, could actually smile so openly and brightly.

The light in her eyes faded, replaced by pure joy.

Other people's smiles were just smiles; hers was happiness.

Mia Waters didn't know what all these thoughts flooding his mind were. He quickly turned away, trying to cover with a nonchalant expression: "It's true, like a rock in a latrine, and..."

He quickly swallowed the rest of his clumsy metaphor. Luckily, Coral hadn't heard or minded at all.

"Aren't you always in a hurry to study? Why are you skipping class with me?"

Coral didn't answer, but brought up something else.

"About the photo, I'm sorry. I just..."

"You just wanted to joke around, but messed it up."

Even with his eyes closed, Mia Waters knew Coral must be blushing now.

"But you erased all my work on the physics problem in class, that was on purpose, right? Were you jealous my physics grades are better than yours?"

"No. I was angry."

"Oh?" Mia Waters laughed. "Why?"

"That problem was the same type as the last big question on the monthly exam. You used this shortcut method on the exam, and I learned it from you. But when you went up to the board, you weren't serious at all."

"So you got mad?!" Mia Waters shouted, as if he'd seen an alien.

"Of course!" Coral raised her voice too, her face turning red. "I know you're smart, I heard from Raymond Carter. Our class moves faster than yours, and the textbooks are a bit different, but you just got here and already did so well. You could have done even better, why weren't you serious?"

Mia Waters didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"You worry more than my mom. But even if I tried, I'd probably only get fourth place."

"Why?"