The little one already ate.

The little one even called out "brother".

Henry Howard's mind suddenly went blank, leaving only one thought: this is just too unfair.

Ethan Young had never thought that the "King of Test Papers" beside him would almost give up on him for this kind of reason. Repeating a year, still unable to let go of his worries, ended up getting into the lowest-ranked high school, stubbornly holding onto the bottom of the grade.

From a top student with a bright future in everyone's eyes, to falling below the passing line.

Falling all at once.

Ethan Young remembered that after knowing this person for so long, the only time he really saw him lose his temper was that time with Chelsea Shaw and Walter Smith.

"You got into a fight in your first year because of this too?" Ethan Young leaned back, propping his hand on the ground as he asked.

He was someone who never listened to gossip, and although he didn't know who the boss of the building next door was at the time, Henry Howard's heroic deeds had spread all over the school—it was hard not to know.

Back then, Ethan Young became the boss of the West Building because of "cheating in the high school entrance exam" plus fighting.

Henry Howard wasn't.

Unlike Ethan Young, who came with his own popularity when he enrolled, Henry Howard was even quiet for a while. He attended two months of peaceful classes, but after the midterm exam, his name suddenly exploded because of one incident.

Simply put, just three words—beat up a teacher.

It was also a fight, but this was way more serious than Ethan Young taking down four people by himself outside.

"That one, huh."

"Someone in our class bought the answers, and he thought I was the ringleader," Henry Howard bit his candy, not even wanting to mention the guy's name, just using "he" instead. After saying it, he added, "He really thought highly of me. Like I'd buy the damn answers—if I really did, could I have only scored ten points?"

Thinking back now, Henry Howard realized his temper was way too explosive back then. A couple of sarcastic laughs should've been enough, why bother kicking the desk and starting a fight? The more they argued, the angrier he got, and then he just started swinging.

He didn't hold back at all, almost sent the guy to the hospital.

That day after school, he didn't leave. He finished half a pack of cigarettes in a bathroom stall, reeking of smoke, just thinking about what the hell he was doing with his life.

When Henry Howard got to this part, he realized the guy next to him, the second-to-last in the grade, hadn't said anything yet, so he changed the subject: "What about you?"

"Me," Ethan Young said calmly, "I'm afraid of being too outstanding, so I want to give others a chance to live."

"" Henry Howard choked on that, raised his hand and ruffled his hair: "Can you be serious?"

Ethan Young's situation was basically a family matter.

That mentally challenged older brother of his, Henry Howard had already met before, and had also witnessed the little one pacing the hallway, cursing without repeating himself—a real skill.

After Ethan Young finished, seeing Henry Howard looked like he wanted to say something, he cut him off: "It's fine, I know what I'm doing."

Back then, whatever Gregory Cooper said about his son being ambitious, Ethan Young didn't really care, and almost couldn't hold back from saying to Gregory Cooper right then: what does your son's ambition have to do with me? He's not my son.

But he couldn't just ignore Ms. Miller.

At least until he had the ability to leave this environment, he would protect her as much as he could. No matter what it took.

Even though the little one looked cool, Henry Howard was still a bit worried: "What do you mean you know? What school are you planning to apply to?"

Ethan Young: "Doesn't have to be too good, Tsinghua or Peking University is fine."

""

Henry Howard was speechless.

That help post he made on Baidu Zhidao, looking back now, was just full of things to roast.

The two of them sat in the hallway for a while longer. Ethan Young checked the time—it was about dinner time—so he stood up, nudged Henry Howard's foot with his toe, then turned to head upstairs: "Hungry? Want to grab a meal?"

Henry Howard crunched his candy, looked at him and said, "How about a date?"

Ever since they got together, they were always at school, and even on weekends, each had their own things to do.

Even when they went out, it was always group activities—there were so many third wheels, you couldn't even count them, it was basically a whole group, thirty people. Except for that one time when Henry Howard quietly went to Heishui Street to find him, which could barely count as a date, there really wasn't anything else.

Ethan Young had just pulled open the heavy door to the emergency exit when he heard the words "go on a date", and his hand paused.

They were on the seventh floor now—if they'd gone up a couple more steps, they'd be on the rooftop.

Walking out of the emergency exit, they found this floor was all home decor stores, and since it was high up, there weren't many people around. They had to take the elevator down. As they walked, Henry Howard put his arm around Ethan Young's shoulder and asked, "What do couples usually do on dates?"

"You don't know?"

"It's my first relationship, I'm not very experienced."

"Ask Baidu, don't you love Baidu?"

Henry Howard was silent for two seconds: "Enough already, are you ever going to let that go?"

After being mercilessly roasted by Ethan Young, Henry Howard obediently pulled out his phone and searched on Baidu.

The elevator had just left, and was still on the ground floor, so it would take a while to come up.

Ethan Young was holding a test paper, bored while waiting, so he leaned over to look at Henry Howard's phone screen, and saw a particularly embarrassing headline: "Date strategies: How to firmly win his/her heart."

"Eat, watch a movie," Henry Howard read as he scrolled, then stopped after two items, "Let's watch a movie. As long as it's not a horror film, I can watch anything with you."

Besides these main ideas, the webpage also recommended nearby restaurants, and even had tips on what to pay attention to when eating with your partner—like showing your gentlemanly and romantic side through small details, so your other half would be enchanted.

Ethan Young glanced further down, and accidentally saw something at the very bottom of the page, marked in small red letters as the "final step".

Henry Howard finished reading the earlier parts, then scrolled down a bit, his finger stopping at the final step, and saw those two eye-catching words. He started to read out loud but suddenly got stuck: "Get a—"

Get a room.

""

The elevator display showed the floor number getting closer and closer to theirs.

Henry Howard's Adam's apple bobbed as he quickly turned off his phone.

Ethan Young didn't say anything, but even though he looked calm on the surface, when Henry Howard looked down, he saw the tips of his ears were red.

With a "ding", the elevator doors slowly opened.

Ethan Young couldn't say what was wrong with himself—everything just felt off.

Certain thoughts kept bubbling up in his mind, and he couldn't stop them.

Henry Howard coughed and changed the subject: "Shall we eat first?"

When they first started looking for a restaurant, they were still carefully checking if Xavier Stone was around, but after eating, when they walked to the entertainment area, they found there were so many people that if you let go for a second, your boyfriend could get lost in the crowd.

If they ran into him again, that would really be fate.

"He should be exchanging study tips right now," Ethan Young recalled the schedule on the invitation and the corresponding time, and said casually, "Later he still has to give a talk on 'Happy Physics'."

"" Henry Howard hadn't looked that closely before, but now that he heard it, he thought it was pretty wild. "Is that even humanly possible?"

"No idea. We're different."

The entertainment area was mainly divided into an arcade and a cinema.

The cinema was packed, with a long line just to get tickets checked and enter.

Ethan Young picked a movie just based on which one was starting soon, and whether it was a horror film—he didn't care about anything else. In the end, he chose a sci-fi mind-bender that would start ticket checking in ten minutes.

Last time they went shopping at the mall, Henry Howard had already noticed that Ethan Young was really decisive—if he liked something, he'd just grab it, very goal-oriented: "This one?"

Ethan Young didn't really care which movie: "If you want to watch something else, that's fine too."

"This one's fine," Henry Howard said, "They're all about the same anyway." Honestly, his attention probably wouldn't be on the movie anyway.

Since they bought tickets late, all the good seats were already taken, and only the back rows were left.

From the back, all you could see were the backs of people's heads.

After sitting down, Ethan Young immediately reached his hand over to Henry Howard, palm up, the red string still hanging on his wrist, especially eye-catching: "Hold hands, bro?"

Henry Howard noticed that Ethan Young always liked to mess with him when he was in a good mood.

It was noisy all around, everyone chattering away.

It wasn't until all the lights in the cinema went out and the movie was about to start that people finally quieted down a bit.

The plot was pretty cliché, nothing new, the kind where the trailer was a hundred times better than the actual movie, relying entirely on the two leads and special effects. The audience couldn't stay quiet for even half an hour—once they realized it was boring, they started chatting again.

The movie's sound effects were exaggerated, suddenly blasting, then slowly fading away.