But Ryan Cooper wasn’t wrong—he really was a handful.

Thinking of this, Ethan Clark’s expression turned a bit dejected. When Ryan Cooper reached out with an alcohol swab, he shrank back and apologized softly, “Sorry.”

Ryan Cooper didn’t respond to his apology. Instead, he reached out with his other hand to hold his chin. “Don’t move.”

As soon as he said that, Ethan Clark really didn’t move, but his thoughts began to wander. He remembered how, back in school, whether he won a speech contest or got knocked down playing basketball, Ryan Cooper—who was always present—never took the initiative to come over. They both took their roles as strangers very seriously.

So now, Ethan Clark even felt a little grateful for the sudden asthma attack on the first day of school, which forced them to make their complicated relationship public. Walking together now felt perfectly justified.

Seeing him spacing out, Ryan Cooper asked, seemingly nonchalant, “Did it taste good?”

Ethan Clark snapped out of his thoughts. After hearing this, he was certain that Ryan Cooper was making fun of him.

“I inhaled it by accident,” he frowned.

The scene reminded Ryan Cooper of when they went to the dentist together as kids. Ethan Clark had eaten so much candy that his mouth was full of cavities. Grace Miller took them to the dentist, and as soon as Ethan Clark heard the sound of the drill, he’d open his mouth and wail, clutching Ryan Cooper’s hand and refusing to let go.

Ryan Cooper kept wiping, his tone unhurried. “What did it taste like?”

“Hami melon flavor,” Ethan Clark described honestly. “At first it was sweet, but then it got kind of gross, like fever syrup.”

He could actually describe it in such detail.

After speaking, Ethan Clark spat out a bit and wrapped it in tissue. “Could it be that the person who made the pen refill guessed someone would try to inhale it, so they made it sweet on purpose?”

Ryan Cooper glanced at him. “If you’d known earlier that pen refills were sweet, maybe you wouldn’t have needed to see the dentist. Eating this like candy wouldn’t give you cavities.”

He was being teased again, but Ethan Clark completely missed the point. “Did I go to the dentist when I was little?”

Unbelievable—how could he forget crying like that? Shouldn’t it be something you remember for a lifetime?

“Your childhood memories are really fuzzy,” Ryan Cooper said.

Ethan Clark didn’t comment, but grabbed his wrist, his voice muffled with saliva, “So what? Don’t you remember everything?”

“Anyway, my childhood is yours.”

Ryan Cooper was momentarily stunned.

Ethan Clark didn’t think he’d said anything important. His feet were still moving; he couldn’t sit still. Ryan Cooper fell silent again, pressing down on his restless knee and carefully wiping the ink from between his teeth with the damp swab.

With his knee held down, Ethan Clark lowered his head and caught a glimpse of Ryan Cooper’s empty wrist—there was no watch, the one he’d given him.

“You’re not wearing your watch?”

Ryan Cooper didn’t answer right away, so Ethan Clark asked again, “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

This persistent questioning reminded Ryan Cooper of the first time Ethan Clark gave him the watch. When he refused, Ethan Clark had asked him with the same direct expression.

“Why don’t you want it?”

“Brother Xiaoyu, don’t you like it?”

Ethan Clark was even more innocent as a child. Holding the watch’s gift box, he’d look at it himself, feel satisfied, then look up and ask, “Isn’t it nice? I asked the lady at the counter to help me pick it out. She promised me you’d definitely like it.”

Ryan Cooper didn’t dislike it, but he knew that for an elementary schooler, that was a lot of money. He could have bought himself many things instead of spending it on a watch for someone else. He also knew that telling Ethan Clark this would be pointless—he was a silly, stubborn kid.

So he decided to talk directly to the sales clerk.

“Hello, I’d like to return this. I haven’t used the watch, and I have the packaging and receipt. According to the store’s policy, it should be returnable.”

A cute mixed-race kid coming to buy a watch alone had already left an impression on the sales clerk. Now his older brother was handling the return with a maturity beyond his years—it was hard not to find it remarkable.

“Of course,” the clerk smiled. “May I see—”

But at the counter, Ethan Clark suddenly shouted “No!” and plopped down on the floor, hugging Ryan Cooper’s leg and begging him through tears. At first, Ryan Cooper was still stern, handing the receipt he’d prepared to the clerk, but Ethan Clark cried so miserably that even the clerk couldn’t help but suggest, “Maybe you should talk to your little brother first?”

Ryan Cooper thought for a moment, then squatted down and took a pack of tissues from his backpack, handing it to him. “Why are you crying?”

“You—you don’t want my present.” Ethan Clark sobbed, getting more and more upset. “I didn’t even finish saying happy birthday, and you—you just…”

Seeing he was about to cry again, Ryan Cooper quickly said, “It’s not that I don’t want your present.”

Ethan Clark was suddenly choked up, his big eyes brimming with tears as he listened.

“It’s just that this gift is too expensive. Spending like this isn’t sensible.”

Maybe one day, looking back, he’d regret his first big purchase in life.