Evan Carter's lips also quietly curved up.

"Then next time your dad brings you here, remind him about it." The Homeroom Teacher laughed along. "Alright, you two can sit down."

Ryan Grant nodded in response. As he pulled out his chair, just about to sit, he suddenly noticed Evan Carter standing not far away.

He paused: "Do you want the seat on the outside or the inside?"

Their eyes met.

Evan Carter quickly suppressed her smile and hesitated, "The inside, I guess."

The classroom wasn't very big.

The desks were divided into four groups, each with seven rows and two columns. There wasn't much space left in the last row; the chairs were pressed up against the wall, so if you wanted to get in, the person on the outside had to make room.

Ryan Grant didn't say anything, just stepped aside to let her in.

On the podium, the Homeroom Teacher started speaking again: "Let me introduce myself again. I'll be your Homeroom Teacher for the next year, and also your chemistry teacher." As she spoke, she patted the blackboard. "This is my name."

On the blackboard, the three characters "David Bennett" were written neatly, along with a string of phone numbers.

Evan Carter took out paper and pen from her backpack and carefully wrote it down.

After a while, the boy in the front row suddenly leaned back, his elbow resting on Ryan Grant's desk. He seemed to know Ryan Grant, and turned his head slightly, grinning cheekily: "Sang girl, your name really does sound pretty girly, huh."

"..."

Evan Carter was taken aback.

She immediately remembered what David Bennett had said when she first entered the classroom.

—"The only ones left on the list are you and Ryan Grant. I think this name sounds more like a girl's."

Hearing this, Evan Carter's attention fell on Ryan Grant.

He was tall, and sitting in this cramped spot, his long legs couldn't even fit under the desk, making him look awkward. One leg was simply stretched out to the side. His eyelids drooped, always giving off a sleepy and slightly impatient vibe.

He was staring at the boy with a blank expression.

"Hey, it's not me saying this, it's what the teacher just said. But now that she mentioned it, the more I think about your name, the more it makes me dizzy." The boy tried hard not to laugh. "If you were a girl, I'd definitely hit on you."

Ryan Grant looked him up and down, then lazily replied, "Ethan Brooks, don't you have any self-awareness?"

Ethan Brooks: "What?"

"If I were a girl, you think I'd go for a toad like you?"

"..." Ethan Brooks's face instantly darkened. He was silent for three seconds. "Get lost."

Evan Carter was distracted, listening to their conversation, and felt like laughing.

The tone even reminded her of when Ryan Grant had just called himself her senior and called her "junior." She paused, muttering "shameless" in her heart.

At this moment, David Bennett was called out by another teacher.

With the authority figure gone, the classroom's chatter gradually grew louder.

"And about my name," Ryan Grant wasn't done yet, continuing, "My old man spent seven days and nights flipping through the Chinese dictionary, held over a hundred family meetings, and after all that—"

Evan Carter propped her chin on her hand, her mind gradually drifting off, listening to him word by word.

She heard him pause for a few seconds, then finish in a lazy tone: "Finally picked the manliest character."

The noisy background brought a sense of security. Evan Carter stared at the words in her notebook, sighed softly, and commented under her breath, "Turns out it's still not as manly as mine."

"..."

Ethan Brooks snorted sarcastically, "Then why don't you just call yourself Sang Manly?"

For some reason, Evan Carter was hit by a wave of laughter, lowering her head to laugh silently. After a long while, she suddenly realized that Ryan Grant hadn't responded to Ethan Brooks's words.

Silence.

At this moment, he was so quiet it was as if he didn't exist.

She instinctively looked at Ryan Grant.

Only then did she notice that, at some point, Ryan Grant's gaze had shifted to her. His dark, slightly cold eyes, with specks of sunlight falling at the corners, still didn't soften his expression.

His stare was direct and unrestrained, with a hint of scrutiny.

Evan Carter's heart skipped a beat.

What's going on?

"..."

Did he hear what she just said...

No way?

Couldn't be, right?

Before she could come to a conclusion—

Ryan Grant tapped his fingertips lightly on the edge of the desk and drawled, "Ah, right. I haven't had the chance to ask yet."

Evan Carter held her breath, gripping the pen in her hand.

"New deskmate?" Ryan Grant tilted his head, sounding a bit arrogant. "What's your name?"

Chapter 5

Evan Carter still vaguely remembered.

Back then, after she casually reported her name, Ryan Grant just dragged out an "ah" and didn't say anything else.

Thinking about it now, she could still imagine his thought process at the time. Probably first—"I want to hear just how manly your name is," then—"Evan Carter?", and finally—"Oh, so that's all."

That arrogant, untouchable look was almost exactly the same as now.

But maybe because he was older now, he wasn't as expressive as he was in his youth; or maybe it was just because they hadn't seen each other in years, and things had grown distant between them. Compared to before, the indifference on him now seemed to cover all his emotions.

Just then, the subway station arrived.