The man's expression was indifferent, his facial features sharp and well-defined. A faint smile played on his lips, but it never reached his eyes, making him appear gentle yet unapproachable. His slightly upturned peach blossom eyes held light brown irises, exuding a hint of allure when his gaze was lowered. Completely different from her brother's deep black eyes. She had expected to see her brother, but instead, she was met with a stranger, while her brother was nowhere to be found. For a moment, Lily's mind went blank, unsure of how to react. The scene seemed frozen in time. Neither of them moved. Before long, the man lowered his eyes again, slowly and methodically extinguishing his cigarette, his demeanor relaxed and lazy. He didn't seem inclined to speak, remaining silent as he got up to open the window for ventilation. Watching his actions, Lily, feeling lost, hesitantly called out, "...Brother?" That was their first meeting. Later, she would come to understand that he was her brother's best friend. At thirteen, Lily secretly fell for a man. The man had a cold and lazy air about him, spoke with a casual drawl, and often came to her house, spending entire afternoons in her brother's room playing video games. Whenever she went in to deliver fruit or snacks, he would lazily lift his gaze, smiling devilishly, "Kid, what's up with you? You blush every time you see me."
Chapter 1 Plastic Surgery
The scorching sun blazed in the sky, and the cicadas' cries pierced the air.
Inside a classroom on the second floor of Sunny School.
Robin stood at the podium, holding a large teaching triangle ruler while giving his lesson. His shirt was already soaked with sweat.
The air was so hot it felt like it could bubble. The ceiling fan whirred loudly, but even the wind it produced seemed scorching.
The students below looked drowsy, their eyelids heavy with fatigue.
Robin was growing impatient.
"Look at the blackboard." Noticing a girl in the third row zoning out, he frowned slightly and smacked the ruler against the board with more force. "Did you hear me? Look at the blackboard!"
Several students who had been on the verge of dozing off jolted awake, forcing themselves to focus.
Yet, the girl in question seemed oblivious. She kept her head down, absentmindedly sketching with a pencil.
She had a delicate, innocent face-still youthful, giving her a soft, adorable look.
Her posture was upright, her demeanor calm and composed, the very image of a model student.
-That is, if you ignored the fact that she was treating her teacher like thin air.
Robin's frown deepened. He continued his lecture, his voice tight with frustration.
"Angle one equals angle two, angle three equals 108 degrees-"
He was nearly finished explaining the problem, but she still hadn't looked up.
Robin's patience snapped. He slammed the triangle ruler onto the desk.
A loud bang echoed through the classroom.
The students flinched collectively, and the already tense atmosphere turned to stone.
"Lily!"
The girl named Lily finally looked up, meeting Robin's gaze for two seconds before calmly putting her pencil down and standing up.
Robin clenched his jaw, attempting to restrain his irritation. "What did I just say?"
Lily glanced at the diagram on the blackboard, her expression unruffled. "Angle four equals 72 degrees."
Robin had been tricked too many times by her obedient act to fall for it again. He tapped the desk with the ruler, sneering, "I haven't even taught that yet!"
"..."
Lily felt a little troubled. "Then... why did you call on me?"
Robin shot back, "What do you think?"
Lily pondered for a few seconds, then guessed, "Do you not know the answer?"
Robin, "..."
Lily, "Do you want me to explain it to you?"
Robin, "?"
"I see," Lily nodded in understanding, then turned to the blackboard. "Since angle one equals angle two, AB is parallel to CD. When two lines are parallel, the consecutive interior angles are supplementary-"
Robin couldn't take it anymore. "If you're so smart, why don't you take my job?"
Lily blinked in mild confusion. She opened her mouth, hesitated for a second, then said hesitantly, "But I can't take away your livelihood."
"..."
Silence stretched for three seconds before the classroom erupted in laughter.
Robin was livid. "Quiet! All of you, shut up!"
The students, however, were too entertained. The classroom buzzed like a marketplace, and a few boys in the back row started cheering-
"Teacher, I think it's a great idea! Let Lily take over!"
"Does that mean no more homework?"
"Can I just stop coming to school altogether?"
Robin roared, "Enough!"
He turned back to Lily, his breathing heavy as he fought to keep his composure. But in the end, he couldn't hold back his frustration.
"Lily, bring your parents to school tomorrow!"
-
The dismissal bell rang.
Robin stormed out of the classroom without looking back, his expression thunderous.
Since it was the last class of the day, most students had already packed up, eager to leave.
"Why did you mess with Bald Robin again?" Her friend, Iris, rushed to her desk the moment the bell rang. "You know he loves calling parents for the smallest things, right? It's only halfway through the month, and your mom's already been here twice."
Lily stuffed her notebooks into her backpack and zipped it up forcefully. "I don't even know what I did wrong."
Iris gawked at her. "You don't know?"
Lily scowled. "Didn't I answer his question?"
"Yeah, but your answer was asking for trouble!" Iris burst into laughter. "Saying, 'I can't take away your livelihood.' Even I would want to smack you."
Lily scoffed. "Then you're just as unreasonable as him."
"Hey, seriously though," Iris said, "why weren't you paying attention? And how do you always get caught?"
"Doesn't Baldy's voice sound like a lullaby to you?" Lily yawned as she slung her backpack over her shoulders. "If I actually listened without doing something else, I'd definitely fall asleep."
"..."
Iris had to admit, that made sense.
Before she could say anything else, her gaze flickered toward a group of boys standing at the school gate. She changed the subject.
"By the way, are you coming to the bookstore?"
Lily gave her a sideways glance. "For what?"
"Alexander invited you," Iris said, grinning. "Along with some guys from Class Six. We're all going together."
Lily repeated, "For what?"
Iris huffed, "Are you coming or not?"
Lily, "Not."
"Why not?" Iris bumped her shoulder playfully. "Alexander is kinda cute, you know."
The two walked side by side.
Hearing this, Lily's expression became difficult to describe. "You should get your eyes checked."
Iris protested, "What's wrong with my eyes? It's not just me-lots of people think he's handsome!"
Lily nodded and sincerely suggested, "Then you guys should go together."
"..."
As she spoke, Lily pulled out her phone from her backpack. She hesitated before typing out a text to Andy,
[Brother, you haven't been home in a while. When are you coming back? Can you come home tomorrow? I miss you so much TAT]
Iris, oblivious to her actions, sighed. "So you're really not coming?"
"Nope."
"They're all waiting at the gate, you know..."
"You can go if you want." Lily said absentmindedly, still staring at her phone. "I'm not in the mood today."
Iris hesitated. "Is it because of the parent-teacher meeting? What are you going to do? Maybe call your dad this time?"
Lily shook her head. "They won't come."
"Huh? Why not?"
Lily kept her eyes on her phone, waiting for Andy's reply. "I'm not telling them."
Iris reminded her, "But if they don't come, Bald Robin will call them himself."
"It's fine."
She was about to say, 'I'll call my brother instead,' when her phone vibrated.
Andy, [?]
Andy, [No, I can't.]
"..."
-
At the school gate.
Iris waved goodbye and walked toward Alexander's group.
Alexander's expression darkened as he stared at Lily's retreating figure. He asked the obvious, "Lily's not coming?"
Iris nodded. "She got scolded and isn't in the mood."
Alexander's eye twitched. "She got called in again?"
"Yeah."
"..."
She was catching up to him in record time.
As a delinquent, his reputation was at stake!!
Alexander stood frozen for two seconds, then suddenly turned back toward the school.
Carl, one of the boys, called after him, "Hey! Where are you going?"
Alexander paused, then stomped back, smacking Carl on the forehead. "I told you to read more books!"
Carl instinctively clutched his head. "?"
"..."
On the Other Side
Lily continued texting Andy-furiously scolding him for being heartless and abandoning his thirteen-year-old sister, who still lacked the ability to take care of herself. All for the sake of attending college, he had completely left her to fend for herself.
She waited for a while.
Andy didn't reply.
She waited a bit longer.
The ruthless Andy still hadn't replied.
Lily gave up completely. She got on the bus home and began deliberating how to explain to her parents that this was the third time this month she was being called in for a parent-teacher meeting.
How should she put it?
Should she say it was because she was too outstanding, and the teacher got jealous?
Or maybe that her words in class had been misunderstood, causing the teacher to feel insecure about his career?
Or perhaps that the weather was too hot, the teacher was too idle, and he just wanted to invite the parents over for tea...
Lily ruffled her hair in frustration.
None of those sounded quite right.
She looked up and realized her stop had arrived.
Lily got off the bus, dragging her feet as she walked toward home.
Stepping inside, she was immediately overwhelmed with nerves upon seeing the familiar surroundings. It suddenly felt even harder to explain herself.
At that moment, her mother, Rose, called from the kitchen. "Liz, is that you?"
Liz was Lily's nickname.
Lily responded and sluggishly took off her shoes, too distracted by her worries to notice the unfamiliar pair of sneakers on the shoe rack.
Rose called again, "Liz, come here for a second. Help me with something."
Still preoccupied with her thoughts, Lily absentmindedly replied, "What is it?"
"Take this plate of fruit to your brother's room," Rose said as she walked out of the kitchen. "Your brother is back-"
"Mhm... What?" Lily suddenly snapped back to reality, her pitch rising in surprise. "Brother is back?"
"Yes."
This unexpected turn of events left Lily in shock.
A surge of excitement flooded her chest. The cold and heartless Andy, at this moment, was instantly rebranded in her mind as a warm-hearted, secretly caring, and perfect older brother.
Rose continued, "When you go in, be mindful, your brother brought-"
"Okay, okay!" Lily didn't have the patience to listen any further. She grabbed the plate of fruit and dashed toward Andy's room. "I got it! I'll bring it to him right now!"
Rose watched Lily's uncharacteristically enthusiastic back disappear, murmuring in confusion, "What's with her today..."
Elated at the thought of avoiding a scolding from her parents, Lily couldn't help but smile as she eagerly pushed open Andy's bedroom door.
The room was bright and spacious, filled with warm sunlight streaming through the windows.
Almost instantly, the air was tinged with a strong scent-warm and familiar at first, but then quickly overtaken by the rich, pungent smell of tobacco. The scent was so strong that Lily instinctively coughed.
She wrinkled her nose and scanned the room.
In the dimly lit corner, a slender man lounged on the couch beside the desk, his head tilted downward as he looked at his phone. With the sunlight behind him, his figure was dark and indistinct. One hand rested on the arm of the couch, holding a lit cigarette between his long fingers, the ember glowing red.
His frame was similar to Andy's.
But unexpectedly unfamiliar.
Lily stopped in her tracks, blinking uncertainly. The words "Brother" hovered on the tip of her tongue but never came out.
Just then, the man lifted his gaze.
At that moment, she saw his face clearly-and inexplicably held her breath.
His expression was indifferent, his features sharp and well-defined, carrying a faint smile that never quite reached his eyes. He looked warm, yet somehow unapproachable.
Slightly upturned, peach blossom-shaped eyes. Light brown irises. His gaze was deep and alluring, holding a trace of mischief.
Completely different from her brother's deep black eyes.
She had expected to see her brother, but instead, she saw a stranger-her brother was nowhere in sight.
For a moment, Lily's brain short-circuited. She didn't know how to react.
The air seemed frozen in time.
Neither of them moved.
After a moment, the man lowered his gaze again, lazily putting out his cigarette. His expression was relaxed, showing no intention of speaking. He stood up and walked toward the window to let some fresh air in.
Watching him, Lily felt lost. She hesitated before tentatively calling out,
"...Brother?"
At the word, the man paused mid-action, raising a brow.
His gaze fell on Lily, staring straight at her. His peach blossom eyes carried a gentle glimmer, yet a hint of amusement flickered in them. Then, the corners of his lips curled up as he drawled in response-
"Hm?"
"......"
That one syllable struck Lily like a bolt of lightning.
All the unanswered questions in her mind suddenly formed into a terrifyingly clear picture.
A brother she hadn't seen in months.
And when she finally saw him again-he looked like this.
She couldn't believe it. She felt as if she had turned to stone. After a long silence, she finally forced out a single word,
"You... You..."
She paused for a few seconds.
Swallowing hard, Lily cautiously finished her sentence-
"Did you get plastic surgery?"
"......"
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