"Big Brother..."
The boy pressed his lips together.
His anxiety was plain to see.
He had said too much.
Why explain his name at a time like this?
What he wanted to know more was... did this white-haired girl... really know Ya Ya?
He had spent so much time with Ya Ya...
He had had no idea that Ya Ya had a friend like this...
He suddenly realized...
In a situation like this...
He had actually gained a sense of sudden clarity.
Back then...
He had been the one with only Ya Ya as a friend.
He had been the one who needed Ya Ya's company more.
But in the end... he had also been the one who abandoned Ya Ya.
The boy's fingernails dug into his palms.
A faint pain seeped into his nerves.
Yet it was nothing compared to the suffocating feeling in his heart.
He understood why he had acted that way back then.
If he could do it all over again...
The boy froze.
He realized...
Even if he could do it all over again...
He still didn't know whether he would have the courage to make a different choice...
That realization drenched his emotions in a basin of cold water.
His whole body gave a shudder.
"Are you cold?"
Noticing the boy's shudder, Xiao Xiao asked.
Although the temperature had risen lately,
and the sun was shining brightly,
the air still held a slight chill.
The lingering chill of early spring had not completely faded yet.
Xiao Xiao looked at the boy's clothes.
He was wearing a jacket over a hooded sweatshirt.
He didn't look thinly dressed.
"Huh?"
The boy blinked.
"I'm not cold."
He didn't understand why Big Brother had asked that.
"Is that so?"
Xiao Xiao raised