Aethel Hospital, Hawthorne Group.
It was approaching noon, and many family members were coming in to deliver meals.
Leah Sinclair walked into the ward carrying a thermos lunch box and a soup container. She called out first, "Uncle, Ash, I’m here. I stewed this fresh fish soup all morning. Drink it quickly while it’s hot."
She placed the soup container and the lunch box on the bedside table, then took out disposable bowls and spoons from the cabinet below to portion out the food.
"Leah, we have a guest. Let me introduce you," Ash Sinclair said.
Leah turned her head, only then noticing a man sitting to the side.
She hadn’t paid attention earlier; at a passing glance, she had assumed he was just another patient’s family member. Against the glare of the window, she couldn’t see his features clearly.
The man was incredibly tranquil. With such a tall and slender figure, he should have commanded a strong presence. Yet, sitting there, he seemed to effortlessly blend into the light. Behind him, the sheer window curtains billowed like sails before slowly falling back down.
When the light shifted and wasn’t so blinding, she finally saw his face clearly.
She suddenly recognized him. "You’re the driver from the other day?"
He smiled. "I didn’t expect you to be Ash’s sister."
Ash widened his eyes. "You two have met before?"
"A couple of days ago, I happened to cover a taxi shift for Phillip Pierce, and my passenger just happened to be your sister," Josh Sterling said with a smile. "What a coincidence."
Ash laughed as well. "Back in high school, I was always inviting you over to hang out, but you flat-out refused. Otherwise, you would’ve met my sister ages ago."
Leah was completely lost.
Ash walked over and slung an arm over Josh’s shoulder. "Leah, this is my best friend from high school, Josh Sterling."
Leah dutifully greeted him. "Nice to meet you, Josh."
"The pleasure is mine." Josh offered a warm nod, then turned to Ash. "Your dad needs to have his lunch. I won’t intrude any longer."
"Hey! What’s the rush? It’s been years since we last saw each other." Ash grabbed onto his arm and turned to Leah. "Leah, is there extra soup? Serve a bowl for Josh."
"Yes. I made plenty." Leah hurriedly ladled a portion into a disposable bowl and handed it over. "Careful, Josh, it’s hot."
Josh took it. "Smells delicious. It’s been years since I’ve had home-cooked soup."
Leah quickly said, "Take your time, there’s still a lot left."
While her brother and his friend chatted on the side, Leah fed the soup to her uncle.
Her uncle’s body was incredibly weak after the chemotherapy. The illness had come on suddenly, and the heavy medication had practically hollowed him out. Quentin Sinclair wasn’t that old—not even sixty yet—but getting this disease had aged him over a decade in an instant, leaving him so exhausted he couldn’t even speak.
Seeing her uncle looking so frail and worn, Leah’s eyes grew red. Not wanting him to notice, she desperately held back her tears.
He had gone through one round of radiation therapy, but it hadn’t completely eradicated the cancer cells. He would need at least two or three more rounds. However, in his current physical state, he couldn’t withstand a second round of chemo or radiation. They had to use the new medication.
When on earth would they be able to get their hands on that drug?
Nearby, Ash was saying to Josh, "Back then, you’d keep me company at my night stall and read extracurricular books during the day. I never even saw you study, so I figured you were at the bottom of the class. When you ended up ranking first in our grade, it scared the crap out of me."
Josh chuckled.
Ash continued, "It wasn’t until later that I found out you’d already taught yourself the entire high school curriculum during middle school, and by high school, you were studying college courses from Country A."
Wanting to distract herself, Leah glanced over at them. She knew all of her brother’s friends, but she didn’t have the slightest impression of this particular person.
Ash said, "Leah, you were just in your first year of middle school back then, so you probably don’t remember. There was this one time you came with me to the night stall and some street thugs came to cause trouble. I never let you tag along again after that. When Josh found out, he came to help me run the stall every single day. He went abroad in our second year of high school, but he even asked his childhood friend, Phillip Pierce, and the others to keep helping me out."
Leah tilted her head and asked, "I used to bring you soup and herbal tea all the time. Why didn’t I ever see Josh?"
"Him?" Ash laughed. "He was trying to act all cool for some reason back then, wearing a face mask every day. People actually thought he was hideously ugly. One time, a teacher forced him to take it off in front of everyone, and guess what happened?"
"What happened?"
"The moment he took the mask off, all the girls in the class screamed for a solid minute." Ash burst into roaring laughter.
Leah laughed along, her eyes crinkling into little crescents. Her gaze shifted to the side, landing on Josh’s face.
His features were striking—sharp yet gentle, aloof yet approachable. The way he looked at people was like an old friend saying hello, carrying a distant, elusive sense of familiarity. Never before had anyone given her such a contradictory yet harmonious feeling.
As Leah stared, her cheeks suddenly grew hot.
Ash was still talking about high school, bringing up a few old classmates. Leah listened from the side, the spoon in her hand slowly stirring the soup in her uncle’s bowl.
"My mom used to make all different kinds of soup every day, but I didn’t like drinking it back then, so she had Leah bring it to me," Ash said with a smile. "She’d come over every day during the morning exercise break and stand in the hallway, watching me finish it before she’d leave."
Josh listened in silence, his lips twitching into a faint smile.
Leah suddenly remembered something. Back in middle school, she had to go to the high school department to deliver soup during the morning exercise break every day. The hallway had been very long. At the end of it, there had always been a tall, slender boy wearing a face mask, resting both hands on the railing as he looked out at the sports field. His expression was always nonchalant, leaving her wondering what he was thinking about. She would walk right past him, but he never once turned his head.
And there was another time. She had been helping a teacher grade test papers until late. On her way home, she was followed by a few street thugs. They threw vulgarities at her and let out loud, creepy laughs from behind. Terrified, she had stopped halfway and broken into a dead run.
Just as she worried she wouldn’t be able to get away, a loud noise erupted from behind her, sounding like a fight breaking out. She couldn’t help but look back, only to find a high school student wearing a face mask brawling with those men.
It was one against six. Those thugs seemed out for blood, and one of them had even pulled out a pocketknife. Yet somehow, that single boy managed to take down all six of them.
Standing in the distance, she had hesitated before taking a few steps forward, wanting to see if he was injured. He slowly turned his head and gave her a look from afar, his voice frigid. "Don’t come over. Leave."
His cold, sharp gaze had rooted her to the spot. After staring blankly for a long moment, she suddenly turned and ran, never looking back.
Leah snapped out of her memories and stole another glance at Josh. He was looking down, listening to Ash speak. The lines of his side profile were clean and sharp, his gaze highly focused. She suddenly wondered if he was that masked boy from all those years ago.
After Leah finished helping her uncle with lunch, it was time for him to rest again. Ash quietly pulled the blanket up over his father and lowered his voice. "Come on, let’s go downstairs and get something to eat."
The three of them found a small restaurant near the hospital, where Ash and Josh continued catching up.
Reuniting after so long, Ash had a lot to say. Though Josh didn’t speak much, he didn’t seem cold. On the contrary, he gave off the impression that he was more than willing to listen.
The topic shifted around before finally landing on Josh.
"After the summer break in our first year of high school, you suddenly stopped showing up. I was really worried about you."
"Did Phillip tell you? My grandmother was critically ill that year. I had to go to Country A with my uncle, and I just stayed there to study after that."
"What have you been doing in Country A all these years?" Ash asked.
"Studying. After I graduated, I found some work to do on my own."
"Like what?"
"I advise clients on investment funds. What about you?"
"Me? I used to run a stall selling phone accessories, and now I manufacture them." Ash laughed self-deprecatingly, looking exhausted and resigned.
"Being a boss isn’t easy. I’d rather just work for someone else," Josh said understandingly.