Chapter 9 [Wren's POV]

Cole had only lost once in junior competition, and the root cause was my absence.

That day I was bedridden with a high fever and couldn't make it to the match. In his rush out the door, he'd forgotten to bring the silver sugar pearl with him. By evening, he burst straight into my family's basement apartment, drenched in sweat, his face dark as storm clouds gathering before a downpour.

"You weren't there."

My nose was completely blocked, making my voice sound muffled and nasal. "I had a fever."

He slapped the tarnished silver sugar pearl onto my nightstand, his tone unshakeable. "I lost today because of you."

Mom stood to the side, caught between a rock and a hard place—on one side her sick daughter, on the other the young master from upstairs. She couldn't afford to offend either party and hurried to smooth things over, only to be cut off by Cole.

"I'm not blaming her. I'm just stating a fact."

For an eight-year-old to speak in such cold, clinical terms left Mom momentarily speechless. He leaned down to study me where I lay in bed, his cheeks flushed red from the cold wind on the court. Clearly he'd come straight here without a moment's rest after the match.

My chest tightened with an ache. I tried weakly to protest. "It's just a sugar pearl..."

"It's not the pearl. It's you." He cut me off, his tone carrying no anger, only an unassailable certainty—as if he were stating a fact as obvious as the sun rising in the east.

From that day forward, the notion that "I was his lucky charm" became carved into both our hearts. This recognition had once made my younger self secretly pleased—no one had ever considered me indispensable before. But as the years passed, I came to understand that this binding was a heavy shackle. His victories and defeats were entirely tethered to me, leaving no room for the slightest error.

That autumn, a sudden downpour trapped us in the glass conservatory.

The rain came without warning, a violent deluge hammering against the glass dome overhead. The open-air walkway was cut off by curtains of water, leaving us no way out. Inside the conservatory, the light was dim, only gray-blue rain mist seeping through. Cole didn't seem to care. He sprawled lazily across the old velvet sofa, legs crossed.

"You can't leave anyway."

I sat on the floor hugging my knees, wrapped in an old blanket he'd tossed my way. The fabric carried the scent of sunshine mingled with the faint leather smell of tennis equipment that clung to him. The sound of rain sealed off the outside world, and the thoughts I'd normally be too shy to voice began to flow naturally.

"Why do you have to win so desperately?"

He stared for a long time at the rain streaming down the glass before finally speaking in a low voice. "Only when I win does my father bother to look at me. If I lose, he can go an entire week without speaking to me."

My heart clenched suddenly. I'd always thought the young master living upstairs, who seemed to have everything, had no troubles at all. But it turned out he too lived under harsh expectations. All that coldness, all that competitiveness—it was armor he'd put on just to earn a moment of his father's attention.

I told him quietly about my own father, who would ache with concern even if I scraped a knee. Cole turned to look at me, his eyes churning with raw envy, his tone carrying a childlike longing. "Can I borrow your dad?"

I agreed without hesitation, and he immediately added a possessive declaration. "Then you're not allowed to leave either. You and your father—you both belong to me."

The rain continued its endless patter. Water vapor fogged the glass, and he reached out a finger to trace the letters C and W on the misty surface, enclosing them tightly in a circle. Then he quickly wiped it all away, pretending nothing had happened. But I saw that circle clearly.

Back then I'd thought it was just a child's game. It wasn't until years later, standing at his doorstep making that transaction, that I suddenly understood—the circle drawn in that rainstorm had long since bound our two fates together.