The clingy puppy next door suddenly grew into a 1.85-meter-tall psychology expert.
The first time we met again, I died of embarrassment: wrapped in a bath towel, I was dragged into the living room by his golden retriever.
"Big Sis," he crouched down to meet my eyes. "I hear you've been obsessed lately with using younger men as experimental subjects?"
When I called myself an "old lady" and turned him down, he pulled out the "Little Brother Care Manual" I'd written as a child. "Rule Seven: When your little brother grows up, he has to be your boyfriend."
At an academic forum livestreamed to the whole internet, he boldly declared, "The stability of my emotions can be attributed to one thing: I was spoken for from childhood."
I covered my face and fled, and behind me I heard his amused whisper: "Big Sis, that contract you signed twenty years ago... In psychology, that's called the anchoring effect."
