Our younger one takes the blame for everything his brother does, and seems happy to

Broken flower pot yesterday. Juice on the sofa last week. Each time I ask who did it, the little one immediately says 'me', and his chettan lets him. The truth comes out later, usually because the small one can't keep a story straight for more than ten minutes. I don't think the elder is forcing him. If anything the younger seems proud of it, like he's protecting his big brother. But I don't love that one of them is learning to hide and the other is learning to cover. How do you handle this without making the younger one feel he did something wrong by being loyal? They're only a year apart and do everything together, which is mostly lovely.