Chapter 7 (2/2)

I was still silent.

I wanted to cry. I really wanted to cry.

He started wiping at the tears that had already rolled down my face and was a bit caught off guard.

“I–. Hey, don’t cry! I…”

I held him tight, a child who was younger but stronger than me. His shoulders were even wider than mine.

He was shaking all over as he held me back even tighter. We parted only when I could not breathe properly.

We looked into each other’s eyes, two black and the other two pink from crying, and I felt a little awkward.

“You have bunny eyes.” It sounded like he was teasing me.

I bit my lips, not because I was sad this time but because I was angry. I hadn’t cried for, what, twenty years?

We were fighting in this room just before. He used to be… Who would have known this day would come?

He stared at me like a vulture staring at a dead body.

I got even angrier. I was older than him, all right?

He lunged towards me and hugged me again.

I really had zero experience. Experience with intimacy, I mean. But I found out then that it was very cozy.

His scent was one of a boy’s, the scent of youth.

With his head on my shoulder, he murmured, “I really like you. I have for a long time.”

“Mhm.”

“You knew?” He pushed us apart and pouted.

“Huh?” I didn’t. I had no idea how things came to be the way they were. Had he liked me before? That little thug with the sticky, yellow hair who caused a ruckus in my shop every other day or so? Somehow I was not too surprised.

Without much thought, I patted his head. It was just a head of short, fuzzy hair but it looked cleaner this way.

He blushed a little and hid back into my arms.

“I just knew you were the same as me. But I wouldn’t have had to go through all that if only I knew you’d be this easy. I should’ve just went for it back then.”

Went for it? Back then? Hah, I’d like to see you try to go for it when I karate chop you to death.

“Yo, I know even if you don’t say it. You looked down on me back then. Would act like you saw a ghost or somethin’.”

He tightened his grip and my waist started hurting from his constraint. I wiggled around but he wouldn’t let go.

“Ouch!” I felt a sharp pain on my shoulder: the b.a.s.t.a.r.d bit me. “Are you a dog or something?!”

“Oh, now you talk?”

His scorching gaze, his black eyes seemed to glow faintly but I could not see the bottom of them.

“Qian Jiying, let’s do it.”

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