Chapter 6 - You Saw Tian Yuo? (1/2)

”Chen Mu, you're acting weird.” Susu crossed her arms and gazed fixedly at him as a child would when looking at something that fascinates them. Her eyes wandered from the box of masks, to the kitchen, and back to the nervous man whose arms were still cornering her.

Hearing his slight gulp, her smile that didn't reach her eyes remained consistent, ”Well? Don't tell me you're actually here for the masks and fluffy pancakes.”

After a while of hesitating between more lies and a quick truth, he chose to be honest. ”Okay, I'll quit beating around the bush.” His arms raised up in the air as if he was waving his white flag to surrender under her interrogative tone.

He sighed and gently settled her onto the edge of her couch before kneeling down in front of her. ”Before I go any further with this conversation, I want to tell you that I have absolute faith and truth in you. And just because I am asking you these things, doesn't mean that you are obligated to tell me anything. I don't need to know what you don't want me to know.”

The awkward, yet sincere tone that he held when speaking already told her where this conversation was going. She closed her eyes, let out a huge sigh, and faced him again with a faint smile, ”You saw Tian Yuo didn't you?”

”Yes.” A straightforward answer is the best choice he has because there was literally no point carving circles to figure out her thoughts. He already told her that she can say whatever she wished and keep anything she didn't want to disclose to herself.

Her lips closed together, forming a horizontal line, ”I'm guessing he told you about the whole drug thing and the accusation against me.”

”Yes.” Once again, he answered without the slightest hesitation.

”You trust that it wasn't me who drugged Tian Yuo? Everyone knows how much I loved him and the many years I've devoted my effort into trying to make this work between us. Why didn't you suspect me?”

”Do I need any evidence to believe in you? I know you long and well enough that you aren't this type of person. Even though you're still hurting from having to give up on Tian Yuo, you wouldn't do something pointless to tie him down. You know that with his personality, he would never show you even the tiniest bit of sympathy.”

He kept his eyes focused on her expression, not missing any seconds of it. He knew she had a habit of hiding her true feelings from everyone, including him. Therefore, he had to make sure his attention was 1000% fixated on every single action that she makes.

Another heavy sigh left her mouth, ”It seems like even though I knew the both of you around the same time, you know me better than he does. I admit that I couldn't completely bless Karen and him together because a part of me still hoped that he would like me back. This part of me...” she pressed the tip of her fingers to her chest and closed her eyes to feel her beating heart.

”This part, right here, hurt the most when he said that he wouldn't ever marry me because he loved Karen. All this time, that I've tried my best to become the best me to match him, he was already set on Karen. At that moment, I felt like I was so close to finishing up construction of a building, but this wall tumbled over and I'm back to square one. Even worse, I felt like I didn't even have square one to work on because the investor refused to give me a second chance.”

Her long eyelashes followed her eyelid and lifted upwards, revealing a pair of sorrow filled eyes, ”I admit that I would be lying if I never hated Karen, but I realized that someone who never belonged to me would never be mine. So, instead of dwelling on a past love that is meant to be locked away or meant to be forgotten, I wanted to embrace this truth. This was one of the reasons why I attended the engagement party.”

Seeing her small figure tremble slightly and her fingers nervously rubbing against one another, he attempted to interrupt her to make sure she wasn't pushing herself to say things that she wished to keep private. Noticing his parting lips, she smiled slightly and squeezed his top and bottom lips together with her fingers, ”Let me continue.”

Feeling the coldness of her fingertips, he nodded slowly.

”Regardless of the past years of efforts that I've spent trying to perfect myself to meet his standards for a girl, at the very end, he only grew more distant from me. I could tell that he felt pure disgust when looking at me with the cold glare from that morning. From his impulsively said words, even a stranger would be able to tell how wronged he felt.”