Chapter 1266: One-sided kindness
"Uh? No."
Hai had expected a long and painful pause, but her answer was fairly direct and natural. As if she never second-guessed her response. Which made him genuinely blink in surprise and then widen his eyes too. It was as if the tense atmosphere suddenly fell apart like a thread cleanly snapping into two.
"Ah," Hai couldn’t fathom his own response at this point as Chunhua had completely shaken him out of his zone.
But he quickly regained his lost momentum and laughed. "Of course, of course. I was just kidding~"
Chunhua blinked twice. "I don’t think you were joking."
"Aish, it’s fine. I was just teasing you. It’s fun to tease you," he chirped.
It was evident that she wasn’t satisfied with his reason. She glanced left and right, contemplating in her mind and looked back at him.
"Is that why you weren’t coming to visit me?"
"Ah? Of course not!"
But trust didn’t come to Chunhua too readily because he gave his answer too eagerly.
"You were avoiding me all this time," it was a statement rather than a question.
A faint light in his eyes flashed and went by before anyone’s notice.
"No, no! How would I even think about avoiding my Goddess!" He gasped.
"You said you would never lie to me."
’I would never lie to my Goddess~’
The invisible tension sparked up again that had the illusion of being deflated - but this time that emanated from Chunhua.
"Trust me, Chunhua," he scratched the back of his neck, chuckling, "I wasn’t avoiding you. I was just too busy, that’s all. There is just so much mountain of workload and you know what-"
The rest of his words found no way to escape as Chunhua’s usually timid gaze had strangely grown slightly chillier. Then a long silence dropped. Chunhua clutched the handle of her bag, a flicker passing her eyes.
"I was worried about you. I wanted to talk to you. I don’t have a phone to call you, so I could only wait for you to come to visit. I thought you needed some time to yourself. But then it began to feel odd."
She thought some more and her gaze focused back upon him.
"If...If I hadn’t come today, then how long were you going to continue avoiding me?"
Hai grabbed her hands and shook his head vigorously while laughing it off, albeit nervously. "Of course not!"
"Then when were you going to visit me? Tomorrow?"
"Y-Yes..! I was planning to-"
"The day after? A month after? Or never?"
Hai had trouble breathing for the first time. The more he tried to deflect, the more Chunhua kept the question firm and unshaken in its place. Since he found no place to escape, he eventually forced himself to calm down.
"I had seen you that evening, you know? And I know you saw me too. So I guessed that you knew something when you didn’t admit it to the cops."
"And?"
He blinked once, then smiled. "I figured you might want to think about our relationship."
She stared. "Think about what?"
"Anything."
"But you didn’t talk to me. You never came to visit me. How did you know if I wanted to think about our relationship?"
He visibly stiffened. "I mean...after everything that you supposedly know about me, it’s quite obvious."
"No, it’s not obvious to me. Please explain it to me. I was worried about you, Hai. I wanted to talk to you. Not necessarily about that evening, but just talk. I couldn’t sleep too well in the past month because I couldn’t see you. I didn’t know how you were doing or if you were eating well. I kept waiting for you, but you never came. So I came here myself despite knowing it was extremely rude to barge into your home like that."
His eyes widened. "No, no! It’s not rude at all!"
The pin-drop silence that followed felt more unnerving than even the most vicious time in the underworld he would have spent till now.
Chunhua slowly continued. "I was happy that day when you listened to me talking about my dreams. Since I was little, there was always this sentiment around me wherever I went that I would never be heard because I am a woman. Not by my parents, not by the world. When you listened to me that day, I thought I met a man who was willing to talk to me. Who wouldn’t look down on me. Who wouldn’t...decide my decisions by himself."
He froze.
An awkward smile came onto her lips as her eyes threatened to ache. "But you decided it anyway. You weren’t any different from the world who keeps telling me what I should think and feel. I never told you I needed to think about anything about us, yet you decided it all by yourself. You never came to talk to me, yet you one-sidedly thought it was something that I wanted. But it was you. You wanted to avoid me all along, and now you are saying that I wanted this?"
"Ch-Chunhua, it-it’s not like that..."
"And then you..." her lashes trembled, mistiness forming in the corner of her eyes, "kissed me now. Why? Why did you kiss me if you are avoiding me? You can ignore me..but a-also come so close to me as if nothing happened? Wh-what do you take me as?"
When he saw a tear slip past her cheek, Hai knew he had fucked up. Massively.
Panicked and breathless, he held her shoulders, but she took a step back, leaving his hands frozen mid-air.
Chunhua lowered her gaze. "I will take my leave."
She walked past him, and Hai could only blankly stare at the empty void ahead. Then he turned around in a rush and grabbed her arm.
"Chunhua! D-Don’t go! I-I am sorry! I am really sorry! I am an idiot. I am a super big idiot! Please...please stay..." he swore he could collapse at any time out of pure suffocation.
Chunhua didn’t respond. She reached out to his hand that held onto her arm, quietly tearing it away from his grasp.
"Please convey my apology to Liling that I couldn’t stay back for the snacks."
A chilly air bitterly slapped his face as her back retreated into the distance. She paused near the table, lifting a sliver of hope within Hai.
"I think...one of those women would match you better."
Hai followed her gaze and felt like he was dropped straight to the icy hell. The pictures of some women that his mother had forced upon him to take a look at carelessly lay on the top. He knew what those women were for and so did Chunhua.
Her footsteps then clicked away, yet Hai remained standing where he was. A few minutes later, Liling hopped back in.
"Ta-dah! Freshly baked cookies by yours truly! Ah? Where is Chunhua?" Liling pouted, confused. "And why are you looking like you just saw a ghost, Bro?"
"Aaahhhhh...!!!"
Liling’s eyes widened, taken aback by the sudden shift in his mood. "W-What’s wrong with you?"
But he stormed past her and grabbed the photos, tearing them off with a clenched jaw. The torn pieces violently dispersed in the air as he threw them away with the force of his anger.
"Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!"
