Chapter 1268: The color of consequence
Chunhua looked around the modest and decent house she had stepped into for the first time.
"What place is this?"
"Oh this is my second home~ I kinda crash out here now and then."
Even if it was a second home, Chunhua had imagined it would be another luxurious villa like his first home. This small house, as far as Hai was concerned, certainly took her aback. The neighborhood looked just like her own, the same roads and shops here too like in her area.
"Chunhua, Chunhua, should I cook for you?" He blocked her view of the window and asked with a beaming shine on his face.
But she hadn’t forgotten what they were for. "I wouldn’t stay here for much longer," she pursed her lips, still bitter about Hai’s actions. "It wouldn’t look good since...since you might be seeing another woman."
"Another woman?" His eyes widened. "No way!!"
His zealous voice made her jolt.
"No way am I seeing other women! My heart only has my dearest Chunhua!" His nostrils flared.
Her eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint, making him swallow down his throat.
"L-Look, forget the photos that you saw. It was just something that Mom forcibly stuffed upon me to take a look at. But I never did! I promise! I have no interest in dating another woman, much less marrying her. It’s only Chunhua for me! Please trust me."
"Trust you? How? Why? Why should I trust a man who decides everything by himself? It’s a relationship between two people, yet only one person is assuming and then deciding everything. I already don’t have a place in your thoughts."
"That’s not it..!"
Creases spread across his handsome features and a look of helplessness marred his face. His weight uneasily shifted from one foot to the other, his fingers brushed through his hair in frustration, yet he couldn’t form the words he wanted to say to her.
"Chunhua..." he whispered, tired. "Chunhua, don’t leave me..."
He lowered his gaze to his open palms that quivered in the air. "I wanted to see you too. Every single day. So much so that I was going crazy. I wanted to hold your face. I wanted to kiss you a lot. But now when I look at my hands, I...only see them too red. Too crimson. It hurts my eyes."
Though his stare fixed on his hands, his vision seemed to shuffle and blur.
"I don’t like this crimson color. But it doesn’t go away. I keep washing my hands, but it’s...there. Always there like a stubborn stain that I cannot get rid of. And then I thought that I don’t want to hold you with these hands. Then the crimson will get on you too. I...didn’t want to stain you with red like myself, Chunhua. That deep red looks ugly upon you. So I thought that if I waited for a little longer, the stain would eventually wash away. Then I can hold you as much as I want."
An awkward smile met his lips. "But it’s...it’s not going away, Chunhua. It’s not going away anywhere. I am trying and trying and trying and trying, but the more I wash, the deeper the crimson becomes. I don’t know what to do anymore. I guess this is the consequence I am facing of my actions."
He lifted his gaze slowly with a meaningful, wry smile. "You know what I am talking about, right? You might not say it out loud, but you know what I did. I actually...I hadn’t expected for you to realize it that soon. Probably, you would never have if you hadn’t seen me talking to those men outside the crepe shop that day. You joined the dots together and then..." he tilted his head, "Huh. Now that I think about it...I probably got a little angry at you."
His dark eyes gripped her akin to vines curling and twisting around her until escape was pointless.
"Like, why did you have to realize it that early? I wanted to hide it for a bit longer, you know? But you figured it out and as much as I appreciate a smart woman, your intelligence had kind of irked me back then. You are so sweet and innocent. Honest and upright. Coming face-to-face with that side of mine would scare the shit out of you, I thought. That scared the shit out of me in return because I didn’t know what your reaction would be. Say, Chunhua."
He towered over her until his shadow fully consumed her. She stumbled back a step but he had already pulled her waist, wrapping it tightly around his arm.
"You say that I didn’t talk to you and I decided to avoid you all by myself. But if I hadn’t avoided you, then what would you have done? Would you have still allowed me to hold you? Or kiss you? Or would you have pushed me away? Then that would have been a big problem, right?
Because I don’t want to let you go. I would have stopped your escape right then and there. Chunhua, I am very possessive about you. Do you understand that? No, you don’t. You really don’t. You really don’t understand how angry I was when I learned about your marriage setup with him."
Hai chuckled. "Well, I am laughing right now, but I wasn’t laughing back then. Like, it was such a ridiculous notion. As ridiculous as you accepting me for who I am or for who I can be. That’s my fantasy dream, but realistically, any woman would run away from me. But I didn’t want you to run away from me. So I would keep you by my side no matter the cost. Well, maybe you will cry for sometime, but you will eventually accept your fate."
"But I..." his fingers snaked across her cheek to the back of her head, "I don’t want to see you cry either. I might be a danger to the whole world, but I will never lift even a finger against you. But would you believe that after what I did? No, right? You wouldn’t believe me. So what choice do I have? Oh. I get it now..."
A strange light flicked his eyes as if talking his heart out opened the way towards his own realization.
"I guess I was avoiding you to protect you. From me. I laugh most of the time, but I also don’t laugh for certain parts and in those parts, I can get a little crazy, you know? Especially when it comes to you, Chunhua. I cannot think straight when it’s about you. You rattle the calm within me, and when it does happen, I...kind of lose myself in that storm."
