At first, Ai felt her chest pounding back and forth akin to a drum player passionately beating his beloved drums with his soul. But she was aware of Jun's presence and how he hadn't left his gaze off her even for a second. She softly exhaled a breath and took a second step on the ladder and then on the third.
Jun watched her cautiously placing her steps with sincerity and courage. If it was before, then Ai would have felt dizzy and collapsed. He remembered the time when Ai fell in his condo the night the lights went out, afraid of falling in a never-ending space.
But now her brown orbs shone far from any hesitation as she met her fear of heights head on.
When Ai reached the last step and pulled out the book from the shelf, her face beamed with joy and with stars glittering in her eyes, she looked at Jun. "I did it! Look, look, I took the book all by myself!"
A warm and doting smile curved on his lips filled with pride. "Yup I saw every second of it. I cannot be more proud of you. Now, step down just like that."
She sheepishly grinned with a goofy smile. "Why do I need to climb down when you are there to catch me?"
"What? Hey-"
But Ai took a small breath and softly jumped off the ladder only to safely land into Jun's warm embrace just as planned. He quickly locked his arms around her waist and secured her firmly. He narrowed his eyes. "Haven't you become daring now?"
"Only because you were right beside me," she innocently blinked. "And look, I am taller than you now," she proudly pointed out.
He raised his brow. "Well what do you want to do with this new gained height, Miss. Zhou?"
She blushed. "I want to fulfill my wish of a romantic scene that I have read in my favorite novels."
"And what that might be?"
Ai chuckled at his curiosity and slowly bent, capturing his lips with hers. She pressed them hard as she grabbed his neck and pulled him towards her. Before Jun could pry open her lips further though, Ai pulled back with a victorious smile on her lips.
His brows twitched with dissatisfaction. "You…"
"I fulfilled my wish! I couldn't do it before because I was so afraid of being in the air, hehe~"
"What about my part of the kiss?" He demanded.
She gave him a look as if it was so obvious. "The taller one in this hug gets to kiss."
He smiled. "You do realize that the shorter one in this hug gets to decide if he wants to let the taller one down or not, right?"
"..."
She coughed and sneakily tried to get down on her own, only that she couldn't with Jun refusing to budge. "Going somewhere?"
"Today is my birthday, you know. You cannot bully a birthday girl on her birthday, you know. You will be struck with lightning, you know."
"You don't excite your boyfriend and pull back when he is about to kiss you back, you know."
"You don't need to always have a retort ready, you know."
"The art of retorting is what I have learned from my talented girlfriend, you know," he smirked.
Seeing her purse her lips pitifully, he snorted and finally let her down. "I will have my fill later when the bottom one will be at the mercy of the top one."
She choked. "Yo-You are a pervert!"
"Only for you. You just realized that?" He laughed. "Open the book."
Ai looked at her prize which she so courageously won by defeating her fear. It was the story of Romeo and Juliet, the same book which Jun had helped her get the first time they met. A soft chuckle escaped her lips as she still remembered how Jun openly expressed his distaste for books with tragedy endings.
She noticed the border of a paper slightly slipping out from the middle of the book. She eagerly opened it and held the page in her hand.
'The first time we met holds a very special place in my heart, Ai. Our story began here. I saw you staring at the bookshelf and hoping the book would fall towards you, sensing your concentration or maybe the ghosts in the library helping you out or a meteorite striking the library and knocking it off for you. The first thought that came to my mind was - This woman has some screws loose.'
"..."
Ai threw a displeased look towards Jun. "How rude."
He lazily said, "Can you really blame me?"
She continued reading.
'You were a weird existence for me. You said it to my face - 'You are not my type.''
She snorted. "Serves you right."
'At that time, I wondered what type of a man this weird woman prefers? So tell me now, Ai. Am I your type?'
Ai coldly stared at him. "My type won't ever say that I have screws loose."
"My type won't stick a cactus in front of my face either but here we are anyway," he chuckled.
She cleared her throat. "I actually never really had a type…"
"Hah!" Jun widened his eyes, incredulous. "Look at you always taunting me before that I wasn't your type. You liar!"
"It was your fault anyway. You always glared at me as if I was laying my eyes on you like a wolf out to eat a rabbit."
"..."
"Just because you are handsome, you thought that every woman was after you. I didn't like that you included me with them because not all women are like that. That was my net of keeping a safe distance from you."
Jun thought back and coughed as he admitted that he was indeed like that.
She is right.
Ai turned the page and read the ending of it.
'But it doesn't matter to me that our first meeting had a bumpy beginning. The only thing I cherish from the bottom of my heart is that morning where you stood near the bookshelf with the sun outside faintly kissing your beautiful face with its soft light from the window. It was that morning, it was your light, it was the gaze of your light brown eyes that tore through the darkness of my past and pulled me out from its clutches. Our first meeting will always be the most special and the most memorable for me, Ai.'
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om