TIMO - Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Fu Zhao understood. The greatest effort she needed to make now was how to face a sober, mischievously-inclined Shi Nan with a normal and friendly attitude.
Under Shi Nan’s direct gaze.
Fu Zhao released her hand and stood up. She did her best to maintain her composure, trying not to walk stiffly over to the coffee table on the balcony. She poured a glass of warm water and carried it over steadily.
“Would you like some water?” Fu Zhao placed the glass on the bedside table, meeting Shi Nan’s gaze which clung to her. She nervously fiddled with the hem of her clothes.
Shi Nan didn’t speak, just stared at Fu Zhao quietly. She propped herself up, seemingly trying to sit up in bed.
Fu Zhao quickly took a few steps forward, wanting to place a pillow behind Shi Nan’s back. But as she reached out, she saw that Shi Nan had already sat up steadily on her own. Unsure of what to do, she could only stand there stiffly like a log again, curling her fingertips as she retracted her hand.
“The water… is getting cold.”
She was clearly just trying to make conversation. How could water that had just been poured from a thermos get cold so quickly?
Shi Nan must have noticed she was grasping at straws. Her gaze landed lightly on her, innocent and pitiful. “Aren’t you going to feed me?”
Although Fu Zhao knew Shi Nan’s request stemmed from a mischievous whim.
She still subconsciously picked up the glass from the bedside table after hearing those words. She sat on the edge of the bed and, meeting Shi Nan’s unwavering stare, brought the glass with the straw to Shi Nan’s lips. “The water is forty degrees. You should try it first.”
She didn’t know why she had done that so instinctively.
Perhaps it was because Shi Nan, huddled under the covers, looked so thin and pale that it truly made one’s heart ache.
Or perhaps it was because when Shi Nan had just spoken, her voice was audibly hoarse, which couldn’t help but remind her of the scene she had witnessed when she rushed over last night.
This was indeed her oversight, something she couldn’t ignore.
“The doctor said there was a faint smell of blood on you, but no other external injuries, so you might have… bitten your tongue in your haste.” Fu Zhao noticed Shi Nan’s gaze fixed on the straw and had no choice but to explain. But after saying the words “bitten your tongue,” she found herself unable to continue.
She paused, and the words that tumbled out carried a heartache she couldn’t ignore herself. “…So I thought it might be more comfortable to drink with a straw.”
“But that’s just what I think. It might still hurt even with a straw. If you don’t want to use it…”
Before she could finish, Shi Nan, who had been in a daze, bit down on the straw and began to drink the water in small sips.
And so, the one left stunned was Fu Zhao.
She stared blankly at Shi Nan’s careful sips, at how Shi Nan watched her while drinking, at the moisture gradually welling up in those tea-brown eyes. She watched as Shi Nan’s long, curled lashes grew damp, and the corners of her eyes slowly turned red.
Fu Zhao kept watching, stunned, until the tears that had been swirling in Shi Nan’s eyes, large as beans, finally overflowed. One by one, like a string of beads, they fell from her eyes.
They fell into the glass she was holding, creating circles of ripples.
They fell onto the back of her hand holding the glass, scalding hot, then slid off her hand, drop by drop, landing on the white duvet cover and leaving marks.
Only then did she realize that Shi Nan was crying.
Fu Zhao panicked. She wanted to pull the glass away, but Shi Nan kept biting the straw, refusing to let go. Not daring to use too much force, she could only follow Shi Nan’s movements, holding the glass without daring to move an inch.
She immediately averted her gaze, fixing it on the scenery outside the window, no longer looking at Shi Nan.
Some people don’t want to be seen when they cry.
Perhaps Shi Nan was one of those people.
After all, someone who would try to end their life by jumping into the sea couldn’t possibly be like the person she usually saw, always smiling at others, even if that smile sometimes carried a hint of mischief.
But she felt that Shi Nan was probably someone skilled at hiding her emotions.
Therefore, Shi Nan probably wouldn’t want to cry in front of others.
So, she should wait. Wait for Shi Nan to finish crying, wait for the glass of water in her hand to be finished.
At first, there was no sound, only the hum of the air conditioner in the room and the sound of drinking water.
But after a while, a heart-wrenching sob emerged.
It was clear she was trying her best to hold it in, but it still escaped with the sound of her drinking, mixed with sniffles and whimpers that came from her throat.
The heat on the back of her hand was constant. Large, scalding tears fell ceaselessly onto her hand, then dripped down from its side.
Fu Zhao felt that these scalding tears might have seeped through the back of her hand and into her heart.
Why else would her heart feel like it was soaking in tears, wrinkled and bitter?
Her gaze remained fixed on the scenery outside the window, but her thoughts were uncontrollably chaotic. All her attention was inevitably focused on Shi Nan.
An overwhelming wave of heartache washed over her, causing a fine, dense pain to spread through her chest.
Unstoppable, impossible to calm.
She thought for a long time, remaining silent for a while. After the sounds from Shi Nan’s side quieted a little, she spoke. “The criminal has been caught and locked up. He’ll be extradited to the Federation later. According to Federation law, he’ll be sentenced to life in prison. In the future…”
She noticed the dryness coming from her own throat, paused, and then continued, “On Nanke Island, or anywhere else, you will never see him again.”
Fu Zhao pressed her lips together tightly and added, “I promise.”
With that “I promise,” Fu Zhao seemed to hear the sound of the straw falling back into the glass. Then, the sound of crying that reached her ears suddenly grew much louder, as if she had released all the breath she had been holding back, letting the sound out and crying freely.
Her cries became heart-wrenching.
She placed the empty glass on the bedside table and accidentally glanced at Shi Nan.
The person who had just been determinedly biting the straw was now hugging her knees, her entire face buried in them.
Fu Zhao couldn’t see Shi Nan’s condition; she could only judge by the sound whether she was doing any better.
She moved a little closer, wanting to reach out and pat Shi Nan’s back, but her hand froze in mid-air as she extended it. She didn’t dare to touch her.
She wasn’t sure if Shi Nan could accept physical contact right now.
So she promptly withdrew her hand, stuffing it back into her pocket. Her voice was soft when she spoke, her words chosen with extreme care, just to show that she was still there. “By the way, the doctor said your gland is recovering very well. It should be back to normal in a day or two. A little swelling is normal. Also, you need to change the dressing twice a day, avoid spicy and greasy foods, and don’t drink anything cold…”
She recited Doctor Liu’s instructions from yesterday in their entirety. Shi Nan’s crying also subsided, no longer as heart-wrenching as before.
The room fell silent again.
It was so quiet it seemed the only sounds left were her own breathing, which she was trying to hold but still escaped, and Shi Nan’s occasional thick, nasal sniffles.
Fu Zhao pressed her lips together, thinking about what Doctor Liu had said about the Heat. After much deliberation, she braced herself and spoke, though her tone was still unnatural. “Right, the doctor also said…”
“Because your gland was stimulated…”
“Maybe… maybe…”
As she spoke, she found it hard to continue, as if saying the word “Heat” would burn her mouth.
But perhaps her hesitation was a bit strange. Shi Nan, who had kept her head buried in her knees, finally looked up. She wiped the tears from her face and looked at her with red eyes, her voice thick with congestion. “What’s wrong?”
“…Is there something wrong with my gland?”
“No!”
Fu Zhao hurriedly denied it. Now, no matter how embarrassing it was, she had to spit it out quickly. “It’s just that because it was stimulated, your next Heat might come early. Nothing else, I promise!”
Hearing this, Shi Nan let out a sigh of relief. She lowered her lashes and said softly, “That’s good.”
“If it’s just that, it’s still barely acceptable.”
Fu Zhao could clearly sense Shi Nan’s mood recovering, and she too breathed a sigh of relief. She quickly pulled a few tissues from the bedside table and handed them to Shi Nan, stammering, “Do you want to… wipe your face?”
Shi Nan paused, then silently took the tissues from Fu Zhao. She spread them out one by one and covered her entire face with them, hiding her red, swollen eyes.
Shi Nan didn’t say anything else, probably afraid her voice would betray the fact that she had just been crying.
Just like how she was now covering her face with tissues to hide the traces of her tears.
But even so, the tissues were gradually soaked through with tears.
Fu Zhao knew this clearly. She looked at Shi Nan, catching a glimpse of her tightly clenched fingertips and a sliver of her thin, pale wrist peeking out from her sleeve. It was red from being pressed, likely from hugging her knees for too long. She moved her lips but ultimately said nothing more.
She should give Shi Nan some time.
If it were her, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her in such a wretched state either.
A long time passed.
Just as she was staring at the roses swaying gently in the wind outside the window, and just as the thought “I need to water the flowers this afternoon” crossed her mind, Shi Nan suddenly moved.
“Fu Zhao.”
Her name was called out of the blue. Fu Zhao followed the sound and looked towards its source. Shi Nan abruptly pulled the tissues away. The moisture in her tea-brown eyes had receded considerably, and the light had returned to them.
Like flower petals revitalized after the rain, like the vibrant soil of spring.
“Since you’ve already seen me cry.”
“Then it wouldn’t be too much to ask for a hug now, would it?”
Fu Zhao thought she must have misheard, or that the normal Shi Nan was back to her old self again.
But that wasn’t it. She couldn’t, in good conscience, look into Shi Nan’s earnest eyes, at her knuckles white from clenching her fists, at her wrists red from being pressed, and say the word “no.”
“Forget it… pretend I didn’t say anything.”
Shi Nan didn’t hear Fu Zhao’s answer, but she knew that with Fu Zhao’s personality, she would only refuse her.
She felt like she wasn’t herself right now. How could she feel aggrieved over not getting a hug? Yes, that was it, aggrieved. She found that whenever she was with Fu Zhao, this feeling of being “aggrieved” occurred more frequently.
She hadn’t felt aggrieved when the criminal was chasing her.
She hadn’t felt aggrieved when she fought back, when she bit her tongue until her mouth was full of the taste of blood, when she kept running but couldn’t reach safety, or even after she was rescued.
But as soon as she was with Fu Zhao, she started to feel aggrieved.
Lying on Fu Zhao’s back, she wasn’t scared at all, only a little aggrieved.
When she woke up and saw Fu Zhao, she was happy and relieved, but surprisingly, that was also accompanied by a bit of aggrievement.
She thought this feeling was negligible, but when Fu Zhao said she had switched to a straw because she was afraid it would hurt, all the grievances she thought were nothing suddenly converged.
And these grievances could actually make her cry for so long.
She wasn’t used to it.
Nor did she quite know where this feeling of being aggrieved came from.
It was an emotion she had never felt in front of anyone else.
But she couldn’t deny that when her carefully worded request was rejected, she started to feel aggrieved again.
She turned her head away, not looking at Fu Zhao, but couldn’t help but say in a soft voice, “If you don’t want to, then just say so. What’s with the hesitation? Just find an excuse, say you’re not used to physical contact, or that you’re shy, can’t you?”
She rattled on and on, but then immediately realized those weren’t words she should be saying. She quickly pressed her lips together as if to deny what she had just said, because it didn’t sound like something she would say, nor was it her usual tone.
In short, she wouldn’t look at Fu Zhao, and she wouldn’t speak to Fu Zhao.
But the next second, her wrist was grabbed, and her body was pulled closer.
It happened quickly.
Almost before she could get a clear look at Fu Zhao’s expression, she was suddenly pulled into an embrace. Her chin rested in a warm shoulder nook, and the breathing by her ear became much lighter.
It wasn’t a comfortable hug.
After all, her knees were still bent and unmoving.
And Fu Zhao’s upper body, holding her, was as stiff as a block of wood.
It was as if she had been forcefully dragged over, shoved into Fu Zhao’s arms. And Fu Zhao wasn’t even looking at her; she was even holding her breath, not daring to exhale.
Very stiff.
Their first proper hug was this stiff.
But Shi Nan still felt a sense of joy, and her previous feeling of aggrievement instantly dissipated.
Perhaps it was because from this angle, she could clearly see Fu Zhao’s ears, flushed bright red, and her ramrod straight back.
Perhaps it was because if she didn’t speak, Fu Zhao would be too embarrassed to let go.
Perhaps it was because when she placed her hands on Fu Zhao’s shoulders, Fu Zhao suddenly shivered, her shoulders tensing up even more.
She couldn’t help but feel cheerful, and she began to feel her own heartbeat slowly accelerating-thump-thump, thump-thump… steady and strong, gradually picking up speed.
Shi Nan thought she was a bit strange. Otherwise, why would her heart race in such a stiff hug?
She was just too strange.
She looked at the roses swaying in the wind outside the window, at the curtains gently rustling in the breeze, and comforted herself this way until the hug ended.
Until after the hug was over, the light in Fu Zhao’s eyes flickered gently as she looked at her and stammered,
“Okay.”
Shi Nan was stunned and asked, “Okay what?”
The temperature on Fu Zhao’s face rose rapidly, the redness on her earlobes never having faded. She answered, “We can hug.”
Shi Nan blinked, realizing. “Is this… acting first and reporting later?”
“…” Fu Zhao pressed her lips together tightly. After a long moment, she finally squeezed out a single word. “…Yeah.”
Shi Nan looked at Fu Zhao’s awkward expression and felt as if her heart had been struck by something soft. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t handle it, this pure and adorable Fu Zhao.
And so, under Fu Zhao’s surprised gaze, she grabbed Fu Zhao’s hand, pulled her over again, and rested her chin gently in that warm, soft shoulder nook. With a smile in her voice, she softened her breathing and whispered,
“But I’m the kind of person who likes things to be done in order.”
“So, since you said yes, we’ll just have to hug one more time.”
Get instant access to all the chapters now.
Comments
Post a Comment