How Can Two People From Different Sides Ever Fall in Love? - Chapter 27

Chapter 27

◎ No good deed goes unpunished ◎

After Hollis generously shared the “grapefruit juice” at his lips with Raven, he was kicked out of the apartment along with his luggage.

With a loud thud, the tightly shut door seemed to mock him, as if saying “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Hollis felt his pockets; his palms slid down, finding them empty.

To make sure his act was complete this morning, he really hadn’t brought his keys. He usually forgot them anyway, but this time, the acting had turned into reality.

Since things had come to this, he had no choice but to head downstairs with his luggage.

Inside, after driving Hollis out, Raven rushed to the bathroom and brushed his teeth twice in a row.

A strong minty flavor filled his mouth, the coolness making the back of his head tingle, yet it still failed to overwrite the power of the “grapefruit juice.”

He put on a “mask of pain,” contorting his mouth in front of the mirror.

“Forget it.” He retracted his hand hovering over the toothbrush and returned to the bedroom. He pulled out the cigarettes that had been stored in the nightstand for a long time and went to the balcony. After lighting one, he took a deep drag.

The smoke was dense, curling upward. He lowered his hand holding the cigarette and flicked it twice over the ashtray.

Grey-black marks fell into the crystal ashtray, the transparent texture stained with filth, like black footprints stepped heavily into the snow.

Stains beneath cleanliness appeared particularly glaring.

This was the only ashtray in the house. Ever since Hollis moved in, the balcony had become its permanent home.

Whenever Raven occasionally had a craving, the ashtray was never anything but clean.

In the past, he used to clean the ashtray every single time he smoked; many times, because he didn’t want to clean it, he would endure the craving until it passed.

It seemed that after Hollis arrived, he never had to pick up the ashtray again, nor did he have to endure his cravings.

Raven’s heart suddenly softened, regretting his earlier decisiveness toward Hollis.

Even a criminal facing judgment gets a chance for a final statement. Hollis hadn’t left a single word before Raven hammered down the gavel and pronounced his sentence.

Since this morning, his heart had been fluctuating wildly, and his attitude shifted constantly along with it. Thinking about it carefully now, he was surprised by how fast and how many times he had changed.

New information kept flooding his brain, and his cluttered thoughts couldn’t find a beginning. He felt like he was sinking into a swamp; the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

He found it hard to deny whether his various actions up to now had been a result of taking out his frustrations from this morning on Hollis.

But what exactly he was taking his frustration out on, he couldn’t say clearly.

A relationship that was gradually crossing boundaries but could not be shown to others; the traces of that person in his life were growing more and more numerous—so numerous that a relationship like theirs could hardly carry the weight.

Like a balloon being constantly inflated, once it reached a critical point, it would explode.

Raven was both worried about the arrival of this critical point and waiting for it to happen.

He clearly could have called it off at any time, but he let it be.

It seemed this was the root of his troubles—the loss of self-control.

The person constantly inflating this balloon had always been himself.

The cigarette had burned halfway, but Raven hadn’t taken another puff.

The precarious ash pulled back his wandering mind, and he hurried to reach for the ashtray.

At this moment, he was still thinking that since Hollis wasn’t here, if the ash fell on the floor, he would be the only one left to clean up the mess.

Raven couldn’t help but loathe this side of himself.

The craving was forcibly suppressed. He jammed the remaining half-cigarette into the ashtray, twisting it to slowly crush the embers.

Faint smoke rose slowly, only for a gust of wind to scatter it.

Without the smoke obstructing his view, a figure suddenly jumped out below the building.

Raven was startled, thinking Hollis had returned, until he saw that the man was empty-handed. Only then did he realize Hollis had put the luggage in the car and circled back halfway, betting on whether a person who might not appear would show up on the balcony.

So what if he won the bet?

As it turned out, neither the wager nor the result mattered.

Hollis simply raised his arm and waved to Raven, silently performing the farewell that hadn’t been completed in time.

At noon the following day, at the high-speed rail station, Raven got out of the car with his suitcase and immediately spotted the tall figure waiting at the entrance.

It was impossible to miss; in the surging crowd, very few were taller than him.

Raven tidied up his mood and walked straight toward the figure at the gate.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Just got here.”

A silence followed. Raven discovered that, in fact, he hadn’t tidied up his mood at all.

All that tooth brushing was for nothing; his breath was fresh, but his mind wasn’t clear at all. Making the atmosphere like this felt like going on a business trip with an ex.

“Let’s head in.” Standing here awkwardly, Raven already felt several gazes shooting over. If they didn’t move, passers-by would likely imagine some dramatic scene.

Hollis followed obediently behind him, his gaze repeatedly drifting to the hand Raven had on the suitcase handle, only to restrain himself and look away.

All along the way, Raven felt his right hand was inexplicably burning.

During the wait for the train, Raven rested his arms on the handle, standing in a corner of the hall scrolling through his phone.

The screen stayed on the homepage; his fingers swiped back and forth, but he didn’t know which app to open.

He didn’t have much of a phone addiction; he didn’t usually watch videos or read novels. To him, the phone’s functions were singular and traditional, almost exclusively for communication.

After realizing his attempt to “act natural” at the entrance had failed, Raven suddenly lost all his strength. He could only change strategies and pretend to be very busy. In reality, he was flipping through the screen so fast it almost sparked, yet he couldn’t find a spiritual home among the colorful icons.

Is this the mechanism big tech companies spent so much effort on to entice people to indulge? It’s nothing special; it wasn’t even as attractive to him as You Si’s flat “cat-pancake” face.

And the one who could truly capture his mind was currently standing beside him, quietly watching him play with his phone with a face full of world-weariness.

“Are you hungry?”

Hearing this, Raven slowly looked up. After half a day, this was all the man could squeeze out. Besides caring if he was hungry, cold, or if his hair was dry, did he have nothing else to say?

Actually, he did.

Seeing Raven shake his head, Hollis said again, “About yesterday… are you okay?”

Raven lowered his head, continuing to pretend to play with his phone.

Only this time, he couldn’t keep up the act. His fingertips froze, hovering over the screen, and failed to drop for a long time.

Was he okay?

Raven also wanted to ask himself: what exactly was “not okay”?

The answer was actually obvious; the problem lay in his view of this relationship.

But avoiding conflict had always been his specialty.

He gripped his phone and tapped Hollis’s chest a few times; he had regained his old composure.

“Mr. Councilor, discussing private topics during work hours is prohibited.”

Hollis emphasized, “Today is Sunday.”

Raven retorted, “We are on a business trip.”

“We are only on the way to the trip. Tomorrow is the official meeting time.”

Raven tucked his phone away and crossed his arms. “Then how are your preliminary preparations going? Time and location confirmed? Contacts made? Documents ready?”

Hollis looked elsewhere, not wanting to respond to his empty questions.

He spoke as if he hadn’t participated in this stage himself clearly everything had passed through both their hands. If Raven wanted to evade the subject, he should at least find a more clever topic.

“This is passive sabotage, Mr. Councilor.”

“This is me following the Labor Law, exercising my right to rest reasonably and legally.” Hollis looked back, sizing Raven up with quite a bit of indignation in his heart. Between the two of them, who exactly was being more passive?

Whenever he encountered a question he didn’t want to answer, he turned into a bastard who only knew how to joke around.

Hollis’s eyes were judging him so obviously that Raven almost laughed out of irritation.

When had he ever received such treatment? It was practically a reversal of the natural order.

“The matter ends here,” Raven raised a hand in a “stop” gesture. “Let’s not discuss this further. From now on, everything is about work.”

Perhaps it was because their public and private lives were so entangled—difficult to cut and hard to untangle—that a “different kind of flavor” lingered in his heart.

“What exactly do you mind?” Hollis was not someone who gave up easily; when it came to Raven, he had an inexhaustible curiosity.

From small things like whether he was thirsty or hungry, to big things like his views and feelings—without exception, he wanted to know everything.

“I mind that our public and private business aren’t completely separated.”

Raven spoke the truth. Hollis was actually stunned; he thought it would take more effort to pry that mouth open, and he hadn’t expected the answer to be so simple.

But he felt the answer was incomplete, yet couldn’t find any other reason. While half-believing and half-doubting, he mostly felt a lack of understanding. “But aren’t we just on a short-term cooperation?”

No matter how much they separated things, wouldn’t they eventually return to the private sphere in the end?

“Since the cooperation started, how many times have we argued over this?”

When had there ever been such a high frequency before?

Hollis couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t understand why a disagreement in work due to different positions had to be expanded to the extent of “not separating public and private.”

But since Raven had said so, perhaps the perspective was different, so the way of looking at the problem was different.

“That’s it?”

Raven paused for a moment, gave an “Mm,” and replied, “That’s it.”

The train arrived at the platform. Hollis boarded first, stowed their luggage, and stood aside at the back row, leaving the window seat for Raven.

They sat adjacent to each other with almost no communication throughout the journey, yet certain occasional actions showed that the two knew each other and were very familiar with one another.

A bizarre atmosphere permeated the area around their seats. Every passer-by involuntarily cast a gaze toward them.

The “most familiar strangers”—everyone’s perception was being distorted.

Sometimes, saying nothing says everything.

After leaving the platform, the ride-hail car was waiting in the underground parking lot. Raven watched Hollis ahead of him, a suitcase in each hand, while he followed behind empty-handed.

Hollis had clearly planned this for a long time; before Raven could react, the bags were already in his hands.

As it turned out, being a “hands-off boss” wasn’t that easy.

Raven couldn’t do it with a clear conscience, but he could even less do the act of tugging and pulling over a suitcase in public.

Getting into the car with a heavy heart, Raven couldn’t help but remember on the way to the hotel that the hotel had also been arranged by the man beside him.

It seemed he was a hands-off boss for the entire process.

“Ah…” Raven suddenly wanted to be of some use, so he opened his mouth, preparing to break the stiff atmosphere. But as soon as he started, even after racking his brains, not a single word he wanted to say could be uttered.

Not long ago, he was insisting on separating public and private; right now, aside from private matters, he truly couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.

“Is the hotel booked?” This was purely making conversation for the sake of it.

Hollis replied calmly, “I confirmed it for you already. Is there something you’re dissatisfied with?”

Raven was silent for a long time, finally squeezing out a sentence: “After we get out of the car, I’ll take the suitcase.”

His intention was to take his own suitcase, but it carried a different meaning to Hollis’s ears.

“I’ll still do it. Most of your things are in my suitcase; it won’t be easy for you to carry.”

Raven: “…”

Why did I have to open my big mouth!

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