How Can Two People From Different Sides Ever Fall in Love? - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

◎ Woof ◎

After dinner, Raven rejected Hollis’s invitation to go out for a walk, choosing instead to lie on the sofa to digest.

Compared to Raven, who would stay still as long as he could, Hollis’s eyes were full of chores.

Not counting the work finished in the kitchen, in this small apartment, traces of his cleaning could be found almost everywhere.

When his stomach felt empty enough, Raven lazily got up and padded to the bathroom in his slippers, preparing to shower. He had his pants halfway off when the door suddenly opened.

The person inside the door and the person outside the door both froze on the spot.

At this moment, the shirt stays on the thighs of the person inside the door had not yet been removed, clipping both sides of the shirt hem to pull the wrinkles flat. To stand steadily, the muscles of his thighs were slightly tensed, forming a subtle contrast with the smooth fabric.

What met the eye were black shirt stays and white thighs; the person outside the door gave a forceful roll of his Adam’s apple, his gaze burning, licking the exposed skin of the person inside like a tongue of flame.

“Mr. Councilor, entering without knocking is not the behavior of a gentleman.” Raven was stunned for an instant before naturally stepping out of the other pant leg.

“It’s because you didn’t lock the door. I came in to get something; as soon as I pressed the handle, it opened…” Hollis spoke as if he had a mouthful of fire, feeling his throat burning. When he opened his mouth, heat rushed straight out.

During the meeting today, no matter how he had fantasized about Raven’s appearance under his formal suit, it couldn’t compare to seeing it with his own eyes at this moment.

“So, I have wronged the Mr. Councilor. Correcting a mistake is also one of the principles of a gentleman. What does the Mr. Councilor want me to do to earn your forgiveness?”

Hollis only felt a hot current surging through his four limbs and hundred bones. Uncontrollably, he stepped forward and stood in front of Raven, his tall frame enveloping Raven within his shadow. He reached out his hand, hovering it over the shirt stays.

Before touching someone else’s things, he first sought consent: “Shall I help you take them off?”

Raven accepted readily, saying with a beaming smile: “The honor is all mine.”

Hollis knelt down, his heavy breath hitting the thighs before him. The muscles on the legs trembled accordingly, and his breathing grew even heavier.

He replaced the owner’s hand, gently undoing the clips.

Two red marks were left hanging there; Hollis did not reach out to touch them. He said he was taking them off, so he was only taking them off.

In an undisciplined atmosphere, he chose to act with discipline.

He removed the shirt tensioners and raised his hand to place them by the washbasin.

Immediately, he knelt on one knee and lifted the residence of one of the red marks, supporting the community of a shared future for mankind.

A moment later, a certain reaction suddenly descended upon the community of a shared future for mankind.

Hollis paused for a second, tilted his head slightly, and faced the final fig leaf of the community.

Even if the fig leaf covers the truth, one must remain in high spirits, nodding in greeting to fellow travelers and leading them to co-create a harmonious future for human society.

Thus, the fellow traveler for a moment could not help himself, actively responding to the call of the times, loosely grasping his ankle while simultaneously choking the community of a shared future for mankind.

Bronze and cold white skin; people of different skin tones can also have hearts linked as one, just like a lotus blooming out of the mud.

His eyes heated up, and he looked deeply at the man with whom he was co-creating a beautiful future.

It seemed that as soon as the man gave the command, he would go forward without hesitation, rushing into the waves of the era, sinking into the depths of the mud to pluck a single lotus.

But the fig leaf had not been removed, and the truth wanted to emerge but could not. The road ahead was bright but tortuous; they still had a long way to go.

So the lotus, taking advantage of his daze, gave him a shove out of the pond.

By the time Hollis regained his senses, he was back outside the bathroom.

He pressed the handle again; as he wished, this time it was locked.

The movement of the door handle elicited a sneer from Raven.

In reality, he wasn’t doing much better himself, only being able to use the cool water temperature to extinguish the fire in his body.

Cold on one side, hot on the other; he couldn’t help but shiver, breaking out in a layer of goosebumps.

The water flowed down his torso and limbs rapidly, sliding over the hottest spot. He let out a short, sharp breath.

Though the move was risky and caused eight hundred damage to himself, it was enough to inflict a thousand on the enemy.

He wiped the water off his face haphazardly, slicked his wet black hair back, and Raven lowered his head, curling the corners of his mouth at the floor tiles.

At the moment, his psychological satisfaction occupied the upper hand, making his physiological dissatisfaction insignificant.

Who told Hollis to push him out back in the kitchen?

Having washed away the dust, Raven was refreshed and walked out of the bathroom with large, confident strides.

Small spaces also have the disadvantage of small spaces.

The moment Raven appeared, he saw Hollis holding the hair dryer, standing behind the sofa waiting for him.

He knew he couldn’t hide tonight.

Raven tucked away his smile and sat down obediently, bowing his head slightly to reveal a section of his slender, smooth neck, like a lamb waiting for the slaughter.

Behind him was the butcher, and the hair dryer was the slaughtering knife.

The butcher said nothing, merely holding up the slaughtering knife.

Before the slaughter, as if testing the sharpness of the tool, he turned the nozzle toward his own palm to feel the temperature before greeting the lamb’s head.

The butcher was experienced, his palms were broad, and his strength was naturally not small. Once he started blowing on the head, he couldn’t restrain his vigor.

Raven endured until his hair was half-dry, but finally could not take it anymore. He twisted his neck and quickly escaped the butcher’s devilish claws.

He looked back with a frown, saying with dissatisfaction: “Are you drying a dog’s fur?”

His usually smooth black hair was now fluffy and messy. Without the glasses covering his face, his exquisite features were revealed in their entirety.

His slender neck was further lengthened by the proportions of his V-neck pajamas. Under the light and shadow, his deep collarbones were indistinct.

Hollis unconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva, but when he opened his mouth, he said: “A dog understands human nature better than you do.”

After saying it, he realized he had misspoken and was thinking of how to fix it, when he heard Raven say: “You understand human nature, but you can’t understand human speech, can you?”

He could still counter-attack; it seemed he wasn’t very angry.

Hollis let out a sigh of relief and silently turned Raven’s head back. This time he paid attention to controlling his strength, and Raven said nothing more.

His hair was blown dry, his fair neck flushed with a rosy glow from the steam. Lower down, right in the center of where the neck and shoulders met, was a small red mole.

Hollis ground his molars, leaned down, opened his mouth, and took a bite out of that red mole.

Raven took a sharp intake of cold air and quickly rescued his neck from Hollis’s mouth.

But he was too hurried, and Hollis didn’t release his bite in time, so the piece of flesh he had caught slid across his canine teeth.

Raven felt both tingly and numb. He instinctively reached out to cover his neck and touched a smear of moisture. He looked up and scolded angrily: “Why did you bite me?”

Actually, it didn’t hurt, it was just too sudden; he had been startled.

Unexpectedly, Hollis directly barked at him: “Woof.”

Raven completely lost his temper.

As night fell, Raven tidied his hair and returned to the room, pulling a book from the shelf to read while leaning back in bed.

The bedroom door was wide open, directly facing the bathroom. The continuous sound of splashing water reached him, and a sudden wave of fatigue hit him; the words suddenly began to spin.

He had no choice but to put the book down and stare up at the ceiling. His fingers pressed against the spine of the book, lingering without turning to the next page.

It wasn’t until Hollis’s face was reflected on the ceiling and a broad palm reached over to take his book away.

Only then did he realize someone had entered the room, saying with slight surprise: “You’re finished.”

“Yes. You were reading this book before the business trip; you still haven’t finished it?” Hollis flipped the cover, and the golden-embossed words History of World Costume met his eyes.

“How could it be so fast?” Raven couldn’t explain that as soon as Hollis left, he had barely touched the book, so he just made up a casual excuse.

Hollis followed Raven’s arrangement order and placed the book back on the shelf.

He had just finished his shower and dried his hair; his deep brown curls were even fluffier. From the back, the image of a brown bear was even stronger. On his body was a T-shirt and sweatpants that had been washed until the collars and hems were sagging—he looked “thrown together” from head to toe. Unlike Raven, who would specifically purchase silk shirt pajamas.

However, this man whose life was always “thrown together” would cook, keep the apartment perfectly in order, and regularly buy flowers to insert into a small stoneware vase to decorate Raven’s empty room.

He knew where all of Raven’s things were kept.

Unbeknownst to him, he had already permeated every aspect of Raven’s life.

“You probably won’t reject me this time, will you?” Hollis sat on the edge of the bed, bracing his hands on either side of Raven. He leaned down, and the hot breath he exhaled sprayed onto Raven’s face.

He also wanted to permeate every aspect of Raven from head to toe.

Raven tilted his head, looking innocent: “When have I ever rejected you?”

Hollis let him keep pretending and muttered: “As long as you don’t.”

He no longer sought his opinion, taking his lower lip into his mouth and grinding it a few times with his canines. Taking advantage of his pain, his tongue drove straight in.

After an intense battle, Raven lay prone on the bed, too tired even to lift a finger.

After lying there for a while, he slowly rolled off the bed, pulled open the drawer of the nightstand, caught a cigarette in his mouth, and returned to the same spot to continue playing dead.

Hollis lay on his side behind him, looking fully satiated.

Originally, he had one hand propping up his body while the other combed Raven’s hair—from head to neck, over and over again.

His eyes scanned Raven’s snow-white back, admiring the teeth marks and red traces with a satisfied mindset, all the way down until they disappeared under the thin quilt.

Suddenly his hand met empty air, and he was a bit confused until he saw Raven return with a cigarette in his mouth. He leaned over, hovering above Raven’s profile, and asked: “Why not light it? I’ll help you.”

He thought Raven was being lazy again.

“You don’t smoke.” Raven pressed half his face down, answering vaguely with the cigarette between his teeth, “As a law-abiding citizen of the Olo Federation, not giving others second-hand smoke is my most basic quality as a citizen.”

“I don’t mind.” Hollis started combing his hair again.

Raven gave his head a gentle shake.

His cigarette addiction wasn’t heavy; usually, when work pressure was high, he would have one. He would also find a hidden corner and never show it in public. To this day, likely only Hollis knew he could smoke.

After Hollis moved in, the balcony became his smoking room.

But right now he was truly too tired; he didn’t want to move an inch. He would just taste the flavor as a small comfort.

Afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist the persuasion and would submit to desire, he quickly found a topic to distract Hollis: “Why do you have so many strange habits? It’s been several times—you comb my hair.”

Hollis’s hand paused, first asking: “Are you uncomfortable?”

Raven gave a “Mm”: “Not really. It’s actually quite comfortable, like a scalp massage.”

Hollis started moving again.

After a long time, he said: “When I was young, my mother and I lived in Africa…”

The conversation started, but no reply came. Hollis frowned slightly and leaned over to look—the listener had fallen asleep with the cigarette in his mouth.

He couldn’t help but chuckle, took the cigarette out, tossed it accurately into the trash can, and lowered his head to sniff the scent in Raven’s mouth.

It was still the minty scent from the mouthwash. He gently turned Raven over, pulled him into his arms, and pulled the quilt up to cover his shoulders.

Under the light, Raven’s long eyelashes cast a shadow on his cheekbones. Hollis couldn’t help but count his eyelashes: “1, 2, 3…”

After realizing what he was doing, he laughed silently.

He wanted to reach out and play with that cluster of lashes but was afraid of waking him. He retracted his eager hand and caught sight of a tear mole under the shadow.

It was shallow and small, like an accidental touch of a ballpoint pen. Usually, with his glasses on, it was hidden perfectly; only now did he have the chance to discover it.

Hollis placed a kiss on that tear mole.

In the darkness, a “Goodnight” sounded like a murmur from a dream.

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