Resisting Arranged Marriages: Starting with Myself - Chapter 19

The sudden tears sent a wave of panic through Ye Jiming. He hurriedly reached out, wanting to wipe them away, but Le Xiao swiped his hand aside.

As if he had finally found an outlet for his suppressed emotions, the words kept bottled up inside for days poured out along with his tears.

“You don’t know! You have no idea.”

“How could you not know? You—”

The emotions came too fiercely and too unexpectedly; he choked up in an instant.

“After returning from Nanfeng Village, we didn’t see each other for so many days. Not a single word was exchanged.”

“What exactly are you thinking? You never say anything.”

“Those days in Nanfeng Village, were you just putting on a show in front of the cameras and everyone else? Was it just to fulfill your duty to the production team?”

Ye Jiming listened, stunned, and hurried to explain, “No.”

“You never say anything, so how am I supposed to know if it is true or not?!”

“We were fake to begin with. You were the one who wanted to play it real for the crew and the audience. Now that I have taken it seriously, are you going to pull away and leave?”

“I won’t allow it!”

It was as if a thunderbolt had exploded in Ye Jiming’s brain, leaving him dizzy and speechless. What did Le Xiao’s words just mean?

He said it himself: he had taken it seriously.

While Ye Jiming was too stunned to recover, Le Xiao grew even more furious at his reaction. A massive wave of grievance surged in his heart like a tide; a salty, bitter taste washed over him, and his throat tightened with bouts of sourness.

Sobbing, he said, “I even told Xiang Nan.”

I even admitted it to my best friend; I admitted that I like you.

But I never got a response from you.

He was crying so hard he could barely stand, clutching the staircase railing as he swayed unsteadily. Ye Jiming watched him, terrified. Taking advantage of the moment Le Xiao’s vision was blurred by tears, Ye Jiming hooked an arm around his waist and pulled him into his chest.

“The stairs are too dangerous. Let us go sit on the sofa and talk, okay?”

As he spoke, he carried Le Xiao over to the sofa and set him down steadily.

Suddenly finding himself in a warm embrace, Le Xiao subconsciously gripped the lapels of Ye Jiming’s clothes, wrinkling the white shirt. Even after his back touched the soft, firm sofa cushions, he was unwilling to let go.

So, Ye Jiming did not let go either. Maintaining that posture, he held Le Xiao in his arms as if he were holding a child.

Perhaps because this position gave Le Xiao an extraordinary sense of security, the emotions filling his chest were finally vented all at once.

“You never say anything, nothing at all! Do you expect people to be the worms in your stomach?”

“I have taken this seriously, yet you have not given me a single promise. How am I supposed to believe you?”

He hammered his fists against Ye Jiming’s chest, “I cannot understand what you are thinking at all!”

Surprisingly, it was not as difficult as he had imagined. The moment he shouted it out, he felt an unprecedented sense of relief.

The two stared at each other for a long time, as if the echoes of that sentence were still vibrating in the air. Finally, Ye Jiming spoke in a low voice.

“I have always felt that one should be a person of action rather than a person of words.”

“Sweet talk can be a dagger hidden in a smile, but actual actions are not.”

“But not everyone thinks the way I do. Moreover, we were together because of an engagement in the first place; I truly should have made a commitment first.”

“It was a lapse in my judgment. I am sorry, Xiao Xiao.”

The tears slowly stopped, leaving a trail of dried salt on his face. Through the last few drops remaining in his eyes, Le Xiao stared blankly at Ye Jiming.

So, the truth was that simple. That was all.

Every bit of care and concern had been his way of loving him.

He suddenly recalled those indulgent, doting smiles; he remembered how Ye Jiming accurately memorized his every preference; he thought of the neatly packed suitcases, the scent of pheromones mingling mint and cedar, the engraved silver ring, and the arms full of roses.

Ye Jiming’s love was like a silent book; the words were not obscure, but one had to read slowly to savor the meaning.

All his previous anxiety, confusion, and insecurity were nothing more than groundless fears. At the thought of this, his temper flared up again.

“Are you stupid? You do things but do not say them; who are you waiting for to guess?”

He continued to vent his fury, “We do not see each other for days; what is the use of you just ‘doing’ things? Can I see it? Can I feel it? You do not say a word, so how am I supposed to know if you have grown cold, or distant, or if you never took it seriously and have been faking it to trick me this whole time?!”

The string of words hit Ye Jiming like a barrage of cannonballs, leaving him dazed.

He muttered, “I thought you understood.”

“You and your ‘I thought’!”

Hearing this, Le Xiao’s anger spiked even further. He roared:

“I want you to tell me you love me with your own mouth!”

After the words left his lips, the living room fell abruptly silent. An eerie, enigmatic silence surrounded them, lingering like thick smoke.

It lasted until Ye Jiming broke it.

He actually laughed.

At first, it was just a slight curl of the lips, as if he were trying his hardest to restrain himself from laughing at such a critical moment. However, willpower could not suppress instinct; the corners of his mouth lifted higher, and his smile grew wider until a low, muffled sound—like a suppressed chuckle—vibrated from his chest.

He lowered his head, hiding his smile in the shadows.

Le Xiao was already regretting his outburst, having accidentally let his innermost feelings slip. Seeing the man laugh only added fuel to the fire.

His cheeks burned, and the skin from his neck up felt scorched. Shamed and incensed like a boiling kettle, he lifted a leg and kicked Ye Jiming in the chest.

“What are you laughing at!”

Ye Jiming’s voice was laced with a laughter he could not stop.

“I am laughing at myself.”

He was laughing at how slow and foolish he had been, thinking the kid had so many complex twists and turns in his heart when the truth was actually this simple. He was also laughing because they were a pair of fools who had been bitterly tormenting each other.

“Stop laughing!”

“Alright, alright, I will not laugh.” Ye Jiming reached out and hugged him tightly, coaxing him softly as if he were a child.

“I love you, Xiao Xiao.”

The sudden confession made Le Xiao’s face turn crimson again, glowing more brilliantly than the evening clouds. Even though his heart was brimming with joy, he put on an indifferent front and pouted, “Why say that now? It is not like I wanted to hear it.”

“It is because I want to say it. Whether Xiao Xiao listens or not, I will say it.”

“I love you, Xiao Xiao.”

“Fine, whatever.”

The two sat quietly on the sofa in that embrace, listening to the ticking of the clock, interspersed occasionally with Ye Jiming’s “I love you,” until Le Xiao finally got “annoyed.”

Even though he was gloating inside—his tail practically wagging with pride—he still had to act unbothered, saying with feigned anger, “Fine, I get it, you can stop now.”

While these confessions were wonderful to hear, what he had shouted earlier was still so embarrassing!

“Alright, alright.” Ye Jiming laughed and kissed his hair. “I will stop.”

He looked up at the time and asked, “Does Xiao Xiao still want to go out?”

“To where?”

“To the movies,” Ye Jiming said. “That was the original plan. There is still time; do you want to go?”

“If you do not want to go, we can just go back to the room and sleep,” he added.

Le Xiao had a vague inkling of something and felt inexplicably nervous.

“I am going.”

Hearing his answer, Ye Jiming was the first to stand up from the sofa. He draped his trench coat over his arm, pulled his car keys from his pocket to fiddle with them, then smiled and reached out, gently pulling Le Xiao up.

“Let us go. We are going to a midnight screening.”

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