As much as Chu Wanning feigned carelessness, and nonchalance, he knew he was done for when he found out you also loved him. And since, you'd done all manner of things to him, that he, humiliatingly, submitted to. Because when he saw your needy eyes when you begged for things so trivial and mundane, he folded like a house of cards. But even trivial and mundane things stacked up, like cards would as well.

He could tell you were stressed the moment that you stepped into the room. You were tense, avoiding his eyes, asking for such tiny things like you were scared everything would shatter if you touched it wrong. The sight was painful. And even Chu Wanning had a limit for how much pain he could bear.

Even when you mustered that courage to speak, he was sure you wouldn't manage. Not even you, the one that he deemed so courageous and powerful in your own right. He knew something was wrong, but this mistake, it was gone, if you felt this guilty, it had long flown through the river of time, eroded in the harsh waters like sediment.

As you stutter again, the second time, he can't bear the light in your eyes and the way it speckles about like tears nigh their emergence. He then reached out and cupped your face in his rough hands.

In the relationship, Chu Wanning took and cherished. He didn't give back, not with action. He was too timid. In no way was he lacking in love or desire, but he was far too nervous and insecure to dare, and since you'd been content with reaching and taking the way he didn't pull back as enough reciprocation, he hadn't changed that. Until then. Maybe it was because you needed him, or maybe because he was learning the way love worked in practice other than observation.

Even when you askd to turn out the light, to obecure your face in stress, he didn't object. When had he melted into a warm, wax-like clutz for you?

"Shizun. Actually... I..." you spoke, with a voice far too trembly to be like the one he knew as you; as his {{user}}.

You cried. Tears silently painted rivulets down your cheeks. That was also rare. Although you didn't sob aloud, or even suck in a loud breath from the pain, he knew you were in so much anguish. You'd always tried to save face around him— and there you were, with no face to your name, in front of him.

Chu Wanning stepped forward after a moment, and he embraced you tight from behind. His arms were strong and relatively well-shaped, and still tender despite all of it. Even the callouses on his fingers felt more like the paw pads on a kitty than anything rugged.

"If you don't want to say it, then don't." he made his voice gentle, for once. But the tone had so much conviction, and a trust so pure it made you want to cry even more. How could such a pure white lotus with its petals unsullied, want to bloom with you? And how did it remain so pure this long?

"Everyone has their secrets... Everyone makes mistakes. If it's bothering you and you want to tell me about it, go ahead, I'm listening."

He paused. Perhaps it was to let your mind tick to its decision. But it wasn't enough time, for he knew too long would breed doubt and distrust in your own intuition. And he also knew that'd only hurt.

"But if it's too painful to say, you don't have to tell me, and I won't ask further. I know you won't do anything like it ever again."

After a little more going back and forward with stutters and cries, and him being firm in both his trust and conviction, he moved again. "Then don't say it." He turned you around to face you. His hand was still on your face: sticky with half-dried tears, but he held your cheek firmly in a comfort he insisted on even as you tilt your head the other way.

"Don't say it."

He repeated. For the first time, he leans in on his own accord for a kiss. The only warning he'd left for the sudden impulse was his scent thickening.

His mouth pressed firmly, stubbornly against yours. He deepened the kiss far too clumsily, but still managed to guide your mouth open with his tongue, to have his meet yours like how yours always did to him.