Astonishment was the context of the theme today. Lu Xinyi couldn't place if her guilt was heavier or anger. Agitation rushed faster than blood in her veins. 

How could he just a.s.sume just anything? She had wanted him as a friend and had treated him like one, she had never given him any mixed signals to think otherwise!

No, she couldn't succ.u.mb to his unreasonable wish she will decline him but...but she couldn't lose him as a friend. She felt selfish but once in her life, she wanted to be the one who is selfish in their decision!

Lu Xinyi stopped pacing and held her forehead. It was messy!

Yu Youhan had just left. She had to go to him as a friend but she needed to get her thoughts straight first.

Lu Xinyi turned her head and glared at the paper-covered painting. It was going to make it more complicated than it already was!

Lu Xinyi shook her head and held the heavy painting that was a window size and rushed out of the room, with her mind racing faster than her feet in the dimly lit hallways.

She had thought of him as a friend, what if it doesn't work out? What if it doesn't feel right when he kisses her? What if his touch becomes a sin in the religion of her heart? What if it feels incest to her?!

There were too many if's and she was afraid she wouldn't want to know the answers.

Once she surrenders to him there will be only a one-way road ahead and she wasn't strong enough to guide them to the point of no return.

Then she owed him a lot to back down, which would mean she would be a new kind of prisoner, this time emotionally...

Lu Xinyi stood in front of his door and debated whether to go inside or turn on her heels. 

She weighed her options. if she was to go inside right now she could probably strike when the iron was hot or she could drop the crystal gla.s.s ball in haste but in both conditions, knowing Yu Youhan, his reaction will be same so delaying it was like trying to prevent the inevitable.

In short, useless!

So, Lu Xinyi took a deep breath and braced herself for facing the storm head-on. She brought her shacking knuckles on the door and knocked.

There was no sound or movement for a while. Mortified, Lu Xinyi turned to go back when the door opened hitching her breath.

Here he was, the man she claimed to not want, standing in all the ways woman would want him to. And Lu Xinyi could see he was just as surprised to her too.

He was wearing a loose suede robe and from his rippling tanned muscled chest to his sleeper clad feet then his dripping wet hairs sung her body lullabies.

Her heart was beating to be set free of the cage of her ribs, harder with every second that pa.s.sed.

After his confession, she couldn't help but see him as a man. Not like she hadn't before but it was alarming now with awareness like never before...

She shyly averted her eyes from his chest and glued them to the floor, "Can I come in?" Yu Youhan stared at her intensely before leaving a s.p.a.ce for her to enter.

Lu Xinyi went and stood awkwardly in the middle of the dark-themed room. From his ash-grey walls to his dark blue linen, everything about him was like on the other side of the spectrum.

She knew he was behind her and she could feel his intense gaze penetrating her delicate flesh in the submerged silence.

Lu Xinyi took several clumsy, awkward steps and sat on the sofa in his room. She squirmed some in nervousness and self-consciousness of his burning gaze on her.

She settled the painting on the sofa and patted the other side of the sofa for him to sit. 

Yu Youhan eyed the seat then the girl then resigned and sat on the seat and hung his head on the sofa, bracing himself to take her subtle rejection. 

Now he could relate to all the girls he had shooed away and it wasn't a good feeling...

Lu Xinyi cleared her throat in an attempt to clear the thickness in the air but it only thickened further, "Well...I thought we should clear... the air." Lu Xinyi winced at the sound of it.

She wanted to mentally slap herself.

She shook her head, "No...It's just that I think, you know we are good friends. We understand each other, you have been there on my setbacks and may G.o.d never bring you one but if you ever received a set back I would be there..."

"Why?" His voice was cold and hard like ice. Lu Xinyi visibly flinched.

Yu Youhan one word flushed out all her words, she had thought she was going to cus.h.i.+on her guilty conscience and nervous mind with. 

His one-word ensured her silence for seconds that held volumes of hours. Lu Xinyi at once faced the floor. It was the question she was dreading.

Lu Xinyi eyes moistened but she still looked at the ground, "Youhan, you are a great guy..."

"Just tell me why?" Lu Xinyi turned to him shocked at the calm hostility in his voice, "I have many to console me later."

"I...I don't see us working out, I see you as a friend..."

Yu Youhan cut her off harshly with a clam, cold proclamation, "Okay. I won't bother you again." he stood up and went to the door indifferently.

He was like a whole new person, like that man she knew didn't exist. It was hard to point which one was a fragment of the facade.

He held the door open for her, and taunted, "Now if you will excuse me it's pretty late and you being in the room of your 'fiance's' cousin in the middle of the night can be a scandal in tomorrow newspaper too."

Lu Xinyi stood in anger and mortification. She didn't look at the man but glared at the floor with pursed lips and hurried out of the door.

It was one thing venting his anger on her but he was blatantly insulting her! Lu Xinyi fisted her hands as her vision blurred.

Yu Youhan saw her walking out in a vulnerable state, trying to put a strong face, he felt a pang in his chest knowing he was the reason but instead of comforting her, he let her walk away.

It was better this way. She wished to leave and he couldn't force her otherwise. It was better that she severed all her ties with him before leaving. 

The only relations.h.i.+p he could bestow her was of companions.h.i.+p for life, nothing more, nothing less.

He took a deep breath to calm the erratic thoughts that were pus.h.i.+ng him to do otherwise but he knew it was better this way. The way she wanted it to be.

He closed the door after staring at the empty hallways that she walked by and entered his room only to see her paper-covered painting on the sofa.

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