Removing the cloak from Tao Hua's shoulders, Shan Si tossed it onto the end table without a single care. He coiled his arms around Tao Hua's waist, his hands propped over one and the other, laying against his stomach.
"Since leaving the forest, you've hardly spoken," Shan Si hummed, resting his chin over Tao Hua's shoulder. "What happened to all that wonder? Before, you were talking my ear off about whatever interesting thing you saw, be it the trees in the forest or the monuments in Jianlai. What's on your mind, Tao Hua?"
What's on my mind? Pressing his hands against Shan Si's arms, Tao Hua's fingers curled into the fabric. Indecisively, he side-glanced at Shan Si.
How natural it felt to be this way with someone, yet have no definition.
What…is on my mind?
Well, there was plenty on his mind, and it jumbled together in one convoluted mess, all based on a single subject.
It started with the way this subject acted around him, watching as others stared at him. Tao Hua was growing more and more displeased, even finding his jealousy wretchedly twisting him sideways.
From sharing a bed to pushing against boundaries and concealing Tao Hua's first kiss behind the guise of efficiency, only to pull back shortly after for reasons he couldn't understand.
Then to turn it around like tossing a coin in the air. He'd tease him, help him off a caravan, hold his hand, and genuinely look at him with the eyes a loving husband does a wife.
How was any of this fair? Did he ever think about how it made him feel? This game of make-believe? Tao Hua couldn't quite tell if they were playing dollhouse any longer, or if it was that he'd set his standards too high. Hopes that rose taller than the heavens.
His eyes fell on Shan Si's for a moment. The pale patiently awaited Tao Hua's response with a hint of concern. A longing sadness resonated in Tao Hua's heart the longer he continued looking. It was one that reminded him that the world didn't revolve around him, so what was he complaining about?
A numbing sensation tugged at his lower lip, quivering with the desires he dared not speak. So, as to summarise the mess in his head, he said, "I…don't think I'm okay, Shan Si."
When harbouring such thoughts, Tao Hua didn't dare look at him any longer. He didn't want to see the reaction.
He turned his head away languidly and lowered the lashes, weight down by guilt. It nagged at him desperately, and all he could feel was a dissatisfaction weakening his shoulders as the other tightened his embrace anxiously.
But the words Shan Si said muffled out, displaced by Tao Hua's aggressive, mockingly targeted thoughts.
What do I have to feel dissatisfied with?
For the last twenty years, he'd watched as others enjoyed the things taken away from him—the things he wasn't ever allowed. The only solace he could find was in the written words on a page. In characters he'd never meet, and worlds he'd only ever dream of being a part of when reality rejected his existence.
That alone was enough to keep him happy, or so he thought.
How was he supposed to predict that someone would jump through his window and carry him out of that gruelling tower? That the villain of this world would be the one to save him from his dissatisfaction?
A villain who gifted him a rare jewel in the form of a lotus, and now the princess wanted the entire Buddha. The saying was absolutely true: the more someone gives, the more that is taken for granted.
Digging his nails into Shan Si's arms, Tao Hua's body fell limp, and in a desperate attempt, he tried not to shed the little strength he had. Was he really that selfish, or were these words planted in his head by others? Did it matter?
He had everything that poor soul sitting locked in his old room back in Siyue Town could ever want. Someone willing to view him as worthy enough to be a friend, spend time with him, and give him things he'd never ask for but always dreamed of.
He'd been given all of that, and he wanted more?
Perhaps it was no longer about feeling dissatisfied; he was already there. The real question now was simple: could Tao Hua live knowing he felt such things, recognising that his desires only made him selfish?
He didn't know.
The hands on his stomach felt more and more real, but the muffled voices of workers outside the private room and the clacking of hurried shoes all seemed to vanish in the midst of his thoughts.
Tao Hua stared down at the floorboards, tracing each and every winding crease.
He let out a bitter laugh. These hands wrapped around him were the hands that saved him from his father's abuse, from the villagers' torment. They were the very hands that left book after book on his bedside table each morning and covered him in three blankets too many if he thought Tao Hua would be too cold without him.
They were the hands belonging to a person more misunderstood than Tao Hua ever had been. He had the heart of his mother, but the resolve of his father, bearing few fears under unfortunate circumstances dripped in regret.
These hands were the hands Tao Hua had every right to fear, as if witnessing the limbs that belonged to a beast. But he was aware enough to recognise these curse-ridden hands, so calloused and worked, were hands belonging to the first person to capture his heart.
Someone who risked many things, fighting against something he had no control over, just to save Tao Hua.
The very person he was fortunate to have fallen in love with, and he wanted more?
How pathetic. Despite his sorrow, Tao Hua was still smiling. Even if that smile was one drifting off elsewhere, far within his imagination.
It really wasn't fair. Would things have been different had the curse not existed? Would things be different if the curse was broken?
All his life Tao Hua had wished for his own fairytale, and all fairytales faced some form of a curse, right? So why was it that the very curse that plagued his version of a fairytale was one that couldn't be saved by traditional means?
No kiss could break it; if it could, then he'd already be freed.
In other words, Shan Si had more to worry about than Tao Hua's feelings, and he had already jeopardised things just to make him happy. There had to be a cause, and Tao Hua decided that it was simply in his usefulness.
If it were more than that, then on that fateful day when Shan Si saved him, it wouldn't be out of desperation for something Tao Hua couldn't offer him. He needed Tao Hua more than wanted, and that was made clear from that very day onward.
So, Tao Hua reminded himself of the very words spoken to him. He wasn't a princess, nor was Shan Si a hero.
This story was about a broken beauty and a desperate beast, both lonely enough to find warmth in each other's embrace. That's it.
Tao Hua loosened his grip and shook Shan Si off his shoulders, but Shan Si was nothing if not persistent. He refused to leave and instead smiled a wry smile.
It was the voice of one trying to hide his anguish. "Please speak to me, Tao Hua."
But in the end, Tao Hua couldn't. His hair just cascaded forward like a waterfall, tilting his head away. Truly, what a dramatic man he was, and in the end it was he who possibly made the other feel unwanted.
"I don't know how," Tao Hua admitted.
"For you to be this way, there must be a lot on your mind." Eyes falling with his lashes, Shan Si kept his gaze fallen on Tao Hua, only to receive a nod. That wasn't enough for him, so he added, "How can I fix it?"
Like all things since meeting this man? Tao Hua shook his head pitifully. He really was at his wits' end with these feelings. All he wanted to do was to be happy next to Shan Si, even if it meant watching from the sidelines.
"It's not anything you can fix," Tao Hua slurred, knowing fully well he wanted just that. "Please, just forget about all of this. I'm sorry for causing another problem…I really don't know what came over me."
The room fell deathly silent, so much so that any minor creak in the floorboards felt louder than a person screaming in one's ear. Just as Tao Hua let out a sigh, he felt his back straighten, and his head was lifted from its sorry state by a hand caressing his cheek.
Before he knew it, he was forced to face Shan Si. Eyes rimmed red, Tao Hua kept glancing away as if he'd realised just how ridiculous he was acting; however, his breath hitched the moment he felt something on his lips.
A thumb, rather one that grazed along it, forcing his attention back to the face that showed no playfulness or joke, but remained serious yet soft, gentle as the arm that kept him anchored in place.
"Are you done?" Shan Si asked vacantly, leaving Tao Hua stunned. Was he hurt by this statement, or relieved?
So, he just nodded his head slightly at Shan Si's question, his mouth parting at the heat that was now threatening his lips and a thumb that pushed his lower lip down slightly.
"Then…" Shan Si paused, his nose nearly touching the other's. "Can I tell you what's on my mind, Tao Hua?"
Chapter end.