OSL – Chapter Fourteen
Warning: Chapter Fourteen has mature content.
Gu Tian Tian touches her flaming cheeks. Lucky the dark cinema room hid her face. She raises her left hand, and the beautiful diamond ring sparkles.
Gu Tian Tian’s head is conflicted. She does feel envy and resentment toward An Yin Zhu. She does think he’s a thick skinned person, who proposes insincerely, but… if she has no feelings toward him, she wouldn’t react strangely to being called his little bride.
Gu Tian Tian doesn’t hate An Yin Zhu kissing her. She doesn’t know why his presence creates havoc in her heart. She stares at the cinema screen for twenty minutes.
An Yin Zhu returns to the cinema room with a bouquet of flowers, and makes Gu Tian Tian’s head as confused as her heart.
An Yin Zhu gives the bouquet of flowers to Gu Tian Tian, he kneels in front of her, and presents her with an identical diamond ring to the first diamond ring he gave her. He holds her left hand, and slides the identical diamond ring onto her ring finger.
‘Marry me,’ An Yin Zhu says.
Gu Tian Tian glances at the two identical diamond rings on her ring finger, and doesn’t know what to say. What sort of person, puts two diamond rings on someone’s ring finger and calls it a proposal? She lets An Yin Zhu kneel for a long time.
‘Marry me,’ An Yin Zhu repeats.
‘I don’t want to,’ Gu Tian Tian says.
‘Oh,’ An Yin Zhu says calmly. He stands up, sits next to Gu Tian Tian and hugs her. ‘During your winter holiday, let’s get married overseas and go to your favorite city, Paris for our honeymoon.’
How is Gu Tian Tian supposed to reply to An Yin Zhu’s presumptuous suggestion when she didn’t say yes to his proposal?
‘I’ll drive you back to the condo,’ An Yin Zhu says.
‘No,’ Gu Tian Tian says. ‘I don’t want to give your mum a shock in the middle of the night.’
‘Then I’ll drive you back to the dorms,’ An Yin Zhu says.
‘No, I don’t want my friends to speculate why I snuck out in the middle of the night,’ Gu Tian Tian says.
‘I’ll take you to my hotel,’ An Yin Zhu says.
Gu Tian Tian rolls her eyes. Hotel? She’s not sleepy enough to gift wrap her body to An Yin Zhu’s mouth in a hotel room. But she is sleep deprived. How is she supposed to sleep after he gave her two diamond rings?
‘I’m renting a condo near campus,’ An Yin Zhu says. ‘I’ll take you back to my condo.’
Gu Tian Tian’s sleepiness disappears. She heard from Hao Ting that many college couples rents out apartments near campus to… xxoo. In the past, she didn’t ask An Yin Zhu about his love life, but she’s curious why he hid his secret condo from her.
‘Why didn’t you mention about your condo to me sooner?’ Gu Tian Tian asks suspiciously.
‘Last year, Chen Kai Hua and I wanted a convenient place near our company to rest during busy days,’ An Yin Zhu explains.
‘Oh,’ Gu Tian Tian says. ‘Then let’s go to your condo.’
On the way to An Yin Zhu’s condo, Gu Tian Tian considers asking him about his love life. But his scary smile changes her mind, she’s better off asking Hao Ting about gossip about his love life.
Inside An Yin Zhu’s condo, Gu Tian Tian realises it’s no different from spending the night with An Yin Zhu in a hotel room.
‘Where am I sleeping?’ Gu Tian Tian asks.
‘My bedroom,’ An Yin Zhu says.
‘What about you?’ Gu Tian Tian asks.
‘Sleeping next to you,’ An Yin Zhu says. ‘It’s not the first time we slept on the same bed together. Don’t worry, I’ll behave before our wedding night.’
Gu Tian Tian walks shyly to the bathroom, and stares at her blushing face in the mirror.
‘Open the door,’ An Yin Zhu says. ‘I brought you a toothbrush and a face towel.’
Gu Tian Tian opens the bathroom door, grabs the toothbrush and face towel and closes the door. She hides out in the bathroom for half a day.
‘Do you want to shower?’ An Yin Zhu asks. ‘You can borrow my clothes. Later, I’ll ask someone to deliver an outfit for you.’
Gu Tian Tian opens the bathroom door again, grabs An Yin Zhu’s T-shirt and closes the door again. She showers, and puts on his T-shirt. She realises he didn’t give her clean underwear.
Gu Tian Tian washes her underwear because it has a strange odor from the cinemas. She can’t wear wet underwear.
A grumpy and sleep deprived Gu Tian Tian walks out of the bathroom. ‘I don’t have clean underwear.’
An Yin Zhu smiles. ‘Do you want to borrow my clean underwear?’
Gu Tian Tian sighs helplessly. ‘Yes.’
An Yin Zhu teases the grumpy Gu Tian Tian. ‘I wanted to take you back to my family condo, but you refused. I suggested taking you back to campus or to my hotel, but you chose to come here.’
Gu Tian Tian rolls her eyes at An Yin Zhu again. The An Hotel is no different than him taking her back to his family condo. She yawns, sits on the bed and notices An Yin Zhu is staring at her strangely. She looks down at the T-shirt that is wet from her wet hair, which outlines her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She quickly lies on the bed, and pulls the bedsheet over her body.
An Yin Zhu ignores Gu Tian Tian’s daggers, and pulls her up in a sitting position. ‘Blow dry your hair before sleeping.’
An Yin Zhu showers in the bathroom while Gu Tian Tian blows dry her hair.
An Yin Zhu comes out of the bathroom, grabs the hair dryer from the sleeping Gu Tian Tian, and blow dries his hair. Then he lies next to her on the bed, and hugs her.
In the afternoon, Gu Tian Tian wakes up and sees An Yin Zhu sleeping while hugging her. She nudges him awake. ‘Why are you hugging me in your sleep?’
‘You rolled onto my arms,’ An Yin Zhu denies.
Gu Tian Tian is speechless. Every time she and An Yin Zhu slept together, she wakes up in his arms. She’s uncertain if rolled onto his arms in her sleep. But sleeping with him this time was different because the T-shirt rode up to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She quickly pulls down the T-shirt.
In the evening, An Yin Zhu eats dinner with Gu Tian Tian at a restaurant. They go for a walk after dinner before he takes her back to the female dorms.
‘If you can’t sleep, call me and I’ll come pick you up,’ An Yin Zhu says.
Gu Tian Tian enters the female dorms, and Hao Ting teases her.
‘You went missing for the whole day, I was about to report you were kidnapped,’ Hao Ting teases.
Gu Tian Tian smiles at Hao Ting, and sits next to Hao Ting. ‘Hao Ting, have you heard gossip about him having a girlfriend in the past?’
‘Who?’ Hao Ting plays dumb. ‘You need to be specific.’
‘An Yin Zhu!’ Gu Tian Tian says.
Hao Ting laughs. ‘I asked about Mr. An’s past girlfriends on your behalf. There are many women who wants to date Mr. An. But Mr. An turned them down, and tells them he has a girlfriend. No one believes Mr. An, because no one has met his girlfriend.’
Gu Tian Tian remembers An Yin Zhu never denied he’s her boyfriend whenever people mistake him as her boyfriend.
Gu Tian Tian glances at her left hand. ‘Aya!’
Gu Tian Tian left the diamond rings in the bathroom at An Yin Zhu’s condo last night.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hao Ting asks.
‘I forgot the…’ Gu Tian Tian stammers.
Gu Tian Tian doesn’t know how to explain her situation. She hasn’t accepted An Yin Zhu’s proposal, and intends to give back the diamond rings to him.
The next day’s Friday, An Yin Zhu calls Gu Tian Tian’s phone early in the morning to exercise and eat breakfast.
Gu Tian Tian changes clothes, and meets An Yin Zhu outside. She doesn’t know what the status of their relationship is. Lovers? They’re not dating, but he proposed to her out of the blue. Fiance? How can he be her fiance if she hasn’t accepted his proposal?
Gu Tian Tian believes it’s An Yin Zhu’s fault for making her lose sleep thinking about him all night long. She admits, he is good husband material, but… she’s too young to get married. Besides, he’s like a different person than he was a month ago. It’s too much for her to process. She doesn’t know what her true feelings toward him are or what his true feelings toward her are.
Gu Tian Tian chews on the straw from the soy bean milk gla.s.s she’s drinking. ‘Chi Si Zhu, in your eyes, what am I to you?’
End of Chapter Fourteen