You're My Belated Happiness - Chapter 24 Part 3

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.

You’re My Belated Happiness

Chapter 24 Part 3

Xu Huaisong propped Ruan Yu up on the couch to get her to drink the medicine. But she unexpectedly fell against his chest.

Her burning cheek pasted to his chest with only his shirt separating them. Xu Huaisong felt that he too was suddenly burning up.

His heart was thumping so loud that he was afraid it might wake her up.

He took a deep breath. With one hand holding the measuring cup with medicine in it and the other hand loosely holding her up, he called her name to her face for the first time in his life: “Ruan Yu.”

She seemed to have heard it and frowned, but still didn’t open her eyes.

Xu Huaisong put the medicine next to her lips and said: “Drink the medicine.”

Ruan Yu was still somewhat responsive. She drank the medicine after hearing him.

Xu Huaisong put down the measuring cup and was about to put her back on the couch. But he hesitated as if he was clinging to something. Finally, he lowered his head and put his chin on the top of her head to say: “I want to carry you back to the bedroom, would that be ok?”

Ruan Yu was fast asleep and certainly didn’t give him any answer.

Xu Huaisong’s Adam’s apple rolled up and down. He reached over with one arm to go under Ruan Yu’s calves and placed the other on her back so he could lift and carry her.

He very slowly walked the short distance from the living room to the bedroom.

His rational mind told him that to take advantage of her situation now wasn’t what a gentleman should do. Yet there was another voice in his head telling him not to be a gentleman.

He didn’t come back to himself until he noticed that Ruan Yu had curled into a ball in his arms. She seemed to be cold. He quickened his steps to put her back in bed and pulled the blanket over her.

He looked down to see his wrinkled shirt-- -- the place where she had rested her face. Suddenly, he felt an acute sense of loss.

Xu Huaisong went to get the cooling patch to put it on Ruan Yu’s forehead, then he sat down next to the bed.

All the emotions he had tried to suppress tonight burst out without warning.

He believed that he was able to imagine how Li Shican used to express his fondness of Ruan Yu.

Li Shican was like a charging striker in a soccer game. He wouldn’t twist and turn nor circle around. He would only strike straight at the goal and never got tired even if he never scored.

But he was different.

He would be the one who stood off the field, watching from a distance. He would think about how the player should dribble at one moment or perform a more concerted defense at another moment. He would simulate what was the best way to break through.

But in the end, after so many years later, he was still standing at the same spot.

He didn’t have the confidence to shoot or express his feelings easily, because he only gave himself one chance.

If she turned him down, he didn’t believe that he would have the courage to try a second time.

In reality, he wasn’t as strong as he looked to be. The reason why he moved every step so cautiously was due to his cowardice.

Perhaps Ruan Yu’s readers all looked forward to learning the reason why the male character missed the graduation trip. They probably imagined that there was some heart-rending misunderstanding or hardship that he couldn’t mention to anybody.

But in reality, there wasn’t any special reason why he missed the trip.

During the second semester of his first year in high school, his parents were getting a divorce and fighting over the custody of the children. In the end they agreed to split the kids, one went with father and the other with the mother.

His dad had decided to live in the US after the divorce. His sister, behind their parents’ back, told him while crying that she didn’t want to go to the US with their father.

So he had no choice but to go with his father.

He knew then that he would leave the country after high school, therefore it was impossible for him to say to Ruan Yu: “Though I’ll be going to live in the US after graduation, could you still be my girlfriend?”

At the time, he didn’t have the ability to decide how he was going to live his life. So he couldn’t persuade himself to influence a girl’s future simply because he liked her.

He gave up going to the graduation trip on his own.

He didn’t like to say goodbye, didn’t want to make a whole ceremony out of their last meeting, and didn’t want, after tasting a little sweetness, to have to live with bitterness in those endless days without her.

“If you can’t give me all, then don’t give me anything at all.”-- --This is the lyric of one of A-Mei’s songs and Xu Huaisong was exactly that kind of person.

During the three years of high school, the only time Xu Huaisong lost his self-control was on the day he turned 18 while at the school fireworks celebration for the New Year.

Xu Huaisong quietly watched Ruan Yu, now curled up in bed, and couldn’t help from reaching over with his hand to touch her cheek.

But his hand was too cold, Ruan Yu was resistant to the cold even in her sleep. She turned her face sideways to avoid it.

Xu Huaisong’s hand froze in mid-air.

After a long while, a murmur, like a sigh, could be heard in the quiet room: “Could you…...like me again one more time.”

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.