Chapter 65 - Confessions

Feng Xuan did not know why she was feeling nervous. Her limbs felt like they want to punch or kick something. All this sudden energy was coursing through her veins and even though she took a warm shower to subdue it, it was useless.

"Why are you so nervous?" she asked herself in the mirror while drying her hair. "You've slept in the same bed for weeks now."

But still, her hands shook. Qing Chen and her had not been able to spend time together lately. And then he had told her they should be together and watch a movie.

In addition to her nervousness, Feng Xuan was racking her brain for a title of a movie they would both enjoy. She had not been able to explore much on Eastern movies while she was overseas. She did not know which ones were good.

Feng Xuan gathered her hair in a ponytail, then she took it down, then she put it half-up. "Why are you doing this?" she asked herself, giving up and making a face on the mirror. She ran her hands through her hair and left it like that.

She made her way to the bedroom and found Qing Chen was already there in a shirt and a pair of pajamas. He was already flicking through the streaming application's catalogue with the boxes of pizzas in the middle of the bed. "What are we watching?" she asked as she hopped on top of the bed. With the cold air, she finally realized just how hot her body felt.

"I really do not know. I have not seen a movie in a while," he answered, continuously pressing on the remote. "What do you want to watch?"

Feng Xuan's eyes were filled with the different pictures of the movie posters. Nothing seemed to stand out in her eyes. But, what would they do if they were not going to watch a movie? So she pointed on a familiar poster. "That's romance. Are you okay with that?" she asked.

"It's fine," Qing Chen said and chose it.

Feng Xuan had already watched the first half of the movie when she was overseas. The lead characters met through a popular online game and got married there without knowing each other in real life. She did not get to finish it for a reason she already forgot.

"What did you get?" Qing Chen handed her a box of pizza.

"Hawaiian," she answered and flipped it open. She took out a piece and bit.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes giving her silent judgement.

"You don't like Hawaiian pizza." She meant for it to be a question but it came out as a statement.

Qing Chen shivered. "I don't like how it tastes." He happily bit into his pepperoni and cheese.

"It's a contrast of flavors!"

"Yeah, I get that part but I—" he shivered again.

Feng Xuan faked a gasp. "Scandalous. I can't believe I married a man who does not like pineapples on his pizzas."

Qing Chen laughed. "More like, I can't believe I married a woman who likes pineapples on her pizzas."

"How dare you," she laughed.

They both turned to the screen as the movie started. Feng Xuan knew it was a cutesy story but she didn't remember that it would be this plain. Although the movie was filled with CGI and special effects, but it bored the wits out of her.

About fifteen minutes into the movie, she took a quick peek at Qing Chen from the corner of her eyes and saw that he was slowly chewing at his pizza, his eyes half-closed already. She turned her body to him. "Are you bored?"

Qing Chen opened his eyes. "Not that much," he chuckled.

"I am bored. Are you bored?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "This is why I'm not a fan of movies. I have a really short attention span when I'm not moving."

"Do you want to do something else?"

"Like what?"

Feng Xuan thought about their house. They had been always been in the kitchen, surely there was something else they could do in this huge mansion. "Do you know how to swim?"

That was how the two of them ended up by the poolside. They both changed into a more comfortable swimwear with sleeves as the October night chilled them right to their bones. Qing Chen was the first to submerge himself in the cold water.

"Jump," he said, pushing hair off his face. "It's less cold once you get in."

Feng Xuan took a deep breath before jumping. The cold took her breath away and she quickly resurfaced. "It's freezing," she said, her teeth chattering as she hugged herself.

"This was your idea," Qing Chen chuckled. "Come on, let's do laps."

They swam back and forth a few times before they both stopped at the edge of the pool, up on their elbows and their legs in small movements to keep themselves afloat. The edge was also the end point of their house. Only glass was stopping them from getting washed away to the sea—or if they were unlucky, the pointy rocks.

"Do you think we'd survive if we fall?" she asked once her breathing turned back to normal.

Qing Chen took a quick look at the waves crashing against the rocks. It was almost pitch black there if it weren't for the half-moon lighting the sea. "I'd say we have about 75% chance of hitting water."

Feng Xuan's freezing. The wind was biting on her wet face. She craved for the comfort of their bedroom, but the moon was too beautiful tonight to even leave it.

Her body quickly moved when she saw a shadow moved from the right, and relaxed once she saw it was just one of the guards making their rounds around the property. She breathed out.

When she was younger, she was never one to be scared of the unknown. Feng Xuan had never feared the dark. She was not scared of ghosts and monsters because she never believed they existed. But never had she thought she would be at this point of her life wherein she felt that there really was something that lived in the shadows.

"I'm sorry."

Feng Xuan turned her attention to Qing Chen. "What?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"What for?"

Qing Chen's head was atop his forearms and he turned his face to look at her. "I feel like I'm failing you."

Feng Xuan felt her heart quicken its pace, wanting to rush to his comfort. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" he said, turning back to the moon. The shine of it made his face white as paper and his dark features stood out. He looked like a lead from a movie in the early nineties. "Ever since, I felt like I really don't deserve to be your husband."

Feng Xuan barked laughter at this. Where was all of this coming from? They were just having fun earlier. "Oh, come on. What are you talking about? We're in the same status in life."

"Yeah," he answered. "We belong in the same circle. But that was not I was talking about. I am talking about how I am not really present for you."

"What?!" she asked. "You're working. Of course, you're always out."

"Yeah, but still," he said. "I should be a better husband. It's quite a life I am living here with you. I wake up and there's breakfast, sometimes you even prepare me lunch, when I get home you're already here and dinner would always be served. It is a fact that I don't appreciate you enough. I even have to fight with my work schedule just to get home early."

"Why are you thinking so much about it?" Feng Xuan said in comfort. "That's what husbands do. They earn a living and most wives stay at home and take care of the family, right?"

"That's what the head of the family does. They earn a living. Husbands, however, should also be taking care of his wife. As of now, you're pretty much self-sufficient."

"What?!" she exclaimed and reached to grab his hand. He turned his face to look at her. "You're underwhelming yourself, Qing Chen. It's a busy season at the hotel and problems keep on appearing in our way. I'm not blaming you for that. I just want you to do your best so you can come home to me and we'd spent the last few hours before we sleep."

Qing Chen gave her a long look before saying, "You know what, I hate that I got married this early."

Feng Xuan's heart plummeted to her stomach. "Do you regret marrying me?"

She already knew what he was going to say, but when he answered, it still felt like a stab to her heart.

"Yes," he answered. "I regret it."

Feng Xuan's hand slipped from Qing Chen's. "Oh."

She went back to her space and looked down the depths of the water. It suddenly felt like a welcoming view.

Qing Chen turned his face to the moon. "I regret marrying you."

Feng Xuan lifted her head, not really wanting to hear what else he had to say. She felt like she would cry already.

"I regret marrying you this early," he said. "I would've liked to have met you in some extraordinary twist of fate just like in that movie we were watching—or even just a simple blind date. I would've liked you from the start. I would have courted you."

Feng Xuan held her breath.

"I would have loved to text you from morning and when the evening comes I would call you. We would go on about a hundred dates—dinner dates, lunch dates, even breakfast dates—we would go midnight driving, travel the world perhaps, we would plan our future together, then I would go down on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Qing Chen turned to her and continued, "This is why I regret marrying you, Feng Xuan. It was because we missed out on all of these and went straight to the finish line. We are doing the race backwards. If I knew I would like my wife this much—if I could—I would go back in time and postpone this wedding for at least a year and do the basics."

Feng Xuan's mouth had completely gone dry. Her heart trying to beat out of her body. She really did not know how to feel about Qing Chen's confession. "Well, I didn't think I'd also like you this much. But this what we have now, Qing Chen. But it does not mean that we couldn't do whatever the other couples did before getting married. If I know one thing: I know that I don't have any intention of leaving you."

Qing Chen turned to her and gave her a grin that he seemed to have pulled out from nowhere. "Are you confessing that you have a crush on me?"

Feng Xuan turned her face away. Despite the cold, she could feel the slow rising heat on her cheeks. "You confessed first!"

Then she felt Qing Chen's hand curved around her face and his thumb caressed her cheek. "My blushing wife."

She dipped her head as her cheeks grew warmer. There was still something about when Qing Chen said 'my wife'.

"You better pack your bags," he said.

"Are you throwing me out?" she joked.

"No. I'm taking you away. Just let me finish this other thing at the hotel. And then we'll finally get the honeymoon that we deserve."