Volume 3 - CH 3

Playing Fish Trapped in Secret Room

Book 3: Glory on the Other Side

Chapter 3

“I’m sorry……”  Seeing all the fragments in his hand, he quickly stood up to look for a trash can in the kitchen

Flabbergasted, Ai Qing pulled his hand back to the wooden table, “Drop them on the table.  Let me look at your hand.” She hurriedly wiped away the broken ceramic pieces from his hand.  She got a little dizzy from seeing the blood.

What was going on here.

She pushed him back down onto the sofa. Then she searched for some alcohol and gauze, but was only able to find some bandages. The cut needed to be disinfected. She picked up the phone and dialed.  “Uhm. Right, it’s me.  There’s no rush.  But go to the drug store near my home to buy some alcohol and gauze when you come over.  It’s Wu Bai, he…...I broke a tea cup and he got a cut on his hand when he was picking up the broken pieces.”

After hanging up the phone, she began circling around the living room helplessly trying to find something useful to do.

Finally, Dt spoke, “I’m alright.”

“But you are going to play in the competition.”  This was no jesting matter.

Dt lowered his head to check his left hand.  Such a little cut shouldn’t have any effect on him during the competition.

Ai Qing squatted in front of him, checking his hand again.

Luckily, it was just a small cut.

She had invited Slide and others to come over her home to play.  Originally she thought Dt knew them very well…...but if she knew beforehand this accident would happen, then she shouldn’t have asked him to come up and should’ve parted ways at the computer store.

Luckily the cut wasn’t deep.

She could hear her own rapidly beating heart vibrate through her chest and it was deafening.  It was like that afternoon when they were at the poolside in the Chicago hotel…...after he had spoken, he pressed down on the back of her hand on the stairs under the water.  That was…...a very intimate gesture.  At the time she didn’t know how to respond and pushed him away to run up the stairs.

All she did, however, was a mixture between running and climbing before she fell awkwardly back into water again.

People far away from them thought they were just a couple fooling around.  Only they knew how embarrassed they were.  Regretting that he had panicked her, he hugged her waist and legs to pick her up.  When he carried her out of the water back onto the massage bed in the massage room, he also said the same words. “I’m sorry.”

What was he sorry for?

Why was there anything to be sorry for if he liked a person?

What did she say back then?

Right, she told him that she would give him an answer.  She would give him an answer after they came back home.

Therefore, she was the one delaying.

She was still hesitating even now, but now…...she was scared.

She was afraid of facing the real her.

“Nothing really.”  Dt lowered his head and couldn’t see her eyes since her hair had slid down on her forehead.  He panicked, the kind of panic that came from deep inside his mind,  “I was careless, you don’t need to……”

“Wu Bai.”  She gripped the back of his hand, speaking nervously., “......I’m sorry.  It doesn’t matter whether it is me, or your cousin, or…...Solo, and many other people, we all have…...can’t get around that circle.”

It wasn’t just love and also, friendship…...and their youth.

They were different from other people.  Most spent their youth at school, under the supervision of teachers, studying and taking exams in their classrooms.  It was time spent on well planned tracks, but they weren’t good kids in the eyes of teachers and parents.  They were a restless bunch and walked on what others would consider a questionable route……

For them, once they reached the end of their route, they would have to put it all down.

Despite such a short road, it was very hard to say goodbye to it to those young and reckless years.

But……

She was touched.

She had very a simple love experience. It was love at first sight and that spark of passion determined everything, just like when her sister first saw Grunt.  She knew it right way that she liked him and she wanted to be with him.

But this time, it was different.

When did it begin?  On the beach?  Or in Chicago?  Or maybe even earlier in Korea?  She didn’t know when she started to pay more attention to this young man.  She paid attention to his every match and felt very happy every time after she had met him.

……

Many things, many scenes, and many conversations she had with others all came flooding back.

She knew that she would be responsible for everything she said once she opened her mouth.

……

Dt was a little bit numb.  He didn’t know what she was going to say or what she might say.  He was somewhat panicked by the prospect.

Actually, he was in a total state of panic.

He began to pray that all this wasn’t real.  If he could turn back time, turn it back to the time before he had asked, at least he could still keep looking at her, listening to her talk, and hearing her laugh.