32 UNDER THE VAST SKY (2)

The midnight wind howled as it passed by them. Some leaves flew with it.

"It was the day you got dumped by your boyfriend. We visited a dog and cat café--" The young man narrated, in an attempt to ring any bell into the lady's head.

"Excuse me, I dumped him." She cut him off in a haste.

"Hahaha! So you say! So you say, Sola." Xue Guangxi loves teasing her. He could tell she was flustered. Small things such as these little teases irked her. "Seems like your memory has come back. Hahaha!"

Kang Sola knew better than making a mountain out of a molehill. Turning more serious, she contributed to memory lane, "It's also the time I opened up about my search for my biological father." She exhaled sharply. "So much had happened after that, not all nice. Hehehe."

"Yeah." He too breathed deeply.

Suddenly they were treading onto a sensitive topic. He decided to approach it with caution.

"Remember what I told you that night?" Xue Guangxi waited for her answer patiently. When nothing came, he continued, "I told you I will be your family." He hovered one arm across his forehead. His face flushed. It felt hot to touch.

The lady giggled. "I remember. You said you'll share your sister with me. Odd enough, we're in this queer setup of a family. I could not imagine the twist that had happened in my life. I only wanted to meet my father."

The two of them fell into silence. Both knew that it was a topic that they had been tiptoeing around for the past years.

Perhaps the perfect time to talk about it in the open had finally arrived?

"I will always be here for you as family, Sola. I just want you to know." He lied on his side and turned to her. His arm remained underneath him as a makeshift pillow. "That's what I told you that night, and I'm saying it to you again."

'I still can't talk about it.' Xue Guangxi's eyes fell from the realization. 'Well, we don't have to talk about it, do we?'

"That's nice to hear. Warms my heart." She admitted, but those words sent some waves of turbulence to her heart, too. 'That's reckless of you, Guangxi. You seem to be forgetting something relevant about my identity.' Her eyes flickered with uncertainty, fear, and self-condemnation.

That night before bidding the kids sweet dreams, the reason for making her stance clear with the both of them against retaliation was because of the bad blood that runs through her and the twins' veins. She did not want them to develop a scheming nature that would lead them to their doom.

That afternoon was the first time they fought other kids. She had hoped it to be the last. She's afraid for them to turn into bad people in the long run. She's scared for herself too. The tendency was there, innate to them. All they could do was to promote dire self-control at all times.

And, here's Xue Guangxi implying that he could see past that wicked nature. 'I wish I could believe it.'

"Seems to me that those words don't even have depth." She added. The lady giggled, with the purpose masking the trouble rising from her heart.

"You're having fun teasing me, aren't you?" He bantered. Perhaps the darkness around them hindered him from noticing anything unusual from her. Or perhaps, the lady had improved in masking her true feelings that he had not noticed anything out of place.

Her ring of laughter resonated more clearly in the open. "Payback time."

"But it's true, alright? You can rely on me anytime. I'll be here for you as always." Xue Guangxi sat properly, his right leg flexed on the knee. He placed his arm on it by the elbow, then looked at the still lying Kang Sola. "By the way, I'm sorry for my poor display of behavior the other night."

The lady sat up, too. "I'm sorry, too. I'm just human. I'm trying not to be a burden to anyone. I'm trying so hard."

"It's okay to rely on family. And we are in the same one. So I beg you, can you please not talk about who's shouldering the expenses?"

Kang Sola deliberated for a long while.

"Aren't you going to answer? It's the same when you spent lots of your time looking after the kids, doing their artworks with them, teaching them, loving them. Would you not be insulted when one day they will come to you and ask you what you want in exchange for the precious time you have allotted to them voluntarily? It's like asking payment for a gift you've thoughtfully prepared. Or a more befitting analogy is when they give you money for all your efforts as payment. You certainly didn't ask to be paid with monetary compensation." The young man whined but tried to explain the best way possible his thought process the night before.