172 Hurt

Sylvie froze up, the only movement from her being the widening of her faint red eyes. She looked away from Li, down to the grass. She drew her legs to her chest and hugged them, almost curling into herself with a sigh. 

"I…well, I suppose the right way for me to put it is that I like you," said Sylvie. 

Li caught her tone. He had expected her to be flustered, shaky, and wholly unprepared to confront her own feelings, but her voice was quite calm, the type of calm that came mostly from resignation. 

Surprisingly, she knew how this was going to go. Although, as Li thought about it, perhaps it was unsurprising. She was a perceptive girl, always thinking and always seeing things that others could not, so he would not have put it past her to know. 

"I appreciate that, I truly do," began Li. He looked to the fields, at the hundred plus souls that relied on him, at the lands whose healthy greens he was responsible for.