Grow Old Together

On the car ride back to Lily's apartment, Lily remained quiet with a frown on her face. She wanted to stay overnight, but her grandfather rushed them home. Deep down, she knew how lonely he must have felt for all these years.

After a while of silence, Lily parted her lips and started speaking. "Darling, you must promise me one thing."

"What is it?" Lin Que concentrated on the road as he listened to her. At these moments, he knew she was vulnerable and possibly having silly thoughts in her mind.

"You must never leave me behind. No matter what, you have to let me die before you do." Her voice sounded complex when the words slipped out of her mouth.

"What are you thinking about right now to give you such thoughts?" He asked frankly.

She sighed and turned her head to face him. "Before my grandma passed away, my grandpa only had three priorities. The first one was none other than my grandma. The second was his family and the third was the company. After my grandma died, he lost all his motivation to continue running the company."

"My parents were the ones who helped him manage the company for a while. His heart disease was never really stabilized since the beginning and he used to joke around with my grandma about him dying first. Every time he joked around, she would slap him on the chest and tell him he would live very long until they grow old enough to walk using canes."

Lily felt a scratch in her throat as warmth rushed up to her eyes. Breathing became slightly harder like something was blocking air from entering. In a rasped voice, she pressed her lips together.

"Now that we are all grown up and the family is broken up, my grandpa is left all alone. Yes, he is walking with a cane right now and living without worries...However, my grandma is not there to accompany him anymore. He faces the four walls of empty rooms and hallways. The garden used to be their favorite place to sit and rest until dinner. Now, it's just him."

"It gets very lonely and quiet. Don't you think so?" Lily looked away, hiding the tears that slid out of her eyes from Lin Que's view. She quickly wiped the wet trailed away with her sleeves.

"I don't see it that way. Sure, your grandpa will definitely miss your grandma because she was the love of his life and still is. But like you just told me that he focused on your grandma before his work. She was the most important person to him. That also means that he made many precious memories with her before she passed away."

"As much as he misses her, he also remembers the blissful moments with her. Although she is no longer there physically, she will always live in his heart. Her smile, laughs, silly moments, and other many valuable memories will always be in his mind. So, I don't think he is as lonely as you picture him. If you want, we can always visit him every other day."

Stopping in front of the red light, Lin Que pulled out a tissue from his tissue box and wiped her tears. "So, don't say anything silly like who dies first and who abandons whom. As long as I'm here, I will always be by your side. We'll share many memories. No matter who walks on a cane first or leaves before the other, we'll have a lot of things to look back to."

Lily took the tissue from his hand and blew her nose. "The light turned green." She pointed at the traffic lights ahead, reminding him to start driving before drivers honked at them. However, the second the vehicle started moving again, Lily whispered. "Thank you, silly man."

Although Lin Que didn't reply to her whispered words, a smile curved at the corner of his lips - he didn't miss a single word she said.

By the time the couple reached her apartment, it was already 10:45 P.M. Considering how late it was, Lily offered him to stay overnight. Due to the ruined dinner, the couple didn't fill their stomachs earlier. Though they did stay with Grandpa Jiang earlier, the chef didn't know the two of them were coming back with him. Therefore, the meal they made was only enough to feed one serving.

Since Grandpa Jiang knew he couldn't eat much outside food as the dishes were too heavy for his diet, he didn't plan on touching any dishes. Hence, the chef was told before dinner to cook a simple meal for him to eat at night.

"If I remember correctly, you have a morning shift tomorrow. You need sufficient rest and you're probably not going to eat once you get home because it'll be roughly 11:30 P.M. Normally, it doesn't take this long, but there is traffic on the highway. Someone just said he would accompany me. If you can't even take care of yourself when you're young, how could I depend on your company when we get old?"

Using his words against him, Lily successfully persuaded him into spending the night with her. Even though it was her idea, he wasn't planning to reject it to begin with. After taking his car keys and necessities with him, he locked the vehicle and followed her to her apartment.

It wasn't the first time for Lin Que to visit her apartment. The only difference this time was that she had gone grocery shopping, unlike the other times. With the ingredients in her fridge, he ended up making a decent meal for both of them.

Although it was Lily who offered him to stay overnight, he was absolutely certain about how great her culinary skills are - beyond phenomenal in a disastrous way. To prevent any mishaps from happening, he made her blend the smoothies for their meal while he did the cooking.

Once everything was set, the two of them sat in her living room where they watched Netflix and raged at parts of the movies. After resting for a while, they cleaned up together and took turns washing up. At approximately 1 A.M, both of them climbed in her bed and laid comfortably in each other's arms. Soon, the room was filled with nothing was silence.