How Scary Love Is

"Not just yearn, nor desire.... You are willing to sacrifice everything for that love." He said softly.

Ren Jidian did not answer. He stared at Wei Wangyi as he always had.

"Did you know that.... I used to be so scared by that look?" He said. "When you kissed my hand..."

"It felt more like I was being burned by a seal. A seal that I was not ready to receive yet."

He looked away. "I know how scary it must be.... I am willing to wait when you are ready, Empress---"

"No, Ren Guang. Do not be so kind to me like this." He hugged him tightly. "You do not deserve to wait for me for years and years."

"I told you that it is growing. Well, it is almost in full bloom now." Empress Wei said. "And I feel like what's stopping it was this kindness you have for me, and the assumptions we have on each other."

"Ren Guang.... I am not a decisive man." He admitted. "And I am also not one to hang on tightly when I hold on to something. I am always fearful deep inside."

"I am always anxious that if I hang on too tight..... I will get more hurt once I lost grasp on it."

"I also thought of you to be the same." Empress Wei said. "But you are the opposite."

"You hang on quickly, and never ever let go. And even when it slips from your grasp, you hold on back again." He smiled.

"I feel like if we had known each other in the past life, I must have brought much suffering to you. And knowing you, you would never say a word and suffer silently."

Ren Jidian looked away. "Well... Ahem....."

That assumption was not incorrect at all.

"Please do not call me Empress Wei anymore." Wei Wangyi said. "Call me by my name. Call me however you prefer. I just.... do not want you to distance yourself for my sake."

He gulped. So he knows.

"Can I call you... Yi-Yi?" He asked.

(I cannot call you Zhi-Zhi, and it doesn't feel right to do so either.) He thought. (But then again, he too calls you Yi-Yi, so you may hate it...)

Wei Wangyi took long to respond. He must be right, he wouldn't like it as it reminds him of Zau Ting...

Ren Jidian cleared his throat. "Nevermind, I'll think of something else---"

"Only you can call me that. Know that you are the only one that I give permission to call me that, and no one else." He smiled.

Ren Jidian reddened at this. "R-Really?"

Wei Wangyi kissed his lips. "It sounds beautiful when it comes from your lips."

He wrapped his arms around him. "Ah-Guang.... Yi-Yi is sorry for making you wait so long. But you must know....."

"I am terribly and frighteningly...... In love with you."

Ren Jidian could not help himself anymore and pulled him closer, sealing this confession with a passionate kiss.

Love... It really was such a scary word. It was heavy, and felt like more of a responsibility than mere emotion. A mere fact.

It was like a promise that you were bound to keep for a certain amount of time.

If you fail to keep that.... You would be hurting the very person you promised it to.

Their lips parted for a bit, as Ren Jidian stared into those eyes. It was the same shade as the eyes he fell in love with, always the same.

"Yi-Yi.... We may never know what happens tomorrow. "

"But all I know is that I would spend every second, every breath, every heartbeat...." He said, burrowing his head on his neck. "Loving you."

"I would never have it any other way. I need to let you know before anything happens."

Wei Wangyi nodded. "I also feel the same thing. Ah-Guang.... Let us not be afraid anymore. Let us keep saying 'I love you' for the rest of our days... How long or short that may be."

He nodded. "I love you, Yi-Yi."

"I love you, Ah-Guang."

They kissed again and again, just repeating and repeating the word they used to be so scared about.

It felt.... very freeing. Like they could do anything now that they can easily say it out loud.

As long as they have each other, and love each other....

A lady guard listened to this repeats of 'I love yous' with just a bittersweet smile on her lips.

She walked a bit away from the manor, walking on the grass barefoot. Still carrying her pipe.

But she had run out of opium. She just placed it there just cause, watching her shadow under the moonlight.

"I love you....." She whispered to the air, thinking of only one person.

This beautiful girl she saw dancing at a festival, wearing a hibiscus pin. Her hair was tied up into a simple bun that wrapped around messily.

But in a way, that adds to her beauty.

Now, she had grown into a beautiful woman. She wears her hair in a clean braid that she then rolls around and pins with the hibiscus flower. Not a stray hair in sight.

This woman... she doesn't love her. This facade of her.

"I love you...." She called out to the girl she fell in love with.

She must be gone forever now. Gou Zhongcheng grinned bitterly.

She had done anything for this girl.... To think that she had even professed these words.....

Only to be pushed back in the end. Ah, those boys are really lucky.

Love is scary word indeed.

Especially to those who do not yet know what it truly means.

Emperor Zau sipped elderberry tea in his chambers with only a shadow keeping him company. His eyebrows creased.

"Am I....." He began, and faltered. "Do you believe that everyone is worthy of even a little semblance of love?"

"Perhaps. At least once in their life, they should feel it. Nobody is born a loveless monster after all." The shadow answered.

"I never received it." He merely said with a sigh.

The shadow chuckled. "That's what makes life interesting. There are things that should be, but never happens."

"There are things that could have been, and we yearn for it..... but not fated to have."

"It's injustice." The emperor set down his cup with a frown.

"No...." The shadow smiled sadly. "It's life."