At Least With Me, You Can Be Yourself (1)
A KTV staff member burst in, giving Huo Cheng no time to fantasise. “What’s going on here?”
Their mad chase through the corridors had not exactly been subtle; the staff on duty worried something had happened and rushed over to check on them.
The staff member hadn’t expected to walk in on this type of scene though.
It was fairly common for people to be intimate in the private rooms; one could say the staff was used to walking in on people in various situations. But this time… Well, this boy was in a school uniform! Was this flagrant display of affection appropriate?
Shen Wanying calmed down in an instant, speedily removing herself from Huo Cheng’s fallen form and picking up her cap from the floor. “Nothing. I misunderstood, it turned out to be someone I know.”
“Oh.” The staff member nodded his head. As long as no one was here to cause trouble, it was fine by him. “If everything’s fine, then I won’t trouble you.”
He headed for the door. But before closing it for them, he added in a low voice, “Our private rooms are all monitored.”
Shen Wanying: “——”
So? What was he insinuating???
With that, the staff member closed the door and left, leaving Shen Wanying and Huo Cheng alone with each other once more.
On the TV monitor, one of the system’s pre-set songs was playing, a popular hit. And thank goodness for the music; it made the silence in the room a lot less awkward than it had the potential to be.
Huo Cheng sat at the other end of the sofa, looking at her. “Was your leg hurt from earlier?”
Somehow, it had never occurred to Shen Wanying that Huo Cheng would be concerned about her injury. She shook her head silently. When she looked at him, her calm morphed into grievance and shame; she could only sit there as the tears streamed down from her eyes.
Huo Cheng was taken aback. In the one year he had been married to Shen Wanying, apart from a few rare occasions on which she had let herself cry, he had never known her to show a single moment of distress. Now that he had been the one to make her cry, he wrestled with panic and self-reproach.
Why did he have to insist on following her and making her embarrass herself like this?
“I’m sorry,” he apologised carefully. “This is all my fault. Please don’t cry, if you’re angry you can yell at me or hit me if you want.”
With girls, not crying at all was the most ideal outcome. But once the floodgates were opened, the more they cried the more aggrieved they felt. It wasn’t so easy to just stop like that.
And so her tears continued to fall.
Huo Cheng retrieved a piece of tissue paper from the box on the table and passed it to her with a soft “Ah Wan, please don’t cry”.
Shen Wanying took the tissue, wiped her face, and looked at him. “Why is it that I have to run into you during all of my most embarrassing moments?”
“I’m sorry,” he apologised again, handing her another tissue. “But I don’t think there’s anything embarrassing about you right now.”
Shen Wanying pursed her lips, and finally regained her composure. “You followed me all the way today?”
“——Mm.” Huo Cheng found his words caught in his throat. “When I left school, I saw you were walking alone, and your chauffeur wasn’t around. I got a bit worried, I’m sorry.”
Shen Wanying could sense that he hadn’t meant any harm, but landing in this situation made it hard for her to maintain her usual demeanour.
“Did you go to the dessert shop?”
“Mm.”
“How did you recognise me?”
Shen Wanying knew that it wasn’t that she had been overconfident in her disguise; she had met classmates at the KTV before, and they hadn’t recognised her. A few of the boys had even wolf-whistled at her. No one would associate a pink-haired wild child with the Lady Shen they knew.
“Even though you’re not dressed the way you normally do, your stature is still recognisable.”
Shen Wanying was silent for a moment. She was a bit confused. Okay, fine, he recognised her by her stature. But how??? What had he been looking at???
He had been so calm in all the time she’d known him. From the day they had started school until now, she had committed so many faux pas in his presence, and besides the little surprise he had shown at the beginning, he’d simply taken them in stride.
“Aren’t you shocked to see me like this?”
Huo Cheng replied, “It’s fine.”
“——” Shen Wanying fell silent once more. “Sometimes I like to change up my style a bit,” she explained lamely. “I get more in the mood to sing karaoke dressed like this.”
“Mm.” Huo Cheng gazed in her direction, a sliver of a smile in his eyes. “Actually, I think you look pretty good dressed up like this.”
Shen Wanying was suddenly shy. The truth was, she had carefully curated her look. In order for the pink hair not to appear too out of place, she had applied foundation and lipstick.
“Aren’t you going to pick a song?” he asked her after noticing her mood quickly improving. The song the karaoke system was playing on the speakers changed.
She had originally come to sing, it was just the encounter with Huo Cheng had thrown her for a loop. Nevertheless, she walked up to the karaoke machine and picked out a rock song by Gu Xin1 Ah, a Chestnut Verse regular. You can get to know this hottie in Marriage Concerto (Small Thing Called Love) and also check his mini-story in Sonata: Fleeing to Avoid an Arranged Marriage to sing.
Gu Xin’s songs weren’t particularly easy to handle, and the song Shen Wanying had chosen was such that, if one wasn’t careful, they could go hoarse trying to sing it.
It didn’t matter whether her singing was good, though. She was completely immersed in it.
Singing a song like this at karaoke was especially good for venting her feelings. And when she had roared her way through the song, her heart was finally at ease again.
♥♥♥
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