𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲'𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 || 敵の旦那様 (𝐁𝐋) ✔ [COMPLETE]

37. Somebody to Console

Don't forget to vote, comment, share and follow! 

********************************************************

General Haoran felt as if a boulder had crashed on him.

"This was supposed to be my hiding place..." Fu Lin said. "To think you'd go as far as to confiscate it. Do you prefer this desolate roof that much? Or is it because this is my hiding place you are here too, since I seem to be the only companion in your friendless life."

Hearing his mosquito-chipper, nasally western accent, the General clenched his fists. However, his heart, that had a hard time beating about his ribcage, was now remorsefully silent. It seems after two weeks of cooling off and absolute contemplation had managed to hone his nerves to not react before Fu Lin.

At this realisation, he looked back at Fu Lin, his face unnaturally calm and eyes misted over. Fu Lin however, took it as a General's reflex of mourning and continued, "Though I admit that it is breezy and spacey here... The perfect place to get over people."

At this, the General's gaze flickered as he asked, "What are you doing here?" "Isn't that what I should be asking you?"

"I have nothing to say."

Fu Lin felt the sting from earlier rising- this time with twice the impact. He didn't expect the General to deliberately keep him in the dark from such a significant incident- he simply assumed the General was too overtaken by grief and that he'd eventually open up in time.

"Quite an unfair bargain, don't you think?" Fu Lin asked, his face gnarled in a mirthless smile. "To bare my heart to a person and have them not trust me enough to bare theirs. It seems I'm the one who overestimated themselves. I thought we had found a haven within each other..." Fu Lin got up, walking away. "I do not wish to force you. And you need not bare anything out of obligation. I shall take my leave then."

As he was leaving, the General, though still had the same unfeeling eyes, right then was slightly shaken. "Wait..."

"Your Grace, what is it?"

"My father was the only family I was aware of." The words had spilled forth even before he knew it. "My mother had died at my birth- a faceless shadow in my life that I only saw in paintings and random portraits of the family. My father- the late General was the only man who stood above me as a tree protecting its sapling- as a mother, father, brother and comrade-in-arms. He was an integral part of life that I thought I wouldn't be able to come to terms with if separation were to occur."

Fu Lin listened, not interrupting and perching himself up on the rooftop.

"Though he was my father, he never coddled me. His way of love was cold and harsh, he'd have me awake even before the rooster caws and make me carry a wagon of logs and carry special steel to forge my arms to bear the weight of the Imperial sword. And when my arms blistered under the bitter toil, he was the one to come and oil my limbs. He'd look unbearably formidable and arrogant in front of me and weep at my bedside whenever I'm asleep looking at the blisters I had incurred out of heavy training. He never asked whether I wanted to become a General and I never answered him- and that was because we knew it was something that should happen..."

He paused and continued, "... To become honourable weapons in the hands of the Emperor was the duty of the Zhou family since time immemorial. On his deathbed, as the last fragments of his soul scattered he ordained me something with the Emperor in front of me telling 'My wish in death for you is to follow that man, bow at his feet, drink his words and if he wants to, serve your head in a platter'. And So I did."

Fu Lin finally understood why the General had the Emperor in reverence a head above other subjects. Because right now the Emperor was not simply an Emperor to him- he was also a father figure.

"Your father was a virtuous man," Fu Lin said, "he was an honourable man who served his country, lived a prosperous life and led a peaceful death. That is not what you want to tell me with that whole narration, isn't it?"

At Fu Lin's last sentence, the veins Haoran so badly tried to hold quivered. The emotions he thought he had managed to kill were raising their ugly heads.

Why did this man...know him so well?

"That's right," The General said looking away. "My problem as his son was not that the world lost such a good man or the fact that he was a part of my whole life till death. It is the selfish sadness I feel in losing the only person who I could talk with openly and the selfish pain of not having the only person who would hug me unreserved anymore that bothers me. It is not my father's death that pains me, but the fact that I lost the one man who would dare hug and console me. How despicable- and yet this is how I feel. How shameful and loathsome! How—"

The words General wanted to utter had been lost as his eyes flew open, his lashes hitting the roof of his eyes. Heat rushed forth from his belly as two pairs of small, tender arms came around him and cocooned him in the familiar scent of calming jasmine.

"I know I'm a horrible substitute for your father." Fu Lin laughed, stroking the General's extremely poised hair. "But I hope my hugging and consoling skills aren't all that bad?"

The General with his chin on the other's shoulder felt something breaking in him. It broke and shattered, washing off the misted indifference and undoing his strongly knotted resilience all at once. He brought his own hands the size of trash cans around Fu Lin's waist and hugged him back with twice the strength and passion.

This was the first human being to hug him after his father. This was also the first human being to make him fall for them this hard.

"I am sorry father," He thought as he continued to soak in the warm embrace, his heart trembling to break out of his chest. "My loyalty belongs to me, but my heart does not. Therefore, I cannot let go of him–not in my heart at least. Not now nor ever."

I Love him.

Remorsefully, unimaginably, and unconditionally. 

I Love him.

**************************************************

Meanwhile Haoran's dad in the heavens

Dad:(凸ಠ益ಠ)凸 This BITCHHH!!! 

Hehehehe Did I get in your feels (￣ε￣＠) huhu 

Don't forget to vote, comment, share and follow!