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

45. The point of no return

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Warmth flooded the General's lips when he enveloped them in Fu Lin's soft, mellow lips. The immediate contact had Fu Lin closing his eyes as heat coiled down his spine. His lashes fluttered as he gave into the General. However, it lasted only a moment.

The next second, Fu Lin had slapped the General's face away.

The slap was light. It could hardly be called a slap and yet was the greatest blow the General received in his decade's worth of military battalions. It left him wide-eyed, completely vulnerable and weak on his feet. As the wave of shock hit him, he had involuntarily let go of Fu Lin who slid off his arms and fell flat on the ground.

Fu Lin got up, unable to fathom the incredulity of what he himself had committed.

It didn't matter what the General's feelings were. They couldn't entangle themselves in the throes of each other's emotions–it would yield no advantage to either of them. And yet he had deliberately prompted the General to confess his feelings to him. His mind frenzied and body lurching, he was feverish and impatient until the General had exposed his feelings to him.

But the instant the General's burning lips touched his own, he felt thunderstruck by realisation. He remembered one by one the faces of his dead friends, the faces of his brothers and the Silver Mountain Emperor, the oath they stood by with their life on hold and how they toiled with every rising day for the sake of the Empire. The conviction he had sworn upon with his own blood.

He slowly got to his feet and began walking away. His legs wobbled with a passing step and his vision turned hazy. It felt as if he was leaving something behind and he didn't know what it was.

"You're leaving?" It was the General's voice. It was surprisingly calm.

"I am." Fu Lin did not look back. "I do not wish to indulge in useless conversations."

Heavy silence reigned. After a long while the General spoke, "I confessed my love to you." "Do not state the obvious."

The General's voice was hardly audible. "You can try to dodge the subject by using hurtful insinuations, but I know you better Fu Lin–"

"It is 'Your Highness' to you, Your Grace." Fu Lin glared at him.

A suffocating sensation pervaded through the narrow space of bamboo sprees, despite the existing enormity of air in the space. A silence that threatened to break something beyond noise hung in the weary distance between them. As their lips that touched not just a moment ago turned cold, they kept looking at each other, neither taking their eyes off; neither giving in.

"Your Highness," General Haoran spoke through clenched teeth, "it is only right that I expect an answer from you once I have bared my heart to you. I have professed my affections to you and I wish you'd rightfully answer me."

"There is no answer to be given here." Fu Lin minced no words. "We do not belong with each other."

Saying so, he began away again. Even as he turned his back and tried to keep his eyes ahead, he couldn't help but want to look back. This was the man he had considered a companion after all–one that he didn't want to see in pain.

However, some things couldn't be helped.

"Running away again?" General Haoran's voice came from behind him. "Do you not consider yourself too old to run away anymore, Your Highness? How many times is it now? If it isn't your feet running away, it is your heart–fleeing from anything that could threaten its stability. Even now when I convey my affections to you, ask you to give me a response– you only state what has to be stated and lie to your heart. You do not even possess the strength to reject me!"

Fu Lin felt the hotness rushing to his head. In an instant he was before the General, facing him with fury spurning on his face.

"And what about you?" he yelled, "It is embarrassing enough that you pronounced your feelings to an enemy prince, inducing near verbal betrayal to your country. Do you perhaps expect me to indulge in the same debauchery? You might not value your country, but I do not have space for anything but my country in my heart! I can barely grasp the level of sincerity behind your confession," Fu Lin laughed slightly. "If this is what you repay your country with, I wonder how much I can trust your confession of love to me. Would it end the day your whimsical infatuation fades? Or would you betray me, just like how you did your country, without batting an eye?"

Fu Lin felt his flared nostrils blow down. The truth was, he couldn't refute anything the General claimed. Every word he spoke had jabbed at a sore spot Fu Lin had extremely carefully tried to veil and conceal. Like a festered wound suddenly exposed to the cold air, he lashed out.

"Indeed, it seems you're right. It was I who was in the wrong."

The steel cold voice of the General descended him back to reality. As his earlier furious rush subsided and he gazed at the General's face through the almost hidden shadows of the night did he realise how brusque his words were. They were ruthless, harsh, and cold. Unbearably cold.

He did not wish to show it. "What... was wrong?"

"To harbour feelings towards you so deep that they overrode my country."

When Fu Lin heard these words, his heart shook. With eyes wide and almost unnoticeably trembling lips, he looked at the General, only to be greeted with unfeeling eyes. Something had changed within the General and he couldn't tell what it was.

"This evening," Fu Lin drawled, "The person I sought out was an old woman. Behind the dark alleys of the town, there is a place where old women gather to gossip about the casual trivialities of the Empire. All I did was talk, and the flowers were a token of appreciation and nothing more."

"It is no longer of my concern. I apologise for burdening you with my feelings and urge you to forget something like this happened between us."

It was the General who took the initiative to walk away this time. Fu Lin, stranded in the darkness and watching the General's resolute march, felt a bile rising in his throat. He wanted to do something. Anything. Because it seemed they had hit a point of no return.

"General Haoran!"

The General did not turn his head back, "It is Your Grace' to you."

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This chapter basically: 

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