STRAWBERRIES & CIGARETTES

CHAPTER 22

1 week of forcing the body to get up, swallowing the pride, and constantly gaslighting the self that somehow the day will get better is deadly exhaustion.

Harae didn't know that forcing yourself to be happy was this hard.

Chenle didn't know that trying to inflict positivity was this hard.

Neither of them knew what to do anymore.

Neither of them can say no.

It's like their words aren't relevant at all. Their feelings are controlled as tightly as their freedom.

Their lives don't only revolve around the greed of their family but also the drive to do good at university.

So in the slightest time that they can give themselves, here they are, drowned in the glass of alcohol, in a place where only they can comfort each other.

"How are you holding up?", Chenle asks, breaking the overgrowing silence between them.

"You know what? Now that I think of it, I can clearly finance myself. If I do run away, I can still eat three meals a day", Harae says, making the latter look at her. "I mean, it's not my money, but I can withdraw a fair amount each day before they freeze my account."

"Are you seriously plotting your escape while telling me?"

"Yeah? Why, is it weird?"

The latter just took a sip and looked somewhere on the dance floor and said, "I can lend my private jet."

"Woah, you even have a private jet. Why don't you run away yourself?"

"When I do that, it's not an escape; it's merely a vacation", he smiles. "You think they can't track where I am?"

She pouted, "Right. If I run away, who will comfort you now? You'll be left alone while I make a different name. Never mind that."

He looked at her with a raised brow. "Are you suggesting that I'm alone without you? That I have no friends to stand by my side?"

"If you have them, why do you insist on talking about what's happening to you with me right now? Isn't it much more comfortable to talk with people you know the longest?"

Chenle didn't answer immediately and just took a long drag on his cigarette, then slowly blew the smoke out.

"What do you really want to do, Yier Chen?"

"It'll be so suicidal if I wish to die. I just want to have control in my life, that's all", he says with a low tone. "Renjun knew. My best friends knew. They said they understand where I'm coming from, but they will never understand how it feels. You're the only one who can," he says, looking at her with a small bitter smile. "I would sometimes thank that I met you, you know? Someone who can share my sentiments. But then I would sound like a lunatic when I say I'm happy that you're in the same situation as me," he says, bitterly laughing. "Fuck, this is getting worse."

"Just let it all out, Le,", she says, making him look at her. She smiles. "Let it out."