[Two male protagonists + alienated and restrained superior × stubborn and fragile young man | Two-way redemption | HE]
That rainy night, Shen Jichuan picked me up and took me home.
At 1:17 in the morning, my parents were gone. I squatted at the door of the emergency room and shivered, digging my nails into my palms and bleeding. He came over and held the crook of my elbow.
He said he was just passing through. He said I could stay one night.
We stayed there for three months.
Shen Jichuan's life creed is: no intervention, no debt, no retention.
But he asked me for leave, blocked the people who were trying to grab the compensation, and sent people to follow me and ask me where I had been.
I say it's control. He said yes.
"You can refuse protection," he said, "but control is something I can't change."
I told myself I just hated him. But I started keeping accounts—how much he helped me, how much I owed him.
Until I found out, he was also keeping accounts.
It's not the money that's in mind. It was every word I said, every time I looked at him with red eyes.
"When you hate me," he said, "you care about me."
He thought it was indifference. But I didn't realize that "it's up to you" means——
I'll wait for you.
At 1:17 that morning, when he passed by, he could obviously walk away.
He didn't.
Half a step away, they walked for a long time.
