I Have a Fiancé

1.

I have a fiance, but I've never met him.

When I was eighteen, the elders in my family took me to break off the engagement. I was anxious, afraid my fiance would be the protagonist of a classic broken-engagement story. Based on all the novels I'd read in my previous life, if he said, "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river. Don't bully a poor young man," my family and I would die horribly.

Thankfully, my fiance wasn't some arrogant young master. He was just a nine-year-old boy, so pretty he looked like a little girl. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I had the moral high ground. But he still eyed me warily. "Are you breaking off our engagement because you look down on me, too?"

I told him seriously, "No. You're still a child, and I can't bring myself to ruin a tender young flower of our motherland."

He said nothing, signed the cancellation papers, tossed them to me, and told me to get lost.

2.

I have another fiance now, but I've never met him either.

This time, I learned from my previous failed engagement. I visited several times, hoping to get to know my new fiance ahead of time. But he was never home. Instead, I was welcomed by his sister, who couldn't walk unaided.

She softly told me her brother had gone out on business, then pushed her wheelchair as she showed me around the family mansion. She shared her vast collection of books with me, kept me for lunch and cooked it herself, then picked a freshly bloomed rose from the garden for me.

I really liked this future sister-in-law. I told my mother that a family that could raise such a polite child couldn't be all that bad. My mother gave me a strange look, then told me something.

She said my fiance was the family's only child. He had no sister.

Nine-year age gap, younger man in women's clothes.

Third-person narration.

Theme: My fiance just won't leave me alone