Childhood Friend vs. The New Arrival | Male Unrequited Love | Older Man | From Friends with Benefits to Official Couple | North America
Lively, pampered sweetheart x Gentle, scheming childhood friend
Wen Shiyu had recently run into a problem.
She had met a man she liked, but had no idea how to pursue him. After worrying over it for a long time, she shared her crush with the childhood friend she trusted most.
Zhang Tingzhao set the dish she loved most in front of her, pulled out a chair, and sat down. "What kind of person is he?"
Wen Shiyu told him every last detail. Zhang Tingzhao lowered his eyes and said evenly, "All right. I'll help you."
-
With Zhang Tingzhao's help, Wen Shiyu successfully got rejected by her crush.
On the day she got her heart broken, she stormed over to Zhang Tingzhao's place.
As Wen Shiyu complained, the culprit accepted all the blame, just as he always had. But once she'd finished venting, he said in a quiet voice,
"Want to stay for dinner? I made the shrimp you like."
Wen Shiyu was angry, but she couldn't resist the temptation. His cooking had always been exactly to her taste.
As usual, she planned to drown her sorrows at his place.
But she never expected to wake up in Zhang Tingzhao's bed the next morning.
-
Wen Shiyu felt like the sky had fallen.
She knew she was a terrible drunk, and Zhang Tingzhao had always treated her with perfect propriety. She had to be the one who'd messed up.
She glanced at the disheveled bed, closed her eyes, and faced her doom. "Can we just... pretend nothing happened?"
To her surprise, the childhood friend who always indulged her replied without mercy:
"No."
Then she heard her own voice coming from his phone. It was a recording.
"Zhang Tingzhao, I like you so much..."
"Don't hide from me..."
Amid the chaos, she heard Zhang Tingzhao ask, "Will you take responsibility for me?"
Her own voice rang out, loud and clear. "I will!"
Wen Shiyu squeezed her eyes shut in utter mortification.
Zhang Tingzhao looked at her with lowered eyes, his pupils dark and his expression unreadable.
Wen Shiyu took a deep breath and reached for his phone.
"I'm sorry. I was wrong last night... I shouldn't have..."
Zhang Tingzhao lifted the phone out of reach and looked down at her.
She met his gaze and inexplicably shivered. The memories of last night's passion came rushing back, threatening to overwhelm her.
Zhang Tingzhao rose and braced himself on the bed behind her, enclosing her in his arms.
His voice was calm, but his feelings were intense.
"Wen Shiyu."
He leaned down and looked her calmly in the eyes.
"When you give your word, you have to keep it."
-
After science class in elementary school, Zhang Tingzhao once gave Wen Shiyu a leaf-vein bookmark.
The vivid green leaf gradually turned transparent in the alkaline solution.
Once the leaf tissue had been gently dissolved, the delicate, netlike veins hidden deep within the leaf became visible.
More than ten years later, after all the distance and lies had been patiently dissolved,
Wen Shiyu finally saw the veins of her own leaf.
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Lively, pampered sweetheart x Gentle, scheming rascal
Lawyer x CEO
Wen Shiyu x Zhang Tingzhao
/One-on-one, both leads are each other's first, happy ending
/Sweet and bittersweet
/Shouldn't have any major trigger warnings
Theme: I love you, but I have a self of my own.
