Bitter Taste

After Love

"Our upbringing are entirely different Lan XiChen. The people around us, the environment that we grew up in and the ones that were with us in our joyous days when we were young, it's all too different. But one thing is the same for the both of us, we cannot choose what we want. We are taught that our responsibility must come first before anything. Even our family," the words that left Jiang was vile "what must and not be done always should result nothing but commendable success."

She looked at the glistening lights of the city, it was alive. Very alive. Unlike the two of the who was spending they're day off talking about boring stuff.

"Indeed," she heard Lan XiChen agreed. "I have heard too many people tell me what to do and not to do. We are surrounded by expectations from people we don't even know."

Jiang Cheng took a large gulp on her drink before putting it back on the table, "are you lonely? Some say we are lucky to have been born in a family with everything, hence, we should be be happy and grateful. Are you feeling any of those?"

Lan XiChen smiled for the first time since they have seated themselves, "I am grateful, without a doubt. Happy is a bit... Rather, it is fleeting for me. There are times where I am genuinely happy but feeling lonely is normal, is it not?"

She looked at him in the eyes, searching for something that might change the man's answer but they were none. What Lan XiChen said was all truth. "I see," was all she could say.

"What about you WanYin, are you lonely?" There was curiosity in the man's eyes as he asked. There was expectation and hope inside his golden eyes.

Jiang Cheng thought a bit. Of course, she was lonely. Even though there are people around her, her feeling loneliness is as good as a norm now. "I am," she replied. "It cannot be helped. Even if there are people around me all of the time, they only made me forget for a short while and when they're gone, that is when it will attack me."

After her statement, they were engulfed with silence. The inside of the place was silent as well, the boys might have left to get themselves dinner or perhaps have gone to the beach to make some barbeque, resulting for the whole place to be quiet. The quiet atmosphere made Jiang Cheng thought that this was one of the times she is able to relax. She has been working these past few days that she ended up being forced to be here, a vacation which the boys had planned. Only that it was suppose to be just Jin Ling and the two Lan boys, but she and Lan couple and Lan XiChen was forced to be their watch.

"It has been two years, hasn't it?" Lan XiChen was the first to break the silence. She looked at him, eyes confused, the man only chuckle low. "I meant the arrangement uncle has put you through."

"Ah. Yes, it has been a while. To think he actually pestered me for nearly 2 years was beyond me," Jiang Cheng had a grim look on her face remembering the things that had happened during the duration of Lan QiRen endless letters of her and one of his nephews to be wed. It got the the point where she nearly announced a full on war with the old man because of his stubbornness.

But during the span of times that Lan QiRen insist on the marriage, she had come up with terms that weren't supposed to happen, she endured the constant phone calls and not on schedule meetings because of the older man, it was the time she realized, her patience was much more than she ever thought if it was. Amongst it all, Lan XiChen was the one who had endured all her banters and harsh refusal.

When Lan QiRen finally accepted the fact that Jiang Cheng's mind cannot be move, he gave up. He was a proud man, that Lan QiRen but so was she. She wasn't giving up. She didn't think of giving up to the old man.

And after all that has happened, she opened her heart slightly to let Lan XiChen be near her. He had express his intention as one of her friends, though a bit suspicious and strange on her side, she allowed it still.