𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔞 - ᴹᵉᵗᵉᵒʳ ᴳᵃʳᵈᵉⁿ

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Home stretch with Querencia. I'm both proud and sad to see we only have so many chapters left before the end.

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Episode Thirty Five :
"The Heiress makes her Decision"
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After that tense night in Daiyu's bedroom where she and Lei revealed to each other that their paths in life were literally going in different directions they silently decided to spend the rest of their remaining time in Shanghai together. Lei wouldn't bring up the topic of his new girlfriend possibly going overseas for fashion school. Daiyu wouldn't bring up how she noticed his suitcases were filling up everytime she waited for him in his home's living room and how he always seemed to hold her hand a bit tighter whenever they went out.

Ignoring the future seemed to work for them well enough. And it unintentionally became a perfect excuse for them to not have to hear about Si and Shancai having another hurdle, or ten, to jump through as they knew that somehow they, Lei and a reluctant Daiyu, would have to guide them in resolving the issue. So whenever they saw the first text message, the sign of a more annoyed than usual Si, or hear Ximen or Meizuo talk about the most recent problem of the rollercoaster couple, as Daiyu dubbed them, Lei and Daiyu would suddenly interrupt and say that they had a date to get to.

A tactic Daiyu knew was getting under Si's skin but he had Shancai to chase after so she wasn't concerned about his feelings. Ximen was busy being the only semi-normal one out of the group while Meizuo had his own emotional issues to deal with so Lei and Daiyu were free to pretend they didn't have to eventually say goodbye to each other. In one way or another.

But their choice of blissfully ignoring the issue wouldn't last forever. The day Lei was leaving for Taiwan was the next day and Daiyu's self deadline about if she was staying to learn in her mother's footsteps or go overseas for fashion school was on the same day. Neither one wanted to talk about it but it was inevitable and Lei need to know if he was going to say 'see you when I get back' to his girlfriend learning under her ceo mother or if he was going to hear 'We need to talk' from Daiyu with a suitcase next to her, private jet waiting for her.

"We need to talk about it," Lei spoke up, staring up at Daiyu's bedroom ceiling. He had forgotten that the four boys, at the young age of 10, had decided her white ceiling was too boring and ugly for her and had stuck what must have been a thousand or more glow in the dark star stickers on her ceiling. "We can't just ignore it and pretend that everything's fine. Especially since we don't know where our relationship stands."

"I know. I'm just... afraid to lose you as soon as we finally got to be on the same page," Daiyu confessed to him. She was also staring up at her ceiling and was fighting back a smile when her fond memories of looking up at her own starry night every night when she was little. "Do you want to tell me what you want or hear if I'm staying or going first?"

Lei thought about it as he slowly reached out for her hand to hold it. She was always calming to him. Subtly giving him the courage to be more bold like her knowing she'd never judge him the same way so many others had in his life.

"I want to still be your boyfriend. Even if we're an ocean apart," Lei told her, gently holding onto her hand. He intertwined their fingers together and felt the ring he gave her that was still on her finger. "Whether or not you'll be here when I come back from Taiwan hardly matters."

Daiyu turned her head to look at him, her heart feeling like it was physically swelling from the amount of love and appreciation she was feeling towards her life companion, and had to quickly for a kiss on the cheek so she didn't start crying or blurt out the one phrase she'd been wanting to say to him for awhile. Lei couldn't help but smile once he felt her lips touch his cheek and turned to look at her feeling the same swelling of his heart that she was. He just didn't know it yet.