Cai Xukun Imagines

8. First 'I Love You'

“Favorite childrens book?” Ash asked, taking a forkfull of pork fried rice into her mouth.
“Easy. The Giving Tree, by Lee Jae Hyun. It’s the best childrens book of all time.” Xukun answered, wipping his hands with a napkin as he nodded in reassurance.
“See, I disagree.” Ash stated, gulping down her pork fried rice as she shook her head slowly, “The Giving Tree is thought to be a great book, because it’s one of the very first love stories any human being ever has a chance to hear about. Although, it is not love.”

Xukun’s mouth fell open, a playful gasp escaping his lips as he held onto the fabric upon his skin dramatically, right upon his heart.
“Not love? So you’re sitting here, telling me, that The Giving Tree doesn’t resemble love? Are you human?” 
Ash giggled, giving him a playful push with her shoulder and she wipped her mouth with the side of her wrist.
“Yes, I am telling you that, and yes, I am human.”
Xukun sighed, returning his gaze back to the television as he hissed in disappointment, shaking his head. He took a quick look back at Ash, who was staring at him with a smirk on her face. He looked away immediately, forcing himself to give her the impression that he’s mad at her, even though they both know he isn’t.

“Explain to me how it is love then, Xukun” Ash challenged, turning her body fully to his direction.
Xukun lifted his arm up in the air, creasing in his eyebrows as if he was clueless to her question.
“I don’t know, maybe because the tree gave the little boy her everything. She was willing to do anything for that boy, anything. Even over the process of like, I don’t know, 60 years of their lives going by and the tree was still giving him all she had. She never gave up on him, ever.” Ash put her lips into a line, holding back her laughter as she tried to make serious conversation with him. 
“You are such an idiot,” Ash chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand as she continued to laugh carelessly, “if you think that that’s true love.”

Xukun raised his eyebrow, now turning his body completely toward hers, now looking straight at each other.
“Yeah? And how is it not true love, Miss Ash?” He asked, spitting out the last few words as is he were disgusted to say it.

Ash laughed, taking the challenge happily as she stared straight into his eyes.
“The tree giving the boy everything. That’s how it’s not true love. The reason she gave that boy everything was because he was the only thing on this entire planet that had interacted with her. That was the first person to give her all the attention that she wanted, all of the things she had wanted since she was grown into that beautiful looking tree. So, because that boy gave her that attention, that’s when she thought that maybe, just maybe, she loved him enough to sacrifice everything that she had. She gave him her apples, gave him her branches, gave him her leaves, and what did the boy give? He gave nothing. He just took and ran away with it all. No, she didn’t stop giving him all of her because she was so infactuated with him, and how much attention and happiness he had given her. But he didn’t care, did he? He never did, he just took and took and took until there was nothing left of her. How is that true love? It’s not, it’s life, it’s how all life works, and there’s no stop to it.” 
There was a silence in the air, and Ash lifted her feet up to his criss-crossed legs, shaking her feet slowly as she looked at Xukun, whom was looking at her with such love. She could feel the tenderness of his eyes carress her face as she admired the way he had looked at her.

She was so alive to him, and he never realized how open she was. He never realized how much she understood what life really was about. She was observant, and so awake to the world that it was something he admired, and something he felt so guilty about, because he had never noticed it before. “But I would give everything up for you, and I love you. Isn’t that love?” Xukun whispered, gliding his fingertips slowly along the underside of her leg.

Ash smiled, sighing in contentness as she allowed her neck to hang to her back.
She had never heard him say those words, and hearing them now was like a melody. She never thought she would ever be in this position, of truly loving somebody. But she is, and it was something now that she could never get enough of. “It is. It is love because I would give you the world back, and because I love you, too.”