My Villain

Chapter Four

Making a decision is hard but sometimes, sticking with the decision you made is harder.

It's so easy to say something but to follow through on what you said is such an agony.

"Are you sure about this?" her best friend, Dong Xin, asked her for possibly the nth time last night as they talked over Whatsapp. Yue was dwindling time away while on her laptop while the other woman got ready for work. "Xin Xin" as she calls her is based in London.

"Honestly, I am not BUT I already gave her my promise."

"You can still back out from it. Didn't you say Zi Wei was kind? I bet she'd understand."

Yue sighed. "That's the thing! She's so kind! I feel like I would break her heart if I back out from this and besides... I talked to Liu Tao-jie yesterday about what I should do."

"Why did you ask your publisher? She's after revenue, Yue. She would say yes to a Book Two!"

"Hey... Tao-jie isn't like that. I agreed to be published by her, in the first place, because she doesn't care about money. She's already so rich. What's important to her is how good a story is."

"Wait, I have to rinse my mouth", Xin Xin told her, and then proceeded to gargle at the sink.

"I gave Tao-jie a gist of what Zi Wei and I talked about and we both feel the same way... a second book that focuses on her would be a great "redemption" story."

"And you can never say no to a redemption story... you must be itching to write it even at this very moment", Xin Xin proceeded to wash her face.

"OF COURSE!", Yue answered in the affirmative, "it's just... I don't know. Maybe nerves? And... talking to Zi Wei made me feel guilty."

Dong Xin immediately understood what she meant. "This is your opportunity to make it up to her. Also, don't beat yourself up too hard. When you wrote Zuer and Feiyu's story, you didn't know Zi Wei and her family. Besides, I read that book Yue, you did your best in being as objective about the story as possible."

"But I still feel so bad about it!!!"

Xin Xin rolled her eyes at her "Do you feel bad or do you just feel scared of Zi Wei's brother?"

"BOTH!"

"I knew it!", her bestfriend laughed, "Anyway, just do what your gut tells you to do, ok? Your gut is rarely wrong AND this Zi Wei didn't point a gun at you when she asked you to write it, right?"

"Xin Xin, you still have moisturizer on your face", Yue pointed out and then re-focused on their topic "No. She didn't. And she did say her brother is out of the country. I think that I would be able to complete my research for this story in the two weeks he remains to be gone."

"You're really scared huh" her bestriend, who was starting to put the base of her make-up while they continued to talk, teased.

"I am and I don't deny that. Even Zi Wei says her brother could be scary."

"Well, it seems you have Zi Wei on your side. And, do not forget what I told you, you can still back out from this. You just do what feels right to you."

She could feel knots forming in her stomach just thinking about what she should do next. Every fiber in her being was sure she wanted to write this story.

Maybe she just could not get a hold of the fear she feels at being faced with the prospect of meeting the man she had written off as a villain in her story.

She isn't used to having someone angry with her and she is sure that Zi Wei's brother isn't just angry... he is livid. Zi Wei, herself, did not deny it.

But Yue made a promise to the other woman three days ago and she never breaks her word.

So here she is, finally face-to-face with Zi Wei's fiancé, and sweating bullets.

"I've loved her for years even before she and Feiyu even broke up" Kido answered when she asked how long he had been in love with Zi Wei.

That peaked her interest because the Wang's only daughter had mentioned the same thing when she shared tidbits of her story to Yue. "Years?!?!"

Kido nodded. "I don't look it right? I bet you're even probably thinking a face like mine must have girls chasing after me, everyday."

She laughed aloud and after realizing it, apologized.

The man laughed too. "Don't say sorry. I really said that because I wanted you to feel at ease. You look so nervous talking to me."

Yue smiled. She appreciated the gesture. "To be honest, it isn't that I am afraid of you. It's more of me feeling kind of embarrassed about the whole situation."

"That is normal, I guess. But don't be. Zi Wei and I already talked about this and what you wrote is already in the past. We're both starting our lives together soon and if you write our story, it would be such an honor and it would save us so much time from telling other people about us. If anyone asks me, I will just throw them a copy of the book."

Zi Wei was not lying to her when she said her fiancé is quite the joker. Yue started to feel her qualms fading away.

"Well, can you tell me your story from the start?" she now asked "When did the two of you first meet? When did you know you liked her?"

Kido took a sip of his coffee, smiled, and then Yue knew that what was coming was going to be a really good story.

She had seen enough, in talking to people about their love stories, that when they flash a smile like Kido's, she knew it would be a story of hopelessness and then eventually, amazement at how everything worked out in the end.

He told her of his first encounter with Zi Wei that happened during his second year in highschool while she was still an elementary student who could put all his hard-learned manners to shame.

She was as prim and proper as her brother and he had never thought of her as anything more than Wang He Di's baby sister during those times. But she was also game for anything and not afraid to get dirty for fun.

He recounted an incident wherein he tried to make her scream by giving her a gray hamster that looked like a rat but instead of running away in fear, she had asked him if she could keep it.

Yue nodded, allowing him to be comfortable in telling his story as she took notes. She often wrote down not only important points of the story that another person shares but how they share it.

That is often what she bases her characters on and how she build mannerisms for them – Do their eyes shine when they're happy? Do their foreheads crease when annoyed? Do they scratch at their nose when they are in deep thought? Do they touch their ear when they remember something embarrassing? Do they cover their mouths when they try to hide how shy they are about what they have just shared?

She watched Kido as intensely as she listened to him and wrote down points about his facial features for reference on how she would physically describe him.

Kido was already talking about the time he had decided he would continue his "inspiration searching" tour even without Wang He Di when she felt the hair on her nape stand on end with the voice that cut through Kido's story.

"Kido, why are you talking to this woman?"

Yue knew that voice because she researched him and found him in a weibo video giving a speech during the opening of a new office.

She felt her whole body go cold as if the winds of the North Pole had come down to Beijing. She was sure...

Right behind her stood, Wang He Di, or as she called him in her head – Mr. Villain.

And the tone of his voice told her he was beyond enraged.