Take Me Back To Paddington (SERIES)

Chapter 28 - The First Night 2

"Are you sure you don't want to go somewhere else?"

Chae questioned my decision to still continue with our movie hang out instead of going for a stroll and telling her why did I scare her with my cries earlier. The truth was I couldn't create a convincing lie to give her the answer since I wasn't a kind of person who would simply cry over stuffs.

If I ever cried over something, it would mean that I was deeply affected by it.

It took me cruel murder cases all these while to put myself in front of a mirror and cry at the toilet sink.

Now it took me her death.

What could be the most ideal reason to be used as an answer to her?

So I chose to watch the horror movie even though I already watched it a year ago with my Chae. At least it could buy me extra 2 hours to prepare for the answer.

I stole a glance at her as we were queuing at the snack section. She was wearing the same blue, knee length dress that made her look like nothing but beautiful. She was so beautiful, that was all I could say about my Chae Richards.

Her hair was slightly ruined by the rain she was trapped in earlier, making me worried if she might catch a cold or fever later on. But she turned her head towards me all of the sudden, and I brought my gaze away as soon as I could, hoping that she didn't notice me staring at the side of her face.

But she did.

"What?" I heard her voice when I kept my eyes off her, trying to pretend that I was reading the prices of the snacks on the board. "Something's wrong?"

I shook my head as I was desperately holding myself from smiling. I knew her very well. She would keep asking whenever she was feeling insecure or worried about herself. That time when she held a BBQ at her place, she asked for my opinion if the shirt she planned to wear looked good on her.

Never in my rightful mind that I would expect myself not to think and act like a woman I was born as. I was a woman and I was stupid enough to say that shirt made her looked fat. How stupid was that?!

And I never heard her asking me if the clothes she wanted to wear would look good on her anymore. That was because she changed her question. She would ask me if the clothes made her looked fat instead.

"Tell me," She demanded with a chuckle. "What's wrong with me?"

Turning to her, I answered. "Nothing's wrong, Chae"

I took the time that I didn't have before to look at her face again, eyes trailing from the perfectly plucked and drawn eyebrows to her bright, innocent eyes that were connected to mine for seconds. The wandering continued to her cute, small yet pointy nose until it stopped at her full lips that I hadn't tasted for so long.

"You look beautiful," I added as I pushed my eyes back up. "You are so beautiful"

I clawed the huge surprise in her eyes again like she really didn't expect me to compliment her that way. Her subtle response that was noticable only to a detective like me kind of making me worried if I did it too far.

It was because she wasn't my girlfriend, yet, and I already praised her like the way I used to do to my Chae. I started to doubt my own way in approaching her since this was our first time hanging out together. I wouldn't want to make it all awkward for her if I accidentally treated her like my girlfriend.

That would scare Chae for sure.

I could've already ruined my chance by crying earlier, and now I did another. I knew straight away that this might be the first and last time she would go out with me since she had been rejecting my attempts before. It wasn't easy to ask for her time, let alone her phone number.