Symbiosis - Chapter 6

No. No, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t do that to him again. Hadn’t I made his last life miserable enough?

And I didn’t want him to hate me any more than he already did. He had hated me enough to kill me himself.

That dark impulse to repeat my mistakes frightened me awake. I snatched my hand from his cheek as though I’d been burned.

In my panic, I failed to control the movement. My fingertip brushed a little too hard beneath his eye.

He couldn’t have been deeply asleep. It woke him.

His lashes trembled softly, and his eyes opened very, very slowly.

Afraid he’d caught me secretly touching him, I called his name with a thief’s guilty awkwardness. “Xie… Xie Zhao.”

He raised his eyes to me.

I thought he wanted to say something and waited quietly for him to sign.

A moment later, he did raise his hand.

But he didn’t sign, and he didn’t reach for his phone.

Looking at me, he suddenly stretched out an arm and hugged my waist from where he lay on his side.

Then he buried his head against me, nuzzled my waist twice like a puppy asking for affection, and went still again.

“Xie Zhao?” I gave him a gentle push, baffled. “What’s wrong? Are you sleepy, or does it hurt? Do you want to keep sleeping?”

He tightened his arms around my waist and nodded against me.

Perhaps he was both sleepy and in pain, and wanted very much to sleep.

In our last life, his health had always been terrible after I poisoned him and broke his legs. Being confined in that lightless basement every day had ruined his mental state too.

He was miserable all the time and rarely had a pleasant expression for me.

It had been so, so long since he’d reached for me like this, since he’d been this close.

For a moment, I truly couldn’t bear to push him away.

But when I touched the glass on the bedside table, the water had cooled. Soon it would be cold altogether.

“It’s not hot anymore, Xie Zhao.” I patted his back. “Sit up and take your medicine first.”

He didn’t move, still holding me with his head pressed tightly against my body.

The blade and blood from my last life remained vivid in my mind.

I hadn’t expected a grown man to cling to me and refuse to get up. With no other choice, I steeled myself, gripped his shoulder blades, and hauled him upright. I held him facing me, his chin resting on my shoulder.

His hand searched the bed at his side and found his phone. He typed quickly, then nudged me with it to make me look down.

There was a single sentence:

[Will you stop bothering me?]

Apparently deciding that wasn’t enough, he took it back once I’d read it. Still wrapped around me, his arms about my shoulders, he added a few words and held it before me again:

[I’m so sleepy, and my stomach really hurts.]

[I want to sleep.]

My heart felt ready to break. Every trace of fear flew away. I patted the back of his head and stroked his hair to soothe him.

I should have pushed him away. Instead, I couldn’t stop myself from holding him tighter.

“I’m not saying you can’t sleep.” My voice softened without my noticing. “Can you take the medicine first? It won’t hurt once you’ve taken it.”

He stopped typing and rubbed his cheek gently against the side of my neck.

Then he lifted his head and drew out of my arms.

His face was still pale with weakness. His black eyes stayed fixed on me.

I didn’t notice the emotion filling them. All I could think was that the water was about to go cold.

I picked up the glass and sipped it again. It seemed a good temperature, so I offered him the water and tablets once more.

He still wouldn’t take them.

He looked at me, then suddenly signed:

“Why do you want me to take this medicine?”